mora2818

Ya mine is also in 4wd too. My pfinder starts to vibrate around 65 on pavement so i know it is still on. Well it sounds like many others have this issue. I would still like to know what causes it since it only started doing this the last 2 years.

So of late I am having the same issues however mine is stuck in 4wd and it seems to disengage only when I turn drastically (light make a right hand turn) or stop, put it in reverse, and put it back in drive. I checked my tire pressure and they all read the same. Any other thoughts as to why it won't disengage? A lot of the time I need 4wd is on snow patchy roads and canyons where for 5 minutes you are on snow covered floor going 25-35 and the next you are on open highway doing 55. So obviously this becomes annoying if I have to pull over all the time. Thanks, -Kevin

Timing belt has been done along with the plugs. The pump, hoses (not sure which ones you are talking about) and wires haven't. Also on that list of things I should probably do is distributor cap but I figure as long as she runs fine, no worries. With regards to the pump and hoses. Is this something I should replace as preventative maintenance or wait until it the pump dies or hoses start to leak?

I have noticed with mine it seems as if it takes a little bit for the LSD to "warm up" meaning if it has just started up and in 2wd with barely touching the gas only 1 wheel spins. 5 minutes later I'll repeat and both wheels start turning. I am not sure why or how but that is what i have noticed.

Thanks for the help and I figured this wasn't much to worry about but wanted to get a couple opinions. I am really only hoping to get another 2-3 years out of the vehicle before I get something newer. It has 135k miles so I would expect things like that to leak a little. So as long as nothing is in danger of imminent failure I am not worried about it. -Kevin

No it isn't on the throttle body. I have a 97 so that would probably be the difference. It is either attached to the plenum or the intake manifold. I couldn't really dig around in there. In the daylight I can probably get a couple more pictures for orientation.

Because this elbow that has something to do with coolant is leaking. The first picture is a close up, the second a little father away. The elbow is below the TB. I am not sure if the elbow can be replaced or if it is part of the plenum itself. It doesn't look like it leaks much, should I be worried?

So my wife took her pathfinder in for an oil change and they mention a couple things that should be fixed. One of which is the upper plenum at a cost of $450 and another $180 in labor. Just so I am clear the upper plenum is the part that sits on the intake and is feed by the throttle body? I think on the newer R50's they attache the plastic cover right on top of the plenum. Thanks, Kevin

Well I finished replacing my suspension and that torn cv boot. On a scale of 1-10 I would say replacing that cv boot was about a 3. It was surprisingly very simple. Thanks for all the help Dean and others. All the pictures make it easy to figure out what the hell I am supposed to do. As far as the rear suspension, to replace the rear coils I didn't have enough space to remove the coils without removing the sway bar so that was a pain but not too bad. The rear end feels real solid now and I imagine if I switched out he bushings it would be extremely crisp. The front suspension on the other hand was a nightmare. Trying to get the strut coils lined up with the rest of the strut and strut mount proved to be very difficult because of the strut spring compressor I rented. The bolts for the compressor weren't spaced far enough away from the upper spring mount so after I had compressed the coil, I couldn't fit the upper spring mount between the bolts. I had to use 2 vice grips will ratcheting it down and to get the bolts to squeeze by. After monkeying around with this problem for an hour or so i then realized i forgot the rubber spring seat so I had to start over again. The spring compressor kept wanting to slide down the spring as well so I had to keep backing it up to move it back too. Anyways the first strut probably took me 3.5 hours. The second one took me all of 45 minutes. By the way, the spring compressor I rented was a powerbuilt brand. I can't find any images like it online and it looks like if you bought one today it is a totally different design. My guess is the problem with the bolt being too close the clamp like the problem I had and many would have. After driving around the suspension is much better. I think the lesson I learned most is have the right tools. I borrowed my buddies air compressor and impact wrench. If i didn't have those it couldn't have completed this project. I think the other lesson I learned it for the most part cars aren't all that complicated and if you have the time and tools, you can do almost any job yourself without prior knowledge of how to do this stuff. So your big enemy is you. So now I have 4 R50 coils in my garage that could go to use for someone or they will be tossed in the garbage. They have 132,000 miles and definitely have lost spring over the years. Let me know if anyone would like them, just pay the shipping costs and they are yours. Thanks again everyone for the help, -Kevin

No GSP at Rockauto anymore so I got a cardone remanufactured CV. Along with struts, strut bearings, and shocks this was a pretty expensive overhaul but at least it won't ride like crap anymore. I am sure I'll be posting some questions on how to do this that or the other but thanks to all in this forum. I really appreciate the help everyone provides and the fact that flame wars are pretty minimal here. -Cheers and time for a brewski!

I forgot to add if you don't have the factory tracks, you'll have to buy those too. Gets expensive quick depending on what you want to use it for.

Yakima does make them too and they aren't cheap either: 2 Yakima Control Towers and 2 Landing Pads (style/version 1) for the control towers are about $200 retail plus the bars. My factory crossbar snapped under the weight of my cargo basket while driving around looking for a camp spot in the mountains. I looked on Ebay and you can pickup the above - the bars used for around $65. My guess is you could scower craigslist over the next couple months to either get a thule or yakima setup. In my location Yakima is a lot easier to come by used as they are more popular. Basically the landing pads screw into the existing lock washers where your factory crossbars screwed into. The landing pads then secure the control towers to the roof and of course then your bars are attached.

Nice, where did you get yours at and if you don't mind how much did you pay?

Alright, thanks Dean, you motivated me once again to take this on myself. So I need to get a Snap Ring wrench, CV Axel, Boots, Clamps and some kind of grease. Does that cover it? The rest of the tools I have or can borrow. I'll hit up Rock Auto since I have to order some suspension stuff anyway. -Kevin

Well an hour for you probably, more like 3 hours for me. It takes me a while to figure out what to do off what is described here in the forums and reading the Manual. If i had seen one done before I am sure I could tackle it no problem. A good example of this is it probably took me 2+hours to do a wheel bearing the first time because I kept having to analyze it all but the second one took me all of 30 minutes. I guess my point is I don't really want to do it. For labor rates I believe $70/hr is the norm.

Is paying $225 for replacing a CV axle cause the boot is torn and decent price? This includes replacing the axel, boot, and labor. It sounds like a pain to replace myself considering I haven't ever replaced one nor have I got all the tools. Thanks, Kevin

Good call on trying to see if anyone has a Front Coil or 2 laying around, I didn't even think of that. Hopefully I'll just replace the bad one when replacing the struts up front. I am highly debating on whether to just pay to have the struts put it in or tackling it myself. Sounds easy, just a pain. Thanks for the writeup on that by the way. It makes it so much easier for guys like me to tackle the weekend repair/maintenance job. That being said, does anyone have a Front Coil laying around that I can grab from them?

So my rear shocks are all but shot now so I need to replace my suspension here pretty soon. However I have somewhat of a dilemma. The rig sits a little cockeyed and by that I mean the front left is sagging a little or the right rear is sitting too far up. I think it is my front left coil that is the culprit. I measured the distance between the strut housing on each end of the coil and the left side has about .5 inches of space less than the right side. That is why I think it looks to be sagging on the left side and jacked up in the right rear if that makes sense. Not to mention the rear coils seem to have the same amount of space between the top of the coil housing and bottom. Is there anyway to determine exactly why it sits cockeyed? I don't want to replace all 4 coil springs just to find out I only needed 1 coil spring. Thanks for the help.

Thanks for the input. It looks like I would need a diesel of some kind to get the MPG I would like with all that gear at those speeds but hell I don't plan on spending another 10k more just to get better gas mileage. Maybe soon we will get some of the Japanese diesel SUV's over here. I was in Costa Rica earlier this year driving a Land Cruiser Prado diesel getting around 20-25mpg will a full load.

Awesome, sounds like Jenn is quite a gem. Maybe I'll have to convince my wife of this game when she frowns upon me playing golf.

Actually it did. Usually at 55-60 I get 17-18 mpg so a loss of 4/5mpg is pretty significant. I am trying to figure out if it is the speed or the load causing the dramatic change. Of course it could be a combination of both taking 2mpg each off a normal long distance trip. 3 years ago it didn't matter of course because gas was so cheap but $70 just to make a weekend camping trip starts make you think if you should just stay home and play 18 holes or something else.

So this weekend I went camping and had the back seats down fully loaded with the yakima cargo rack up top fully loaded with various camp gear and got 13 mpg. Granted some of that was freeway @ 75mph but most was highway @ 65mph which I wouldn't suspect to get that bad of mileage. What have others got for MPG regarding a similiar situation? I have a 97 XE Automatic for reference.

I haven't had any issues and my amp has been fine. I took out the plastic casing for that cubby hole to make more room.

Wow, can't believe this one is still going. I haven't logged on for days. I am not sure how soundstream is these days but to me that looks like a solid choice. I myself have always gone with Audiocontrol EQ stuff but that is out of personal preference. That should definitely help you balance out your sound.

There we go, skip the foreplay and straight to the action. I couldn't have made any better recommendations myself. Let us know how it turns out.