PathyGig12

Fuel pressure regulator? Had one go bad on my girlfriends 4runner and it reeked of gas because the system was dumping way too much into the mix. Does the exhaust smell like gas or just the engine bay?

I was re-organizing the drawers and had to take a second to take stock of the sheer quantity of spares Ive got in the truck now because I was losing track. Knowing my luck when it dies itll be one of the three or 4 things I don’t have lol Spare parts as of right now: -Both serpentine belts -CV axle -full sized Tire -Ball joint -TB gasket -headlight bulb -Original factory hub -Inner and outer tie rod end -Rear shock -Stainless steel brake lines (haven't put them on yet) -Idler pulley -Fan clutch -Fuel pump and sending unit -spark plugs - single ignition coil that fits cylinder 2-6 -Both thermostats -Knock sensor -throttle position sensor -fuel pressure regulator -Radiator cap -Ignition start switch -Main relay/starter relay -Blower motor relay -Fuel pump relay -Assorted fuses -Inner and outer front wheel bearing and wheel seals -Brake light stop switch -Front camshaft position sensor -Rear camshaft position sensor -Coolant temp sensor -Original EGR valve -Original 6 injectors -Original upstream O2 sensors -Original MAF -Original IACV -Original charcoal canister purge valve -Upper and lower radiator hoses -Section of heater hose long enough to replace any single piece in the system -Assorted sections of vacuum line and fuel line -Assorted vacuum connectors and hose clamps -Assorted bolts, nuts, and washers -handful of mending brackets -Assorted electrical connectors and primary wire -Gasket material sheets in cork,fiber,and silicone, as well as a tube of RTV -Assorted O rings and crush washers -Assorted small light bulbs for turn signals/tail/brake Honorable mention for supporting stuff: -Coolant -chilton manual -lots of tools -Jack plus jack stand -brake fluid -ATF -power steering fluid -Oil -Stop leak, for both oil and radiator -brake cleaner, PB blaster, and MAF cleaner -Fuel system cleaner -wheel bearing grease, CV grease, dielectric grease, lithium grease, and brake grease -super glue, thread locker and JB weld -Tire repair kit and 3 compressors (primary one, plus my tiny plastic one, and a hand pump for extreme emergency use) Keep in mind all of this fits into those two drawers and a small black plastic box on top so I’ve got tons of room for cargo and groceries

Hehe

Yeah cleaning it is definitely the correct answer here, but it’s time consuming and not much fun lol Even without cleaning it should be evident in the loss of fluid though, and I’m not seeing any loss in power steering, engine oil, or transmission fluid

The CVs are installed now. Sure enough the hose clamp was touching the ball joint just barely so I had to redo that side with a proper boot clamp. I’m leaving the front drive shaft off the truck until I can get it to the driveline shop for new joints and balancing, but I locked the hubs anyway to see how the new boots handle the spinning. Its funny, I noticed when the truck was parked that it dripped a decent amount of oil over a couple hours, but I’ve been checking the level for the past month and it hasn’t dropped below the high mark at all since the last oil change. Before the last change i was using 10-40 in it, but I wanted to go a bit thinner for the cold weather so I first ran it with some Lucas stop leak for about a month or two and then switched to 5w-30 when I did the change. Before the stop leak it was losing quite a bit while driving but since then I haven’t lost any, even on the road trip. So I’m struggling to figure out how it could be visibly leaking but holding the high mark on the dipstick every week

The snap ring arrived today so I’ll be reinstalling the CVs soon. I took some pics of the Warn hubs. The inner ring is missing from the damaged one because I had to pull it off of the axle so I could get the mangled snap ring out from behind it. You can tell where it was trapped and grinding against the hub. I still have no idea how it managed to get stuck in there, but I read in the chilton manual that Nissan recommends replacing the snap ring every time you remove it. I don’t think that’s necessary but I’ve removed it many times over the past couple years so that could certainly have been a contributing factor Normal: Damaged side:

It won’t hit while spinning because I’ll be able to line it up with the ball joint when I’m reinstalling the axle and see if there’s enough clearance. I’m not going to let it spin without knowing that it clears, that would be quite dumb

This did occur to me but I figured there is only one way to find out. If it does make contact I’ll just source a different band so it’s no biggie

Rockford boots installed. I snapped one of the large clamps while crimping it, so I had to use a hose clamp instead. Should work fine but I’ll keep an eye on it. I also used hose clamps for the 4 smaller clamps around the shaft because for whatever reason it was very hard to get the provided crimp clamps tight in that size. These ones fit perfectly so I’m not too worried about them This job was fairly easy overall, the only tricky part is that you need a jaw puller for the inner joint bearings. The sucky part, of course, is all the pounds of grease you have to get off and replace. The boot kits came with green grease packets for both the inners and outers. I heard somewhere that you need yellow grease for one joint and green for the other? I went with moly CV grease from StaLube for the inner joints and the green stuff for the outers. Hopefully it’s fine. I like that you don’t have to mess with the outer joint at all since you can slide both boots on from the inner side. Time will tell if the rockfords we’re worth it. They seem pretty beefy The main thing is all of the clamps are very tight and I wasn’t able to pull the boots loose with any sort of stretching that the CV will do on the truck, even snapping it aggressively to maximum angle several times in a row. I’m happy with that. Now I’m just waiting on the replacement hub snap ring that I ordered

That’s fantastic man. As long as they aren’t too heavily used it sounds like they should be great

Going back to the first post I think you mentioned there was no upgrade done to the rear springs? If you want to eliminate that sag Id recommend the land rover 9449 coils. I think you should be able to get them shipped there and they seem to just shrug off the weight of anything short of a boat. I was fully loaded for my last trip with at least 500 lbs counting two people, two pets, two full sized spares, 5 gallons of spare gas, 7 gallons of water, a trunk full of tools and spare parts, coolant, atf, oil, power steering fluid, plus 3 suitcases and a large metal framed backpack on the roof. And the 9449s only compressed about an inch. So the truck ended up riding perfectly level and handled the moab trails without even getting close to bottoming out. The coils make the ride a little rougher when you’re low on weight but I don’t really mind it at all, I think it gives it better handling characteristics anyway I don’t have any experience with airbags but I’ve heard people say that they are a bit of pain and will eventually fail whereas the 9449s will probably outlast the truck

It’s been off since the trip

Just ordered the boots from Rockford. I believe the guy said they had 6 of each left so now there should be 4 still on the shelves if anyone wants them. I took the torn boots off of my OEM axles and I’m trying to figure out the best way to separate the joints from the shaft. I can’t seem to find a thread about it on the forum but maybe I’m not looking hard enough. The inner joint looks like it just pops off if you give it some force with a claw puller, am I on the right track? Surprisingly the grease inside looks very clean and there’s not much crap inside so I think the joints should be fine. As for grease, I have some of the Sta-lube CV grease but I’ve heard you need different types of grease for the inner and outer joints? Something about green and yellow

Yeah that’s an option for sure. Just don’t have a whole lot of time these days. Most of my free time for working on the truck is at night after work Ill have to schedule a day to hit up some junk yards and look for the replacement rear hatch as well.

Trying to figure out which stickers I like better. I might take some off depending on whether I like the glow in the dark ones or not

Switch panel installed. It was shockingly easy compared to my previous rats nest because the switches came prewired to have a shared ground and shared positive, so all I had to do was run the signal wires to each switch and cut out all of the old wiring that I no longer need. They work great and I love the new look. The color is fairly close but, just a little off I’ve got it hooked up to the main forward lights, fogs, reverse lights, and my red map lights so far. The camera is going to go to the “radar” switch lol, but I need to repair the wiring first since it got messed up at some point while driving. I’m saving the alien torpedo switch for something really cool, haven’t decided yet I do need to do something about the old holes for my previous panel, thats gonna bug the hell out of me

Yeah that’s my guess as well. I’ll source a new one before reinstalling the CVs. But in the mean time while they’re out I’ll take the opportunity to reboot them with the Rockford boots. I just need to call tomorrow and place an order Ive painted the switch panel metallic charcoal to match the fenders but haven’t had a chance install it yet. Waiting on switches still

Yup, the atx14a has its pros and cons. Demystifying it has been one of my main focuses and I’m constantly trying to learn more about what it does in different situations and then pass that on to others so it becomes less of a black box and diagnosing issues becomes easier to do

I believe the problem here is that I fell for misinformation about manual hubs. I distinctly remember reading about how they help save CV boots from tearing, and I suppose I just ran with that idea without looking into it more. So I think the issue everyone has with what I’m saying is the fact that it’s predicated on the idea of manual hubs being boot-savers, which I have come to realize isn’t actually true, even though I’ve seen it said before. Nevertheless, I do still think that it makes sense from a physics standpoint that a non spinning CV will experience less boot wear overall (all other things being equal), even if that reduction in wear is not as significant as I initially thought, seeing as how the stretching can also occur from suspension travel and turning. Since the rotation causes additional stretching and compressing of any given point on the boot for every revolution, it stands to reason that it must cause some amount of additional wear compared to a boot that is only experiencing the non-spinning wear from the lift stretching itself. If you disagree, that’s fine. I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind, just explaining my reasoning Anyway, I’ve already caused way too much disruption to the thread and for that I apologize. Let’s move on

I appreciate your input as always. I’d like to hear what you think might be abnormal about my set up to cause premature boot failure? Even just judging by some of the other responses to this thread from users with AC coils, it seems that if anything, your current boots are the real outliers here. That’s awesome that you’ve got good ones that have lasted so long though.

I didn’t end up getting any pics last night because my hands were covered in grease and it was 2am so I just wanted to get everything done. I’ll try to snap a pic of the damage to the warn hub

I was replacing the control arms last night and ran into an issue. After putting the new ones on I found out the lower ball joint on the right side was completely shot and had a lot of clunking movement when I twisted the wheel back and forth, so I ended up needing to take the CV shaft out to get the ball joint swapped over to the spare I had. When I went to remove the cap from the warn hub so I could access the snap ring on the shaft, I noticed that it was nowhere to be found. After a bit of fiddling I realized the hub wasn’t working properly and was locked to the shaft even though it was supposed to be unlocked. Uh oh. Eventually I figured out that the snap ring had wedged itself in between the shaft and the center ring inside the hub, so it took me half an hour to get it sorted out. I had to take out the inner hub ring, and then pry the snap ring until it had enough clearance so that I could hammer the axle out the back side with a brass punch. The ring was totally mangled and in front of the bearing washer/plate there was a pile of fine metal shavings from where it was grinding the housing of the warn hub. I’m baffled as to what could cause the snap ring to get stuck in the hub. I always install it the same way, and there shouldn’t be enough clearance to get it stuck in there. I’m also wondering whether I should even replace it? Since the warn is chewed up I’m switching to the mile markers I have in the garage but is it possible I could run into engagement issues without the snap ring? I know there’s no way for the axle to pull out without the snap ring since there’s a lot of clearance required to pull it out, but if it isn’t in quite the right spot it might affect the ability of the hub to lock. I’m just worried it will happen again and it sucks not knowing what caused it On the plus side, with the new ball joint and control arms installed, the truck is completely free of any clunking over rough terrain and there’s no more steering wheel shimmy on the freeway. The other side ball joint was perfectly tight so I wonder if this was just a fluke quality control issue. They’re from 1A Auto, so not the highest quality parts.

Yeah I’ll be placing an order for them some time this week. Even in the best case scenario of no CV rotation with the shaft removed, you’re right that the stretching will still exist so I want the best boots available. I wonder if anyone who has installed them could weigh in on their longevity? I can’t remember who has them

Yeah those things look way too beefy to work. Even if they fit they would probably made the truck ride like a wagon from the 1800s

See now at least that makes sense. The turning and suspension travel definitely causes the stretching as well, I hadn’t even considered those. But it doesn’t mean that the boot wear isn’t also caused by spinning. When you turn a CV and watch the boot, one side is compressed while the other is stretched. At an extreme angle, this means a lot of stretching and compressing of each part of the boot as you drive. Whether this wears on it more than the other motions you mentioned, I don’t know. Regardless, it does make me wonder whether there are boots that might give more room for this stretching and last longer. I know they make high angle boots for Toyota’s but I don’t think anything exists for our trucks. It would probably have to be something designed for a larger and longer CV joint and then adapted to still clamp to the R50 CVs