Slartibartfast

Looking at the Factory Service Manual I see a couple of electrical connections to the transfer case. One of these might be faulty, or contacts somewhere could be dirty. That's all I can think of.

When you drive in 4x, the automatic hubs engage. When you put it back to 2x, it disengages at the transfer case, but the hubs are still locked. You have to drive it backwards a bit to unlock the hubs. Not sure how far exactly, it should be on the little card in your driver's sunshade though. More than a couple feet, though. When it snows here, I engage 4x, locking the hubs, and then pop it in and out as needed (the hubs remain locked, I'm just shifting the transfer case). When it melts, I drive it backwards up my driveway in 2x, and the front hubs let go. I actually forgot to disengage the hubs this year, and when I finally did, I noticed that my steering felt lighter and the truck pulled harder. I'd been wondering what was wrong with it! Dunno what it was doing to my milage, but I can't imagine it helped.

My dad's Frontier (06) wore out its rear pads somehow, and was grinding metal against the rear disks... he had to replace the rotors. And the guy at Les Schwab was dead certain that the noise was coming from his front brakes.

Plus it means better headlight + better wiring = vaporizing deer who dare jump into your beams. I've got a set of Hellas wired up with my high beams, and they're more than adequate. The low beams are still a bit weak though.

Clearly then you understand the electronics better than I do. What bulbs are you running? I imagine the mod would have a greater effect on higher-amp bulbs... still doesn't explain how the voltage could be lower.

The 95 FSM shows one amp if you've got 2 or 4 speakers, and two if you've got 6 or 8 (tweeters). Either way, looks like they're both behind the right-hand side panel in the cargo area. Once the panel's out, from front to back, you've got the auto trans computer (if applicable), the rear amp, and then the front amp at the back (EL-77 in the FSM). EL-59 shows the thing under and behind the stereo, but doesn't say what it is. I don't see it indicated in the wiring diagrams, and all that's said on 59 is that it's got a fuse. Then again, it also shows the door lock timer in the wrong place, as the illustration is of a two-door Pathy.

The stock wiring will provide pretty much the same voltage, assuming it's not loaded. The problem is that it (and the contacts in the headlight switch) can't pass full current to run the lights. If you're measuring without the bulbs, you're not getting useful numbers. If you are, well, I'm confused. Either way, your harness still shouldn't have more resistance then the stock spaghetti wires. What's the rating on the relays? And where did you hook in your + lead and ground? (I hooked my ground to the engine bay, and the + direct to the battery clamp.) Also: when I did mine, one light was really dim. After going over my connections, I realized the headlight plug was just loose. When I pulled on the plug, it took part of the back of the headlight assembly with it. Once I got it seated right (threading the little contacts back through), it worked properly. I doubt this is your problem, but it can't hurt to check. Pics would help!

I'm not sure what you'd scan to see if it's in limp mode... IIRC the light on the power mode switch blinks if it's limping.

Probably. Good luck figuring out which one! I'd guess it's a power feed from the battery, but a + feed shouldn't be black. It's definitely connected to positive if it's sparking to the body. It might be wired through something, so when you touch it to metal, you complete a circuit through a switch or a light or something...

Baba O'Riley (The Who)... some songs are difficult to drive the speed limit to.

My dad and uncle did mine when it died, so I'm not much help. IIRC though it won't come out (stock height) unless you remove the heat shield over the wires. At that point, you can rotate it and thread it out between lines and things. We went at it through the fender, the underside, and the top. Helps to pull the oil filter, but remember to put it back on! We forgot... first time it fired up it barfed a quart of oil onto the driveway.

I tried to pull mine off when I fixed my power antenna, and ended up giving up on it. Most of the bolts were rusted solid, and the back of the panel was seam-sealed to the body. Not that it can't be done, it most certainly can, but I didn't feel like drilling out a bunch of sheared-off bolts/scraping off the sealer.

+1 to B^^ What's more ghetto, buying new relays at Autozone, or pulling old Nissan relays out of a junkyard? ... hey, they were $2 a piece, and I've had no trouble with them.

Nice Rack! Swapped out my wiper blades... not only do they work, they don't sound like they're full of ducks.

IIRC the camera was sitting on the same stack of tires for both shots, in an attempt to get around this. Then again, my camera does weird things trying to compensate for low light levels.

Looks like fun... but yeah, not even in a Pathy. Wait, especially not in a Pathy.

Wait. Somebody actually asked for blinker fluid?

Just to clarify, if you have four speakers, you have one amp. If you've got six or eight speakers, there's another amp hiding somewhere. None of that matters with a bypass though.

Can you test the switch with a voltmeter? Starting to sound like it's not the problem. Like I said, make sure the plug's getting power. Set the voltmeter to 12v (or use a tail light bulb for all it matters), touch one lead to a bare spot on the body (I used a metal bracket next to the fuse box; the door hinge should work too). It's the six pins in the middle you're looking at, and again, it's the ones on the end IIRC. If there's no power to them, check the wires on the plug (PO on mine had clearly tried to tap something into them, and left a mess of bare wires and crimp connectors). If those are okay, go through the bulbs, plugs, fuses, etc. There's got to be a fault somewhere in the system, you've just got to narrow it down. Or, maybe you've got a bad fuse link like this guy:

That's actually what I did. The sound isn't the best, and I can't turn it up very much. The problem is that the stock headunit puts out signal-level output, which the stock amps build up to power the speakers. The aftermarket head, wired how I've got it, is dumping full speaker power into the amps, which power the speakers a lot harder. Of course, I can't turn it up much without blowing my ears out, so I don't think the amps are in much danger. Your RCA harness is built to tap signal output from your head unit, making it act like the factory head. I'm not sure why it isn't working. When I did mine, I make myself a diagram of the wires, and what they did. Sorry the pic is so lousy, it didn't scan well. What Tungsten's talking about is probably better. Completely remove the factory amps (or just unplug/forget about them), then run new wires from the stereo's speaker outputs to the speakers (not the RCAs). My stereo is loud, it's got a little hiss, and I have to keep it turned down pretty low, but it works. I plan to do a full re-wiring eventually (run new wires from the head unit to the speakers). You can hack up the amps and do the bypass there, but then you're still relying on the factory wiring... not the end of the world, but from what little I know of car audio, thicker wires generally means better sound.

It's a very common issue... in fact this is the 3rd thread I've seen recently on dodgy lights! I'm not sure how the search feature on here works, but I suspect it runs on kerosene and potatoes. It's probably the contacts inside your light switch. Mine did pretty much the same thing. The problem is that the switch contacts are supposed to pass all the current for the headlights... they do okay for a while, but after 15+ years they quit working so well. Most of us hack in headlight relays, which takes most of the load off of the switch (and makes the lights brighter). Pull the bottom dash plate (two screws on the bottom, then pull), pull steering column cover, then remove the two screws and the plug holding the stick in... pull the translucent cover off the back, shoot some contact cleaner into the contacts, maybe hit them with fine sand paper if they really look ugly. Cycle the stick around to make sure they still make contact, test it out, then reassemble and put it all back together. Then start considering the relay mod!

Np. The plug in the unit should be easy enough to get to with some fine sandpaper folded around a little piece of wood or something. Electronic/tuner cleaner should help, especially on the harness plug, where pretty much nothing else is going to get in there. A little WD-40 afterwards shouldn't hurt anything. IIRC, if you take the light/turn signal base apart further, the plug blades will actually come out. That would make cleaning a little easier, but the reassembly is a pain. While you've got your dash etc torn apart, you might as well rule out other connection issues. The wires going to the headlights do flake out, but I'd be surprised if all four were dead. Try sticking a jumper wire in the plug, and see if the lights come on. I'm fairly sure that the two contacts at the far left (in the above pic) are a direct + from the battery, and the other four in the middle connect to them selectively for the high and low beams. Make sure that the plug is getting the +12v (you have checked the fuse, right?), and that the headlights are grounded properly/good bulbs/all that. Your switch is a likely culprit, but before tearing it all to bits, can't hurt to rule out the other lousy wiring!

Make those x3. If the relays aren't enough, pick up some driving lights. My Hella 500s are brighter than my high beams! (Then again, I'm running the stock headlight bulbs.)

There seem to be two completely separate wires (from separate contacts) that go to the high beams. If one wire isn't pushing current, either there's a problem with the switch (and you replaced that), or it's the wire... so just tap into the other light's harness for your relay mod.

Mine acted a little funny after I took it apart the first time. Turned out I'd bent up one of the little contacts. I marked mine up when I had the back open on Saturday, looking for a high-beam lead (re-wiring my driving lights). Make sure they're clean, and (more importantly) that they're touching. A little re-bending should get yours working again, assuming all the parts are there. Also make sure the plug is clean and making good contact. Wiggle it and see if the lights flicker.