mws

Under $50 for the set? Love 'em! Over $100? Hate 'em! In between? Ehh, OK....

http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=18&st=40 Pages 3, 4, and 5 get into the why. It appears Jeep has used many, many different springs over the years, so the amount of lift you get (and the ride quality!) depends entirely on the spring you use.

It's also much easier to get massive amounts of lift with less effort and cost than an IFS. On the down side, it will noticeably degrade on road handling (kinda makes it handle like a jeep...) and you lose ground clearance under the differential. So make sure the advantages outweigh the disadvantages for YOU before proceeding. And your results will depend HEAVILY on the skills of whoever does it. DO NOT trust it to some yahoo with a sledgehammer, cuttin' torch, buzz box, and a NASCAR hat.

Seemed to be left turn and/or bump related. Another quirk: The tachometer reads about 2X of reality. Has anybody ever seen this?

Are the pieces paperish, fibrous, or metallic? If fibrous, I would be concerned about bands or clutches. If metallic, well, not sure what. But bad. On the connector clips: Yeah, after about 10 years of heat and exposure, the plasticizers are just about gone out of the plastic and the connectors get VERY brittle. I usually end up using zipties in creative ways to keep the connector from coming off. On around the wire bundle, one around connector, and a couple pulling those together.

oh, this oughta be simple... According to the schematic, the only things on this circuit are the meters and gauges, warning lamp, interlock emergency relay, inhibitor switch, ASCD, ECM, Back up lamp, seat belt timer, air conditioner, rear window defogger, A/T control system, Daytime light control unit, A/T shift lock, and power antenna That can't be more than, oh, 642 feet of wires and 48 gizbobs to check out/eliminate to find the short. Good thing my nephew's son is a great guy! I'm not sure I would track this down for myself.

Thank you! This will help me tremendously, and I SOOOOO appreciate it! Martin ps: But can you work on your response time? I mean, I had to wait 19 whole minutes for the answer I needed!

Yes, most of the time it will be just fine. Most of the time. Another fact carefully overlooked by the article author is the "dregs" factor from the tank farm. I used to work near a tank farm, and yes, the discount tankers were drawing fuel from the exact same tanks as the name brands. But from what I was told (yes, this is hearsay), the discounters got theirs right after the tanks were filled, and then when the tanks were almost empty. That way, any contaminants (particularly water) that may have made their way in and settled to the bottom or floated on the top would not be be drawn off by the name brand tankers. Do contaminants make it into the supply on a regular basis? Probably not. But evidently often enough for them to give others a discount to take the risk. Use that unprovable story as you want. Another factor, personally verified by myself: In my old carbureted van, I could reliably run 89 octane from name brands and avoid pinging. But with discount 89, I had severe pinging problems about half the time. Why? I don't know. But it happened reliably enough to be a real issue for me. So I had to use 91 from discount stations to consistently get same performance as name brand 89. Obviously, that would be a problem only if your vehicle is sensitive to octane levels.

Hey all! Little blue is ill. Little blue is #4 in our fleet, a sweet '95 that we picked up for my nephew's youngest. Awesome rig, but she has developed an appetite for fuses - she keeps blowing the fuse for the instrument panel, that also affects a bunch of other things. As I recall, this is the bottom right fuse, 10A. It is clealy an intermittent short that I need to track down. Can anybody e-mail me a good scanned copy of the wiring schematic for a '95? I need the page that shows the fuse panel and then wiring going out to the cabin. I don't think any of this circuit goes out to engine compartment. A scanned copy will let me enlarge and print in color (if applicable). My email is m w sweet 1 at hot mail dot com delete all the spaces and substitute in the ampersand and period. Thank you so much!

Here'e the thread on cleaning the plenum: http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=7466

Engineer enters room to add his $.02 Because of the number of moronic gorillas disguised as "mechanics" running around out there, we need to recommend using new bolts every time on critical fasteners, or else their screw ups get blamed on us. The rest of the story: If the bolts were correctly torqued EVERY time, they will be OK to reuse. However, if they are EVER overtorqued, even ONE time, they will not apply the correct clamping force. So, if you know the head bolts had never been removed, you will be OK to reuse them. But if Igor's Garage and Moving Company had pulled the heads back in '98, get new bolts. Also, after 3 or 4 uses, it would be wise to replace them. When fully torqued, they do experience a tiny amount of plastic deformation that adds up.

Correct. Lockrite will fit an open differential, but will not fit LSD.

The throwout (or release) bearing itself is pretty cheap. The cost is in getting to it! The transmission needs to be removed to access it, requiring several hours of labor. Which is several hundred dollars if done by a mechanic in the US. As a general rule, if you are going to pay someone else to do it, bite the bullet and have them replace the clutch while they're in there - unless you know the clutch has been done in the last 50K miles. It is something you want to do sooner rather than later. It will eventually get to the point where it will no longer disengage the clutch and may even damage other components of the clutch. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in 6 months. But it will happen. If you are handy and patient, you can do it yourself.

This is a 5 speed, right? Does the sound happen only while you have the clutch pushed in, then goes away when you let it back out? If so, that is the classic symptom of a bad throwout bearing.

I'm still loving the Redline products! They are LSD comptatible. I think you need 75W90, but check the owners manual. I would try recommended weight first before going heavier. 90+% the better oil will eliminate the whine all by itself.

Slap a Lockrite in there and with some intelligent driving you will embarass a LOT of 4wd's!

We are in process of swapping the crank in the '95. We got a remanufactured crank (.010 under) from Marshall with new Mahle bearing set. All bearings checked out perfect (around .0015") except the thrust faces on the number 4 main. It is a very slight interference fit. It requires about 60 lb-ft of torque to turn the crank once torqued down. So the question is: Can I shave the bearing face a couple thousandths to achieve a .002" clearance, or should I let it be and let it "wear" itself in? I can either take a flycut with our mill, or just sand it on a plate of glass. Suggestions? TIA!

Thanks! I broke down and got them from Nissan. $2 apiece.

Yep. And you'll soon learn why. "Caveat emptor" and "you get what you pay for" both come to mind.

Need to order new keys for the cam belt pulley and harmonic balancer on the '95. Anybody have the PN available? Both apear to be the same, can you confirm they are identical? Any "generic" sources or do I have to order from Nissan? Thanks!

You shouldn't. Try torquing it again - it is not uncommon for bolts to loosen.

In the garage: Two Craftsmen roll around towers, a bunch of stuff on the walls and in drawers and cabinets, and a few "specialty boxes" - one for bicycle maintenance, a couple for motorcycles, a couple for electrical work, etc In the vehicles, I have found myself gravitating towards the really heavy duty well built plastic boxes. Yes, after 40 years of investing in and taking care of tools, I have a bunch. Mostly 20+ year old Craftsmen, some Snap-On, Cobalt, etc. I am not so much hung up on brand names or matching tools as much as I am into quality and functionality. And very little Chinese/Taiwan/India/etc pot metal self-destructing crap. Fine for one or two uses with minimal force needs, but if I really need a tool to do some serious work without exploding into shards, I invest in a good one. I was cleaning up last night and I think I put six or seven 12 mm sockets away! We had multiple projects going on between my nephews and myself. Finished pulling the engine from little blue, tore down the Connie to fix a coolant leak, tore down a KTM to fix an electrical gremlin, pulled the rear tire off Triumph to get a new shoe....

Now THAT'S more like it! That is a wasted u-joint. It's amazing to me that they do not make a lot more noise than they do when in this condition. Good write up!

I've used the Fel-Pro a couple times. Worked just fine with Thorleys. Reminder: Number 1 cause of header leaks is OVER-torquing. Read the manual and follow torque specs carefully. Either class bolt (8.8 or 10.8) will be fine with headers.

May help quiet it down, but if it's whining, the damage is done. To tip, raise the right side (passenger in US) about 8-12". I jacked it and slid cinder blocks under both right side wheels.