Slartibartfast

I imagine you could make an airbox for your cone filter if you sealed it up right. Stick a tupperware thing around it, rig up some clips/silicone, and cut a hole in the end to pipe into the fender. Bonus, you can look inside and see when your filter's dirty.

Thanks guys, I'll check my TPS, then see if the hoses are okay. I doubt it's the 02, as it wasn't even connected until I realized a wire was broken, and performance didn't seem to change afterwards. I'll tear into it Sunday night or Monday and let you know what I come up with.

I find it helps to keep a camera handy. Take pictures of everything you take apart, which screws go where, etc. It'll help when you're putting it all back together.

How bad's this dent? Could you just pop it out from inside? You could try the bodywork yourself, or just get a junkyard hood, and save a ton of money either way. I've got a few dents on mine from where a friend and I sat on it, but it doesn't really show up on white. Also, it's a truck.

You'd have to get a manual box/somehow mod the PS box to manual. Ever stalled it while you're trying to turn? The wheel is really hard to turn when the engine (and therefore the ps) isn't running. I suspect edicer's removed his power steering to put that power back to the wheels, and installed a manual box. The noise may be your compressor, in which case removing the belt would shut it up. I'm not sure I follow how turning the AC on with it disconnected would blow it up. What you're calling the condenser is actually the compressor, and the only thing the switch does that I'm aware of is lock up the clutch inside the compressor. If the compressor's not being driven by the belt, locking the clutch will do precisely jack. So, can't hurt, but if your mileage is really lousy, fixing whatever's wrong with the engine will do a whole lot more than disabling your AC.

I've looked around a bit, and didn't find much. If this has been asked before, and you must therefore kill me, please make it quick. We've had a few cold days, but not much below freezing. I did add gas to it recently, where I usually get gas with no problem. Prior to this, it was running just fine, save a little exhaust leak and a whirring bearing somewhere. No overheats, rad cap looks okay, no stalling, and the only recent engine work we'd done was tightening a fuel line. I had the battery disconnected a few times the other day when I relayed the lights. Yesterday I left my lights on at school and drained the battery so bad the stereo forgot its presets, but not enough to kill the dash clock. Obviously it didn't start (I did try, it didn't even click), so I got a jump, let it idle a few minutes, and drove it home (a few miles, mostly highway). It died when I slowed down to turn off the highway, then died again when I restarted it. By keeping my foot on the gas, I managed to get it out of the road, back to my house, and into its spot. At my dad's suggestion, I let it idle a while, hoping that would charge the battery back up. It struggled to maintain idle, so I sat in it with my foot on the gas for maybe twenty minutes off and on. When it could idle without help, we thought it was fixed, and shut it off. I took it out again today. It worked fine while cold, but when it got a little warm it couldn't keep the engine going if my foot wasn't on the gas. I drove it a block or two to school with two feet. It stalled at stop signs, it stalled when I tried to pull out into traffic, and when I parked it, the idle was falling, struggling, and surging again. It's like it's not realizing that it's dying until it hits 200 rpm. It seems to run fine when it's cold, but when it's partly warmed up, it can't keep its idle up. It stalls at stop signs, on sharp turns, whenever my foot's not on the gas. Parked, it idles at 8-900 (normal), then drops way down, struggles (the dash lights flicker when it's struggling), then revs back up to 1k, then falls again. But if I keep pushing it, it reaches operating temp, and it's fine. It runs great cold, it runs great hot, but it won't idle when it's in between. The thermostat was probably replaced a few years ago with the timing belt. We've ruled out the battery. My dad says he thinks it's got a little vacuum leak somewhere, and suspects this is a choke issue or wet gas. He also said it didn't feel like it was running right until it's hot, which I didn't notice, possibly because I was freaking out a bit. The only time it stalled before this was when it was really, really cold. I've tried unhooking the negative cable to reset the ECU, thinking maybe the brownout or me turning the key when the battery was flat had confused it, but this didn't help. The CEL's not lit. It's not warm out, but it's not appreciably colder than it was before I killed the battery. I know it idles higher when it's cold, and is more efficient when it's warm, so either it's not choking right, or it can't choke enough to compensate for not running right. Vacuum seems probable, but doesn't explain the sudden onset. But how'd I do this by killing my battery? And, more to the point, how do I fix it?

Think of it this way. A small tire covers less ground per revolution. It does less work, so it doesn't require as much torque to move. A big rim covers a lot of ground, so it's harder to move. Ideally, the rim/tire size is matched to the diff gear ratios, the ratios in the trans, and the engine, so that the engine isn't straining at low speeds or revving too high at high speeds. Either extreme will return lousy milage, and somewhere between the two is the 'butter zone.' Look at the tires as the last stage of gearing from the engine to the ground. With the O/D off, my truck does 50 at somewhere around 3k rpm. With O/D engaged, it gears up and engine RPM drops. If I didn't have O/D, I could compensate with bigger tires, and have the same ratio at speed that I do now. However, in first gear, I'd still be running a higher ratio due to the tires, so the truck would struggle to accelerate. Or, with smaller tires, I could be doing 50 at 3k with the O/D on, but I'd be working the engine harder. I haven't messed with any of this, so I don't know where the butter zone is. Adamzan said his milage dropped when he went to 33s, so that's clearly outside the butter zone. I suspect the rig was designed around the factory tire sizes of 29s and 31s. I haven't heard anyone compare milage between trucks on 29s and trucks on 31s, so I don't imagine the 1" difference in your tires is having a huge effect. TL;DR: I don't think 31s would change your milage appreciably. But they would make your gauges work right.

It won't be off too badly, if you've got GPS you can check the speed against the speedometer, or you can use highway mile markers and the trip odometer. Smaller tires will make it feel a little torquier, but limit top speed/cruising efficiency. I don't imagine a 1" difference will change that much. Pathfinders came on 31s or 29s, so apart from your speed sensor being a little off, 30s shouldn't be hurting anything.

My understanding is that the Xterra trans is so similar, you can't tell it from the WD trans just looking at it. Plugs into the same computer, mounts the same, drives the same, just doesn't crap out as easily. Also the transfer case may be different, but that's just a bolt-on and you can swap cases from your old trans.

My WD's Japan made, and it's got rot. The hardbodies I've seen around here are rotted too. My understanding is that Pathfinders were Japan made, Hardbodies were Tennessee. This may have something to do with the chicken tax (the reason Pathfinders went from 2 doors to 4): perhaps building a plant here was cheaper than paying import fees for 2-door hardbodies.

I'm not great at decisions either, but if crawling is what you're into, and it won't leave you eating Ramen and sleeping in the truck, sounds like it'll save you a lot of aggravation.

Left the lights on and had to jumpstart it.

I only realized recently that I had a rear window defroster... looking forward to trying it out now

:shock: I didn't know they could rust out there, too. Your repair looks good!

The cooler makes the trans last longer. It does two things. One, it won't clog up like the stock one will. A clogged cooler doesn't let fluid circulate, starving the trans, and making the clutches slip/wear out. Two, it cools the fluid, making the fluid last longer/work better. Is a stock Pathy auto trans strong enough to handle a VG33?

+1 the lock timer's pretty easy to get to. It's behind the trim panel on the right side of the cargo area, in a grey box with a sticker that says 'lock timer' on the end. Also note that this just fixes locks that don't work/work intermittently. I tried redoing mine (all the joints looked fine) to fix my twitchy locks (they lock themselves at unhelpful times) and it didn't help.

Too bad about the old one, but nice score. What's the thing on the door of the new one? Looks like an agency truck or something... kinda cool.

When I'm doing lug nuts, I just thread them on finger tight, tighten with the lug wrench, then jump a little on the end of the wrench (I'm not that heavy) for final torque. No issues yet. Aren't impact wrenches were more about removing stuck bolts than assembling stuff? A guy tried to mount axles in my dad's Audi with an impact wrench, and one of them straight fell out. Of course, he also forgot the locktite, so there's that.

I just finished mine! I took before and after pics, and the after pics do look a little brighter. It's running stock bulbs. (Ignore the waders.) Edit: Note that the difference here could easily be due to a slightly different camera angle. Tungsten's got better data. My install wasn't quite as tidy. I hung the relays from a mending strap bolted to the battery clamp, and connected the old headlight wiring with crimp connectors, because nobody around here's heard of a female 9004. The only real trouble I ran into was a poor connection in one headlight, which I solved by bending the pins around a little. Anyway, I'm looking forward to giving this a proper test. Thanks for the schematic, Tungsten, it was a great help.

Mine sometimes twitches out a little in winter, but it's more with the engine being cold. When it starts getting wicked cold I duct tape a piece of cardboard over half the grille, this helps it heat up more quickly. Sounds more like a trans issue in your case, though... and it doesn't do this in 2x?

That's odd. My first thought is that somebody messed with the wiring, couldn't find where to hook up the A/C, and hooked it to the cigarette lighter instead. If there's an AC fuse (I honestly don't remember)... is it good? When the cig lighter fuse is good, can you pull the AC fuse and have it still run?

Picked up the relays to do the headlights, tightened a leaky fuel hose between the injector rails, and tightened the alty belt to make it quit squealing. Now that the belt's quiet, I can hear the fan clutch starting to go.

Mine was seized, but I got it working. It's not that much more work, just a little more disassembly, and shining up the shaft and the commutator. Just be careful of the brushes, and make sure you remember how it all goes back together. I put a little oil on the bushings when I reassembled it and it's still kicking a year or two later.

It's not surprising that the idle drops with heat, that's just how they roll. Older cars (like my dad's TR4a) need to be given a little more gas until they heat up, or they're more likely to stall. What is a bit surprising is how low yours is going. IIRC there's an idle adjust screw somewhere? The thing on the computer that you mess with to pull codes is marked idle adjust IIRC, might try turning that up a little, see if it does anything. Might have ended up turned too far down while you were fighting the MAF. And does it only do it with radio/lights/etc? That is odd... it's a higher drain on the alternator, which I guess could cause some slowdown, but I've never noticed a difference in how mine runs with stuff on vs off.

My dad had a first or second year X and got rid of it pretty quickly. It was gutless (iirc the larger engine wasn't available yet) and the ride was really hard. Then again, it was an ex-rental, so maybe that had something to do with it. We did discover the rental place had screwed up the timing, but even after having that fixed, it still didn't tow very well. The X has a leaf spring rear end, which won't flex quite like a link-and-coil setup. I've heard however that for serious crawling, leafs are helpful, because they keep the axle from drooping too far (and can't drop a spring, I guess). Enough people mod both without interchanging the suspensions that I suspect they're both pretty capable. (Except for the engine, the rear suspension, and the body, they're very similar... thus this thread )