Slartibartfast

Sounds like it had the SMOD already, so good to know that's out of the way (I'd still bypass the cooler in the rad). I have no direct experience with the R51 but a family friend had both and liked the R50 better--don't remember why specifically. I'd say unless there's something you really like about the R51 vs the R50, or the R50's starting to crap out for whatever reason, stick with what you know.

I'd rather have vines than mice!

If the halogens work, you have power and ground to the socket. No need to screw with the circuit. LEDs shouldn't draw more power than the halogens that were there. Like K9SAR said, you've probably got the bulbs in backwards. If you want to test the LEDs, take a couple of jumper leads (or wire scraps, whatever) and test the bulb straight from the battery. If it doesn't light, reverse polarity. If it still doesn't light, there's something wrong with the bulb. If the bulb does light, try it in the fog socket again, see if it works, turn it around if it doesn't.

Sudden onset is interesting. Any codes? Any loss of coolant? Hopefully it's something simple, I hear you about not wanting to wrench when it's that cold out. It's nowhere near that cold here and I'm still putting things off until it warms up.

I didn't put my return line in a bucket of fresh fluid and it doesn't sound like Adam did either. I think I jammed a spark plug in mine so it wouldn't drip on the floor. I spring-clamped the "out" line to an empty bucket, started the engine, let it run until old tranny fluid quit squirting out, then shut the engine off and poured fresh fluid in through the dipstick tube. The pump was only "dry" for the ten seconds or so it took me to walk around the door and turn the key. If you've opened a gear case, you know that even after you drain it, there's still a lot of oil clinging to things--evidently enough to sustain the internals for ten seconds of idling under no load. I repeated the process until I was out of fresh fluid, then plumbed the coolers back in. My trans still works fine. So does my friend's Blazer that got the same treatment. The only real difficulty on either job was getting the fluid level right afterwards. I guesstimated and ended up draining some out (gotta love that drain plug). On my friend's rig, we used quart jugs instead of a bucket, which gave us a pretty good indication of how much fluid to add. Just gotta keep track as you go. Back to the OP's issue... That's a weird one. While a fluid flush probably won't hurt, I would be very surprised if it fixed the problem on its own, and hesitant to put $50 worth of fluid in it until I was sure I wouldn't be draining it out again to service something inside. I am of course assuming that the fluid's at the proper level and that it's not black with chunks in it. Maybe a check valve or something is sticking and flushing some gunk out would free it up... but this sounds electrical to me. The TCU locks into second when it thinks there's something wrong, and if you check out the AT section of the service manual, there's a procedure to read what the TCU thinks is wrong from the flashing light in the E-AT switch. I would start there. If that tells you nothing, or what it tells you doesn't help, then yeah, I think I'd be looking at the TCU next.

The rings are what wrap around the piston to seal between it and the cylinder. A broken ring may have caused the grooves, but not likely the knock. How deep are the grooves? Con rod bearings are what go between the crankshaft and the end of the connecting rod. Normally, the bearing slides on a thin layer of oil that fills the tiny gap between it and the crankshaft. When that gap between gets too big, the oil just piddles out, and the crank and the con rod start to beat the crap out of each other because they're loose. The more they rattle around, the more the bearing gets hogged out, and the worse the knock gets. The ECU should pick this up via the knock sensor and de-tune the motor so that you can hopefully limp it home before the rod fails. If you keep flogging it, sooner or later the rod comes loose and goes all Kool-Aid Man through your block or your oil pan. Unless you're up for a challenge and the damage to the cylinder wall is slight, I would be looking for a motor.

Backwards cable ain't good. IIRC there's a safety relay that should've protected most things. First thing I'd check are the fuse links hanging off the + battery terminal--the plugs with a loop of wire that goes out of the harness and then right back in again.

That's what I'm going for. I'll put some road flares and an aid kit in there just in case, and maybe one of those window smasher/seatbelt cutter things. Could be a good place for the tow strap, too. I think it's this critter. It's a pretty small unit, and modified sine so some things won't run on it, but for the price it's nice to have around.

They moved the fill hole up a little in '96 from what I've read, so if the rig is later than that or has already burned up a trans and had a later one swapped in, no overfill is necessary. Otherwise, plan on overfilling it. I haven't heard of stabilizers being used or needed in manual transmissions, and without knowing what's in it, I'd have reservations about mixing it into new oil.

Yep. A bad fuel filter should show up most when you're using the most fuel--so it would have issues when you get on the power. How much fuel was in the tank, and how much injector stuff did you add?

Cut and welded. Let's test-fit this thing. (The yellow bundle is the power feed for the inverter.) It fits pretty well, I think. Next up, I figure out the cup holders and start building forward towards the dash. I'm not quite sure what to do with that big blank spot, though. Maybe another 12v outlet so I don't have a cord draped over the shifter. Maybe a dedicated Altoids tin holder. Maybe the switch for the ejector seat. Anything that's not another row of rectangular holes!

Hardcore, right? I've posted most of this in the "what did you do to your Pathy today" thread, but figured I should quit spamming that and put this all together. When I got Rat Trap, the factory center console was broken around its mounts and every crevice was full of a foul mixture of cigarette tar and Armor All. I hacked it out and threw it away. I considered swapping in the console from my '95, but it turns out the square dash sticks down a little lower than the round dash, so the console wouldn't clear unless I butchered the front of it. That seemed like a lot of work for something that would look like a puppy chewed on it when I was done. I considered the R50 console swap, but the idea of paying money to deal with more plastic crap didn't excite me. I liked what Nissan Nut did with his cupholders, and I liked what some of the Jeep guys do with ammo cans. A little comparison of measurements told me that a standard 50-cal can would fit between the seats with room to spare. How hard could it be? My first step was to budge the e-brake over. I didn't want to modify the brake itself, so I drilled some holes in some steel strap and came up with this. This worked alright, but the longer strap did flex a little when I pulled the brake. I welded more strap steel between the two, then welded the head of the bolt for the front brake mount to the floor plate. That got it solid. I cut up a bed frame to make a sort of cradle and some legs. The top of the frame has to clear the e-brake, but the top of the box has to clear my elbow, so I measured a few things and made the legs as short as I could get away with. The E-brake bracket ended up being the perfect thing to bolt the console frame to. I drilled a couple holes, welded up some M6 nuts, and bolted the frame down. Already, it was more stable than the factory console. I skinned the frame with scrap sheet metal and filled the blank spot on the back with a cheap 300W inverter. Rather than build mounts, I just cut the sheet metal to sandwich in between the inverter's body and face like a gasket. I also relocated the inverter's power switch to the face where it's easier to get to. As easy as it would've been to just weld the skin to the frame, I knew I'd have to take this thing apart a few times during the build, so I drilled a bunch of holes and bolted it on. I considered bolts or a toolbox latch or something to hold the can down, but decided it was easier to fit the frame with neodymium disk magnets. Should work pretty well so long as I don't store credit cards in the can. I also glued a strip of a Rockauto magnet to the underside of the handle to hold it against the lid so it wouldn't rattle. Rat Trap's got some loose switches that need a home. I wanted to use the factory switches, and the factory switches fit a rectangular hole. How hard could that be? A bunch of cutoff disks and a pile of filings later...

Either my speedo or the cable for it started buzzing when cold, so I pulled the cluster again and oiled the back of the gauge and the end of the cable. Hopefully that's all it needed. While I had the cluster surround off, I hacked LEDs into a couple more of the dash switches in place of the long-dead blue condom lights. And with the switch all back together, you can't see how sketchy my LED install was. Oh, and then there's this. Eventually it'll be the switch panel for my center console. Right now it's got me wishing I'd just drilled four holes for toggle switches.

This is the first I've heard of poly bushings actually breaking something. Some guys swap out rear suspension bushings for rod ends (with basically no give) and don't break stuff. I can however see why a mechanic might not want to screw around with aftermarket stuff or pressing a bushing in and out when he could just unbolt the old part, bolt in the new part, and not worry that you'll come back in a week with an issue. Might even save you money to do it the easy way, depending on what he charges per hour. I've read about a few squeaking issues, but it seems the fix is to lube the hell out of them. I used sticky synthetic marine stuff when I put Moog strut rod bushings on my WD21 and they're still nice and quiet.

That's a problem? I yanked both of the nag boxes when I had the interior out. The dinger's kind of a cool little thing (how often do you see a mechanical chime anymore?) but the novelty wore off real quick when it was going full cowbell next to my head as I messed with the headlight wiring. I think I've got both modules on the shelf still. I had a similar failure on my dimmer. A good clean brought it mostly back, though the lights do flicker a little if I mess with it. I think RCWD21's right about the tab being on the wrong side. I'd get a picture of mine but my clamshell's still in pieces on the bench.

They're called Legos because they look like they should've come in a Lego kit. Odd looking but the backspacing's supposed to be good for clearing big tires. Post a for sale thread if you do decide to get rid of them, bit far away for me but I'm sure other guys are looking for spares. Nice Subaru! I've seen some good battle-wagon builds starting from those. I think one guy found Peugeot steelies that fit and opened up some tire options, and didn't look too bad either.

Found My1Path's writeup about putting an M30 ECU in his. Some info there about Nistune as well.

Nefarious was screwing around with re-tuning the factory computer a while back. Not sure if he's still at it. I seem to remember someone swapping in an M30 ECU as well to open up some tuning options. It's one of those things I'd like to screw around with... you know, once I run out of other stuff that needs doing.

I've heard of guys hammering a larger 12-point socket over locking lugs to get enough grip on the buggers to get them off. At least it's not sunk into an alloy wheel where you can't get a tool on it. You might also check with a tire shop, I'd be surprised if they didn't have a few of the more common keys floating around for when people want their tires changed but don't remember what they did with the silly key. I've got a full-size spare on mine now, on the stock spare rim. I've used it and it works but if I was going to rotate it with the other wheels I'd be looking for another Lego. One thing to look out for, there are two styles of Legos. One takes acorn lug nuts, the other (I think older) takes the shouldered mag type. I didn't know this and now there's a mag Lego gathering dust in my shop.

Looks like a hell of a start! A friend of mine just bought a roll of lawn edging to cover the tire poke on his Blazer. He's got a lot less poke to deal with though!

There's a little magnetic reed switch that slots into the the base of the master cylinder reservoir. As the fluid level drops, a foam float with a magnet in the bottom drops with it, and if it gets low enough, the reed switch closes and you get lights on the dash (Brake and ABS IIRC). I'm not 100% sure as it's been a while since I had to fool with the MC and it's too cold to go check mine, but it's a thin little switch, that's a thin little plug, and it's in the right area.

Looks like a clean swap! Matches the interior pretty well too. I can't say I've had a problem with mine but everyone's back is different. I wish I could do this to my mom's Honda. Those seats are like church pews with a coat thrown over, except they've also got bombs in them (airbags) so we're leery of messing with them.

Index of /FSM/Pathfinder <Download the '95 manual, and get friendly with the EL section. I would look for faults at the computer before swapping it out. Computer failures in these are not common (if you don't count guys driving into ponds and flooding them out) and plugging a new component into the place of a blown one without figuring out why the old one blew sounds like a good way to blow the new one, and if it turns out the problem isn't the computer, a new computer won't change anything. I'd start by just making sure the thing is getting power and ground. Surprising that a shorted marker light burned up the wires before the fuse went. Did the PO plug in a bigger one when the dangling wires kept shorting and popping the fuse that was supposed to be there? Or was it one of those crap Harbor Freight fuses where the plastic will melt long before the fuse actually blows? Looks like in your avatar pic the passenger's side marker is missing. Is that the one that shorted? IIRC most of the engine control stuff is in that harness, too, so perhaps the damaged corner light wiring bridged to the wiring for something more important. Did the ECU stop working at the same time the fuse blew?

Hmm. The Rockauto catalog shows different distributors between '89 and '93. The only difference I can see in the pictures is that the cap for the TBI has the wires sticking out the sides rather than the top. Some of the listings for the position sensors aren't the same--but there is one part number in common between the two. PN is LX653, looks like Rockauto has it cheaper than you were quoted (though I don't know what shipping to HI costs).

How does a backwards LED blow a fuse?