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Showing content with the highest reputation on 10/26/2022 in all areas

  1. Hello. My name is Michael S. I'm 60 years young. I've owned a 1996 Pathy, which got totaled by a teenage girl driving her Daddy's Cadillac, running a stop sign. My next car was a 1999 Pathy which I just totaled on 10/03/22 after driving it for 15 years. Partly my fault and partly the Kentucky farmer pulling a cow trailer at 25 mph, not looking in his rearview, with dust covering the turn signal so I couldn't see it, who eventually, slowly, started turning left into his driveway, just as it was too late for me to stop or slow much, from the passing lane I was in. I chose to swerve right and hit the empty cow trailer as opposed to hitting his driver side in the passing lane. Made contact at a 45* angle going right, with wheels locked and skidding. Continued skidding thru a shallow, wide ditch, thru a barbed wire fence and 40 or 50 more feet into a farmer's field. Ya, I was doing about 70 in a 55 zone, but even if I was doing 55 I would have still hit him, just not going as fast at impact. I estimate I was doing about 55 at impact. Could have been a different result if his trailer blinkers weren't so dusty or if he were looking in his rearview. He would have seen me in the passing lane well before he started turning. Anyways, I just replaced the 99 Pathy with a 2010 Xterra and am quite pleased with my find. I plan to re-build the 99 and was searching for parts when I found this site. Glad to be here. I'm also considering buying another 99 Pathy that I found while searching for something newer, just for a spare vehicle. Since I've found so many sites with 99 Pathy parts available, I believe I'm gonna buy the 99 with 173,000 miles. $3500. So, I'll have my new Xterra, the "new" 99 Pathy and my old 99 Pathy (to re-build). Wish me luck. Happy Pathing to you all. Mike S. P.S......Maybe later I will upload pics of the wrecked 99 and the new Xterra. Too late now. Good night.
    1 point
  2. It's fixed. It's not so complicated but there's one big pain in the ass: You have to remove all 4 gauge needles which means you'll need to calibrate them later. Step 1: Remove the instrument cluster. This is the easy part. Follow this video: Disassemble the cluster. There are no screws, just plastic tabs everywhere. Start by taking the clear plastic cover out first, then the black plastic frame. It's all pretty straightforward. You'll end up with this: Now you need to take the needles off. I strongly recommend the 2 spoon method. Google how to do it. Don't worry about marking their position or anything, no matter how careful you are, you will have to calibrate them so don't waste time, just take them out. Once the needles are out, you can pry off the cluster graphics and put that aside. Turn the cluster around (facing the back side - be careful not to place the exposed front on a hard surface!) and bend the 2 white tabs holding the circuit board in place. Pull it straight out, towards you. Be careful with the odometer's LCD as it's connected with long, thin leads which could bend or break. In mine it stayed in place but if I had to do it again I'd remove the LCD first. With the circuit board exposed, you'll need to follow pins 17 and 23 and find any resistor along the way. These 4 were suspicious (labeled 161 and 181). No matter how closely I looked, I couldn't see cracked solder but I added some more while also reheating the existing solder. I also inspected all other resistors and retouched a couple more, knowing how ****** they are in Nissans and how hard they are to find. Once you finish with your soldering/inspection, it's just a matter of reassembling everything back together and testing. As for calibrating the needles, it's better to do it with the cluster plugged in and the key in ignition (waaay easier if engine is cold). Turn on the ignition and lightly push in the speedo, tach and temp needles making sure they are touching their resting posts. Turn off and on the ignition a few times to make sure they don't move from there (when they receive power, they will come alive and try to jump to their zero position). Don't install the fuel needle just yet. Here comes the headache: To calibrate the fuel needle you'll need an ohmmeter to calculate the fuel in the tank (unless your tank is full or completely empty, if so just place the needle accordingly). Disconnect the large plug (4 contacts) from the fuel sending unit and read resistance from terminals 2 and 3 (diagonal to each other). A full tank is ~5 Ohms, empty is ~83. Considering the resistance changes linear (more on this later), every 1/4 mark would be in ~19.5 Ohm increments. Example, if you have 3/4 tank, resistance should read about 24.5 Ohms (5 + 19.5) Alas, according to the service manual, 1/2 tank should be ~33 Ohms, which means the reading is in fact not linear (otherwise 1/2 would be (5 + 19.5 + 19.5 = 44 Ohms). I assume this is to account for the tank shape (narrower at the top). Taking that into account, it's better to consider the calculations separately, one for full to 1/2 and another for 1/2 to empty. If so, 3/4 tank would be 19 Ohms (5 + 14), 1/2 tank 33 Ohms (5 + 14 + 14) and from then on 1/4 tank 58 Ohms (33 + 25) and finally empty 83 Ohms (33 + 25 + 25). This is a good time to test if you actually fixed the issue. Either disconnect the fuel sending unit plug and feed it 80+ Ohms (pins 2 and 3) or unscrew the whole fuel sending unit with the wires still connected and pull it out slightly, just enough to allow the float to drop to its lowest level. The latter is easier but super risky given that you have your fuel tank exposed and the car in ignition. Do this at your own risk. If the issue is still not fixed, then rinse and repeat, check, reheat, resolder resistors. If that still has no effect, then your problem is elsewhere. Hope all this helps someone at some point. Surprised nobody had attempted to fix it if it's that common.
    1 point
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