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heres my new 1994 its WAY faster than my 95 with the motor issues. is this more normal?

went through a thick mudhole today. like cake batter. on the way down the hill the motor got real hot, not overheated too bad, but certainly hot. sprayed out the radiator to get the mud out, runs cool now, BUT the fan is locked up, like, on all the time. turn the motor off and you cant turn the fan. did mud get in there? how do I fix it?

they tested the battery at the same time, its good. they tested the alt at the battery and say its not putting anything out.

brought it home after a day of duning. put it on the charger and the battery is half dead. GRRRRRRRRR! last ditch effort here, how do I just manually wire the alternator? I did one in my racevan (long story) we ran a wire to the battery, one to a ground and another to a switch on the dash to turn it on and off. that was a 350 small block though. can I do that to this one?

got the new alternator in. hopefully it works. I dont know how to test it with a multimeter at the battery apparently, as I am still only getting like 13.3 volts running or not. putting it in was easier, my 9 yr old son helped, and he has skinnier arms for getting that top bolt on the backside. PAIN IN THE @SS!!

got the alternator out. big wire covered with a boot bolted on the back, a plug, and a small ground wire, BUT I also noticed that theres a flat ground wire dangling from the frame rail right there that could reach the alternator, but was not attached anywhere. where does this go? took the alt to the parts house for bench testing and its spins up just fine, but when electrical load is applied it generated so much drag it blew the breaker on the machine, twice! so i'm getting a new alternator, free! lemme know about that ground strap though. if its supposed to be grounded to the alt or what. thanks in advance!

actually thats where we started. My grandpa taught me that a long time ago with my nissan 200sx which had 8 spark plugs. he was showing me how, nothing was changing, then he was like, "OH! theres 2 plugs per cylinder!" pulled both plugs, one cylinder at a time and the furthest one made no change at all. turned out to be a bad injector. easy fix! the pathfinder however changes drastically when each plug is pulled. so its an across the board sputter that is not isolated to only one cylinder.

cleaned the MAF sensor. totally gooped over any visible surface cracks on the air intake. gooped the metal fittings that go into the air intake. no whistle, still runs rough.

took it to the parts house. had it tested in the truck. they say the alt is bad. showed the paperwork. its a lifetime warranty part. so now I gotta pull it and have them bench test it to determine if its the alt or the wiring. any tips or tricks in removing the alternator?

yeah I have the papers on it

turns out parts guy was mistaken. he does NOT have an air intake tube "on the shelf" he suggested looking in the junkyards. lol, yeah, like those arent cracked too. looks like I'll be spending the night alone, just me, an intake tube and a bunch of Goop adhesive, trying to seal any visible cracks.

yeah, its not the dome light. pretty sure of that there ARE a whole mess of wires we cut back in the hind end. I should check those and tape them all up. If I charge the battery overnight till its topped off I can run all day on the dunes no problem, but only about 30 mins of running headlights and its dead! alternator is only a year old. as is the battery. seems like the last owners were battling the same problem perhaps? I noticed if I leave the battery connected it drains overnight just sitting in the driveway. it did that BEFORE we cut the roof off. there doesnt seem to be anything easy about this truck. lol!

battery dies all the time. volt meter at the battery says 13.3 while running. (shouldnt it be around 14.4?) suggestions?

oh, it's definitely a project. we got it as a wreck at a dealership for $395. though it doesnt have a salvage title, it was sold to us for parts or salvage cause the thing was not at all street legal when they sold it to us, and dealerships arent allowed to sell vehicles like this. it's been a work in progress finding whats wrong with the motor. we wrench on it a lil here and there. it still runs and drives and we have fun with it. but theres some hills out there we really want to go up, and we cant. probably couldnt even if they were paved! (previous post) I mentioned earlier that I twisted the intake tube and it made the whistling go away. well, it's back! grrrrr. so I looked closely and theres tiny cracks, but light doesnt go through. its a $20 part, screw it. I'm gonna get a new one and see what happens!

well I have a smoke machine used for halloween, you now, dance club style. dont think that will work though. lol

what kind of smoke machine? where do I get one? runs rough all the time, cold or hot. We checked the timing, and its right on the mark.

I think I'll start posting pictures of all the loose connectors I am finding everywhere under the hood. maybe that will help? lol

oh, forgot to mention that. in an earlier post I talked about how we changed the plugs, wires, cap, rotor, fuel filter, set the timing, and adjusted the idle. we pulled one plug at a time checking each one for spark, all were working properly. pulled one plug wire at a time and a noticeable change occurred. so it has fuel and air and ignition in all cylinders. the catalytic converters were getting hot and stinky. so I removed them thinking that may have been the problem. nope. its like a miss, or sputter. but its not a steady rythmic or pulsing miss. its random, yet constantly there. it has no low end power. it bogs down so bad climbing hills its ridiculous. sometimes the CEL comes on. but when I check the code its 55 "no error"

today I did the seafoam treatment. sucked 1/3 bottle through the pcv valve, 1/3 in the oilpan, 1/3 in the tank (1/4 tank of gas) drove it up and down the freeway, changed the oil. no noticeable difference. I took the big intake tube off and checked it for cracks. none that I could see. got a can of throttle body cleaner. sprayed the throttle body, and replaced the pcv hose, and a hose coming off the intake tube. used the rest of the can spraying all over all the vacuum lines that I could see, in an attempt to notice any change in idle but no change. it had a whistling from one of the inlets on the throttle body tube. I stopped the whistling noise by twisting the tube so the inlet was at a different angle. no change in idle. stumped again... I did notice on the mass air flow sensor plug theres three wires on the plug, and a mare metal wire just dangling there. no plug on the end, no insulation on the thin wire. where is this supposed to go?

I took the topless to get an alignment. and since I bought it as a wrecked truck I had them check it top to bottom for damaged parts. I dont wanna be going 50 and have a tie rod snap off or something! first off the torsion bars were indexed and cranked all the way up causing the alignment to be way off. they put it back to stock ride height. they got it all within specs and checked out the whole undercarriage and its all rock solid and in good repair. EXCEPT: he said it has a bracket for a steering stabilizer, but there isnt one installed. is that normal? or....what? flat towing it went better, but it still follows the ruts somewhat. is that cause of the lack of a stabilizer?

I'll post a side picture soon so you all can see how it sits. its lower in the back, and it seems to rub more back there. springs? and yep, pretty certain these arent the alloy option wheels!

I noticed today the sticker on the door says the stock tire size is 31x10.5x15 which is what I have. but why do the tires rub the fenders every now and then? I thought 31's were bigger than stock, till I saw the sticker.

so, my drivers side sun-visor was always falling down in my face. I didnt see anywhere on here, or other places how to fix it, other than replacing it. must be a common problem cause theres no visors in any of the pathys at the junkyard. so today, in a fit of rage I fixed the problem, permanently! #1. let the visor flop down to a vertical position. #2. pop it out of the retainer clip on the ceiling. #3 YANK the sucker straight down. It snaps off the hinge with a satisfying crunch sound. #4 toss it in the back seat. it hasnt flopped in my face since. problem solved!! hope this thread helps

thats on the to-do list. but I really didnt enjoy my one "hood deep" mud hole trip. If I'm sitting in a bathtub full of mud, I better be at a spa somewhere. lol at this point it would only be because I could easily hose it out after a play day.

got it back from suspicious mechanic. they claimed to discover that a few of the plug wires werent clicked on all the way. they also said the air filter was dirty. and still swear the whistling noise I hear is a vacuum leak from between the intake manifold/heads. it still runs rough. it just has a lil more spunk while running rough. if it felt like it was running on 3 cylinders before. it feels like its running on 4 now. lol bill $200 grrrrrrrrr.