nicholas

Well, I talked to the mechanic and he said that he didn't even need to check it out to thoroughly. From the sound of it, a look at the tailpipe (it's seriously blackened), and from pulling the plugs (one was seriously oil fouled) he concluded that it was a worn ring. I asked him straight out if he was confident that it was the rings and he said he was absolutely certain. So I don't know. The idea of worn valves does give me hope though, I'll have to check it out myself more thoroughly. If you don't mind I'll go through the symptoms once again and let me know if it still sounds like worn valves. The vehicle get very poor gas mileage (~300 kms a tank). It's idle speed is excessively high and fluctuates from stop to stop, sometime at 2000rpm and sometimes at 1000. It sounds like it misses every once in a while and there is a small popping backfire in the exhaust. I pulled some codes and I got the o2 sensor and crankshaft angle sensor. Replaced o2 sensor and no real difference, though it was seriously fouled when I pulled the old one out. Oh and when you shut the engine off you only then realize how unhealthy sounding the thing is . . . you shut it off and the engine shudders and shakes to a stop. Grim . . . but if fixing a valve were to help with this HOEWWEE I'd be pleased.

Thanks all for your responses. It was quite weird how the rings went, one day after work I started her up and it was belching blue smoke down the street. Fogged the whole area! Anyways, my mechanic is a pretty solid dude so I trust him on the ring diagnosis. An engine rebuild is daunting, might go back to the Toyotas and drop enough coin to pick myself up a reliable 4runner. Anyone want a pathfinder with a perfect body but a flawed engine? In Edmonton? Oh Precise1 the trucks only got 180,000 kms. It seems a little early for rings to be going it thought but still, I guess they've gone. Cheers

My pathfinder's been diagnosed with worn piston rings, well just one cylinder has the worn rings. Anyways I got the news today and was wondering wether it was worth getting into replacing the rings myself. There's no way I'm gonna pay the mechanic to do it, and I can't/won't pay for a new engine. Could you all please tell me how involved replacing worn rings is. Do I have to pull the whole engine, or can I just pull the head and get the piston and connecting rod out that way? Also if I do get into it what else should I do while I've got the whole thing in pieces? Timing belt? Valves? I'm a rookie at this sort of heavy duty engine repair, the most I've ever done is a head gasket. This totally sucks though, if I don't do the repair I've basically got to call it quits for the pathy. It's a 91 SE-V6 and I've owned it for barely 4 months. Brutal luck.

My pathy is beggining to worry me; the idle is erratic. When the vehicle is cold and running it usually idles around 1500 - 2000, but when it's warmed up it sometimes idles where I want it (and it should probably be) at 1000. But it never consistently drops down to 1000, most of the time if I've stopped at a red light it'll hover around 1500 rpms. It's kinda weird though, it'll drop to 1000 then creep up to the 1500. Weird. Awhile back the ecu threw out a code 11 (crank angle sensor), would a crapped out crank angle sensor acount for this? If the thing was pooched wouldn't the truck barely run? What about running injector cleaner? Oh and I don't think it's a stuck throttle or anything, cause if I stomp on the peddle a couple a times it still does not drop down to the proper idle. 91 SE V6 (4x4)

I checked the ECU for codes and it came up with 11 (crank angle sensor!) and 33 (heated oxygen sensor). In my haynes it says to unplug the harnesses and see how it affects it. Unplugging the Crank angle sensor killed the engine, and unplugging the o2 sensor caused the revs to drop down lower than normal. However, the truck had been idling kinda high, round 1500, and unplugging the o2 dropped the idle down to 1000, but it sounded real rough and shook. All in all I was wondering what to do about these codes. Do I really have to replace the Crank angle sensor? and does that mean changing out the entire distrubutor (haynes says so)? Note: now that its above freezing here the white exhaust isn't billowing so much but exhaust is spewing a lot of condensation. Any help welcome. Thanks!

Took 'bout a litre of oil outta it last night, and with the warmer weather it's running a little more the way I would expect. Gonna check the ECU for codes and I'll clean up the MFA and in no time she'll be running like a butte.

Thank you all for your help. Kneedeep, nice to know there are other suffering edmontonians here. The fuel economy info was helpful, I was a little worried. A couple of weeks ago I took it to my friends step-dad whose supposed to be a mechanic, but he was checking fluids and with a cavalier attitude he dumped a huge amount of oil in her. Checked the level and it's still overfull, I think this is probably the main culprit for the excess exhaust. It's white and a little blue, so yeah it's oil. Coolant not dropping, so I guess all is good. Oh yeah didn't know that about the cold affecting gas consumption, interesting.

I live in Edmonton and it's freezing cold, -38C tonight! Anyways, starting up my vehicle there's a lot of exhaust. More than I'd expect. It goes down a bit after the car warms up but still there's a lot more than I feel comfortable with. I'd like to say it's just the cold, but I am also getting terrible mileage outta the thing. Moreover it smells a little like gas. I had a saab with blown head gasket problem and this isn't like that, for one the smell isn't there and it's not overheating (though it's probably impossible in this cold). Filled up with coolant tonight and I'll keep an eye on the level. Also smoke billows like crazy when I rev the engine, could it be something to do with timing? The internet sorta seems to think so. I really need to investigate further, but this terrible gas mileage is worrying me. It's a 91 V630E Pathfinder.

I eventually figured it out, well kinda, anyway it works now. The guy before me hijacked power for the turn signal circuit by splicing the flasher wire for the turn signals into pwr for LHlight. I fixed it by removing the splice and hijacking power for the circuit at the hazard switch from the constant power for the hazards. Anyways I guess something was messed with the wiring and now it works . . . for now. Thanks though those wiring diagrams are sweet. I'll be bookmarking it.

New to this forum, but I'm going near insane from my 91 pathfinder's electrical problem. The problem has two forms. The left headlight circuit seems to have crossed with the flasher circuit because if the fuse for the left headlight is pulled then, with the headlights on, the left headlight flashes with the indicators (note with fuse pulled the flasher is constantly clicking) . . . but with the LHDlight fuse in place the flasher's will not flash but remain constantly lit. I've spent a lot of time on the problem, and understand the circuit (mostly). The owner before me seems to have messed with the electrical a bunch, poorly splice wires and such, but anyways I found that the green wire from the turn signal switch to the flasher unit (or does it go to the hazards first?) was spliced into the power for the left headlight (wire from the LHlight fuse to turn signal switch). Now that I've disconnected it the hazards work, but the turn signals won't. It worked for a little while after I disconnected the splice, but when I was putting it all back together the turn signals stopped working it would buzz but now it just quit. Anyways sorry for the long description, but I was mostly wondering if the green and white/red (pwr for headlight) wire were supposed to be linked before the signal switch. Note: the two wires are linked via some sort of clip with a metal plate inside which bridges the wires. It looks like a factory part. Be grateful for any help, mostly to save my sanity.