Slartibartfast

Before you measure from the tires, lift a wheel off the ground, give it a spin, and watch the tread where you're hoping to measure from--and see if it wavers back and forth. I adjusted mine quite a few times before realizing that the measurements kept changing because the tread wasn't perfectly straight on the tire!

Nice when it's simple!

My limited understanding of airbags is that there's just a thin filament inside that fries when the computer puts power to it, setting off the charge. I've seen pictures of people using resistors across the airbag plug to fool the computer into thinking it's plugged into a detonator. Zero ohms on the bags suggests you probably could get away with just twisting wires together, but I'd worry that in the event of a crash, those dead shorts might blow fuses or sap the power that should be setting off the other bags. There might be a safer way... then again, you're tampering with a safety system that can't be tested because it's made of bombs, so I'm not sure there is a safe way of doing that. I don't tend to respect "do not tamper" stickers but I'd also rather not discover, after running into something, that my passenger got hurt because my Red Green solution screwed up the SRS. As much as I hate to say "ermagherd do it right," I'd be looking for a set of seats with bombs in them. ... that said, I think it's just the seat back that has the bomb in it, and I'm guessing the bottom of the seat took most of the elephant damage. I don't know how hard it is to get R50 seats apart but I'll bet you could swap the seat backs from the elephant-damaged lowers to the nice lowers. Might even be able to swap covers & foam on the uppers if they're roached too (though I don't know if the later covers were sewn different to allow an airbag to bust through).

Welcome to the pain of pretty much every forum there is since Photobucket went sideways.

Evap leak can be anything from a torn filler hose to the evap valves getting flaky to the gas cap not screwed on right. Personally I'd ignore it until you've got the other issues figured out. I'd be surprised if it was related to the MAF cleaning. Any improvement from a clean MAF?

I think your engine has allergies.

Is the power mode switch on? That'll delay upshifts. Lower gear, higher revs.

No way is it the alternator. If it runs fine once it's going, you can rule out compression and probably the fuel filter too (though if you're gonna shotgun parts at it, fuel filters are cheap). I'd expect a leaky fill tube to throw evap codes (though if you can get a new part under warranty, do it anyway). Vac lines are cheap and can't hurt, though I'd expect a vac leak to be a constant issue, not an intermittent one. I'd be surprised if it was the fuel relay, though I have to say it's not out of the question... if the fuel pump isn't getting power, the engine would die once the fuel pressure left in the lines drained down. I'd try to start it with the fuel pump fuse out and see if it starts and stalls like what it's been doing. I'd be surprised if that was it, but it can't hurt to rule out. I have read about an issue where a bad IACV fries part of the ECU (I'm assuming you've got the 3.5), which then can't drive a new IACV to make the engine run right. But then I'd expect it to idle poorly all the time, not just stall on startup, so that doesn't make sense either. Intermittent issues really are a PITA.

Hopefully the MAF cleaning helps! Take your time and be gentle, it's not a hard job but it's not a cheap part. According to this writeup (minus pics unfortunately because Photobucket), the plugs aren't too bad to get to, so I'd start there. If the plug wells turn out to be full of oil, then yeah, the gaskets may have a problem; also, oil-filled spark plug wells can apparently cause a misfire, so you might kill two birds with one stone there. (No idea on cost, sorry.) If the wells are fine, leave the gaskets alone and move on to checking other things. If I found oil in the plugs near the oil filler, I'd clean it out, put it back together, and take it apart again after a while to see if the oil had returned (leakage) or if it was just there because you spilled while filling it. I assume there's some kind of o-ring on the injector to prevent outside spills from getting in (to keep dirt out if nothing else) but like I said, I haven't had a VQ to bits. I assume a mechanic would consider the smoke test diagnostic time, and just bill you for how long it took--but I've never had one done so I wouldn't know. If the mechanic has to take the intake apart (which I assume is required to get to the covers), you might as well have the power valve screws loctited at the same time. Some people have had those back out and fall in. Small amount of added work that could prevent trouble down the road.

The MAF is the thing between the air filter box and the rubber pipe going to the throttle body. It's delicate, so be careful with it. You can get spray MAF cleaner, but really any cleaner that doesn't leave a residue will work. I cleaned mine with alcohol and the corner of a rag in a hotel parking garage once and it turned out alright. There's probably a how-to on Youtube somewhere. I haven't wrenched on a VQ so I don't know all of what's in your way. I wouldn't worry too much about a little oil on the coil packs. If you pull them and the plug wells have a bunch of oil in them, either you spill more than you think or the seals between the spark plug wells and the valve covers aren't doing their jobs. Either way, not the end of the world.

Honestly if it didn't sit for, like, ten years, in a swamp, and start having fuel pressure issues just after you got it going again, the tank's probably fine. A year or less shouldn't hurt much of anything. That said, fuel filters are cheap, and you could cut the old one open and see if there's anything caught in it. None of the fuel filters I've opened up had much of anything in them. You could also pull the fuel pump and look down into the tank with a flashlight to see if there's crap in there that shouldn't be. Vac leaks can be a real pain to track down. I'm not sure about ringing, but a whistle could be a vac leak. You could track down a vacuum routing diagram and just follow each line (as far as you can), or hook it up to a smoke machine, which makes smoke pour out of any openings that aren't supposed to be there. If you suspect you've found the leak, you can spray a little carb cleaner at that spot to see if the engine idle increases. You might also take a look at your MAF sensor. A dirty MAF will tell the computer there's less air flow than there is, again causing a lean condition. If you can do the plugs yourself, you could always just pull a plug, look at it to see if it's obviously worn out or fouled, and then put it back if it's not.

What fluid are you running? I know Honda pumps don't work right without their own eleven-herbs-and-spices PSF, maybe GM's the same way. I know both of my friend's 4.3-powered rigs leak take PSF rather than the ATF the WD21 specs. Or, like you said, could just be a flow thing; maybe the Saginaw box that pump was built for has bigger guts and requires greater volume but lower pressure than the Nissan box. I read on here that 94+ OE pumps were better, looks like you found that thread too. I got curious and had a look at some FSMs to see what the power steering pressure is supposed to be. Full lock, engine idling: '89 Pathy: 1,109-1,194 PSI '95 Pathy: 1,109-1,194 PSI '97 Pathy: 1,251-1,337 PSI '01 Xterra: 1,095-1,209 PSI '03 Pathy: 1,251-1,337 PSI Interesting that '89 and '95 are the same, given the other thread. Maybe they differ in flow, which I see no mention of in the manual. Either way, looks like an R50 pump should be an upgrade. Might even come with a ribbed pulley to match the serp I assume your 4.3l is running. Looking at this thread on Pirate, I'm also seeing some Saginaw P-boxes with higher numbers.

The truck doesn't know what the parts cost! So long as the parts are decent (and it sounds like lots of Jeepers run Neapcos) it should be fine. Good call doing both while it's out. +1 for carnage, though; I remember one guy did his wrong (some problem with the clips IIRC) and had the shaft come loose at speed. A flailing driveshaft next to an aluminum transfer case is not what sweet dreams are made of. Go slow, double-check everything before bolting it back in.

Sticky grey schmoo, looks like it's coming from behind the door card? That's not from the PO, that's the gunk Nissan used to stick some kind of vapor guard in behind the door cards. It gets old, it gets hot, it gets runny, and then it comes out to say hello.

Burning oil may be fouling plugs. Coils should be unaffected; also, the ECU should code if a coil is failing. Oil can leak past loose gaskets just like it can leak past shot ones, so it's possible your mechanic wanted to double-check the last guy's work. A fuel filter bad in a year is unlikely, unless there's rust or other junk in the tank. (The bracket should have no effect.) Unless the truck sat for a long time with gas in the tank, or you replaced the filter because the last one clogged up, I doubt the filter is your problem. Though a clogged filter could certainly cause a lean burn, I'd expect the ECU to code for that (though I don't know the R50 ECU well). If you suspect a lean condition, I'd have a look around for bad vac lines or intake gaskets (and the rubber pipe from the engine to the air filter box). I'm also not sure I'd trust your OBD whatsit over the factory ECU--it could be kicking out the lean warning when you're engine braking and the ECU cuts fuel. When you pull the plugs, take a look at the ends of them; if the truck is running lean, the plugs will be white. That said... my dad had an '03. No visible leaks. Sucked down a quart every 1k (so he was adding oil weekly). Smoked like a mofo on warm starts, but never any other time. He too ran synthetic, but only because the smoke was less dense on synth than it was on dino. Had the PCV changed, didn't seem to change anything. Might've been rings, might've been valve seals, we never tore into it to find out. He sold it to a guy who had a rebuilt 3.5 ready to go. Strangely enough, it never seemed down on power.

"Dude, why's your living room so dark?" "Hit a deer and had to put my chandelier back on the truck."

Yeah, Photobucket used to be decent, like, five years ago. Then they went to crap. Then they wanted $400/year for that same crap. There are other hosts around that aren't crap. I need to set up an account with one of them one of these days.

Shouldn't matter at all. The only way I know to get a driveshaft out of sync is to pull it apart at the splined bit in the middle and reassemble with the yokes at either end not lined up properly.

I have read that topping off puts gas into the evap system. Also that the charcoal can is great at handling gas vapor, not so great with liquid gas.

Hmm. Three in a row is a pretty good indicator that it's not the starter itself. You might be onto something with the wiring. Normally ignition switch power activates the solenoid, and the solenoid drives the pinion into mesh and then closes the contacts that connect power to the starter motor itself. If the wire from the switch is on the wrong lug, it could be running the starter motor itself, with the pinion disengaged. Maybe the gearing inside the starter motor is just that noisy. Definitely trace it out and make sure it's wired right. I have no idea how the wiring would've gotten screwed up while the truck sat, though, and I'd be a little surprised that the ignition switch or its wiring hadn't gone up in smoke. Even at no load, starter motors are thirsty little blighters. If you do end up pulling it again, you might try putting a dab of some kind of grease paint (like what you use to set ring and pinion clearance) on the flexplate ring gear, so that the next time you take it apart, you can see if the paint has transferred to the starter motor pinion (indicating engagement). And hey, you're developing a very specialized skill! When you come out the other side of this you could make literally tens of dollars with a Youtube video of the fastest way to do it.

I can see why you're at a loss! It sounds like the starter is engaging, and the rising/falling gear whine suggests that it's doing work. But if the starter's not spinning the crank pulley (I can't see in the video but I assume this is the case, given what you've tried so far), either the crank's not moving or crank snout picked a very odd time to shear off, and if you turned it over by hand and the crank pulley didn't wobble around like it wasn't connected to anything, the crankshaft's not the problem. That leaves the starter and the flexplate. If it's the starter, my guess would be the sprag (one-way) clutch in the pinion. If the shop that tested your old one just did an electrical test, they could've missed this. I'd expect your replacement to have sorted this out, but if it's reman, maybe they didn't test the clutch in that one, either. That said, when the sprag went on my '95, it made a godawful metal-on-metal shrieking noise entirely unlike your noise. So the other option is that the ring gear has separated from the flex plate. That would require eight (I think) separate welds failing. I haven't heard of a Pathfinder having flexplate issues, though I have heard of other vehicles' ring gears breaking up or even falling off when a built-up engine backfires while starting or if there's something horribly wrong with the flexplate. Maybe if your trans went with a bang rather than a whimper it could've warped the flexplate enough to crack the welds, but I'd be surprised. What I'd do is drop the starter again and put a paint pen mark on both the ring gear and the inner part of the flexplate, and then see if you can shift the ring gear on its own with a screwdriver. If that checks out, put the starter back on and try to crank it again, then pull the starter again and inspect. If the paint marks separated, the flexplate's hooped. If the marks didn't separate, but stayed where you put them (suggesting the flexplate as a whole didn't turn), that suggests you got a bad starter.

+1 on the startup ticking being fairly normal on these. Also makes sense that it should be ticking like crazy if it truly has no pressure at idle--and it certainly wouldn't have survived a year of driving with no pressure. Hopefully the pressure test clears things up and it's just bad wiring or a bad gauge rather than the bearings or pump being on their way out. For reference, the 89 manual suggests at least 9 psi at idle and 67 psi at 3200 rpm with the engine warm. (The 94/95 manual lowered the 3200 rpm spec from 67 to 65, for some reason.)

U joint on the front driveshaft sounds likely to me. Unless you've replaced the factory drive flanges with manual hubs, the front diff/cvs/driveshaft spin whenever the truck moves, even though the transfer's not putting any power to it. If the driveshaft itself feels okay, I'd jack up the front end so the wheels are off the ground and then spin the whole front driveline by hand to see if you can replicate the noise. Try spinning it from the driveshaft, from the wheels, just screw around with it and see if you can make it make the noise. Use jackstands, obviously. If you can make it make the noise, you should be able to track it down.

I felt about the same when it came time to part out my '95. A few parts went to members here, most of its interior went into my '93, and I sold the carcass to a guy who wanted the engine for his Pathy, so at least a few of the parts live on. Lights in good shape should be worth something. TBI parts are probably hard enough to get ahold of that someone on here would be interested. Sorry for your loss, and good luck with the partout.

Count the splines on both trucks to make sure they're the same before you bother trying to rebuild things. Some are 27 spline, some are 28, and I don't remember when the cutoff was. Grab the hub bolts, too, as they're probably different. Not sure what to tell you on the plastics, but I would not be too surprised if the metal parts were still good. I've pulled parts off cars that had been half-submerged on a riverbank for forty years (redneck erosion control) and came apart easier than my road-salt-damaged '95. My only worry would be that the rotten plastics could've let the rest of the hub fill with water and fester. Might not be as much of a problem in AZ, but I'd be prepared for the hub guts to be frozen to the CV shaft, or the spring inside to be rusted up and brittle (assuming the OE hubs are built like my Mile Markers). If a Nissan dealer can get you a rebuild kit, you may be able to replace the parts that would be most sensitive to rust. I don't see one on factorynissanparts.com, just whole hubs at $330 each but there may be something out there.