ThaBigPerm

I'd try to rule out water in a tire or two. Sounds crazy, but some compressors blow quite a bit of moisture, esp in humid weather, if they're not mantained or blown down frequently enough. Edit: oops - looks like you've already swapped wheels and had the same issue.

"Bypass"? That makes me think it's related to the bypass hose located underneath all the spaghetti and behind the rear timing cover (yes, it's as fun to get to as it sounds).

The other day - front brake rotors, calipers, pads, and 4 corner bleed, along with auto 4wd hub clean, repack (grease was slightly milky from water contamination sometime over the last 21 years, but metal bits were pristine)

I just used a pair of Philips-head screwdrivers that fit and used a wrench between them for turning leverage.

Do all vehicles have those brackets, even those without the tire rack option? Hmmm... If so, is there any way to get a center punch up there from the inside, so you use the bolt holes themselves to make your "mark"? I can imagine the top one would be one hellova tight squeeze. Maybe you could thread the bolts in until they contact the body sheet metal (again, in reverse, from the inside) and use them to help you make your drill marks?

Yep, I'd suggest a starter. If a starter spins freely and doesn't engage the engine flywheel/flexplate teeth, it's because the bendix either isn't energizing or is stuck. Since yours does that alternately with only a "click" from the solenoid, I'd say it's probably all pretty boogered. Not uncommon, being that every oil change on these vehicles usually dumps a good half quart of oil right onto the starter, which can work its way in and cause all sorts of havoc over the years.

Aside from the bolts and bits lining up, measure the lengths of your old vs "new" transmissions. It's possible it will actually bolt up just fine, but if longer or shorter than your original, the driveshaft will be too long/short (as the case may be).

Only under a load? Is there any racket from the engine when it does this under a load (rattling, pinging, or knocking)? If so, I'd suspect the ignition timing is too far advanced. Alternately it could be bad or contaminated fuel. I'd say old fuel too, but we know how fast Pathys go through fuel, so the odds of gas sitting for months in the tank are next to zero.

You'll also need to be careful installing the new seal, so that the lip on the crank doesn't roll the seal inside-out and booger up the seal's spring (it's a bit trickier than the cam seals). I made a little "tool" using an old Full Throttle energy drink can. Cut the top and bottom ends off, then cut down the length, creating a sheet of aluminum that could be rolled up tight enough to slip into the opening on the crank seal, then allowed to "unroll" a bit and fit snugly inside the seal. The end of the aluminum roll can be worked over the crank, and the seal then slides down the roll. Seat the seal and remove the old can - voila! No buggered seal or lost spring.

^^This. Speaking as someone who had a car that smelled of gas for a few days. The problem went away after the engine caught fire and the car burned to the ground. Had the same problem with my Pathy - same issue. Tightened the hose clamps and fixed it. Will be replacing the hose soon too, just for good measure.

While not a mod/repair, I drove Pathy in the first great OMG ice storm of '13. Like. A. Champ. First time I got to extensively use 4wd also. Edit: I do have a bit of tooling to report, so it's not *entirely* off-topic - there was about an inch-thick coffin of ice all over, and couldn't even get the door open. Used a nice fixed-blade Gerber hunting knife to hack the ice away from the door handle and where the door meets the body, then used a generous amount of rubbing alcohol as de-icer. So there's that.

This does sound like a caliper piston not sealing all the way, or the master cylinder doing the same. One thing though, is that if I'm not mistaken all semi-modern (late 60s onward) vehicles have dual-channel braking systems - two wheels are on their own independent hydrolic system and the other two wheels are on another (usually corners are paired, but some have front/rear). That way if a hose pops or cylinder fails on one wheel you don't lose the entire braking system, just half of it. However, a bad master cylinder would affect the whole system (since they never got around to redundant master cylinders). I had a bad MC on my '66 Fairlane once and the way it behaved was the pedal was always soft like it needed pumping, but pumping didn't firm it up. Pressure on the brake pedal would cause it slowly drop all the way to the floor.

Unless there's a more comprehensive "flash" that a dealership would/could do, as far as I know all you have to do is disconnect the battery and wait a few. To speed things up you can touch the + and - cable ends together (AFTER removing BOTH from the battery - just the loose cable ends). The computer will then have to "re-learn" when you fire it back up and let it idle.

D21 already chose his path(y), but I'll chime in here for others who might be facing this task, as I recently tackled it myself (both sides!). First, I was curious about the grommets too, but decided to pony up for the set that had 'em. Turns out it wasn't a bad idea; the rubber grommets act as "springs", applying compression as you turn the screws down on them and they "squish" to fill the little metal disk that both contains the gromet and acts as a washer. As such, I imagine they 1) prevent overtorquing and 2) prevent the screws from rattling loose. My factory grommets were crumble bunnies, completely spring-less over the two decades they'd been under the hood. I could not have reused them even if I'd wanted to. As for RTV, the design of the valve cover *might* allow it, but it would require a ton of the stuff (as compared to the valve cover on a sb Chevy or Ford, for example). The gasket is a big honkin' (as in thick) rubber job that press fits (with some effort and cussing) into a channel in the valve cover - to RTV the thing would require enough goop to fill the channel, since it's not a flat mating surface where a nice bead would otherwise do. On a related side note, don't drop one of your valve cover screws/washer/grommet combos behind the rear timing cover trying to put it back on. Trust me on that one

Does it overheat at all? Or reach op temp and generally stay there as it should? I've never tried checking my lower hose to see if it exhibits the same behavior, but I might give it a shot. Mine just got a new pump, t-stat, hoses (including bypass and all those little boogers under the plenum), fan and clutch, so I've got some recent memories of the shenanegans that is the VG30E cooling system. Usually a t-stat stuck closed will cause the engine to overheat pretty quickly, and when stuck open it won't reach operating temperature (or if a PE removed it altogether - yes, I've seen that before, too). Being stuck half-way might be an unusual possibility...

As for the door locks, I had a similar issue with my 93 - but my locks worked only when it was raining :0| Turned out it was this: http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/topic/34301-wd21-door-lock-timer/?hl=%2Bdoor+%2Blocks&do=findComment&comment=673804 Took more time to find the cracked solder point than to actually remove, solder, and reinstall, so it's not a difficult fix (if that turns out to be your prob).

Found this, sounds like what you were experiencing (as for the cloudy part at least) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijyw_oJNE-Y

If you're forced to use gloss when you want satin or semi-gloss, you might try knocking the shine out of it (once completely dried/cured, of course) using 000 steel wool. I've not tried it myself on painted plastic, but it's used to knock down the shine on rifle stocks that are refinished and come out a bit too loud with the specular highlights. It dulls it slightly without leaving scratches (if done gingerly). As for engine paints, there used to be some rattle-can semi-gloss that was pretty good for engine bays - I think Krylon made it. I used it on my '66 Fairlane. Some of the engine paints need to "bake" to fully cure though - and I'd be hesitant to throw a plastic trim or grill piece in an oven to simulate engine heat.

Was next on my list ... to make the "wiggle" trick a bit more permanent.

Fixing a sudden temper tantrum, where Pathy decided she didn't want to idle anymore ... some of the time. Wiggling a few spark plug wires resulted in engine dying with the beautiful sound of electrical arcing. Replaced. Wiggling MAF connector resulted in a slight bump in engine speed (probably poor connection). Unplugged battery to reset 'puter. Better.

Certainly a much more elegant solution

That sucks. I had a '91 Mustang GT - because of the high theft rates for those cars in the mid-90s, I used to pull the rotor out of the distributer when parking overnight at my apartment, the logic being that a quick hot-wire that won't start will usually cause the perp to run away rather than pop the hood to do some troubleshooting, leaving behind damage rather than an empty parking space. The *one* night I said "screw it, it'll be fine" and didn't disable it, it got stolen. I've not done any "special" moves to my pathy, but reading how many are getting Pathynapped here, I may start yanking the coil wire (which seems to be the simplest part to remove on it).

Here I am griping about upper plenum shenanegans, and I've not even gotten to chassis/suspension work yet - of which there is a bit to do on my Pathy

New valve cover gaskets, intake plenum gasket (since it has to come off anyway), and wound up replacing all of the coolant/vacuum lines under the intake plenum since quite a few crumbled as I removed them, and the rest were close to being that bad. Discovered a busted vacuum line between charcoal canister and throtle body, fixing that also fixed my intermittent stumble from off-idle. After two days of work, I can honestly say I'd rather do the timing belt 3 times in a row than r&r that upper intake ever again, so I went ahead and replaced 'urrything' that A: wasn't made of metal and B: would require yanking the plenum to get to in the future. Runs like a champ, though!

Another place to look is O2 sensor ... when the engine is cold the computer runs in "open loop" mode, ignoring the O2 sensor since it has to be up to operating temp before it's anywhere near accurate. After warming up, computer goes into "closed loop" mode and begins listening to the sensor. So it can at times be a culprit in problems that occur only when warmed up.