hawairish

I'm not aware of any size differences, and I'm surprised to not see the parts weren't superseding, but they should fit all the same. The difference is probably the vibration dampeners that are attached to the bar. Only real changes across the entire 96-04 range relating to rear suspension were in regards to shock mounting, and even then 96-99 were the same style.

I'm wanting to test, but my truck is still apart enough (battery out, multiple sensors and harnesses disconnected) that I can't. We avoid keeping the remote in our vehicles when they're parked outside, but otherwise, yeah, our primary vehicle is garage kept (except when a SAS project is underway, lol). I have smaller remotes that fit on keychains.

That was my assumption, too. Well, not really an assumption, since the Owner's Manual says it turns off after 30 minutes. But, because that function is seemingly tied to the battery saver function and not as a security measure, it's why I don't trust it. Per the FSM: The door opening is the main one, but I also think any appropriate metal object --key or screwdriver-- in the cylinder might also complete the circuit. This description is also specifically for when the battery saver mode is activated. It's not clear if this applies when battery saver mode is not activated, or even if the security is enabled. My thought is that anything that enables the interior lighting also enables the vanity lamps and Homelink. If true, that means just switching the dome light from Off or Door to On or pressing the door unlock switch will wake everything, even if the door is not opened (pretty sure the alarm still sounds if the door is unlocked from the inside after being armed). Main thing for me is that there are just too many conditions. It should just be disabled when no key is present. I don't even like knowing it remains active for 30 minutes...why so long? Why not 5 minutes? I don't even want a dome light left on for 30 minutes.

Correct, that 50 pin powers other similar accessories. If I'm being honest, though, I have the Homelink and don't use it because of how it's wired. It's basically always on. It should have been wired to be on an ACC or ON circuit, in my opinion. Aside from being in plain sight, just takes someone breaking the window or opening the door to press the button and access to the garage.

FSM says the harness (M62, white w/ 6 wires) is located on the passenger side, near the A-pillar. May have to pull the glove box to see would be my guess. The Smart Entrance Control Unit supplies the power for it (from pin 50, red w/white wire to M62) and is above the pedals somewhere. The FSM indicates that the harness that connects to the illuminated visor (R5, red w/ 2 wires) is the same harness used to power the Homelink transceiver. Everything should run up the passenger A-pillar. Refs: https://www.nicoclub.com/service-manual?fsm=Pathfinder%2F2003%2Fel.pdf EL-371: Homelink diagram EL-101: vanity/illumination diagram EL-522/523: main harness layout (M62 in cell F1) EL-532: A-pillar/roof wiring locations

Yep, I'm familiar with this service (Montana Shipping Outlet). Used it once to ship a SFD kit to a guy in 2020 during COVID in fact. I don't think he was able to pick things up until 2023 unfortunately between closures, restrictions, and life events. But anyway, if you still need odds and ends, let me know.

No problem. I just happened to have the older coil packs laying around, though I thought I spare newer pack. Fortunately my engine is currently torn down a little for my SAS project to pull one somewhat easily. I hear you on wanting to research things. I'm lucky to have several parts yards around me, as well as RockAuto, since I practically never buy locally. If I can help your project by hitting up my local yards and shipping to you, let me know. A quick search of Row52.com shows 4x 00-01 Pathfinders and 3x 00-01 QX4s in within a reasonable drive for me (the QX4s also had aluminum covers...my older coils came from one). Three of those trucks are at the yard closest to me, and I suspect 2 of them will have aluminum covers. Shipping to CAN from here is notoriously slow and overpriced for large items, but if things can fit into smaller flat-rate boxes or padded envelopes (USPS or UPS) the price isn't too bad. Let me know.

For sure you'd need an older #1 coil. For the other coils: 2a: It's possible to swap the boots older-->newer, but you also need the spring 2b: You'd need to lengthen the boots, which would prevent spark plug contact, so this is a no-go. 2c: Since the older coils were intended for the older covers (aluminum), this is the most correct route. That's what the guy did in that Nico post (man...I barely had the truck 2 years when I was chiming in on that...how things have changed). That said, I did some R&D for you... Newer coil on left, older on right. When aligned by the mounting tabs, the older is about 1/2" longer. When aligned by boot length, they are the same length. The older coil's mounting tab sits above the plastic valve covers mounting hole by 1/2". As mentioned earlier, you can probably still fit the newer style in cylinders 2-6, but the coil has to be turned enough to avoid the mounting boss on the aluminum covers. You could possibly use a screw and washer in the boss to retain the coil to some degree. Taken apart, you can see all the parts are different. Although the spring in the older unit is quite longer, it sits deeper in the hole in the module. All the tube parts are shaped differently enough that fitment isn't great if you were to swap things around, but it's somewhat possible. With springs in and aligned by mounting tab, the older coil is still 1/2" longer. If you put the older style boot and older spring onto the newer style module, the boot fits nicely and everything else seems to be the correct length and position. Not that it matters here, but the newer boot will not fit the older module unless the top of the boot is cut off. Now, since the springs are different, I have no idea what impact it has switching it. I also don't know if you can get the boots and springs. I'd say that if you're at a junk yard and pulling them, you may as well just buy the complete coils. Although my personal opinion is that the additional cost to do this project doesn't really have much ROI, unless it's just cheaper than buying new plastic covers. Hope this helps.

No progress today, but yesterday I felt confident enough in axle placement to cut up my last piece of tubing for the drag link, so now I can talk about the steering setup. The approach here is what the SAS community calls "GM 1-ton TREs". Several 4wd shops sell these kits as "Y-Link" setups. Since this axle came with a Heim kit that was mostly welded up (drag link was ready to be cut to length), I'm just using the tubing but cut the pieces in a manner that retained some length with the bungs previously welded in (project foreshadowing: looks like I'm making Heim jointed upper trailing arms when I focus on the rear axle). The tubing is 1.5" OD x 0.250" wall...it's beefy. The TREs have 1" shafts, so they're beefy, too. I used the following SKP parts from Rock Auto: Tie rod: SES2233L & SES2234R Drag link: SES2027L & SES2026R TREs ran about $28 for all before tax/shipping, and then another $30 for LH/RH threaded bungs and jam nuts off a shop on ebay. Also needed a 1.5" TPF (taper per foot) or 7° reamer, which ran another $77. The reamer is necessary because the 2233L piece and the pitman arm need to be reamed out. The nice part about this is spares are cheap and easy to obtain, but one part does need to be reamed beforehand. The end result: Drag link's at about 6°, which is not too bad. Currently projecting (aiming for) 4" of up-travel, and this position is good enough to keep the tie rod off the pitman joint, and that's really about the only constraint I needed to be mindful of this. There's otherwise plenty of clearance; next closest thing is the drag link below the oil filter, but still ample space. Hidden in that last pic is a very crude placement of the PHB, which should fit really nicely in there. The drag link ended up being 37" center-center, and the PHB will be at 33". I couldn't find much info about the effect of differing lengths, but should be easily to keep them parallel. The PHB is from a JK Wrangler and has hump/kickout for diff cover clearance. The first pic also has the FJ arm wired up. I'm pretty satisfied with the angles and planned placement. Just need to get the plates CAD'd up and cut. Hard to tell with the angle, but the rear eye is just inboard of chassis rail, so it fortunately won't have a big cantilever. Figuring to weld on brackets for the mounts, with a middle removable crossmember. I'm stalled a little on progress because I'm not liking how I've got the engine slung up. Having the support bar at an angle causes the legs on the passenger side to be lower than the driver's side, which is cause the engine to be supported a little crooked. I realized this when I attempted to reinstall the subframe so I could confirm the engine was at the correct height (my decision to do this ended up being a terrible one...installing the subframe was far more difficult than removing it). The real problem is Nissan failing to put any reasonable sling points on the engine. I can't even wrap a strap under the engine without fear of it crushing a tube, or bending something. I mean, the KA in my Frontier already has slingers attached...from the factory...and you could pull that engine out with crowbar. The VQ points are ridiculous obnoxious and inaccessible...not to mention basically requiring genuine Nissan slingers that don't exist (and wouldn't do me any good anyway). So, I'm trying to make slingers I can leave attached for future use. The driver's side is done. The passenger side has been a total ishtshow. I can't even remove the RH bracket to weld something because half the bolts are obstructed by the exhaust manifold. After a couple hours of ideas and measurements, I think I have a plan of attack, which I'll make tomorrow and get the engine re-slung.

Yep! Valve cover gaskets between a bunch of VQ35 and VQ40 vehicles are the same so that's a pretty good sign they'd all fit. The covers do look like they'd fit, but only takes 1 or 2 dumb Nissan changes to throw things off. That rear-pointing tube on the driver's cover would be a problem.

Screw and two clips, though be careful as there’s a clip in the center of the panel piece…if any plastic is going to break off, it’ll be at that point. At least that’s how it seemed on mine.

As far as I can tell, this hose just drains into the cavity and any water pours out through holes in the chassis. I could not locate the hose end underneath the truck or behind the mud flap area (my truck has that stuff cut out because of tire rubbing).

Some good progress yesterday and today! Nothing major, but big little steps, so to speak. Yesterday drilled some holes in the chassis rail to mount up the steering box so I could confirm fitment. Box is a little closer to the wheel well than I had mocked up, but still clears fine. Box is rigged in there with some spacers for the time being until I get all the plate work designed out and the bolt sleeves in hand. With box temporarily attached, I was able to measure up for the steering link and get to chopping the R50 and WJ units. The WJ shaft normally has about 10" of slip, but in it's reduced form now only has about 2.5". I couldn't really get more because I needed to keep enough round tube at the end for the splined end from the R50 shaft...but since the R50 shaft also tapers down, that piece also needed to retain enough length. Total shaft length ends up around 16". The R50 shaft OD is about 1/16" smaller than the WJ shaft ID, so I hammered some 1/32" washers around the shaft, tacked them on, smoothed them out, and ended up with a nice friction fit that also kept the splined end centered nicely. Main thing here was remembering to align the flat part in the spline upwards and perpendicular to the flat sides of the WJ shaft. Also got around to chopping off the leaf spring perches on the axle, since they obstruct where I'll need to mount the FJ radius arms. The passenger side wasn't too bad since it was just a cast piece welded to the tube. The driver's side perch, on the other hand, is cast into the housing but fortunately wasn't too bad. Attacked it with a cut-off wheel and my cheap HF sawzall. Still need to measure up the arms and design some brackets. Shipped up the D44 hubs to Towndawg for his magic touch. They've got a fancy industrial CNC machine at work that will be making the tone rings, so I'm excited to see how that turns out and getting them onto the modified hubs so I can work on the backing plate for the calipers and ABS sensor. He's also going to turn some custom hub adapters that'll support the 108mm rotor and a wheel spacer up to 1.5" (I plan to run the 1" I already have), and then narrow down to 100mm for Nissan wheels.

It's funny this thread started as an "engine temp too cold" issue, since now it's actually running too warm.

It's kind of funny the temp spread on the gauge. The needle at 50% is what my scanner and NDS says is 220F, but 80% is 230F. Buddy says his truck runs closer to 200F, so I'd expect that to be a more suitable 50% point. Fan clutch is relatively new, bought Dec 2022. When I first got it, it'd roar at startup from being dormant. There were definitely times where it'd be roaring moving from a stop when the engine was getting warmer, and the truck just felt like a tank. So for sure the fan was working then. But, I haven't had that warmed-up roar for a while now that I think about it. The water pump is as good a guess as any. The temp sensor was tested previously and passed perfectly per FSM ranges. The sensor, radiator, and water pump are the only things I've not changed. Since I've got the front of the engine apart for the SAS, now's a great time to change the pump. It's probably the original...I know I haven't changed it in the last 10 years.

Whoops! I'm an idiot. I've still got you covered. Pull the kick panel under the dash, then pull out the foam in there and you'll find the hose tucked back in there.

There are two sets. The power valves are the ones located on the lower intake plenum ("lower intake manifold collector" per FSM). These were the ones prone to loosening. The actual intake manifold, which the fuel injectors fit into, has swirl valves; these didn't have the loosening problem. With the upper and lower plenums off, you'll see another actuator like the one for the power valves.

No need to prop the butterfly valves open. If you’re blowing smoke into any of the small vacuum ports, the smoke will just travel around through the runners on the upper and lower plenums. There’s a lower set of butterflies on the intake manifold, but those are normally open if I recall…and they have reliefs on the butterflies. Beyond that, only thing stopping the smoke from going further are the intake/exhaust valves. As for the misfire counts, I don’t recall being able to see anything cylinder specific, except the ability to shut down each cylinder independently. I’d connect up to double check, but my truck (04) is offline for a while (battery out, engine parts out) and NDS doesn’t allow browsing through menus unless it’s actually comm’ing with the ECU.

Exactly right. I can confirm NDSII does not comm with the AT and a few other modules. But, the ECM comm is key; far more data points than over the OBD protocol. I tried using NDSII with my 98 Frontier and it can only do OBD, which is unfortunate. Could've used it the other day troubleshooting some misfires on it. I can get past the smell, but the fact that it lingers for so long is what really nagged me. The little machine I got worked too well at times that I'd have to turn it off and rely on residual smoke to trace the leak. But, no way I'd have found my problem without it.

Logic makes sense. Yeah, no EGR on the VQ that I can recall. I had the driver's manifold off to extract busted studs, and there was nothing extraneous about the removal. Unlike my 98 Frontier where the EGR tube nut was so locked into the manifold that I had to make relief cuts in it to remove it! For the last part, the only thing I can think of is just the fuel system condition. When warming up, it's in an open loop and is ignoring all the sensors. When it's met conditions, it'll go closed loop and rely on them. In my case, mine was going to an open loop fault state where it basically wasn't trusting the sensors. BTW, this is where Nissan Data Scan II came in handy for me. I could see each bank's STFT and fuel system state, and correlate it to engine stumbles. What kind of opened my eyes is seeing the banks do them independently, when I just assumed it was the entire engine. Sometimes they were in sync, sometimes they weren't. It also allowed me to see the pattern of occurrence...it was happening every 30s, on the nuts. Have you tried using a stop watch to see if there's some sort of frequency vs. missing erratically?

Go figure...my image host is being wonky so I can't upload a pic or find one I already have that probably shows it. I'll try again later. It's easy to find, though. It comes out under the rear quarter panel, not around the door or wheel well...further back. Look for the bracket that mounts the leading edge of the bumper's side cover to the underside of the quarter panel and it's right behind that. It'll be a tube with a rubber boot/grommet on it, sticking down about 2". If the boot goes AWOL, the hose should still be dangling there. The pic you attached is accurate for the B reference and exists on both sides of the vehicle. If you've got water dripping under the door, I'd think the hose detached at the rearward point A. Might have enough slack in the headliner if you pull the b-pillar trim and door gaskets, but the headliner is somewhat rigid in that space and there's some other insulation items to deal with.

That's been my understanding, too. Upper sensors control A/F, lower sensors determine upper cat efficiency...at least that's what I believe. System doesn't care about the lower cats (or resonators if Fed-emissions equiped; mine has lower cats). But to that extent, that's why I've always attributed P0420/P0430 to possibly faulty sensors. If the upper and/or lower sensors are buggy, I'd think the delta would be askew. Of course, I could be totally wrong since there are separate codes to assess the sensors themselves. The cat bolts aren't too difficult...it's getting the stupid heat shields off that really sucks, especially on passenger side. A couple 10mm are hidden, tend to be rusted in, and only accessible with small wrenches. After that, just need some sockets and extensions to avoid busting knuckles. I think I only sheared off two or three bolts on the driver's side, lol. In general, exhaust work sucks. In the case of our trucks, you basically need to remove the entire system to pull the cats...at least in my case, there was not enough slack in the hangers to push everything rearward to clear the studs on the components.

The last few days have largely been spent measuring and CAD'ing things. Latest efforts have been towards designing the plate work on the driver's side chassis rail in the engine bay. In general, I'll plate the top, side, and bottom of the rail about 24" to provide the provisions for the steering box, panhard mount, motor mount perch, and bump stops/limit straps. The passenger side will be different since I only need a plate with provisions for the motor mount perch and bump/limit components. This plate will be bolt on, though. There's vast difference in working space between the LH and RH sides of the rail. I'd have to tear down the engine further (coolant pipes, exhaust manifold) to have better top access, but then there's still an AC line right on top of the rail that I'm not going to relocate or weld around...can't even slip 3/16" plate under it. But, I have a good bolt-on plan. Speaking of motor mounts, I finally welded up a poly set. This will be the gear box placement. Hard to see with shadows, but there's clearance at all points so zero need to cut the wheel well. Placement is 1.25" above the rail, and 0.5" off it. The rail tapers in that area so my plating approach will also square it up. However, this placement will have the metal edge of the radiator right up to it and obstructs the fan shroud. The radiator will be moved 1/2" over and planning to heat the fan shroud up and reshape it. I also forgot to mock this up with the airbox initially, but it cleared just enough. The high pressure line will be routed under the engine. Should work great because it'll be tucked up with other oil lines, is within reach of the pressure sensor, and the pump's OE hardline already points downward in that direction (assuming I can use part of the OE line). Reamed out a tie-rod and the pitman to accept the larger GM TREs. That was sucky process, but it got done. This is one thing where I need to keep in mind that some trail spares need to be modified in advance. Work on the brakes and ABS design still a work in progress. I discovered the R50 calipers mount a lot closer to the hub center than I thought they would...my initial (mis)calculation showed me they'd be fully obstructed, so I had a small panic until I realized I used the wrong measurement in my math. Still, fitment is tight. Going with 4th Gen 4Runner rotors (also FJ Cruiser and 05+ Tacoma) instead. Same nominal thickness as R50 and H3 (28mm), but slightly larger diameter than H3 (300mm vs 315mm vs 319mm). I'll take any additional clearance I can get. Plus, I figure there will be more support for Toy parts in the long run...or in my case, more RockAuto clearance options. But, before I could pull the trigger on returning the H3 rotors and buying the 4R ones, I fired up the CNC router to make a bracket to visualize the general placement. This isn't the exact depth the caliper (it is the exact distance outward it will be), just a general placement so I could confirm things clear. That's right: I can wear sandals in my garage during the winters here. Though, I do wear steel-toed shoes for projects like this. Saw one thread of a guy SAS'ing his Tacoma...he dropped a Dana 60 on his big toe. "¡Adios!" - toenail. I don't know the physics behind caliper placement, but my understanding is it matters. The R50 and D44 calipers are mounted higher, but I have obvious constraints here. The mock-up put them vertically, but I should be able to rotate them up a few more degrees. The main problem with doing these brake mockups is that can't fit the rotors until the hub is turned down to fit inside the rotors (D44 brakes normally mount to the back of the hub). Fortunately, unlike the H3 rotor, I was able to attach the 4R rotor to the backside so I could good reference distances. I'll need to go a slightly different direction for the tone ring. New plan is to make larger tone rings that'll move the sensor up and out, but also avoid taking too much meat off the hub, particularly where it'd overlap where the inner bear race is installed. The general idea:

No change, unfortunately. Right now the radiator and hoses are off the trying while I work on the SAS project. I still have the "new" 170F thermostat I originally installed and I may toss it back in, though I don't expect it to make any difference. Per my monitoring on my laptop with Nissan Data Scan, engine temps were nominally 220F and would creep to 230F. This would occur while cruising at freeway speeds even on cold nights...don't laugh since you're in Canada, but cold here this time of year is 40F. They'd also creep while stopped, but then drop a little once I got moving. I think either way, 220F is too hot, but I will note that the gauge needle is just slightly below half way, which has been its normal place for as long as I can remember. So many other thoughts. Maybe the fan clutch isn't pulling like it should (it's pretty easy to stop when the engine is >220F). With the radiator off I may try to flush it or replace it. Maybe the water pump isn't circulating. The R50 VQs have an upper thermostat for 203F bypass that I may even just remove, since it didn't exist on other VQs, including the JDM R50. Anything to ensure that coolant is actually pumping. Given the procedure I did for bleeding, I had rather high confidence that I got air out, since the tube approach I did offered visible proof...but I was pretty pissed to see it doing this all over again.