Slartibartfast

You'll also want to relocate a whole lot of wiring, or you'll end up permanently encasing it in bedliner. If you're going to remove the doors and mud bog it, go for it... not really worth it otherwise IMO. I've got some rubber floor mats that work great, I just shake them out now and then when they get full of dirt.

I greased the bushings that hold the front sway bar to the frame on the off chance that they've been causing the occasional squeak on bumps.

Wouldn't you want to remove the wax? I'm no help though, I wash up with simple green and a rag and do touchups with rust converting primer and 99 cent rattlecan white. It actually works pretty well.

So I go and look under the truck today (unrelated) and there's no oil on the bottom of it. For as long as I've had the thing it's had this slow leak that leaves little droplets of (what I assumed to be) motor oil on the bottom of the crossmember. I guess that was brake fluid this whole time because there's no oil there now!

You might check the vacuum lines going to your brake booster. (I could swear somebody suggested that already but I can't find it now.)

You sure it's the gearbox? My timing belt tensioner made a whining noise at a certain RPM and had my mom thinking the trans was going out. But so long as it's due, change the oil!

Mostly the airbox. Maybe there was a problem with the MAF harness that went away when I messed with it, maybe the accordion tube was sitting wrong and opening a crack... I still dunno what fixed it. It might have cleared up on its own, but my dad insists that messing with the airbox fixed the problem. I cleaned up the TPS and MAF after the fact just in case. I still don't know what caused the problem, only that it started when I left the lights on and drained the battery.

I know mine's got a different engine and all but the heat gauge always goes up to the middle... no matter how cold out it is. It takes a little longer when it's cold out, but by the time I get to school (10-15 minutes, most of it at 45-50 mph) it's up to temp. I do occasionally take longer trips, and it's never overheated on me, so it's not running hot or anything.

I'm assuming you dropped the torsion bars to access the clutch. Sounds like when you put them back in, you didn't match them up to where they were before and ended up with them a few splines lower than before. If you didn't pull them out of the adjusters make sure all the bolts for the adjusters are in place. Download the factory service manual and see if it explains the process any better than the Chilton guide. http://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/pathfinder/1995_Pathfinder/ Good luck and post more pics if you're still stuck, I haven't attacked my torsion bars yet but I'm sure somebody who has could walk you through it.

I think this thread needs more gifs.

First I've heard that you even could convert a diesel to gas. The rolling/idle is odd. First thing I'd do is check the wiring, make sure there isn't something that's swinging loose and stressing ground or sensor wires when the truck rocks. Also, by gas I assume you mean gasoline and not LPG or something? LPG I can see being an issue if the tank sloshed and shot liquid instead of gas out the line, but I'm not sure what would cause a gasoline system to surge like that other than a bad sensor connection somewhere.

Wouldn't hurt to reset the ECU, which is as simple as unhooking the battery cable for ten minutes or so.

I think the common method of 'gutting' a catastrophic perverter is to pull it out and stab it through the openings with a crowbar until the catalyst bits come out. Real low tech. Good luck getting it off the truck, it'll most likely be rusted in place. And yeah, mine were pretty clogged up... got a new factory spec exhaust locally and it seemed to pick up a few horses. This may have been because it wasn't leaking nearly as much.

Will the pre-facelift flares bolt up? Just asking because I bought a flare off a 93 that had a totally different bolt pattern than my 95, so it appears Nissan changed that kind of thing at odd times.

Stupid suggestion, there's a dimmer for the dash lights. Make sure it's not turned all the way down. (Yes I've bumped mine and though I'd lost the dash lights.) I think I've finally got the last of the crimp connectors out of mine! Accursed things.

IIRC the O2 sensor is before the cat, so there shouldn't be an issue there. Unless your cat is clogged up I don't think you'd notice much difference. I'm assuming you're not in an area with emissions testing.

I took a look at the FSM and it looks like there's a bypass regardless of transmission. I didn't find any mention of differences auto vs manual but then I didn't read the whole section.

Works fine, pedal's got a little more free travel than I remember but it still stops just fine. Either it'll settle in or I'll get used to it.

I know a lot of R50 guys switch to manual hubs in the front to save gas and some wear and tear on the CV axles when you're on the road.

Gotta say the rail shifters do look pretty cool. My dad's Hurst Olds 442 had something like that where you could run full auto or switch gears with a lever. Part of me thinks it'd be cool to mount a rail shifter to the steering column so it's column shift, with the whole unit pivoting forward/back on a switch... pull the lever towards you to engage manual shifting, then push up and down to select a gear.

I can't imagine the ECU would be in closed loop while the engine is starting. Check the ignition timing as well.

^^ Makes sense. The whole non-destructive teardown went south about the time the allen bolt stripped. But it's apart, and the bit in there does contain a sprung valve (which showed some signs of wear). There are two little holes going from the main cylinder to the secondary, both drilled through from the outside. One comes in at an angle through the hole at the end. The other looks like it came in through the mystery fitting, which (if my uncle's right) was stopped up with a little bearing after the fact. I'm not 100% on how the valve worked (partially because some of it came out wrapped around the drill bit) but my curiosity is satisfied... except now I wonder how the new master was made without that hole. Gotta be a different valve, or maybe they drilled from the main cylinder in... yeah, I'm probably putting too much thought into this. Anyway, road test tomorrow.

If not, looks like it comes with wiring. Score a couple seat heater switches and you could make it look original.

I cleaned the cylinder and tore it most of the way apart tonight. Looks like it was OEM under all that gunk. Interesting machine work on the mounting tabs... I didn't expect to find anything ornamental on a brake cylinder. Random stuff: The sensor for low brake fluid is a magnetic reed switch wedged under the reservoir. The float (some kind of hard closed-cell foam) contains a magnet. The FSM suggests removing the piston by shooting air in through one of the brake line connections. That didn't work for me, probably because the res was off already, but shooting air in through one of the holes between the res and the cylinder did the trick. The piston looked fine, the bore looks like a mirror, and the stock bushings (the ones I tried replacing) were fine. In fact I can't easily tell the old bushings from the new ones. Oh well, they were cheap. The very end of the cylinder has a big allen bolt hidden behind a thin piece of aluminum. There's clearly something behind that bolt, and I'm guessing it's a proportioning valve for the front vs rear brake lines (as identified by F and R on the casting?). The mystery hole is unthreaded and shows no indication that it ever had or would accept a plug. It steps down into a smaller hole (0.5mm or so) and goes into the proportioning bit. I can't stick a wire more that a millimeter into the smaller hole, so there's clearly something in there. I haven't gotten into the chamber behind it since the steel bolt has seized to the aluminum housing. I plan to soak it with PB tonight and give it another go sometime tomorrow. I don't figure I'll put it back together (no core charge for a new part), but just for a change I figure I'll try and take it apart without a claw hammer or a hacksaw. Oh and Rob, I don't know which aftermarket MCs you've dealt with, but mine came with a new res. I'm glad it did because the old one had a lot of crud in it.

Pathy got a new master cylinder today (PBR from Carquest). Check out what it doesn't have: My uncle says the hole on the old one is where a ball bearing is installed and crimped in place to seal it, and that it isn't uncommon for the seal to fail. Upon closer inspection what I thought was a threaded hole looks more like a hole full of crud. I brought the dead MC home in a bag so I can dissect it and figure it out for sure. It had clearly been leaking for a while... the brake booster lost a lot of paint when I went to wipe the fluid off. We bled it with a vacuum bleeder (pulled the ABS fuse). I'm not sure yet if the pedal feels normal but then I've been driving my dad's R50 so my points of reference are shot. It does seem to stop properly but I'll keep an eye on it. Dissection pics/results to come...