taro

my mechanic called on friday. he fixed the keyway and the final charge was $385. if it holds, i'll feel pretty good about the cost of the fix vs the cost of a new crank, etc. he was pretty excited about telling me how he stacked pennies together to approximate the keyway and how the welding he did did not stick to the pennies due to their copper content. sounded great to me!

MY1PATH, oh it's most appreciated. last year, when i had garage space and back-up rides, i definitely would have taken it on. hopefully, i'll get to the place where i can do multiday projects again. thanks for all of your help. best wishes to you too.

MY1PATH, you bring up a good point. my issue right now is time. i am living the redneck life of sorts in that i have the '98 pf, an '82 fj40, and an '04 kawasaki ninja 500. on thursday night i lost two driveshaft bolts on the fj40 and had to park it at an oreillys until yesterday because i wasted too much time trying to source the bolts locally. on the pf, i think i spent thursday evening putting the harmonic balancer back together, realizing it was wrong, i spent friday redoing it with a new harmonic balancer only to realize that the key was not included only to redoit again on saturday once i bought another key only to figure out that the keyway was damaged to the degree that the key would not fit. so on tuesday, i rode my bike to the pf, which has been sitting at the shop, to get the tools i needed for the lc. rode over to the lc. got it fixed, rode back home, then jogged 4.6 miles to get the lc. so now i've got one working car and a working motorcycle. i too currently do not have any space to work on things (apartment complex) and currently do not have the will to do anything more on the pf for now

MY1PATH, thanks for the info. I have not gotten into welding and so i limped it over to my mechanic who said he has done a couple of keyways with good results. He ballparked the repair around $500, which i guess beats the price of replacing the crank or engine. I'll keep y'all posted.

I forgot to add that that plate (the timing belt cover?) behind where the pulley sits (I assume) is only being held in place at the lower section of the plate by the pulley itself as the lower bolt tab has broken off and the lip that contacts the pulley is falling apart. Fun, fun, fun

My pic didn't come through from my phone. Here's the second attempt.

MY1PATH, thanks for the info. The bad news is that the slot for the key is damaged and I could not get it seated it its slot, which is a complete bummer. This wad compounded by the fact that my battery is totally dead I presume because the crank pulley is not turning with the crank and therefore the batt isn't charging.

Well this time, it stayed tight, but the pulley was still moving as if not balanced. I went to autozone and got a new pulley. put it on in the parking lot and the same thing happened. what i did notice was that there was not any woodruff key for the pulley, which i think is the problem, which probably means that i didn't need a new pulley btw-the description for the pulley said woodruff key included when needed, but no key. a quick search did not reveal any sources for keys. would the dealer stock this? were the same keys used for all of the 3.3 or other engines? Simon, the old pulley does not appear to be coming apart. the part that is chipped is on the inner side? i know my pathfinder did sustain front end damage, which did not show up on car fax but i don't know if that had anything to do with the chipped pulley. madhornet, i forgot about the loctite again, but i have to take it all apart again anyway i'll loctite it for sure next time. colinnwn, thanks for the info!

Simon, thanks for the response. when i had it off last, i didn't even think about inspecting the pulley itself. i've never even thought about one of them coming apart. i did notice the lip of the pulley being chipped away in some areas, but did not notice any play between the inner and outer sections. it'll be easy enough to get it off, it's barely on right now. the torque spec on the bolt is 141 - 156 ft-lbs (ft-lbs/lb-ft, which is it?). if the pulley's in good shape, i guess i'll put some loctite on it and maybe yank on it a bit more after my torque wrench tells me i've hit 150. Thanks, Taro

Hello all, I've recently had trouble with my crankshaft pulley coming loose on my '98 with about 170k miles on it. Tonight, I've read about the pulleys wearing out. Question: if my pulley was wearing out, would it cause my crankshaft pulley bolt to come loose or is this a bolt issue (I'm imagining that a pulley that is out of balance could cause the bolt to loosen, but I just want to make sure)? Also, I tightened the bolt to 150 lb-ft was this not tight enough? my torque wrench only goes to 150 lb-ft. should i try to go tighter? Thanks, Taro

oh never mind. figuring out which side of the markings was 15 degrees btdc and figuring out how to orient the dizzy helped for some reason SHE'S ALIVE!!!

okay, now i'm certain i'm trying to set the distributor while on tdc on the compression stroke, but I get nothing. if i put the old one in, it'll at least idle-roughly. any thoughts? thanks, taro

Thanks all. MY1PATH, that's what got me in this mess in the first place. at least, i'm hoping that's why she won't fire. i've already got a compression gauge on #1, but if that still doesn't seem to get it, i'll take off the timing cover just to be extra sure. thanks again! Taro

hello, i tried to put a new distributor in the easy way and can't get the motor to fire up. so now i'm trying to find tdc. i could only find one search result stating that the crankshaft bolt size for a 3.3 was 27mm. Would this be correct for a '98 stock 3.3 as well? my sockets only go up to 26mm, doh! Thanks, taro

Thanks Dave!

Thanks Judge. We had more snow over the weekend and this time I didn't need 4wd half as much with the new tires. the thing just climbs and is more practical than the fj, although the fj is fun--because of the various gaps in the top, it ended up snowing on the inside of the fj.

Update: I got the BFGs on. I think they look good, but my PF sure does need an inch or two of lift . Here are some pics. Also of my new FJ40 if anyone is interested. Thanks, Taro

Hey all, Thanks for the concern. I bought an '82 FJ40 that needs a lot of work. It just so happens that it's wearing brand new 31 x 10.5 15 BFG ATs. This kind of stuff never happens to me. Anyway, I'm trying to find 33 x 9.5 15s for it so I can put the 31s on the PF. Anyway, y'all are right, I need to quit procrastinating and fearing the hit to the wallet and just do it. Taro

We finally had some actual snow in Knoxville, TN on Thursday and many of the back roads are still ice covered today. We live in a hilly area and I'm pleased to report that the PF came through without any problems even with completely bald tires. It was like a little mountain goat climbing about roads that others had to quit on. Lovin' It!

Well, er, no. In the end, I could only swap out one of my upper links. My impact wrench wouldn't fit on the the passenger side upper link and although I could undo the front bolts on the lowers, the back driver's side wouldn't come undone and even though the passenger side nut came off, the bolt would not come out even after a torch and sledgehammer. I couldn't get the passenger side lower bolted back up in the front, so i tried to tie it to the bolt holes with twine to drive about a mile to a local shop--like the idiot that I am. Sure enough within a 1/4 mile, the twine breaks and the rear axle is crabbing all over the place, even at under five miles an hour. The link is dragging with the rear attached, but the front side dragging. I'm amazed that it didn't catch on something or that the roll bar or panhard rod didn't snap-it was pretty unnerving. Anyway, $140 later, the PF is ROCKING!!! It is truly amazing the way it handles. I bought this PF used with the problem and so I had never driven it the way it was supposed to drive. Even with the 31s, the stock suspension handles better than any Civic or Accord I grew up with. So well balanced with the rear wheel drive. Also, with the 3.3 smoothly revving to 5k rpm in each gear of the smooth shifting 5-speed, it's like I have a new vehicle!!! The PF was ahead of its time as a crossover vehicle...and yet it still has the guts to handle some rough stuff (stock) with the 4wd and low range (plus it has ABS and the creature comforts). I LOVE MY R50!!!

Well, after two years of putting up with the wobble while having an extra set of links from a junk yard, I finally went about replacing the rear suspension link bushings. First thing to note is that I'm a moron and learn things the hard way. After weeks of hacking away at the metal sleeves with chisels and an air hammer, I finally figured out how to get them out easily: 1. Take a hacksaw and cut through the metal sleeve. It only takes one cut. Make sure you cut all the way through the sleeve. 2. Take a chisel at the location where you cut through the sleeve and start wailing away. Within minutes, they will pop out. Now keep in mind I took my links to a shop to have them pressed out. The reply: "it made our 20 ton press bow up. We won't be able to help you." I also tried to take it to a metal works shop. They told me they didn't think it would be worth the $150 they were going to charge me and sent me home to try the hacksaw for which I was appreciative. Hope this is helpful.

You didn't by chance take any pics of how the control arms looked after you removed the old bushings did you? My one link end already looks beat up and the sleeve has not even separated from the control arm opening yet. I'll take another swing at it tonight.

Thanks for the reply. I'm pretty much committed with buying the extra set of control arms and new bushings--so I hope I can make these work. I guess my backup plan will be to have a shop press out the old bushings from the arms on my pathfinder and press in the new ones if I end up mangling the spare arms that I bought.

Hello, I was trying to get my old control arm bushings out and have been struggling. It seems like the metal liner is fused to the control arm. Is this normal? The only thing I can guess is that I bought an extra set of control arms from a junk yard and the guy who took them off did not have an impact wrench and tried heating the bolts up with a torch to try to loosen them. Could the heat have welded the bushing liner to the control arm or am I going about this wrong? Thanks, taro

I'm no expert pathfinder or otherwise. But I thought I'd chime in. Re: no spark--so all of the other electrical components are working yes? The starter is turning, etc., etc.? If so, have you tried pulling the spark plugs (one at a time) and having someone start it while you confirm for sure that you are indeed not getting spark? This might seem redneck, but... make sure your insulated well from the wires and you might want to pull the fuse to the fuel pump as well. If indeed you are not getting spark, make sure you check your fusible links as well as your fuses. If you are getting spark, have you checked for sure that you are at TDC for the right stroke (compression or exhaust)? Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I've had instances where I thought I was at TDC for the compression stroke when I was not. Good luck.