Not really a mod, but sometimes it's the little things

 I'm not sure that you'll notice the difference.

I've held a long standing opinion of the futility of vent visors. "Why?!" Is the wind that violent for your sensibilities that you feel the need to buffet it through some means? Keep your window up then, wimp! Or, oh, the car gets so warm in the summer with the windows rolled all the way up.

And then I developed my own reason for why they might be beneficial. I spend a lot of my professional life...waiting. I have to be the first person to a construction site; those that follow are not always a prompt 2nd place. Sometimes there are comfortable accommodations to be had inside of a building and sometimes not (if the site ,is just a site). No big deal to wait it out in the truck during fair weather, but if it is rainy, it gets awfully stuffy with the windows up and rather damp with them down. I also, as you may have noted, have developed a penchant for napping in the truck. And on more than one occasion have been awakened to a fair amount of water that has come into the truck during an unexpected downpour during my slumber.

I started getting over my prior reluctance and recognized at least the benefits in this regard. I wondered, however, as to how well they might stand up to offroad abuses. Low hanging tree branches and unwieldy shrub outgrowths. I wanted, at first, to try out the in-channel designs offered by many manufacturers, but then I started reading reviews of how they can interfere with the window operation. These were specific reviews offered by other Frontier owners. Your results may vary. Well, I decided to go with the conventional approach of the tape-on models. Most of them are using 3M adhesives, and their stuff almost works too good at times.

It wasn't worth doing a full build thread on them, as they just are a stick on mod. But I did want to offer a word of caution from my own "installation".

I installed each of the front vent visors first followed by the rear. On each side, I mounted the rear to coincide with the elevation of the most rearward portion of the front visor. Both sides are perfectly aligned. However, comparing the rear visor on the driver side to the rear visor on the passenger side, it appears that either I was drunk or that the guy from the Goonies with the gnarly eyes did my install. The driver side is mounted about a half inch higher than the passenger side. And this is owing to my not having fully followed the contour of the front windows. In isolation, each side appears well done, but you can notice the discrepancy when looking at the two rear portions. I'm a bit bummed about that, but I have definitely goofed worse on more tricky applications. So, yes, it's a stick on application, but if you have a really really detail-oriented friend, it might be worth it to have them come and do it. Just tell them, "I need someone to come over and do something that's really easy, but also requires someone to obsess over the smallest detail for an inordinate amount of time before taking any sort of committal action whatsoever".
















So this picture I found on my camera while looking up the first photo. It was about a week before I changed jobs and was invited to go hunting. Fortunately, no one saw fit to Cheney me on the trip. I left town early to make the drive, and actually was the first to arrive in the area (excepting the host who was running errands in preparation). I went to Tractor Supply. I had been here the prior year and knew of the location. I try to visit every Tractor Supply and Bass Pro Shops that I find in my travels if the itinerary permits. This one is in Somerset, PA (or perhaps Somerset Township). I picked up some useful odds and ends in the shopping complex, including a telescoping magnetic pickup tool and telescoping mirror. And for some reason, while in the Tractor Supply, it occurred to me that I might want to put snow plow indicators on my truck. I don't know why or what compelled me. Now big rigs have illuminated indicators and I know a guy that put some on his F-150. I didn't really want anything that lit up, but I also didn't have a practical purpose at the time for doing this. I really think it was just something to do to occupy my time. I installed them right there in the lot. They have, since this time, proven themselves useful in helping me judge tight parking spaces and maneuver amongst trees on the trails. It also reminded me of how much cleaner I was maintaining the truck back then. This was back in November of 2012.

I do have another mod in the works.

I ordered extended, stainless steel rear brake lines and a 3-leaf, Add-a-Pack for the rear suspension. Right now, the truck sits almost level. Although the 2-inch suspension lift is setup such that the factory rake (the inclination of the front of the truck to be lower than the rear) is to be maintained, I think the weight of the toolboxes and the headache rack levels my stance out. What remains to be seen is whether or not this causes my back end to look like a bucking bronco. We shall see.