GhostPath

There are now treatments and such that you can use to rejuvenate and prevent plastics and rubber from decaying. Armor All is not one of them. Also, have you checked the dealer on this sort of thing? For dealer parts, Nissan is surprisingly reasonable about pricing - even without discounts. Often the new parts have "fixes" for problems.

And then there's the *reason* why all the Nissans, even the cheapest, from this era had fuel idiot lights in addition to their gauges - the pump is dependent on fuel for cooling, more so than most pumps. Running it dry can actually damage it. It's in the manuals on some models (but not on my 90's).

Yeah, I could do that, but it's such a hack... I prefer more elegant solutions.

I was looking at my WD21 today and I noticed that 1) the hinges seem to have gaskets underneath them, and 2) those gaskets are cracked because I'm seeing water getting into the interior from there. I looked at FAST but I couldn't find any gaskets listed for those places. Anyone ever replace these or have a part number for these?

www.courtesyparts.com?

"Tune it right" Hm, okay. Let's see. Out of the box, the Chevy Smallblock 350 makes about 280hp, max without aftermarket parts. The LS makes, oh.... 350-500, depending on which LS motor you get. You can get an LS cheap out of a wrecked GM car or truck of recent vintage. SBCs are starting to become hard to find in junkyards, save for those few that cater to older vehicles. Assuming equal dollars spent on both, for the price of a reliable, properly tuned 500hp carbed SBC, you can have a 900hp LS1. And you never have to rejet when the weather changes.

I'm assuming that you're new to Japanese vehicles or to the phenomenon of internet forums about Japanese vehicles. Otherwise, you couldn't possibly have missed what JDM stands for. JDM is short for "Japanese Domestic Market." From Wikipedia: JDM parts are highly prized among US and European owners of certain Japanese car models. Not so much the Pathfinder, as the JDM part differences are pretty minor and have no advantage in normal use. On the other hand, the Civic guys go nuts over JDM parts because the JDM Civic is usually a *lot* better than the US one. Likewise with the US S13/S14 240SX guys. Now, as to what is commonly called a "used JDM engine" - due to draconian vehicle inspection laws in Japan, as well as Japanese laws intended to keep their auto industry running at full capacity all the time, it is often cheaper for a Japanese car owner to replace his engine (or the entire car) rather than keep it once it is more than a few years old. This results in vast numbers of low-mileage engines being swapped out from perfectly fine cars, or engines being removed from discarded cars with low miles. Typically these engines have around 35-65,000 miles on them and have usually been fairly well cared for. Since there is such an enormous supply of these, you can get a replacement engine that has been brought into the US by an importer for cheap - and sometimes you can even pick up a power boost that way. (Don't count on that, though.) You can get them with or without warranties, and installation is available at many shops that offer these. Anyway, it's a cheap alternative to a local rebuild or an unknown junkyard engine. There are JDM engine importers in every major US city (yes, even Detroit). You need to find a good one, because a bad one will fob off awful garbage on you. You can also find hundreds of them online. Just do a search for "JDM engines" and you'll find more vendors than you ever wanted. Good luck!

Unless you just messed up the belt while changing a water pump or some such, you're out of luck; you have a 99.999995% chance that you smacked a valve into a piston. It's not even a question. Both mechanics are correct. If you dismantle the front of the engine down to the point where you can replace the timing belt, you're also at the point where you can replace the pump, main seal, tensioner, and most of the related parts with little or no additional labor (or cost). But if you do all that labor, then even partially assemble the timing stuff to do a compression check, you're going to have to tear it all back down again if it fails. And it probably will. The second mechanic is trying to save you more money, IMHO. Either way, you are looking at a head rebuild/replacement as a best case scenario. You may be better served by putting a used JDM engine in the truck instead, of course.

Cherokees are unibodies, and therefore they are CARS.

Except that if he buys an LS1, he'll get two or three times the horsepower and it won't spazz out and die at high angles like carbed engines do.

Yeah - but I'm a little pressed for time. It's in the archives - do a search for "timing belt tension".

Let me guess - no mudflaps, right?

Try replacing the wiper arm and spring along with the wiper blade. The entire rear wiper arm is **$15** or less at the dealer.

I think you set your timing belt tensioner too tight.

The one on my 85 Turbo Z and the one on my 93 Pathfinder both had double key slots, in line behind each other. It does matter, because if you don't have both, nothing's stopping the unkeyed one from rotating freely.

Um... I don't see a fuse anywhere in there. Please tell me you have some sort of fuse in-line there!

For obvious reasons, the WD21s are the best for offroading. The current F-Alpha based Pathfinder has equal promise, but right now it has *no* aftermarket at all and may never have one.

I'll take the fender flares and mudflaps if you don't want them. I can swap you for some "wingless" type hinges.

Active jammers are illegal without an FCC license (which, to be honest, is rather easy to get). Passive jammers are just plain ineffective. Some of the new cameras reportedly have "pic on jam" features so they just start snapping pics when they get jammed. Pretty easy to figure out who had the jammer then. A better way of dealing with it is judicially. If you have the time, money, and a lawyer, fight the ticket on civil rights issues and get photo radar banned by the courts. Here in Texas, we didn't bother. Automated unmanned photo radar, as of the last legislative session, is permanently banned in the state of Texas.

Yes, but this person is reporting that it's magically getting MORE coolant. My guess is a cracked head or head gasket.

Port yes, polish no. The intake tract MUST be rough. The reason the K&N does better is because it's not stuffed in the restrictive airbox that came from the factory and can therefore flow more air.

The variable length manifold trick, if defeated, will destroy your low end torque. Contrary to what the old hotrodders thought, smoothing or polishing the intake runners will actually HURT power production. As computer flow modelling has shown, you need turbulence in the incoming air stream to help create the swirl in the combustion chamber. To do that, you need some roughness in the intake runners. In this era of tight emissions standards and tighter fuel economy standards, if polishing the runners was going to provide any benefits, you'd see makers doing it. Not even Ferrari polishes the inside of their intake manifolds. Do try to keep up with the latest in engine tech and research will you? :D

When did you last do the timing belt? This sounds like the timing belt jumped time.

Pics, please. I haven't seen any 95 US WD21s down here with underseat vents, and I've seen plenty of them in the boneyards. Not saying yours doesn't have it, I've just not seen them and I want to see what they look like.

There isn't one in the 90-95's either, so I think we can conclude that the WD21 never had it in the US.