88pathoffroad

How do you know that QS was causing glazing on the internals? Wierd, man.

AC has a history for alienating people, terrible customer service, terrible delivery time(delays, delays, and more delays), and terribly high pricing. They sell many items you can get elsewhere for much less. I hear SLR has some probs with delivery time too, but they also don't make much at all for Pathfinders.

You mean fog lights or driving lights, I presume. Short and sweet...to wire in new lights, you will need to: 1. Mount the lights securely in their new permanent positions. 2. Attach the black wires of the new lights securely to a solid metal ground(the mounting point of the lights themselves, or any nearby grounding point), or you can run ground wires back up into the engine compartment to the battery's negative post directly. Do not ground the lights to a painted surface. If need be, scrape or wire brush the paint off. 2. Run new wiring from the lights into the engine compartment to a relay which is connected to the positive post of the battery. 3. Run a "trigger wire" from the relay into the cab of the vehicle. 4. Place a new switch inside the cab of the vehicle. 5. Run a new 12V+ ignition-on-only wire to the switch. The main power lead from the battery to the relay must have an inline fuse on it of no more than 15 amps or so. Generally, a 10 amp fuse is enough for two standard 55W lights. The "trigger wire", which turns on the relay(in turn feeding power to the lights), will need to be run through your firewall or around your doorjam(you choose, but having an exposed wire in your doorjam is kind of unsightly, plus it could possibly get nicked and short out) to a switch inside the cab of your vehicle. Placement of the relay and the switch is up to you. The reason you need to use a relay is: the relay feeds power directly to the lights from the battery by means of an internal electromagnetic switch. The electromagnetic switch takes very little power to turn on. The lights take a lot of amperage to turn on. If you wire the lights to be fed directly from the new switch inside your truck, the switch will heat up and generally tends to burn out or seize up, because it's internal contacts are a point of high voltage resistance. There is also the matter of voltage drop over distance. If you feed 12V into the end of a ten foot long 14 guage wire, you'll get only 11V on the other end. The resistance of the wire causes a voltage drop, which in turn will reduce the output of the lights. Using a relay allows you to offer the new lights power in a direct path from the battery, with little or no voltage drop and very little resistance. You'll need to run another wire from the switch's "source" or "+ input" over to your fuse panel and attach the new wire to a blank 12V+ slot in the panel. There should be an inline fuse on the wire as well(on the switch's input wire). A small fuse(10A) will be fine. This way, the lights will only work when the ignition is in the "On" position and there's no chance you might forget to turn off your lights. The "output" or "accessory" tab of the new switch should have the relay trigger wire attached to it. When people half-arse install their lights and don't use fuses or relays properly, they often end up having nice little wiring fires under their dash or inside the engine compartment. Not a good thing. Here's a link that helps explain some stuff for you. http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/relays/relays.html

I have no idea on the ABS question, but I would think that the wiring would be the same. *shrug* Fair price on a 97-00 Pathfinder axle? Meh. I haven't priced any newer parts like that, but an axle from an older Pathy would prolly fetch $200 minimum, and you'd have to pull it off the wreck yourself. A newer axle would probably be three or four times that much, considering that a brand new one from Nissan will run into the thousands.

Absolute crap. It's a myth. If an engine starts leaking, it's because the seals are old and shot or it's been abused or overreved, and that's the only reason. It's completely safe to use synthetic oil in your Pathfinder. Your Pathfinder engine probably won't even leak past the 120,000 mile mark.

I highly doubt you'll get 5 HP simply from a TB spacer on the 3.3, but hey, do what you like. On the air filter/intake: JWT Pop-Charger, or K&N, or Stillen, or make your own. So far, there are no headers made by anyone for the 3.3 or 3.5L Pathfinder. Cat-back exhausts are available from Borla and Flowmaster, I believe. Do a Google search and start looking, you'll find something. You could try Stillen for swaybars, but I don't know if they make any for Pathfinders. Are you looking for upgraded swaybars, or replacements, or what? Rear disc conversion...well, if you found another 96-99 Pathy with rear discs in the junkyard, you could presumably swap all the parts over, or the whole rear diff, if the gear ratio is a match for yours. Nobody's done a disc conversion as far as I know, but several people with 90-95 Pathfinders have simply swapped the rear axle from an SE Pathfinder into their XE. Pretty easy bolt-on job.

The transmission control unit is in the rear of the Pathfinder behind the plastic wall panels on the passenger's side.

I finally got really tired of hearing the tires rub the fenders when offroading and around corners, so today I trimmed my fenders again. This time I didn't waste any time, I just cut some nice large chunks off the fenders and inside the wheelwell up on the firewall. I also trimmed the fender flares and front lower radiator airdam fairly heavily. Here, have some pics. Before touching anything. Slight bit of trimming behind the tire at the rear of the fenderwell, but nothing really spectacular. Removed fender flare. Note the bent fender sheetmetal at the rear due to the tire contacting it. Cut off triangular pieces from fenders, also took off firewall lip inside fenderwell where the tire comes closest when the suspension is compressed. Pic of the trimmed firewall lip: highlighted with yellow. I've also trimmed the plastic inner fenderwell liner where the tire was rubbing. Fender flare reinstalled, cut to match fender in front, kinda screwed up at the rear in this pic, but I've since fixed it. ...and what was left over when I was done. The things I gotta do to run 33's with no rubbing... Bring on the 35's!!

STEVE! :o Wake up, man! *smack* You're having delusions or something! I don't think I could ever find ANYTHING about bikini'd girls offensive. Sheesh. Look, if you can see it at the beach or in the swimming pool, it's OK to see anywhere else. Janet Jackson's boob notwithstanding.

*snort* Keru, it really depends on what you want, how much you can spend on it, and how you want it built. There is no one and only way to tell you how to do this! It is a completely custom, one-of-a-kind project for each person that wants to have it done. If you want to spend $10000 on a new Dynatrac front axle with a five-link setup, crossover Heim steering, and all new parts, that's your choice. If you want to use a Dana 44 axle from an old Jeep Wagoneer, put it on leaf springs and try to work the bugs out, that's also up to you. Each person has their own preferences and way they want to do it. Myself, I might go with a Bronco D44 with Chevy spindles so the wheel lug pattern matches, custom 2" Heim joint radius arms, and tall coils with dual shocks. But that's just me.

Is your wife going to be a calendar girl, Jim?

I have no idea, but it's doubtful. Take out one of the springs and measure it.

I had pics taken of some Stars girls washing my Pathfinder, all soapy and wet, on the roof...in bikinis... The Stars people never gave me copies, though.

Yup. The M9000 costs $1000 or so, usually.

Hmmm, sounds like something came unplugged under the dash somewhere. I've never heard of this particular problem. By the way, you REALLY need to resize your Pathfinder picture. It took 7-10 seconds to load JUST your picture on this page, and I have a cable modem. The picture size is approximately 1,233,000 bytes...should be more like 20,000. Tops. Thanks.

Does your brush guard have a winch tray in it? Look into the center of the guard behind the center bar, just above the bumper. Is there a flat plate inside between both side plates with holes drilled in it? That's where a winch goes.

The A/T computer in mine is behind the wall panel on the passenger's side in the rear somewhere. I think. Heh. Try simply disconnecting your battery's positive lead for 5 minutes, then reconnecting it. I hope you're ready for a lot of work, the tranny pan won't come off that thing unless you drop the exhaust as well, because the pan won't clear the exhaust crossover pipe. Rusty bolts are not your friend in this regard. Just so you know.

On the alternator note, you can use a Nissan Quest alternator as a near direct replacement for the weak stock Pathy alternator. The Quest alternator is a 110 amp unit(I think). I can get one from my local junkyard for $50 to $75. I've been thinking about checking out these winches from Harbor Freight, actually. It may be cheap, but it's brand new and should perform decently if well taken care of. At least Chicago Tools has a warranty if you should break it. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Disp...temnumber=40764

It'll probably help, yes. Also, remember to keep your tire pressures up. A low tire can rob you of MPG as well. Another thing...wintertime formulated gas and low temps make for lower gas mileage also.

THIS is why I hate the VG30 engine series. When something makes it run funny, NOBODY CAN FIGURE OUT WHAT'S WRONG WITH THEM! -mad-

Try some Bilsteins or Ranchos instead? Stiffer shocks seem to me to be a good way to control wobbly suspension feel. Cheap shocks are soft and will allow more movement.

D'oh! Dammit! Mine is starting to give me some real frustrating problems, too. Sputtering when stepping on the gas, overall lack of power, low gas mileage, etc. I like the Chevy 350 idea better and better each time I think about it.

So you're saying you found a VG30E as a replacement for your VG30i but don't know if it will work or not? Man, you gotta start using periods in your writing. It's not a direct swap, no. The intake and FI setup are all different, and at the very least you'd have to swap all the TBI stuff over from your old engine to get it to work, unless you wanted to swap engine computers and transmission computer(if it's an automatic). I don't think they made 2WD-specific engines, so they should be very nearly the same. I really can't comment on the crank length or keyway issue, cause I don't know. Sorry. Lots of luck, man! I hope you get it going soon.

The plastic tube that's being referred to is the intake pipe that goes between the air cleaner box and the throttlebody on top of the intake on your engine. Since the FAQ post is referring to the TBI on 87-89 VG30i engines, this doesn't apply to your '97, which is a completely different setup. It couldn't hurt to try the same procedure, though. 1. Remove plastic intake pipe from throttlebody with engine off(preferably cold, too). You may need to remove it from the air cleaner box end. 2. Spray carb/throttlebody cleaner through throttlebody, opening and closing the butterfly by hand using the throttle cable pivot, making sure to clean the front AND back side of the butterfly as best you can. Try not to spray the entire can into the engine. 3. Reattach the intake pipe and run the engine for a while, revving occasionally. The excess cleaner should burn off after a short time. Hope that helps.

Mwuahahahahaha, my point exactly!