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i go by fleenz. i am a young and foolish dude who hates haircuts and likes cars. with that being said, i am likely to make various mistakes including piddling around with my first and current vehicle, a 1988 SE pathy with 167k miles on it and counting. i am its second owner. apologies for the night photo but it's the most recent one i have. i affectionately call her the Leaky Susan. because somewhere the transmission fluid's dripping out and it's anywhere but the pan. every time i refill the fluid, i scream from the inside. on the plus side, it marks its territory. that's MY parking spot. i notice that off-roading is a major subject here on this forum but appreciates the pathfinder as a whole, so i assume i'm a minority of the forum regarding off-roading habits; not only for my ignorance in appropriate conversion to such activity for my vehicle and absolute inexperience of the sort, but also for where i am located. a big ol' city full of nothing. i mainly use the leaky susan as my daily driver to my job where i work six days a week and grovel over useless job searching e-mails, because young person and money. even though i do not usually travel out of my district in the Leaky Susan, i have dreams which put me in a setting where i at least barely survived a cross-country road trip in my SUV. a type of vehicle that should have that ability. alas, the only previous owner has a maintenance record like a slice of swiss cheese that makes me question the true condition of the leaky susan. so all i have left is whatever wits remain in my skull, any useful information that a rural-raised handyman can hand me, and persistent trial-and-error google searches, to help me keep this thing from utter turmoil as long as i possibly can. or if it meets a sudden fate in a collision (given a chance i do survive without airbags) that it was completely out of my own responsibility. the leaky susan is my first vehicle. i do not want to take her for granted, even at my age and limited intuition. so here's to being smarter, one brain cell and a 10mm at a time.

Struts are in, spring compressor gets here tomorrow along with the OEM strut mount + bearing, bellows, and bumpstops. AC and LR springs get here next early next week. Already have the Bilstein sitting in the garage. Gonna begin the Install next Wednesday, first day off for thanksgiving break.

i had to buy an amazon vent-mount cup holder for my pathfinder after screwing with one of those holders that slipped in between the seat and the arm rest so much even with several pieces of cardboard to fill up the space. the vent holder is being held down with double sided tape! anyway... yeah. the rust is a common thing to hate no matter what you drive but be darned if it doesn't count. tearing through the bevels for the rear bench seat so far and thank god it's not any worse. also my transmission is leaking and i have NO CLUE where it's coming from... YET

The trigger wire for the alternator (what tells it to power up when the ignition is on) goes through the idiot light in the dash. No bulb, no charge. Some vehicles won't charge with an LED bulb in that spot. Nissan included a resistor in parallel to keep the alt working if the bulb burns out, but it's no help in this situation because it's in the cluster too. Page SC-12 of the '98 manual has diagrams of the circuit and the two cluster plugs. Looks like there's a white/black wire in one of the plugs going to the cluster from key-switched + and a yellow/black wire in the other plug going to the alt. Rig up a temporary idiot light with a 194 bulb or similar with one wire to pin 12 and one to pin 43, and that should get it working until you get your cluster back. Don't just jumper the two without the bulb! That would create a dead short when the bulb is supposed to be on (key on/engine off, so, every time you go to start it), which would probably pop the 10a fuse (which powers quite a few other systems as well), and might not make the alt happy either. I didn't know that Nissan split the starting/charging systems off from the electrical section in '98. I was looking for the alternator wiring in EL and it just wasn't there. I thought I'd left a few marbles somewhere!

Hello all, The name's Joseph. Out of Huntsville AL, I wheel occasionally. I LOVE Pathfinders. Mods: DIY winch bumper. T bar re-clock. Rebuild front end. JGC Coils in the rear. Exedy Clutch Crown Vic Exhaust Studs PIAA Spotlights qx4 wheels though I have my Nismo wheels needing tires. Hoping to make matching rear bumper and rock sliders soon. Forum doesn't look super active, but it's not blocked at work...

Thanks for the welcome! I've had ol' girl since 2016. To forever to find an ok 5 speed 4x4. This one came from a Nigerian auto broker named Physue on the south side of Atlanta while I lived there, very nice gentlemen. "Give me $1300 because when it breaks, you will not bring back." It was worth every penny. The bumper was something me and a coworker worked up over a few weekends. Excuse the unpainted rusty bit. I need to paint it. I forgot about my "hood pins" I guess those are a mod ? Just installed the clear lens headlights last night. China prevented the from fitting as well as I'd like so I need to pull them off and make some tweaks. The Nismo wheels will return soon with 33s this time...

When you always have a genuine wonder of how erratic your idling is going to be when you start it up or put it into park. OR: When you let go of the wheel while driving just to see how off (read: bad) the toe/camber really is before you dedicate time to doing your 100th alignment this year.

When you park it, walk away and keep having to look back at it in admiration

When you find out they made a wd in other parts of the world, for almost another 10 years! And you can't get any of those updated parts...