geezerpower

If you ever cross the border through Tijuana, try the local brand "Tijuana rubia" beer. It is fast becoming my favorite. It is easier to find here than Samuel Adams or other "exotic" beers.

I was looking for a comfortable rig capable of travelling long distances in 2wd in Baja roads and light in weight because most of my 4wd would take place in sand. The lighter the vehicle the less power needed (remember the sand-rail racers that are all 2wd) . The Pathy was the best option. The 4 Runner is far heavier, consequently uses a little more gas in the road, that in itself is not a problem, but, in my opinon makes it less suitable for sand driving.

Call me antiquated but I never trusted alarms, people walk by cars with all the sirens in full blown without even noticing them. In all my cars I installed myself two killer switches. One for the tranny (all of them), one for the ground of the coil (Mustang 64 and Firebird 85), and in the Pathy one for the fuel pump and one for the ignition. Then I hid the switches themselves in odd places. The only way to start any of my cars even if you have the ignition key with you is if you know where the killer switches are. The Mustang has also a ground battery switch and a steel cable with a lock in the hood. Thieves tried to steal my Pony in at least three occasions, one time they even used a bolt cutter to get into my garage, but my Pony is still with me.

We just did a similar job. At all times we were three people under the car. We did remove the transfer but we only needed to unbolt the rear portion of the torsion bars and one person lifted them while two of us worked on the tranny. After we removed both shafts (rear and front) we used a floor jack to lower and remove the tranny first and one person (the strongest) did lower the transfer by sheer muscle power. The only problem we had was in the reassembly, we were trying to lift the tranny to put the transfer in place and we fought like one hour until we figured out that the only way the transfer fits in is "LOWERING" the rear end of the tranny.

Hi guys: I am posting what is likely the end of this saga. Since my mechanic gave me a warranty on his job and his pride was hurt for the failure of the repair, he took on himself to look into junk yards until he found a very good tranny and was able to purchase it for me in $200. He checked all the tolerances based on the CD of the Electronic Service Manual for the Pathy that I bought on e-bay and with my help and his son’s we put the new-salvaged tranny and did not charge me a penny for the job. Boy!! Talk about honor!! I have only been able to test the tranny for a day now, I took my Pathy to a 60 mile drive at high speed and everything looks fine so I am confident that this time we did it right. With my mechanic we took apart the old pump and everything was all right, the whole thing appeared to be new. javascript:emoticon('') smilieThe mystery of the two consecutive failures may lie in a hair line crack almost impossible to see with the naked eye that we found inside the old case, tjavascript:emoticon(':idea:') smiliehe theory that we developed is that when the fluid was cold and more viscose there was little or no leakage and enough pressure inside an ATF duct to keep everything going, when it reached certain temperature and the ATF lost density, it started to leak from the duct into the interior of the case and the pressure went down. The two consecutive failures could be explained because he used the old case in the rebuilding because it looked so good (the external metal was still shiny like if it was brand new). Anyway, hopefully from now on I will be able to tell you stories of my travels in my Pathy through Baja. Thank you for your help. javascript:emoticon('') smilie

Filthy Luker, your story is very similar to mine, if you look into this section under the thread "tranny's blues from Mexico" you will find how similar our stories are. I am still looking for a decent tranny but this time for about $25 I purchased on e-bay a CD with the "Nissan Pathfinder Electronic Service Manual" and it gives you step by step instructions of how to disassemble and reassemble the whole thing, plus diagrams with all the part numbers and the torque specifications. I will print the whole section and this time I am planning to help my mechanic with the reconstruction paying special attention to the pump that according to Igranch may be the culprit.

Thank You guys for the ideas. Right now, my mechanic is looking for a decent salvaged tranny, he will replace all the soft parts with the ones of the failed trannies (after all there was no damage to the clutch assemblage and it was new). Once the car can be moved, we will take it to a specialized garage to run a complete diagnostic of the electronic components. Igranch, I think your diagnostic is accurate (and yes I was driving in 2wd, I haven't had the opportunity to test the 4wd yet), most likely it was your first option, lubrication failure, since it is not likely to have the same mis-assembly twice. But the question remains, how come that one moment the tranny was working properly, shifting up and down very gently at very reasonable RPMs and all of a sudden there was that rough downshift it went from 1200 to something like 3000. what do you think we should look into? specially since we will have to use some parts like the box of valves or the pump from the old one. If you don't mind, I will keep the thread open and (eventually) I will be able to share with you (hopefully) the end of this saga. Again, thank you.

I am sorry for reposting this but I am new to the forum. I posted this same message in the new members forum but I believe that this is the right place to do it. Again, my apologies for reposting. Here is my story: I’ve just bought a 95 Pathfinder 4x4 auto. When I checked the tranny the oil was new, the dealer told me that it was recently serviced at a Nissan dealer. Unfortunately there was no warranty since I bought it “as is”, I took her home, about 65 miles away into Mexico, on my way home at about 70 mph there was a rough down shift from OD to direct and the tranny got stuck. I took it to my mechanic and when he opened it, he told me that it was clear that the tranny had been recently rebuilt, lots of new parts… even a new turbine, but the gears of the planetary were gone. He replaced all the damaged parts with original Nissan parts, and, based on my experience with other trannies he added an aftermarket oversized transcooler. It worked like a charm for a day but again, less than 50 miles away, while I was still testing the tranny, exactly the same failure, going up in a gentle slope at about 70mph the same rough downshift and the tranny got stuck in 3rd gear. I helped the mechanic to remove the tranny and I wanted to see with my own eyes the interior, everything looked fine, the clutch was new…etc, but the gears of the planetary were toast. I am desolated; I haven’t been able to drive the car for a whole day since I bought it!! My question is: What can cause that kind of failure? At first it looked like if the tranny went into fail-safe mode but there was substantial damage to the gears and no indications in the dashboard (no blinking). Unfortunately I have no Nissan dealer in town to take the car, so I must make do with local mechanics. I would appreciate it any suggestions you could give me for the mechanics to look for. :help: