blackboat

Started having trouble with the clutch not disengaging on Friday. On Saturday I found the linkage rod from the pedal to the clutch MC loose so readjusted it and things got better. Until I was about 40 miles from nowhere in the mountains and the clutch began not totally disengaging again when I stepped on the pedal. Then there was a loud bang and no more clutch action period. Managed to get it turned around and out of the woods, then 150 miles home with no clutch (there are some upsides to having learned to drive in a Model A Ford with a 3 spd crashbox). Today I went out to check a few things as I was trying to get a parts order together. The clutch slave is definitely blown out; I can move it in and out and hear it sucking air. WHAT REALLY WORRIES ME however, is that I can move the clutch fork that sticks out of the side of the transmission a couple of inches forward and back. As in the fork appears to be moving further than the slave cylinder pushrod moves. I'm thinking this is a bad sign. With the truck running, the fork still has the same amount of slop FWIW. I'd really appreciate some input on this, as I'm thinking this may be more than I can handle right now. Not looking for pity, but I was diagnosed with kidney cancer last September, and have been involved in an experimental chemotherapy program since October. To give myself something else to focus on I went back to fly tying and built a new fly rod over the winter. Can you see where this is going? Well this Saturday was my first fly fishing trip in two decades, with all the new equipment. I was within 3 miles of my first stop when the clutch came apart. To have been looking forward to this for months, and finally having a little strength and time to do it....well, it was kind of a letdown to say the least. Anyway, point was supposed to be that I'm not really up to yanking the tranny at this point. The hydraulics I can do, but I'm getting a pretty bad feeling that they're not the whole story. Financially it's not a good time to take it to the mechanics, but I think that's where I'm at, and why I could really use some thoughts right now on what may or may not be wrong. Thanks in advance, Rob

While the plug is gone, 1 wire is still attached. I think the missing wire is for the warning light. And yes, replacement alt looked just like the old one (pulled up the part number myself before going to autozombie). Again, I'm just trying to confirm what color the wires to the plug should be, and location (front or back). Thanks, Rob

Thanks Precise1, The FSM has helped a lot, but of course has me pondering other unrelated things now Rain never stopped before I had to run my daughter around until after dark. I'm betting next check is going to show Autozone alternator not charging. It did work in this config for about a month; the only thing that's changed is batteries aren't getting charged. We'll see, sometimes it takes me awhile to muddle through what I've done to it lately. Still am curious as to the missing plug and it's appropriate wires on a real vehicle vs. the schematics i have at hand. Thanks, Rob

Swapped out the alternator about a month ago. The engine has been swapped in mine (by PO) and the alternator plug with 2 wires that goes into the side of the alt is missing. There was a single yellow wire coming from a plug near the headlights that was jury rigged; i made sure I put it in the same place it was on the old alt. Truck ran fine for about a month, then the battery died. I've been thru 2 more batteries (one from a garage who was supposed to check all this out) in the past week. Quite clearly I'm now running a total loss electrical system. At this point I don't know if the missing plug is having any effect, or if the Autozone reman is just crap and dead already. Do think I need to solve the plug mystery regardless, so if anyone has a pic, or a description of what 2 wires should go into the side (where they come from, what color they are) it would be extremely helpful. It's pouring rain here today; I'm hoping for a let up sometime so I can do a quick check with a VM as see if it's charging. Thanks, Rob

I should have been a bit more specific: I have use it for the next few months mostly as-is due to financial constraints, but do intend to keep it past that point as a third/backup/hunting vehicle. Once I have the time and money it will see a bit more customizing to make it more the vehicle I want. I like the little thing and have lots of ideas for it. The body and frame are generally quite good; I need to start my own thread in Member's Rides to show what I'm doing now and blather on about my personal off-road philosophy. Rob

I'm about to install new sound and have been pondering this too. What I want to do is move the speakers from their top of the wheel well position to the ceiling around the rear seats. My thinking being to leave the rear cargo area as open as possible. Obviously will take some custom boxes and have to figure out how to blend it in with my headliner. To me the rear door location is no good since I'll probably have gear piled in front of it most of the time. I will check out the rear pillar idea though next time I walk out there (I had just logged on to start researching speaker wire routing). I'm not worried about having the speakers deafen passengers as I will rarely have anyone back there. My main goal is to clear out the cargo area (I'm sure I'm going to break those factory rear boxes sooner rather than later) and get my rear speakers in a better position for me to hear them while keeping them clear from all the garbage and dogs I haul around. As a further thought, chopping up those factory boxes might be a quick way to mock up what I want to do..... Got all my new stereo stuff in hand and now that the evil timing belt job is done I'm quite ready to do a "fun" project with the Pathy. Rob

Thanks guys. The PO wasn't any sort of gear-head and I highly doubt he had the gears swapped to use the longer life timing belt. At this point I guess all I can do is assume he lied to me and the engine has been swapped. I've already discovered damage from an accident he failed to tell me about (he admitted to one, but "forgot" to disclose the other that Carfax turned up. Go figure). Next time I go to town I'll stop in at the Nissan dealer and have the service dept. run the VIN just to see what turns up. In the end, it's a car with 192,000 on it that I paid $1250 for and am just using it until I return to work in a few months. Could even be a good thing that the engine was swapped. I need to figure out how to do a compression check without hurting anything electrical and we'll see how it looks then. At least now I know the timing belt is OK Thanks, Rob

Can anyone tell me if it is possible to identify when an engine was produced and how to go about it? I ask this because I have a 1990 Pathfinder that I just put a new timing belt in. The hitch was that I ordered and received a timing belt with square teeth, but when I got the timing belt covers off my cam and crankshafts (and the existing belt) were of the round tooth variety. From searches earlier today I gather that the round tooth belt didn't appear until sometime in the 1993 model year. Wiped out the whole day, but I found a round toothed belt and got the job finished. Now I'm left wondering what may have happened to my engine. I'm assuming something bad happened to the original motor and it got swapped, even though the seller assured me nothing major had ever been replaced. Thus I want to ID the engine and see if I can figure out what may have happened. Any thoughts or ideas, please? This has me a bit nervous about my new Pathy. Thanks, Rob

Thanks everyone! Sorry it took me so long to get back to this thread, but I've been busy searching my little fingers off. Trying to get the Pathy sorted out: Slightly rough idle and a bit jerky when sort of coasting at neutral power. Nervous about the timing belt; just finished filling out an order for Rock Auto, but haven't hit the send button yet. Going to look under the hood in the morning and see if there are any service stickers there (noticed that in a post). Need to order some shocks; they're making so much racket I can't figure anything else out about the suspension until they're done. Of course I ordered stereo part and pieces today, important stuff first Tomorrow I'm supposed to pick up some lego wheels and spare gauge cluster and some roof racks. I did cure the speedometer: the needle was bent and dragging on the face. It broke when I tried to bend it, but at least now it's registering correctly. Some GPS mounting stuff is on the way too. It's all coming together and I believe when I'm done I'll have just a little over $2000 in the car, and have it in a state where I trust it to go wherever I want. Now if I could just find some comfortable seats to swap in.... Thanks, Rob

Hi all, My name is Rob and I've just bought a blue 1990 XE 4x4 5 spd. Has 191,000 on it, but was a one owner car with a reasonable, but not perfectly, documented history. I'm afraid I wasn't intentionally after a Pathy, but due to some serious health issues had to sell my Dodge diesel to raise cash and I needed some basic transport until I'm back on my feet again. I'll confess I wanted a 4Runner, but they seem to go for more money, so when I found the Nissan I grabbed it. I am tickled to have a 4x4 since I sold the last Willys a few years back. While it is an XE, it's loaded with most power options and everything still works. Over the next couple of weeks it'll be getting general maintenance and I'll put a new timing belt in just to be safe. I think I've got a couple of worn bushings in the rear to chase down. The most irritating problem is the speedometer: It won't go above 55 and isn't tracking accurately below. Also, when I shut it off, the speedometer is still reading 20 mph. Not looking forward to fixing that. I do need to put some tires on it and am chasing down some lego wheels off some parts cars right now (I've got the smaller chrome wheels). Once I get my final tire size then I'll work on the speedo, since if I go to 31's I'll need a different speedo drive anyway. In the meantime I'll just use a GPS and make some notes on engine rpm in different gears and speeds. I did do a fair amount of research while I was waiting for my Dodge to sell, so I avoided the rusted out frame problem. Ideally, I'd like to eventually get this thing set up with some bigger tires, but not over 31". I don't know if I'll need to do a small body lift or not, doesn't seem like there's much room in those fender wells. I will use the Pathy for hunting and fishing expeditions so I want a little bigger tire, but I'll just need to get thru muddy roads. Don't want such huge tires that affect mpg and stress suspension components. I don't expect to do a lot of rockcrawling type stuff, and I do need to keep it in shape as my DD. I will make some brackets to mount my high lift jack and shovel left over from the Jeep. I also want one of those safari rack/baskets, partly because I've always liked the look and partly because that would make a semi protected place to mount lights. I like having some extra lights for the sides and rear; I've found this is a great help when setting up camp,etc. Rock sliders, brush guard/bumpers I may play with building my own eventually(I have a medium sized machine shop at home). I would really love to get a winch (never have had one), but that's for down the road. Seat swap would be nice as they don't feel so comfortable. May make a field trip to Pull-a-part tomorrow to get some ideas. Have enjoyed browsing the site and finding tips on things like the rear seat hinge mods - I like simple effective stuff like that. All in all I'm pretty tickled with my little Nissan; it's added some cheer to what's been a very trying time in my life. Rob