I just joined NPORA. I have owned my 1993 Pathfinder for a month. Just got the chance to take it "off road". Well, it was a rough road to go fishing, about three miles. When I made it back to pavement and accelerated, I noticed at about 30 miles per hour a loss in power, would decrease speed to about 20 MPH and then would accelerate again but would only have loss of power at 30 to 40 MPH again. RPM's would be erratic. While it was "bouncing around" with power/loss of power/power/loss of power, I noticed that if I put vehicle in neutral and then back in drive, it got better for 10 or so seconds,, but would start again. I stopped at a friends house for about an hour, pondering my problem and decided to head home about 20 miles away. It seemed to be some better, would "jerk" at times with loss of power and would gain power again (did this several times on my way home). Also, seems when I turned over drive to "off", vehicle would drive better (this may not be related, but more of a coincidence). I am going to try cleaning/testing the Mass Air Sensor tomorrow, for it is 12:30 AM and I am tired of "surfing" my problem with my vehicle. I am really enjoying my vehicle but am disappointed at my first "off road" experience. Maybe this is a common and easily fixable problem.
I have seen similar topics to my problem, but anyone able to assist in any way would be great.