parrish

May name is Parrish and I'm the proud owner of a 2001 Pathfinder SE 4x4. I'm located in Southwestern Lower Michigan. I've owned this vehicle since June of 2000 (bought it new from Bill Frank Nissan) and have lovingly cared for it ever since. 159,000 or so miles later and it still looks and runs like new. I've done a few mods to it over the years- mostly for performance. Added a WeaponR cold air intake, remove the stock air box and other components and built a custom ram air system. I have a 3" hose connected to the drivers side cover next to the driving lights. I cut out notches in that cover so that air would flow through it (you would hardly notice it unless you look close). That hose runs up through the inner fender well and mounts to a bracket I built right below where the air filter sits for the CAI. Air is forced through that and directly to the air filter. I left a gap between the hose bracket and air filter on purpose- to prevent sucking water into the engine. This modification is almost impossible to see- unless you know what you are looking for. I'm rather anal about making things look and function "right". I changed out the factory plugs for a set of Denso Iridium, had a custom free-flow exhaust built with a nice big chrome tip (sounds amazing), installed oversized Bridgestone Dueler AT Revo's (on my third set now). Installed a set of Air-Lift air springs in the rear (got sick of the thing bottoming out every time I went over a bump!). Upgraded the shocks and struts to Rancho RSX17000's (which I need to change soon again- that was over 80,000 miles ago). Just recently (thanks to this forum!) I replaced the rear bushings with a set of polyurethane bushings and, just today, put loctite on my power valve screws (which were almost ready to fall out!). For the exterior I've added a bug guard and Weathertech window deflectors. This spring I had to remove the factory running boards because they rusted to pretty much nothing. Picked up a nice set of stainless steel bars from ebay. The rear windows are lettered with my company information (I own a computer store). Every spring I go through the whole vehicle looking for and repairing any rust that may be there (I live in the rust belt). I use POR15 on all the rust repairs- which stops the rust completely then I spray over that with automotive enamel that I get from the paint shop (matches perfectly). I don't do much off-roading though. I've gone up to Silver Lake and Manistee National Forest a few times- but not nearly as often as I'd like! At some point I'd like to "upgrade" to a new V8 Pathfinder- just can't get myself to go back to having car payments though! Anyway, there you go.

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!