Sim

I was thinking timing... So if all the sensors look fine and have been cleaned or replaced and it's still playing up..... it could be that someone has had the dizzie out and put it back in wrong (a tooth or two out can make a massive difference). Probably worth marking it's position, loosening it off and get the vehicle idling fine then adjust the distributor a little in each direction, see if it idles better and if it does try revving it a 'little' to see if it's made any difference, if it has you can adjust a little further to see if it makes a bigger difference. (or just check with a timing light and see if it all seems fine - it's a cheap old school way to check stuff.. and if you don't advance/retard too far and leave it like that then it shouldn't hurt anything.... (off topic bit) It seems that computer systems running engines take away all the 'old school' skills, tips and tricks for fixing problems - I had a 1973 HQ Holden Ute with a 202 (3.3 litre) straight 6 cylinder engine (proper old school type engine before the Buick V6 that went in the Commodores). I could TUNE that engine to be almost perfect with nothing other than a screw driver, a spanner and a very large screw driver (or a 1/2 inch extension bar). That was simply by sitting in the engine bay with the engine running, loosening off the distributor and sticking the small screw driver into the mixture screw.. the extension bar was placed against the head of the engine and I put my ear up against the end of it and pushed the ear closed so the engine vibration ran through the bar and into the skin on the outside of my ear, I could then hear the finest of changes in the engine noise/vibration.. I could adjust my timing and mixture and get the engine to run smooooooooth just like that. (often checked later with a timing light and vacuum gauge and found to be all good!) Anyway..

Yeah, bloody door switches, specially in the rear... it's the switch in the upper rear door for the window opening on the 2dr, pain in the ass and hard to fix!! Biggest problem I've got with getting my Alarm just right is that switch!! Nefarious, hopefully you can find out what it was when you get the stereo out and play around, certainly much easier than having to make a new set of wires for stuff because then you never know what was wrong and you can also run the risk of an overload later say when screaming up a freeway at 100 kph and smoke comes out under the dash! I don't know the exact problem but often something will work fine (seemingly) until something else is added/moved/changed.. it's like the old Cortina (just as an example) at the traffic lights that has the left indicator and brake lights on at the same time and no flashing, as soon as they release the brakes the indicator flashes normally and all is good - sounds like an odd comparison but something like that is usually fixed by cleaning/replacing the Earth wire on the tail lights and indicators at the rear.. so it could be something that simple, the entire lot appears to work fine with the stereo then when the parking lamps are turned on it shorts the whole thing out and it just earths the wrong way.. so I suppose essentially I'm saying check earth wires as well - it could be the entire problem! (though I doubt it at the moment) Oh, I can't remember if I asked if the dash lights work with the stereo turned off (or even unplugged from the wiring harness - because if it does then you can see where my thought processes are going - earths), so give that one a try as well.. Keep posting as things get updated as it'll give me more options to work with and good luck! Just don't let yourself get frustrated! Cheers, Sim

My 89 Pathfinder with carby suddenly stopped getting fuel up to the carby, didn't even come out the pipes when i removed them from the fuel filter (it's got the fuel injected type fuel filter which was common on the 89's prior to the injection being fitted). I couldn't hear the fuel pump in the tank which wasn't unusual as I never heard it before to notice it and I haven't really heard it since. Anyway, the fuel pump crapped itself completely.. just stopped (but hey it's 25 years old!) and it was a $90 replacement from an auto-parts store as the pump was a fairly common one. The pump can be accessed for checking and replacement by lifting up the carpet in the rear of the wagon, unscrewing the inspection panel found under the carpet above the fuel tank then disconnecting hoses and power wires, removing the fuel unit from the top of the tank and changing parts. Clearly check that the pump is working while the inspection cover (on the body NOT the tank) is open as you'll hear it if you lean towards the back while turning the key on/off. Be sure the entire electrical system is switched off before removing the fuel unit from the top of the tank to make sure there is no possibility of sparks from earths etc when you take out the unit (because sparks would be bad). Anyway, once the new pump was fitted the Pathy hasn't had any problems since. It took a mechanic less than an hour to change (in fact I believe it may have been less than 30 mins once they realised there was an inspection panel) and the only reason I didn't do it myself was because I was 3,000 kms away from home and didn't have all my tools/equipment ready to do that sort of a job. Good luck and let us know how you get on. Also when you replace the fuel pump it's probably a good idea to replace your fuel filters too, as the fuel will then be at full pressure again from a new pump and filter. Cheers, Sim

I've got a wonderful App on my Android phone called "aCar" and I put in my speedo details etc and how many litres I purchase when I fill up each time and it keeps a running tally of my litres per hundred kilometres. (Sorry I don't know the MPG). My Pathy is: 1989 Z24 (dual spark plug) with over 470,000 kms on the engine and a carby that's sucking air around the throttle body housing (working on trying to locate either a new carby from a Pathfinder or a friend has offered me a Weber carby for it and I think that might be a good option too). Anyway, my best ever fuel consumption stats was on a 3,000 km trip across half of the continent and I got down to as low as 11.194 litres per hundred km. That's pretty damn good in my opinion. This was without running Air-Conditioning (as it wasn't working at that time). That was with an average speed of 100 kph. All highway (well all bush road) driving. My worst ever fuel consumption was on one of our central Australian highways that has a 130 kph speed limit, my fuel usage went up to 16.040 litres per hundred km. Which is considerably higher and means that at current pricing of $1.839 PER LITRE (yes, our fuel is far more expensive here than in the US) I would be spending an extra $9 (approx) per 100 kms (which is another $275 (approx) on my 3,000 km journey!) My average fuel consumption isn't correct right now as my air conditioner has not long been fixed (when our day time temps hit 49 degrees C in the shade it HAD to be working!) so my consumption has gone up dramatically. But my previous average according to my long term stats was 13.455 litres per hundred km. But the program has given me anywhere between 13.5 up to 15.5 approx as the new average, after another month it'll be a bit more 'even' hopefully.. I've just fitted a set of extractors to the vehicle (and while I'm still running air con with our temps in the high 30's or low 40's) I am hoping that this will lower the fuel use just a little. I think it has already though they were fitted the day before I last fuelled up so I can't really tell until I fuel up next. aCAR is a great little App to have, I paid for the full version because then I had access to all the charts and graphs etc, but the free version works quite well and my brother has been using the free version for a couple of months with no problems.. If anyone knows how to work out those figures in to MPG I'd be interested in knowing how economical my old Pathy is.. Cheers, Sim

Just a quick thought on this one.. may or may not help.. (I did a conversion and that's like 1.6 degrees C so I've come up with the following): Firstly, is the vehicle garaged at night? Does the vehicle have new anti-freeze/anti-boil additive in the radiator (if it's not new for this winter then change it to be sure and be sure to add enough to be happy that it's mixed correctly for a minimum of say -10 degrees C. You are better off having it ready for a much lower temperature than you are likely to get, so use the max strength based on the area and temps you experience. How recently was your engine oil changed? Is the oil suitable for 0 C? Why I asked if the vehicle is garaged or not as it makes a difference to whether or not the vehicle is parked outside absorbing the entire outside night temperature into the oil and water... so my suggestion, whether or not it's garaged is to try out for 3 or 4 nights to get a 40W desk lamp on an extension lead (insulate everything for safety including a short circuit cut-out), take it and put it under the vehicle (be sure to not have any way that the lead is going to be sitting in water if it rains overnight) and then point the desk lamp up at the sump.. turn it on when you park the vehicle up for the night, turn it off and remove it in the morning just before you start the engine. The bulb should be about 5 cms away from the sump at the very most. Make sure the sump is clean back to the paint - no mud and no grease etc. The whole idea here is to do a couple of things. Firstly it'll keep the oil warm in the sump (because if the oil isn't rated correctly or it's old then it could be thickening up making the starting difficult!), secondly by keeping the sump oil warm the block will be warmer and so will the water in the block... so the entire engine will be several degrees warmer when you try to start - if the coolant additive isn't mixed right then the water will start to thicken up and freeze which makes starting difficult as well. If the vehicle starts easier (and it has new/correctly rated oil and coolant additive) then it's one of the sensors which tells the computer that the engine block is cold and adjusts mixture to compensate and make the engine warm up by running a rich fuel mixture (same as a choke on an old car) - which explains why the vehicle stinks like it's over-fuelling as well as why your economy isn't so good - sensors are mentioned further up in this thread. Anyway, please let me know if that little trick makes any difference for you - as I'm keen to follow up a little more. Cheers, Sim [holy cow I make LONG posts!]

Just thinking about another alternative... you could find the power in wire for the dash lights and re-wire that from the park lamps? (might be easier than re-doing the entire head unit...)

Ummm, pull the head unit back out. Use a multi-meter and turn on the park lamps and connect the multi-meter to each of the wires you used one by one. When you find one that's got power turn off the park lamps and see if that one goes off, or vice-versa! It's going to be a matter of using a multi-meter or a test lamp (MM is better) to go through every one of the wires there and find the one that is for the park lamps/dash illumination that would've been inside the original stereo head unit (because it would've had a light in it that would've come on with ignition and dimmed when the lights were turned on so it wasn't so bright as to blind you at night). I'm certainly not an auto-electrician but it sounds like your dash illumination wire is connected to something on the stereo head unit and it's grounding through the unit and thus not taking power through the dash lights. It sounds like the other lights that are on are probably on a different circuit (same basic circuit but the dash/instrument lights are slightly different as they all run off of a circuit board on the dash). Just thinking about it a bit further..... Do your dash lights come on if you turn the head unit off? Alternatively mate I think the following suggestion may be a @!*%load easier for you in the long run. Tape up (or remove) or possibly even heat shrink up all the wires that were left (EXCEPT for your speaker wires) and then run 1 wire from a constant positive (head unit memory wire), run 1 wire from a 12 v IGNITION power source (ACC wires) to power the unit up when key is turned to ACC etc, and run 1 ground/earth wire. Hopefully I've offered some kind of help for your problem, personally I think I would be doing re-wiring for the power and ACC wires and earth.. As it'll be easy to find them with a multi-meter or test light etc and you can seal up the huge pile of crap you've got for a wiring harness somewhere behind the dash until you can be bothered to remove it, decifer it, or you can just tape everything off and ignore it forever! Good luck - wiring issues are always a problem - I've got a wiring issue with my interior lights that just seems to be a complete pain in the butt! Anyway, I'm sure just setting it up with a new set of wiring will fix the problem straight out! Let me know how you get on. Sim

Hey folks, does anyone (and sorry for the necro of this old'ish thread) know if Nissan Australia (or Nissan anywhere) will actually sell a full workshop manual for the 1989 WD21 Pathfinder (2DR) Australian model? I've noticed that the only things listed in all the above links are for later models and US models. I also a long time ago bought the CD off eBay but I think mine was like $2, so it wasn't so painful - but it's only the US models on there and that doesn't help much with Aussie models as so much is different.. including the Z24 not being a fuel injected model in 1989. Anyway, if anyone has a version of the 89 WD21 manual that I can get I'd love it, or if you know where I can get a full paper or printed copy I'd be happy enough with that as well. Many thanks Sim

Hey mate, I'm just about to send you a PM Would love to know more about my vehicle... Though I seem to remember someone telling me once that my VIN made it an ST model.. anyway, PM on the way. Sim

Hey all, Living in Alice Springs here at present, though I'm originally from the very bottom of the Hunter Valley (50 km south of Cessnock). I spent 10 years off overseas - did some great 4WDing overseas too. I've had my Pathfinder for just over 3 and a quarter years. If there is anyone here who's even remotely close to Alice Springs get in contact (wasn't going to read through 92 pages in this thread to find out!).. would love to go out and do some exploring with a convoy of Pathfinders!!! And if anyone is driving out to the Red Centre to do some tourism things give me a shout and I'll give you the low down.. and perhaps we can meet up for some exploring. I've got land over near Grafton so hoping to find work there this year and move back east. I'm a little over the desert now, I long for big trees and hills and stuff. Cheers, Sim

Hey folks, Sadly while there are a lot of Aussies on here I would seriously doubt that there are many in Alice Springs - if any.. but if there are, hit me up folks! Let's go find'a'Path out in the desert.. @Precise1 - thanks, yes brief can be a challenge for me some times! I see what you mean about the permissions - they stop the pics from being viewable, I'll work on that one - though you can see heaps of pics on the facebook page if you use facebook... I think they are probably better pictures. I'll definitely be trawling through the members rides section.. and I think a thread on the Pathfinder would probably end up being a mammoth post again - like this one.. though I think my post on theNissanPath was a mammoth effort too. @teixeira - thanks mate. I love it to bits and I have now spent a small fortune on making sure everything is 'like new' on her. Still a little bit more to go but I'm working on it as time/money permits... Glad you liked the intro, even though it was a mammoth effort to read! Sim

I am mate.. haven't posted there for a while either.. I'm omnipresent (everywhere) I'll need to go back and post there at some point, though this place is obviously Pathfinder orientated which is great for me with my constant building up/rebuilding/restoring of my Pathy... though she's starting to look great now, and going better and better! Sim

Hi Dean, Can you send me the details of where you got the carby? I've got a bung original carby where the throttle body housing is so worn it's sucking air in places that air was never meant to be sucked... so my fuel economy is messed up by that alone. A friend has offered me a Weber carby off a 2.0 litre Cortina, not sure of the size of it but he reckons it'll go straight on and offered to fit it next time I pass by (it's only in the Hunter Valley NSW and I'm living in Alice Springs NT right now about 3,000 kms!). Anyway, if there is something out there that bolts straight on and works out of the box then that's a good thing. Also, does your Pathy have air-con, if so did you have to do anything to keep the idle up working with the carby change over - after just spending $1,500 on my air-con (yep, you get ripped off in Alice Springs but with ambient shade temps of 49 degrees two weeks ago you PAY to get it working), I definitely don't want to lose my idle up again as it makes such a difference when you aren't driving and keeps the air-con cooler overall. Anyway would love to know what your fuel economy does with the new carby as well (my economy has improved greatly with my new set of extractors that went on last week), but my economy (without running the air-con) was at best 11.2 litres per 100 km, at worst doing 130 kph (NT roads limit) was 16.5 litres per 100 km. I think it'll be a little better with the extractors.. and probably heaps better with a new carby. If you've got an android phone get the app "aCAR", absolutely brilliant and it keeps track of everything like fuel use/economy etc.. Cheers, Simon

Thank god I don't have to necro this thread as it's latest posts are pretty new. Does this look the same on the Z24 as it does on the pic posted? Can't say that I remember seeing it when I changed the filter a couple of weeks back though I wipe everything down it's not so easy to see with all the rest of the crap in the engine bay.. almost tempted to take off the new filter just to check it, but if it looks the same as the above then I'll definitely have to check it when I next do an oil change - thankfully my oil is changed every 5 to 6,000 kms so it's never 'old' enough to cause any real problems.

G'day folks, While searching for some information on Google I managed to find the NPORA site on my phone, after a few minutes reading I booted up the laptop and joined. I absolutely love my 89 Pathfinder. It shows because I've spent a small fortune on it... When I get the chance I'll take new pics etc of it but to keep you entertained in the meantime please check out this thread: http://test.4x4world.org/showthread.php?416 which has lots of stuff about the Pathfinder up until I lost interest in posting more on that thread (really should consider fixing that some day but I lost interest in the forum shortly afterwards because no one else bothered to post either). Anyway, I've had plenty of experience with 4wding, modifying 4wds and travelling in some of the most remote areas on earth as well as some of the most dangerous. 4WDing has made it all that bit more fun and interesting. Prior to my Pathfinder I also had a Frontera (while I was in the UK for a few years), before that a Jeep Cherokee, Jeep Wrangler, Toyota Hilux, Landcruiser V8 (both the Toyotas belonged to other people but were used by me and the Cherokee was a company vehicle - though the company sent me to some remote places!), I've also had a Diahatsu 4WD though I can't remember what it was but it looked like a moon buggy, and my father had an older Landcruiser years ago that I got my drivers licence in... but 4wd's have been in my family since I was about 6 when my father had a Nissan Patrol. Anyway, currently I work as a remote area bus and coach driver out of Alice Springs in Central Australia. This gets me out to some really out of the way places that are very, very remote but it's a great way to find areas to go 4WDing! I run a set of websites (though I'm currently trying to work out a way to rebuild them all!) which are all linked from www.4x4world.org though the forum a www.4x4forums.org are currently locked to new memberships due to spammers/bots which at one point added over 100 new accounts in 24 hours 'despite' the anti-bot procedures in place. As such I now use facebook for keeping things up to date and posting photos etc. 4x4WORLD was an idea that popped in to my head once I was stuck trying to find parts while living in the UK and doing a petrol to diesel conversion on my Frontera (if you want to know more about that look here: http://test.4x4world.org/showthread.php?28 ) Anyway, sorry for being so lazy and not re-posting all my pics and info to here but you at least get to see the pics and info. Sometime soon I might even get to update some stuff about the Pathfinder. Recently I've been re-spraying my bonnet after the Central Australian UV (which is regularly 15+) has screwed up my paint.. so I'm learning some new skills. I also (today infact - thus why I was doing a google search for some info on toe-in specs) fitted a heap of new steering components. Ok, hope you like the info, hopefully I'll manage to learn some new stuff about the Pathfinder here but so far over the last 3 and a bit years of owning my Pathfinder I've grown to love it more and more. I've learned a lot about it. I've found out just how capable it really is. I've done a lot of 'restoration' work to make things nice and neat, fresh, and ready to last another 25 years! Would love to hear what you think of my Pathfinder. Also when I take some new pics I'll post them here as well - though I don't have any image editing software installed on my computer at the moment so I can't resize for upload to forums. But lots and lots of current, past and present pics of the Pathfinder can also be found at http://www.facebook.com/4x4WORLD my 4x4WORLD facebook page, feel free to like the page.. and also please feel free to add your favourite websites to the www.4x4search.org search engine. Oh yeah, the 4x4WORLD facebook page has lots and lots of pics from my 4WDing trips with the Pathfinder. I'll be adding more and more as I find them on my hard drive and as I have time to upload them. Wow, hope this mammoth attempt at a proper first post makes sense, a bit tired sorry for any bits that seem a little weird. Also hope you like my Pathfinder. Cheers, Sim (Simon)

G'day, Another Aussie here. This time from the centre of the island (well, until I find work back east). I'll post a proper thread with info about me and my 89 Pathy.. Cheers, Simon