parrish

I'd also replace the uppers while you are at it. On my 2001 the uppers were in worse condition than the lowers. It's not much more work to get the uppers off anyway (they are actually easier than the lowers). Just be prepared to have to cut the bolts that hold the lower arms to the axle. The rest of the bolts should come off without too much work- assuming you have a nice big breaker bar and lots of PB Blaster. As far as getting the old bushings out- I took my control arms up to a local auto shop and they got them out for me quick and easy and only charged me $20. But you'll be making a couple trips back and forth- if you take out all the arms at once you are going to have a heck of a time getting the axle back in place- so only do one side at a time. As far as the bushings- I used the set of split pushing and they are working perfectly. They are very easy to install- just use some grease and a rubber mallet to tap them and the insert in to the arms. One other thing, if you do end up needing to cut the bolts off holding the lower arms to the axle I found that you can use a set of Grade 8 9/16 bolts instead of the Grade 10.9 metrics as replacements.

If the ticking were at the top of the engine then I'd have to say flapping power valves from the power valve loose screw problem (which is a bad problem to have!). But, the sound would be up near the plenum or so.

One can never have enough power.

It's just a gasket like device (but a lot thicker than a gasket) that isolates the plenum from the heat of the engine (or so that's the claim). The result is cooler intake air. It also slightly increases the total air volume of the plenum. Cooler and more air = more horsepower

It sounds, to me at least, more like a fuel problem than a spark problem. Dirty injectors maybe? You might want to do a SeaFoam treatment on it- definitely wouldn't be a bad idea with that many miles and unknown service history.

Nor have I, but I would strongly believe this to be the case. I've always used full synthetic 5w30 and do not have the PCV/valve cover baffle plugging problem (knock on wood!)

I've been using 5w30 full synthetic on my 2001 VQ since day one (bought it new). Mostly Mobil1 but, at times, I was using Royal Purple. 159,000+ miles later and it's still running like new. I go 7,000 miles between changes (seriously) and the oil is still translucent after that many miles. If I did serious off-roading I'd be changing it a lot more frequently than that but most of my miles (at least 99%) are highway.

159,000 on my 2001 VQ. No major engine repairs- except for needing to loctite the powervalve screws (caught it before they came loose entirely!). Have had to replace two ignition coils and a MAF sensor. The MAF went bad right after I installed the CAI and freeflow exhaust. I'm thinking the oil on the air filter did it in. I've used pure synthetic oil since day one (bought it new). Still looks and runs like new. Engine purrs like a kitten- no knocks, ticks, hesitation, or anything like it. And I'm not a laid back driver by any means (just ask everyone that I pass). I was reading about SeaFoam in another thread- might give that a go at my next oil change in a few weeks. I didn't notice a whole lot of carbon build up when I loctite'd the powervalve screws but there was some. Thinking a good SeaFoam treatment might be a good thing with this many miles.

I replaced the bushings on my 2001 Pathy with 159,000 miles just last weekend. What a job! Actually, it wouldn't have been too bad except for the two bolts that connect the lower arms to the axle. Both of those were fused and had to be cut to remove the lower arms. I had a local shop remove the old bushings (only took them about 30 minutes to do all four arms). I replaced the bushings with a set of polyurethane bushings I picked up from www.pathfinderbushings.com. They installed very easily- just used lithium grease on each bushing and tapped them in with a rubber mallet. The poly bushings from pathfinderbushings.com are already cut in half- so it makes installation a snap. My old bushings were still intact- but loose enough where I could feel the sway on the highway and it was also sounding rather rough over bumps. Nice and tight now! As someone else said here in the thread, my uppers were wore quite a bit more than the lowers. So I'd recommend doing all four links if you are going to do this job. Besides, the uppers are easier to get off! Also, I had a hard time finding grade 10.9 metric bolts to replace the two lowers that I cut off. But I discovered that you can use a 9/16 grade 8 fine thread bolt instead- and it's a better fit in the sleave to be honest. The stock metric bolts have a little too much play in the sleaves for my taste- but the 9/16's fit very nicely in the sleave with almost no play. And, the best way I found to do this is to ONLY do one side at a time. When you reinstall the arms do the top first. Then, with that in place you can use a floor or bottle jack to slowly raise the yoke of the differential. This will cause the axle to rotate allowing you to easily line up the lower arm. Doing it that way it's a simple one person job. Edit: after reading this thread I noticed I could have bought the very same bushings from AC for about $100 less than I paid at pathfinderbushings.com. Wish I would have found this forum about a week or so earlier! Oh well, live and learn.

Thanks to everyone involved with this thread- I just tore apart my 2001 SE this morning to check the power valve screws. Three of the valves (all towards the back of the engine) were loose- the furthest back being so loose that I could remove the screws by hand. Fortunately none of the screws had come entirely loose- so no engine damage done. But it woudln't have been too much longer and at least one or two screws would have dropped. I used red threadlocker on all the screws. It appears, at least on my Pathy, that the thread locker Nissan used was the type that would deteriorate in the presence of heat. The front most screws still had some type of threadlocker on them- but it crumbled to near nothing as I took the screws out (appeared totaly dried out). I'm thinking the rear most screws may get more heat- which could explain why those screws were much looser. I've got 159,000 miles on my Pathfinder- guess I should just count myself EXTREMELY fortunate that no screws fell in that time! While I was in there I decided to clean up the upper plenum (I only removed the upper to do the loc'titing- no need to remove the lower plenum as long as you are careful and use a magnetic screwdriver to capture the screws as you remove them). I also used my air grinder to smooth and slightly enlarge the opening of the throttle body mount on the upper plenum. It still had excess casting from the factory that needed to be cleaned up. Besides, the opening was slightly smaller than the gasket opening so I opened it up to match the gasket. Not sure if it will help or not- but it was a 10 minute job so might as well. All told it took me just under 2 hours to complete the job. Would have been more like 1.5 hours if I didn't do the clean up work on the upper plenum. Easy job that is WELL worth it!