andreus009

I would suggest reading this thread first: http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/topic/6957-shifting-on-the-fly/ While t may not be a direct answer to your questions, it does contain the info your are seeking

This is just a thought, but if the torsion bars are free and its only held up in the adjuster drop the whole cross member. It at least gets it out from under the truck where you can work on it better. Once you do get them free..lubricate the splines. I've used white lithium grease here.

Upper radiator mounts. Top bracket is factory. The spacer is a simple 2x3 aluminum square tub cut about 1.5 inches wide and used as a spacer Lower bracket. It is a stamped steel piece bent with 2 90* bends to allow it to bolt to top of frame where radiator originally sat then drops 3 inches and allows for radiator to lock into place. Steel is about 1/8 inch thick. All pieces upper and lower could easily be fabricated with simple tools. Well, these pics and description are courtesy of my friend (thanks John) and his Frontier. I believe the pathfinder set-up was/is very similar.

On the fan shroud, can't you just pull out the piece at the bottom that clips in? Or do you still need to cut to give clearance. The E-fan is a major wiring effort. My friend did it (radiator drop) to his Frontier. He's gonna try to get me some pics later today. I'll post them up for you. I don't know how similar they are, but maybe will give you and idea. You could try asking on the NOAS forum also.

Now that is a nightmare. I had one of these bolts get loose on me and that was just around town. Ever since, I check them periodically.

Well, last week I sent my Pathy away.....to wait for me to play in the mountains of GA and later in URE in NC My friend towed it with his diesel F350 to save me at least some of the strain on my gasoline Tahoe.

^x2. Once you are in there do everything. I ended up having to re-use my old throw-out bearing because the one i got from the auto-parts store was rolling rougher than the old one. I had no way to get to the store to get a replacement. Needless to say.....about a year later I was pulling the tranny again.....to fix the throw out bearing.

My opinion is the pilot bearing...which actually is a brass bushing. I had this happen on my 95 also. It usually was noiser in the winter/cooler months. Either way the tranny has to get pulled to fix it.

Uh...based on my experience, the the t-case disconnect isn't terrible but it is awkward to drop due to its weight distribution. Its even more awkward to get back in place for the same reason and cause you have to align things properly to get it back together. Also, not sure about the access when you get it off either. Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of reason to look in detail at the tranny cause I was focused on working on the t-case at the time.

So what do the lights on the dash do when you go to start it? Dim? Go out completely? One thought is a bad connection at the battery. Sometimes the connection is good enough to turn on dash lights and such but not good enough to give power to solenoid/starter. Also, bad battery can cause this. Have you tried jump starting it? A manual transmission will have clutch switch..which means it won't turn over if the clutch pedal is not depressed. As I call there is actually a little plastic piece that goes in a hole on a tab on the clutch pedal arm that actually pushes the switch. I had this piece of plastic disintegrate due to age so that when I pushed the pedal down the protruding part of the switch went right through the hole so it didn't activate the switch and I couldn't start it. I replaced the plastic piece with something I had on hand and everything worked fine again. This is by no means an extensive list of all things that could be causing your issue. There are other threads out there about starting/starter issues that may help with other ideas.

I know back some time ago....years...I pulled it down and englarged the openings for larger speakers. I think it was 6x9 from Polk Audio but it's been a while. It still looks factory.

I third the timing check. Based on personally experience. Was driving to an off-road meet and the thing was running fine for about 20+miles. All of the sudden the engine just basically lost power and died. Coasted to the side of the road and looked under the hood. Couldn't find anything apparent. Cranked it over and it would just barely start and then sounded real sick. Got it back home and did some more checks but couldn't find it myself. Figured it was something major so I took it to the local dealer since i figure the have the better diagnostic equipment. Anyway...the short story is that the timing/distributor had some how gotten out by ALOT. So much so they asked me if I had had the distributor out for any reason. I hadn't. They reset the timing and it's been running fine ever since.

I personally found that for highway driving the rear sway bar was sufficient to keep it stable. I'm basing that on a 500 mile 70+mph trip. And that was with the original bushings that had about 190k miles on them. I'm not saying I didn't notice that it was not there, but the change wasn't sufficient to cause me concern. I have both off right now and there is a lot of body roll so I would not try to highway drive it without one or the other sway bar on.

Yes, I believe it was the PCM version. I'm pretty sure the issue was the underhood temperatures affecting the electronics because when it cooled down it worked fine. It was too much work/rework to install it in the cab. My hats off to you on your diligence. BTW, in hind sight the controller was almost pointless in FL because the AC runs nearly all the time which means the controller defaults to both fans full on. LOL. Live and learn.

Had similar issue with a SPAL dual fan controller. It didn't like the under hood heat in slow moving situations. Pulled it out and now just use manual switches now.

BTW, good call on outlining some of the common issues to check into on these rigs.

Guess I was the unlucky one. All 3 of mine were at the surface or sub surface.

Oh yeah...on the over filling of the tranny be aware of the gear oil you use. That is another gotcha. Alot of the newer oils have additives that eat the brass synchros. The safe bet I hear is RedLine. RoyalPurple is safe too but $$$. I think this link covers the gear oil in the tranny subject pretty well http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=31943&hl=%2Bgear+%2Boil

In kind replacements will probably crack/break like original. Get the upgraded studs or replace with a stronger bolt like others have done. I believe (don't quoute me) some have used the metric equivalent of grade 8 bolts instead of studs. I'm sure someone can chime in on what kind of bolt they used instead of the studs. Personally, I went with the studs but they are a bit pricey as I recall. While you are at it I suggest/recommend you replace all studs. Extracting studs can be a major PIA and you don't want to have to go in and do it again. 2 out of 3 went fairly easy for me. The 3rd..well lets just say part of it is still in there and I had to tap what I could for a smaller stud. Key trick with the extractors is to be sure to get them on center (easier said then done). Also, before you even start soak thinks with penetrating oil. I know there is pinned write up on the subject of replacing these studs. I followed it and came out OK. The problems stud was just bad luck and bad access.

Are you aware of the manifold bolt breakage issue?

I got the cermic coated headers from 4x4parts.com. The don't specifically say it on the website by they are by Pacesetter...or at least they were. So far they have held up pretty well and don't show any signs of rusting. Of course they are a good deal more $$ then the plain painted ones but as B says...the paint will flake and then you got rust. That was the positive side. Now the negative. I was one of those people that had a difficult time installing them. Biggest problem was fitting the cross-over pipe to the two headers. I had to use ratchet strap to pull the ends of the headers closer together to get the cross-over to go on and also ended up triming a bit off the end of the passenger side header. Maybe my order of assembly operations was off a bit. I tightened the headers to the block first and then tried to fit the cross-over pipe. Maybe if I had left some looseness at the head, fit the cross-over, and then final tightened it would have gone better.

I know I don't visit it much, but I'd like to thank all the folks that keep NPORA up and running. You guys/gals do an outstanding job. Thank You!

I found that the back sway bar had more control over body roll then the front. I hardly notice the front one missing even with my worn out bushings on the rear one. I drove all the way to NC at highway speeds without any issues. Also, it is easier (in my opinion) to quick disconnect the rear than the front. Anyway..that's my two cents. Not that you need them, but could save you some money on a special front sway bar.

Nice spreadsheet! Thanks