tlgrimmy

Well, it looks like things went south again...It seemed like all was cleared up, but after a couple of trips the symptoms came back again! Engine bogging and even quitting at times. I gave the air flow meter and the throttle body a really good cleaning and the truck ran much better, but still starts to bog from time to time. This time I discovered something that got me worried. It used to be that the engine would still bog when I switched it into neutral. Now the symptoms go away when switching into neutral. I can usually back off the gas a little and then punch it to get past the engine bog, but I noticed the transmission switch light came on just before switching gears and stayed on for a 30 seconds or so. I watched the switch the next time it bogged down and when I tried to accelerate out of it, the light came on again just before switching gears. It doesn't come on during the bogging, just when I try to accelerate out of it. The tranny guy I went to said the bogging wasn't due to the transmission, but now I'm really starting to wonder. Nothing else seems to cure the problem and now with the transmission light coming on, I'm begging to thing that it must be the tranny. Any thoughts? Getting sick of dealing with this thing and am contemplating selling it. I'm already into in for a grand and am loosing the desire and wherewithal to troubleshoot this thing. It looks like it would be a royal PITA to put in another auto transmission and I'm not willing to shell out the $2000 to get a properly rebuilt one. Anybody want my pathfinder;)? I'll let it go for $1000. Ton's of new parts and lower miles. Could make a great rig for somebody who feels like dealing with the tranny.

Wow! That took awhile to get fixed, but I'm pretty sure it's all finally squared away. I'm not sure if i mentioned this already, but I found a vacuum line that had fallen off between the firewall and the intake manifold, so I replaced all of the vacuum lines. That helped, but the issue simply took longer to creep up and wasn't quite as bad. I got tired of spending hours trying to diagnose the issue, so I finally took it in to a mechanic to have him diagnose things for me. A transmission specialist said that it was a definitely an issue under the hood and not the transmission (whew!). The mechanic had a code reader that could deal with the OBD 1 port on my truck and he ended up finding a stored code despite no engine light present. I guess the distributor has a camshaft position sensor built into it and the code was an error for that. I went ahead and replaced the distributor and gave things a whirl (that's an expensive little distributor!). Things went much better and I thought I was in the clear, but after about a half hour of driving the issue came back only not as bad as before. I still had the engine bog and no acceleration. I kept going back to fuel pressure because it really felt that way in the pedal to me. I could even back off of the pedal and gun it a bit and usually get a bit of a response. I then realized that I never changed out the fuel filter, which I thought I had taken care of when I did the timing belt. After changing that out, all symptoms seem to be gone. I drove around for a little over an hour and tried letting it sit an idle, driving on the freeway, driving around town, and I even did a little offroading, so it seems that she's good to go (knock on wood). I wish I had remembered the fuel filter earlier, but it was definitely a compound issue with all of the improvement after each part was fixed. Thanks again for all of the help guys. Much appreciated!

I'm starting to lean that way as well, which has me very relieved. I haven't found any obvious cracked parts/hoses or loos wires/connectors, so I'll have to look into how to test each of these components. I never thought about an engine coolant sensor causing such an issue, so I'll have to check that out as well. Thanks!

Looks like mine is ok, but definitely worth checking. Thanks!

Thanks guys. I will check out each of the parts mentioned over the next couple of days. It has definitely gotten worse at this point. It only takes about 1 mile of driving before it starts to bog down when I try to accelerate. Always gets worse when I try to give it some gas after the symptoms have started, often refusing to go past 1200-1500 rpm. Then it will suddenly work fairly normally for a few seconds and shortly return to bogging. The Power/AT switch doesn't blink when I start the truck, it just goes solid for a second and shuts off. I'll download the FSM as well and see what I can do. Feel free to post any other ideas you might have and I'll be sure to post in a few days after trying some of these options.

Hello guys, I have a 1995 Pathfinder auto 4x4 with 158k miles. I recently did a transmission service (new oil and filter) and added a transmission gauge. It shifted fine before and after the service. Oil hadn't been done in a long time and was dark. It shifts quickly and smoothly into drive, reverse, park, 1, 2, etc. However recently, only after warming up for ten miles or so, it will occasionally not want to downshift/accelerate. I will slow down a bit and then hit the gas and the engine will just bog like when you try to accelerate in a manual if you're in too high a gear at a low speed. I could usually just come to a stop and try again to fix the problem, but it recently got a bit worse. It was driving along and shifting perfectly fine and then the issue started and wouldn't quite. When I got home, I noticed a mild idle surge when in park. It was consistent and just jumped up a few hundred rpms then back down very rhythmically. The transmission temperature stayed low the whole time (140-150 F). The idle surging issue actually made me feel a little more hopeful that it may not be a transmission issue, but I'm trying to prepare for the worst. What do you guys think. Bad/dirty IACV? TPS? I know those could cause some engine surging, but do you think they would mess with your shifting?

I ended up using about 6-7 cans I think. They were about $7 each, so around $50 tops. Most of it went into the carpet!

I'll have to give that a whirl as the carpets get bad again. I like the smell of simple green anyway.

Thanks! I had no idea the carpet could be painted either and was blown away how well it worked. I've had the paint on for about a month now and the truck has been sitting out in the heat. I've scuffed my feet on the doors quite a few times and after cleaning the scuffs off with armor all, there weren't any signs that the paint was wearing off so far. I've vacuumed the carpets a couple of times too and no signs any of that rubbing off either. The nice thing is that this vinyl & fabric spray paint is only about $7 per can and it sprays on super easy with very little overspray. It would be really easy to touch it up on occasion when you scratch it really bad without even masking stuff off if you're careful. It has far less overspray than traditional spray paint and it dries almost instantly. The smell is pretty tame compared with others too. DuPont makes a paint for exterior plastic trim too that will renew the matte black or charcoal finish on parts like that (bumpers, grilles, side mirrors). I may have to give that a whirl next!

just popped this little Hayden trans cooler in there too.

Same door after some DuPont's! Nasty carpet refreshed with paint! Should've dusted off the carpet before the pic, but you get the idea. Gotta love what some cleaning and the DuPont's did to that console! Passenger front door after paint and a new (used) armrest. Painted the trunk too. Got lazy after the carpet and lower panel. Good pic for contrast though! Here's a pic of the actual truck just for reference. Just popped this GlowShift trans gauge in there yesterday. Derale makes this screw in plug adapter for temp senders. I had just done a trans service and didn't want to have to dismantle the exhaust again to get the pan all the way out. You still have to drop the pan to drill the hole, get the shavings out and tighten the plug, but it can hang on the exhaust there for that!.

Finally figured out a way to upload some photos! I actually didn't take as many before shots as I'd hoped, but I did make a video of it that really gives you a good idea of the shape the interior was in. Check it out here. I put a couple of before shots that I had first and the rest are the after shots. After cleaning the wheels in prep for wheel paint. The nasty center console in all its glory! Check out the gnarly carpet stains in the bottom left. The front seat carpet looked the same if not worse. A car mat pre paint. Hard to see in the lighting, but nice clean look after the Vinyl & Fabric paint! One of the rear doors before paint

Wow! How frustrating. All of you guys took the time to respond and my email never tipped me off. Thanks to all of you and sorry for such a late response! I will read through these and post pics of what I've done so far soon. I ended up using DuPont's Vinyl & Fabric paint to redo the carpet, dash, and doors. I made a very unsuccessful attempt at repairing the dash crack, so a dashmat will be in my near future. I just installed a transmission gauge and finished up replacing a bunch of stuff (ball joints, cv axles, tie rod ends, end links, timing belt, water pump, thermostat, trans fluid and filter, front brakes and calipers, coolant, etc.) Thanks again and I will post pics soon! Also, on a side note. I'm looking for a trailer hitch for mine. Anyone know of a good fit? I've seen some Reese, and Dura-somethin' models at various auto parts stores, but I want to make sure I find something that will actually fit. Couldn't find a thread on this yet. Tim

Hello NPORA folks! I just picked up a 1995 Pathfinder in great mechanical shape for cheap, but the interior could use some help. I've got a cracked dash, stained cloth on all doors, and quite a few other unsightly blemishes. I've been researching for a bit here and would like to see what you guys have come up with. I'm looking for cheap options to renew the interior. We all know we can take it to an upholstery shop, but $1000+ isn't an option on a truck I got for $1200;). Not to mention, it's a 4x4 rig, so I'm not looking for a hot-rodded, leathered-up look, just a nice cleaned up utilitarian truck look. Here's a list of items I'd love to learn more about: 1. I'd really be interested to see if anybody has reupholstered / restored their own door panels. 2. Anybody do a custom interior out there? 2. How did you take care of your cracked dash? 3. How did you take care of your cracked vinyl armrests? 4. Anybody try painting the dash, console, and/or plastic trim (interior or exterior)? 5. This isn't interior, but anybody found a cheap source/means of replacing the exterior window trim (the rubber stuff)? At Nissan parts zone they want almost $500 total just for the rubber trim around all windows!!!! Thanks