TahoeRunner

That and the truck has been garaged its entire life and is still being garaged now so its not seeing extreme temps while parked, or even sunlight for that matter. And in our part of nevada our extreme heat is highs cresting 100 a few days of the summer. But I'll keep track of time also and make sure i'm at least changing the oil once a year at a max. My wife likes driving it too, so I'll just put her and the kids driving it around a couple of days a month to keep everything good and cycled. And if we do anything outdoorsy, even if its just driving up to the lake to have lunch, we'll take Sarge for the excuse of it! So as far as the roof rack, I understand that its not the coolest application and may even look a little geeky, but I'm looking for basic functionality of it and like the idea of being able to throw it on there few times a year when we go camping or take an overnight trip somewhere where we can't fit all the kids crap inside the pathy and leave it off the rest of the time since the truck doesn't need any help with wind noise. Ultimately I want to do something more permanent or at least complete like a yakima rack and such.

Slartibartfast: Yeah you might be right... This is what I had in mind for the roof basket. http://www.amazon.com/Highland-35036-Universal-Basket-Carrier/dp/B000DZFMUA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1347465052&sr=8-2&keywords=roof+basket But maybe it would be better if I just got one of the cargo trays that mounts int the tow hitch instead. If and when we get a tent trailer, it wouldn't be used. As far as it sitting, it at least gets driven 2-3 times a month. And I'll put my wife in the kids in it for a day or two during the month so it gets driven so It won't just sit for months at a time. I was more talking about it just not getting more than a few thousand miles a year. Like with oil, most people don't realize that there is a time interval on some things along with mileage so its whichever interval you hit first. So can I still get 100 k miles out of a timing belt or do they have a time limit? stuff like that.

Wow you guys are brave. I actually just tinted my windows on my 95 last weekend. After a very frustrating endeavor of tinting one of our house windows a few months ago I figured that for $175 and a lifetime warranty it was worth having the professionals do it. I did 35% on the front driver and passenger and 20% the rest of the way around and it made such a difference driving in 90 degree weather. The AC doesn't have to be on Max anymore, and my kids don't instantly burn in the back seat now! Its worth doing no matter which way you get it done!

Hi all, I haven't been on here in a few months so I've been trying to catch up on any possible vital information! So about 3-4 weeks after getting my pathfinder in the spring, I finally got a company truck again (hadn't had one in a few years due the economy and my position doesn't "require" one) so now my almost new 95 is being pretty much preserved in the garage. It just sits there and comes out on the weekends occasionally to run errands or we take it up to the lake instead of my wifes Mazda5. I finally filled up the tank after 2 months and it still had a little over 1/4 tank in it. Anyways, so if this thing gets less than 3-4k miles a year on it, is there anything I should be keeping up with due to it sitting in the garage other than fresh oil and keeping fresh gas in it? I'm at least trying to run it somewhere once a week but that doesn't always happen. I originally planned on changing the oil every 3,000-3500 miles or so but if I don't hit that in 9-12 months I'll probably change it at least once a year. I figure if I keep this up, I can give it to my 2 year old when he turns 16! I'm sure he'll be thrilled! My one other question, is that this thing is going to become our outdoor adventure vehicle for us and I want to set it up for camping and we are actually discussing getting a tent trailer in the spring. We are looking at ones that are 2500-3000lbs max.The two things I need to get here soon are a tow kit and a roof basket. The truck doesn't have a factory roof rack. I saw this inexpensive roof basket that has the rubber feet on it and uses short straps to hook into the door frames and then folds up flat to where you can hang it on the garage wall for storage. Anybody done a temp one like this or is it better to get a roof rack kit that you permanently mount to the truck (I've seen some various kits on Ebay that look like the factory one, but maybe a little beefier). I don't think I'm adventourous enough to attack the Xterra rack install that I saw someone do on here. Thanks for the help guys. I'll try to chime in more often!

oh man... drool.... I might have to tackle this one day... i've been thinking about the best way to add a roof rack to mine.

Thanks for all the "likes" I hope to keep it this nice and preserve it although I can't guarantee it won't pick up some desert pin stripes along the way! I do need to get the windows tinted pretty bad. This is the first car i've ever had with non-tinted windows for more than a couple of days, so it feels naked! Need to get around to doing that...

I didn't know about B12. My dad suggested the seafoam and so I researched it on here and seemed like quite a few people used it.

I've heard that the alternator on its way out can cause the electronics to wig out before the alternator just quits charging. Especially if the voltage regulator in the alternator is failing it could be allowing surges and dips in the voltage coming out. I'm sure others on here are more familiar with it, but I would have the alternator checked to start.

Hey what brush guard do you have on your red XE? I kind of like it.

Yeah I wish I would have done a video. I didn't think about about doing a video until I was in the middle of it and it was too late. I honestly didn't realize how much it was going to smoke! And the truck is clean now, but I plan on getting it dirty too and hitting the trails. I'm not going to take it off road till I swap the rest of the fluids though and fix the broken exhaust hanger. But stock, this thing should do pretty good and i'm excited to see what it can do. When I was younger I had an 04 Frontier Crew Cab Long Bed and even though it had a mile long wheelbase and was bone stock and it did awesome off-road. It would claw out of ravines it has not business making it out of!

Haha. Yeah I haven't done the engine yet. Its actually not that dirty in there, but I need to give it a good detail. That will come on another weekend.

Oh and I forgot to add. The seafoam and the new fuel filter did wonders. My expectations were pretty low with only 153 hp, but I didn't realize how down on power the truck was. On my drive to work today, I can easily climb this one little hill in 5th gear that usually required a downshift to maintain 50 mph and I can easily start off in 2nd gear. Its not fast, but the engine revs much freer than it was and it's got some decent pull and much better driveability. I'm thinking the fuel filter was pretty clogged before as I was getting a slight stumble at idle when cold if I didn't let the fuel pump cycle a couple of seconds first. Now it starts right up no problem!

Well I finally had good weather and free time come on the same weekend and got to spend some time with Sarge since purchasing him. First things on the list were to just do an oil change, change the fuel filter, new wiper blades and air filter. Also I needed to give the outside a good bath and hose out the frame rails. I'd already detailed the interior a couple of weeks ago so it's good to go. One of the things I decided to try after a suggestion by my dad and digging around here was to try the Seafoam treatment. So here's how it went down. I was very leary about doing the treatment so I read just about every thread on here that talked about it and went directly to the seafoam website and followed their directions to the letter. The oil was pretty clean still as the truck had just hit 3,000 miles since the previous owner had the oil changed, but with so little miles his wife drove, the oil was changed almost 12 months ago. So I dumped 2/3 of the can of seafoam into the crankcase, and then started the motor letting it run for about 5 min. Then I removed the brake booster hose and then slowly poured in the other 1/3 of the can into the vac hose being sure not to let the motor die. It stumbled and belched smoke as I poured it in but I kept going. After the can was all poured in, I shut the motor off for 5 min and then restarted it and started revving the motor up and down. HOLY CRAP!!!! My neighbor came out and it looked like our couldesac was on fire! I reassured him I was just doing a liquid tune-up. So for about 5 min the exhaust belched blue, black, and white smoke as I revved the motor. Then as the smoke tapered off I took it for a spin around the block and by the time I got back, no more smoke. All good there. Then I went to drain the oil and it came out abosolutely midnight pitch black. So I let it drain for a good long time. While doing that, I swapped the fuel filter real quick. That fuel filter could have been very well the original. Not sure though. After the oil was all drained, swapped the oil filter, poured in the measily 3.8 qts of high mileage synthetic blend and then gave him a bath. When I had checked the truck originally for rust I could tell the frame rails were full of dirt, but amazingly there was no rust, or if there was it was ever so slight. My guess is that the truck didn't spend enough time in wet conditions to keep the dirt saturated. So I flushed the rails out for a good 2-3 minutes on each side, in both directions until the water came pouring out clear. Lets just say I ended up with a lot of mud in the driveway! Detailed the outside, scrubbed the tires and the spare tire cover and this is how he turned out. I love how original the truck is. Unless I have money to blow and something else to drive, I think i'm gonna keep him stock except for a set of tint on the windows.

My commute is on a 4 lane road for about 11 miles each way where I cruise between 45 & 50 most of the way but it has lights all along it and I maybe end up stopping and starting about 3 times on average in that 11 miles. I also have a 5 speed and drive it effeciently so that probably helps. If I notice the light a 1/8 mile up the road is red, I pop it in neutral and coast there instead of slamming on the brakes at the last minute.

Wow, I'm doing pretty good I guess. I'm getting a solid 21 mpg. 4 tanks down since I bought Sarge and everyone has been over 20 mpg. I know that something being wrong can kill the gas mileage, can it work the other way? haha. I think my commute just lets the truck run in a real sweet spot. Only explanation I can think of.

Thanks for the tips. I have them set for 30 and the handling feels floatier and sloppier (go figure) than before. The truck has LT tires on it which is so overkill so I might bump up the psi 2-3. We'll see how it goes. One thing I noticed is that lowering the PSI seemed to help my speedometer be more accurate, which the day I bought it and brought it home I noticed on the freeway it was 5mph too slow. So either my speedo is more accurate because the tires are inflated so much to be riding on the center ridge, or traffic yesterday was flowing a lot faster than usual everywhere. Might have to get my wife to follow me somewhere this weekend to verify.

^^yeah, what he said.^^

Wow sounds like a few of the scenes from Black Hawk Down.... nothing but cover fire!

So last night I was in the garage digging around in my toolbox for something and found one of our tire pressure guages and thought, oh man I haven't checked the tire pressure on Sarge yet since I bought him almost a month ago. I had thought the other day to check the tire pressure just to be sure since the previous owner had the tires rotated and balanced at Costco (where he bought them) a few days before I bought it and it would let me know if any of the tires were leaking. Got out the trusty guage and almost leaped in the air! All 4 were inflated to 48 psi!!! the max listed on the sidewall! I can't tell you how many times I've had to correct people that if you are running stock tire size you should be inflating to what's on the inside of the door, but I was shocked that he just had it in for a rotation and they adjusted the pressure that high. The sad thing is, this isn't the first time I've seen this happen from a tire place that's going off the sidewall label on the tire and not the placard in the door. They must have had some new guy in there doing rotations or something. So I checked the door and saw that it only requires 26 psi! I don't think i've ever had a car that recommends less than 30 psi before. So that leads me to my question. I know most of you run oversize tires but for any still stock or back when you were stock, what psi did you run your tires at? This might explain why its been getting such good gas mileage because the tires were running on their tippy toes. Last night I let them down to 30 psi for now. Do any of you run higher psi, lower? notice differences? On my drive to work this morning it definitely took the edge off the ride! I thought it was awfully rough riding, even for a mid 90's SUV but now its not quite as jumpy and definitely less squirelly.

Yeah I actually track the mileage on our cars through and app on my phone and backed up on a spreadsheet. You'll probably want to get a little more data going for a better picture. Its a good thing to track with each fill-up because a drop in fuel economy from your normal trend is a good indication of either maintence needed or a need of a repair coming real soon.

I can't imagine its the timing belt but it could be. It shouldn't be the water pump though. It was done about 10k miles ago with the timing belt. I'll have to try the accessory belts first and see.

Well I didn't have as much time this weekend as I was hoping so I got nothing done on Sarge. I did have a few minutes thought to slide under and have a look around. So I do have a broken exhaust hanger. Its the one for the muffler, the little rubber piece is split in two and the exhaust is hanging down an inch or so and just barely above the frame cross member. So that's probably the banging around i'm hearing. I'm gonna try and pick one of up from NAPA today if they have one and swap it this week.

Hi everyone, Loving the pathfinder and its fitting in with the family nicely. We've been having some nicer weather so I think i'm going to be doing the fluids here in the next few weeks. My wife is diggin it and we are really enjoying having a manual tranny again, even though this one is a little picky. I found that you can't rush it into 2nd gear most of the time so you have to pause for a split second for the change to be a little smoother. I've actually been getting great gas mileage in it too. I drive 11 miles to work each way non-highway and other running around and my first two tanks have been 20.2 and 20.7 mpg so the motor must be running pretty well. I have noticed a few things and have been searching around the forums and some stuff I've found on and some I haven't so I thought I'd get your thoughts. 1. I think I have one or two broken exhaust hangers thanks to some searching on the forums. When I hit sharp bumps I get some banging around under the driver's floor board and when I start the engine I get the same "banging" sound underneath the truck. It would make sense if its the exhaust slaping around when ever the motor moves a bit or if I hit bumps. I'm going to crawl under the truck this weekend and take a look. 2. There seems to be a fuel smell when the engine is cold and I only smell it if it idles in place for a minute or two. I tightened all the fittings of the usual fuel hoses that you guys mention and that seemed to help some, but I think there is a very small leak at the hose going into the fuel filter. By the way the fuel filter looks like it might be original or very very old so that is definitely getting swapped this weekend. The fuel leak must be very slight though, otherwise my gas mileage would suffer if a lot of fuel wasn't making it to the engine. 3. Yesterday was the first nice day that I actually was able to drive with the windows down all the way home. I noticed in our neighborhood that the engine is kind of whiny. Not sure if the engine has a natural whine to it but the best way to describe is that its sounds like a supercharger with a little bit of bad power steering pump. The belts all look pretty new from what I could tell and its not high pitched. When I got home, I popped the hood and revved the motor a couple of times and its noticeable but wouldn't call it loud. I found a few things on the forum about the TBelt being too tight or any of the other belts. It could be a bad alternator too I guess. Any thoughts? 4. The only other "interesting" thing I noticed is that when I start it in the morning and the motor is real cold, I get a whistleing noise from the motor. It usually fades off within 20 seconds, and the colder the longer it lasts. didn't find anything on that one. I noticed one of the later repair tickets from the previous owner, that he complained of a whistling noise when cold and the shop replaced his injector seals. So it either didn't fix it or it came back. Other than that, its been doing great and just needs a bath finally but time has been scarce!

Trying not to thread jack, but can you just simply swap the VG33 heads onto the vg30 block?

Wow, did you smell the fuel all the time or just when the car is running? When Sarge is parked in the garage overnight there is no fuel smell at all. Just when I start it up cold and runs for a few minutes.