Indigent

The needle arching is a common problem on these clusters. Every one of the three pathy's I have owned (including my TD27T Terrano in Japan) had the bent needle. It is just @!*%ty plastic.

This should be a very simple fix. Like biteme said, it is all mechanical. You can gently pull off the white needle and place it back wherever you want. It is a bit dangerous to do while you are driving, but do-able. Just pull the covers that go over the cluster and get access to the needle. Pull it off, and get driving. Pay attention to your GPS and set the cruise control. Place the needle back on very very gently. It is easy to twist it and screw up the placement. I would get a friend to help you if you can, but it isn't a necessity. The reason you are seeing the difference is the needle is on the shaft in the wrong place. When you aren't moving or the tranny isn't spinning, the needle is resting on the little stopper. Once you get going, it will be 15mph off because it is responding to the cable input. edit: Also when you are going 40mph and the overdrive has kicked in, the tachometer will read almost dead on at 1500rpm, so if you don't have GPS, you can get driving and once that Torque Converter locks, you are almost certainly going 40mph. hope some of that helps. indigent.

Standard means just that, STANDARD. It is a word that conveys similarity among discussed items. And that was my question, IS there a standard. I am talking about a grille guard, as stated. "Fits X year of Y model" is straightforward, and I understand what it means, but the problem lies in the fact that I can't find one that says "Fits 1990 - 1995 Nissan Pathfinder". I had a sweet grille guard on the Terrano I had in Japan, but I have no idea who made it. My pathy just looks naked without some junk in the front. indigent.

I just measured the spacing between the mounts in the front on my 91XE and it is 29". I guess any old grille guard that has that spacing would work. I have a hard time believing that the pathy is the only rig with 29" spacing. Even if there are no other grilles made that mount width, spacers would hold a grille on. I am having a hard time finding out information about mount width spacing on grilles on the net. They all just say "Fits X year of Y model". Anyone know if there is a standard width for grille mounts? It would be cool if it were 30", because you could just fab up two half inch spacers and bolt the damned grille on. indigent.

Bumping this because I am looking for an answer to this Q too. indigent.

You can buy any radiator you want. The only issue is mounting and plumbing it. Take some measurements of the radiator mounting area in the pathy and go to the junkyard and find one that will still fit when the hood is closed. indigent.

I have had 2 regulators break on me over the years. I have owned 3 different pathfinders. 1 was a Terrano in Japan, which never has a regulator break, and the 2 I owned here in the states both had one break on each. As with anything that doesn't age well, YMMV. But like nunya said, it is 18 years old and it is also @!*%ty plastic holding the whole thing together. You could probably find all of the pieces of plastic in the bottom of the door, and epoxy them back together. indigent.

I am assuming you are stuck on getting the nuts off of the exhaust pipes? The easy trick for the driver's side is to get at them from the wheel well. Either take the tire off, or jack up that side so the tire is out of the way. When you look in, you will see the nuts. You will be able to actually stick your arm in there and touch all of them! Get a 14mm wrench and a cheater pipe and bust them loose. I never did figure out a better way for the passenger side ones. Just a few extensions, a breaker bar, and some BST(blood sweat tears). One of the best feelings on earth is breaking torque on a nut or bolt. Don't give up. Also, probably the most important thing to remember is to clean the threads as best as you can before trying to remove the nuts. Getting those exhaust nuts off is just one of those things that sucks. Hope this helps some, indigent.

One thing to remember is to NEVER trust those timing marks until you have verified them yourself. I did almost all of the same stuff you have done on my last pathy and came to find out that someone had disassembled the crankshaft pulley and put it back together wrong!@#$!@!. Verify with your own eyes that the rotor is in the #1 position when the piston is up. You never know what a previous owner has done to the rig. Other than that, check the vacuum lines. I had mixed some up when I re-assembled, and it wouldn't idle correctly and didn't throw codes. Get out that vacuum line diagram from the FSM and follow every hose to make sure they are going where they are supposed to. Don't forget about the little bastard back on the fuel pressure regulator by the #6 spark plug. It really sounds like a vac line in the wrong place. indigent.

One bit of future advice. I would recommend tapping of the rotor lightly with a hammer. It is better than pulling it up harshly. Also, if you pry on the rotor with the edge of the distributor as your prybase, you will break the distributor. Our distributors work like a mouse wheel. It has little holes in it as reference signal points. If you mess up the spacing of those holes, it will not work. The circuit board and whatnot inside of there is very easy to break. I would bet that if you were to take that old distributor apart, you will see some cracks inside. It is better to pound down to break torque on it because of the way the shaft sits in the bearings and mount. It will help absorb and brace some of that force. Pulling up will tweak the bearings. I am not talking about going at it with a 10 pound sledge or anything, just a few stern taps. It *should* help release it. Anyone else experience that? indigent.

If you have a multimeter, take it out and test the voltage at the posts of the battery. It should be very close to 12. If it is in the low 11's or high 10's then it isn't or isn't able to be charged. Get the engine cranked and running. At idle the voltage at the posts should be at or above 14v. If it isn't, then the alternator isn't charging enough. Also, you can shut off the engine, and immediately check the voltage of the battery. Write that voltage and the time you took it down. Leave it sit for the night and check it again in the morning. If it isn't the same, then something is draining the battery. It could be that something is hooked up to the wrong side of the power bus i.e. accessory vs ignition. Or it is probably just bad. One of my buddies had bought a car where the previous owner halfass installed the stereo, and put everything direct to the battery. It would never really turn off unless he powered the head unit down. There are hundreds of other things like that which could cause the battery to drain. You never really know what a previous owner has done electrically to your rig. Hope some of this helps. indigent.

Thanks all for the input. I suspected that they might be different. You never know though. I guess I kindof assumed that it is the same basic engine, so just maybe it might be similar. I guess there are just too many differences with components. once again, thanks all. indigent.

I have searched (before you ask) and came up with nothing really pertinent. I am wondering what, if any, issues would be caused by putting an ECU from a 300z vg30e into my 91pathy. I know the heads are different, so fuel mixtures would probably be a bit off. Are there any extra sensors that anyone knows of? I am not interested in more power or anything; I am merely trying to see what my replacement options are if the need arises. One of the junkyards in my town keeps ECU's and harnesses from cars before they melt them, so if mine fries and they don't have one for the pathy, then I would be able to ask them for one from a 300z. Any thoughts? thanks, indigent.

It really isn't much to pull the wires from up under the hood. Once you disconnect the plugs and snake them down, it's all cake from there. I would recommend this over splices considering how much time it doesn't really take. The time you will spend re-splicing the wires could have been spent snaking them down, without the risk of bad splices or crossed wires. just a thought... indigent.

I actually have the original manual for that system in my rig. As stated above, it really only tells you when a door was opened without the key being turned to acc. I am always setting the damned thing off for stupid reasons. Say I want to get something from the back really quick, if the alarm is set, I would have to go and turn the key to acc, or the thing starts honking. Let me know if you want a scanned copy of that manual though, just for information purposes. (that includes anyone else too) indigent.

I assume you are talking about the white(ish) round connector on the passenger side of the tranny. No it doesn't come out. Your best bet is to butt splice those wires. I know when you pull the pan down that you can see the other ends of those wires, but I tried and gave up on getting them out. Go get yourself some heatshrink and some splices and crimp them back together (having put the heatshrink on *first* of course ) indigent.

Well that's 2:1 for TC to flexplate first. I hadn't really thought of turning the crank until it lined up the splines. I sure do wish there were an easier way! Thanks for the tips guys. indigent.

Well, after much frustration I finally got it. I had tried taking the TC off of the tranny and bolting it to the flywheel, but then it was too hard to get onto the spline shaft. So I put the TC back on the tranny. I ended up sticking a small screwdriver through one of the bolt holes in the flywheel into the TC to semi line it up. I was then able to wiggle the tranny into place after much frustration. Then the bolt holes were pretty much dead on. I just needed a slight bit of adjustment, then all was ok. I know it seems like a stupid question, but I was just wondering what everyone else does; other than the obvious "just stick it up there and bolt it together" comments, of course. I am going to be doing one more install at some point in the future, so It would be nice to hear everyone's tips/tricks. Thanks, Indigent.

I recently picked up a second pathy on the cheap. It has a bad torque converter. Since my red one has a blown connecting rod bearing on the #6, I decided to take its tranny and put it into the newly acquired pathy. Everything has gone wonderfully so far. I have dropped both trannies, and have the replacement in place. Here is the problem: How do you get it mated up? I have tried for the past 2 days. I can't see the nub on the torque converter to get it into the hole on the flywheel. Anyone have any tranny install advice? Thanks, indigent.

depending on how far off the timing *might* be, you could rotate all of the wires around on the distributor. i.e. take the #1 wire and put it on #2, #2 to #3 and so on. if that doesn't work, keep doing it. until you notice some improvement. Also, each time you rotate the wires, keep the distributor lock bolt loose so you can rotate the distributor as well to play with it a bit too. If you find that it starts after you rotated the wires, your distributor is definitely off a few teeth. If it is, just find TDC on #1 and pull the distributor out and make it look like the pic above, remembering that when you push down on the distributor, the rotor will turn as it is inserted. The teeth are spiraled on the shaft, so if you just line up the rotor with the #1 firing position, after you have pushed the distributor all the way down, the rotor will have turned counter clockwise some. also, it sounds simple, but check to make sure you have the right wires going to the right places. I had an old pontiac grand am a long time ago, and I had changed the plug wires, but didn't put them back to the right cylinders. hehe. indigent.

Well, For the last few days I have just said screw it. I finally went out there today and the radiator was low so I put some more coolant in, and it just started circulating. I guess there was just some air trapped or something. I literally didn't to anything to fix it! I love it when that kind of stuff happens. Thanks for all of the suggestions. Indigent.

Well, I had both heads off and everything else that goes along with head removal. I did not take the thermostat out. no visible kinks or any other hose damage. indigent.

If you say there were wires burning, I would check continuity on everything I could get my meter on. I would start at the control wire harness that goes to the coil. I would also trace out the wires that go to that burnt main relay. If the wires that power the coil of that relay are toast, the relay contacts wont operate. Also, go along those wire harnesses and try to bend them. If they break, they are probably cooked.

none comes out just from removing the screw, but if I squeeze on the upper radiator hose some does come out. If the thermostat is stuck, how do I un-stick it? Like I said, I have never had a coolant issue on this before I pulled everything apart. I can feel that resistance on the water pump impeller when I rotate it, so I assume the pump is OK. Is there something else I am missing? I filled it up with the engine cool and then cranked it and filled it some more. None is leaking out, there is just no flow. indigent.

Yes I did crack the bleed screw. It warmed up fully, and then started to overheat. Is there a way to start the pump manually to verify it's operation? Like I said though, I am pretty sure I have a coolant line on wrong or something simple, but there doesn't seem to be any info on it. A buddy of mine from work has a 91 truck with a vg30e in it, so I am going to take some pics of his engine and cross-check them with how mine is setup now. Hate to say it, but I actually hope I find something wrong. hehe. Any other ideas? thanks. Indigent.