westslope

A big thank you to madkiwi for the post and the TSBs. Also a big thank you to 88pathoffroad for publicizing this information elsewhere. This would explain why 1.) sliding into 4th gear started to get a little sticky last year. We had the clutch and transmission re and re about 60,000km ago in 2005 at an independent Atuo Pro shop with a high turn over rate. (OK, I know better now.) Last summer I paid the Nissan dealership to do a mechanical and safety check after the pathie was stolen outside of Mountain Equipment Co-op in downtown Vancouver in broad daylight. The dealership topped up the transmission at the time and suggested that the transmission had been "weeping". The dealer however missed the sticky 4th gear which disappointed me. (I understand now better than ever the interest of doing as much maintenance and repairs yourself.) Incidentally, we finesse the sticky 4th gear issue by allowing the RPMs to drop to low levels. When the engine is cold, there is no stickiness. I had a young mechanic who is just starting his own drive-train business do the flush and refill recently. There was a slight miscommunication problem. Instead of just putting in 5.1 litres of G4-7590 synthetic gear oil, he put in almost 6 litres. Ultimately he tilted the vehicle but by how much I do not know. So far so good. The young mechanic suggested that if the flush were to alleviate or improve the slightly sticky 4th gear issue, it would take about 10 to 20km of driving. I noticed a tiny drop of gear fluid on the car port floor, probably coming from somewhere near the rear differential. BTW, he added AC Delco limited slip differential additive. My best guess? The slight overfill on the tranny fluid will not pose a problem. My go-to brake 'n muffler mechanic agreed. But I'd appreciate some feedback please.

Gentlemen: All your feedback is much appreciated. A young and apparently knowledgeable mechanic who ultimately flushed the tranny and replaced the rear differential oil today argued in favouring of 1) using synth engine oil, 2) not worrying too much about the filter--he uses FRAMs and claims that they are all made to specs--and 3) changing the oil every 5,000 or 6,000km. That is how he looks after his own personal F-250 truck. The oil was changed (Mobil 1 10W30 for high-mileage vehicles) and the NAPA Gold (Wix) filter installed today. I'll monitor levels and colour but if the oil gets black over 5,000km I'll probably switch it out earlier than later.

yozsi, I don't pretend to be an expert in this area. Apparently you do, and you want me to treat your outburts as some kind of divine authority argument. Furthermore, I am not sure that your emotionally charged statements constitute "proof". More like an opinion I'd say. Perhaps a better informed opinion than mine. You apparently do not believe in synthetic oil. That's fine. You should mount a road show because there a bunch of university-trained engineers out there that are in dire need of your enlightenment. Engineers make mistakes too. ====================================================== The extended performance Mobil filter available via Newfoundland costs C$14 but would have to be special ordered. Lordco autoparts sells a $15 synthetic K&N filter. NAPA autoparts sells a NAPA Gold filter manufactured by Wix for $7.85. I'll probably go with the NAPA Gold (Wix) filter.

So what's the story? Are you wize guyz trying to tell me that all this stuff about regular filters not lasting as long as the synth oil is pure unadulterated bull-sheet? A regular quality (?) paper filter will last 10,000km? This is new to me. Glad I came here to be enlightened.

Perhaps you can explain why that is the case, or point to a review?

The Newfoundland shop is out of stock. However, I found a Mobil Express Lube shop in Bellingham Washington just south of us that will mail-order it for me. But they do not have M1-208 in stock. The fella cross-matched and found that a Mightly Oil filter M36-82 filter works with our '93 pathie. US$20 for two filters and ~$5-$10 handling and shipping. The price is right, but I wanted to understand what is the difference between the Mobil 1 extended performance M1-208 filter and the Mighty Oil filter M36-82 filter? Anybody? If the Mighty oil filter is as good as the Mobil 1 filter, I'm all over it!

212,000km or about 133,000 miles. I guess that is not much juding by the poll questions! Engine is in great shape but I'm not 100% sure about the body and chassis--rust--despite considerable efforts in that department.

redfinder: My engine takes about 3.3 litres of oil if I remember correctly. I was about to write down $40 for the lot but didn't want to exaggerate. With your FRAM filter, you should be changing every 5,000km or so. mzxtreme: Yup 17 or awfully close to that number. Are you missing a few? I was OK around the front wheels. There's a nipple on the rear drive shaft and a couple of others that were rather awkward to reach to say the least. ============================================ A litttle simulation may help. Assume $40 of oil, $10 labour, $5 for an ordinary filter, $20 for an extended performance filter. Assume that the expensive synthetic oil filter last 2X the distance. Ordinary filter: 2X ($40 + $10 + $5 ) = $110 Synth filter: 1 X ($40 + $10 + $20) = $70 There's a $40 or 36% savings. Could be $80 or more depending on how much one drives in a year. Note CAREFULLY: I did not include the value of time. If one's time is worth $50/hour and it takes 2 hours to do this, then skipping oil changes is all the more attractive. Even if one's time is worth much less than $50/hour, that factor is still important.

Have Pro-Comp ES3000s on the pathie. Luckily the wife likes and appreciates a stiff ride -- no pun intended -- and the additional road-handling control that comes with the stiff shocks. hehe Bilsteins are good. I have also heard that the Australian Old Man Emu shocks are the BEST. The current ProComps have over 100,000km on them. Still good, but if I switch and plan to hold on to the vehicle for another couple of years, I'll probably get Old Man Emu shocks, unless advised otherwise. http://www.rocky-road.com/omeshocks.html

Thanks! Yes, been searching, almost obsessively. Have been posting too, perhaps too much for a greenhorn newbie. I do see a number of BC members. I should post a picture of the pathie somewhere in a beautiful spot in the interior. I know it sounds selfish and miserly, but I'm looking forward to empty backcountry later this year. Bring on those high fuel prices!

Over $10? Assume it costs me $15. At near $30 of Mobil 1 synthetic plus shop labour costs, if it really allows me to extend from circa 5,000km between oil changes to 9,000km or 10,000km between changes, then the filter will be well worth it. I get my mechanic to change the oil because lubing the 17 grease nipples took me close to half a day to do on my own without a hoist. I supply the Mobil 1 oil and sometimes the beer. Good practice when your guys go out of their way to save you money AND ensure the truck is safe.

Champion Labs makes Mobil 1 extended performance filters. M1-208 is the oil filter for my vehicle. Apparently there is this small shop in Newfoundland that sells them. Otherwise there are no mail-order/web-shops in the USA that will sell to Canada, or so I'm told.

My name is Erik. My wife and I live in the Greater Vancouver area of British Columbia. We own a '93 pathie that we bought in 1999 at 54,000 km, lady and city-driven with no scratches underneath. It was purchased after a particularly rough, rutty road near Kamloops, BC, pushed the right-rear shock strut through the uni-chassis body of our '87 Nissan Sentra wagon. (Man, I used to whiz by folks in SUVs in that vehicle all the time!) I like to flyfish, backpack, scramble up non-technical mountains, canoe. Usually I like to drive to spot X, park and then self-propel. I suppose I have a tonne of bush skills. The pathfinder doesn't really help catch more fish but it does help me get into some great wild camping spots. Unfortunately many of BC's public campgrounds--including the BC forest service camp site--are just plain ugly. Garbage, noisy, obnoxious people running around in ATVs and firing off chain-saws or bear-bangers at all hours.

Can anybody direct me to a diagram that explains those electrical leads from the fuel gauge sender unit please. Have looked.

Yup. And there is still more than twice as much rust that I did not remove. Ideally I should cut out the entire area and pop-riveted sheet metal over the hole but this is starting to get too complicated and time consuming. Plus there could be lots of rust surprises awaiting me despite the good looking condition of the vehicle from the exterior. So I quit agonizing and fibreglassed over. Managed to convince the wife that we should start planning to dump the pathie and move up market by about 10 or more years. I reckon that light-truck sized SUVs should become really, really dirt cheap as the year marches on, and commuters start to fully understand the impact of high fuel prices on the household budget. Please tell your president to stay the course in the Middle East. These oil prices are not coming down until the US actually plunges into a proper recession.

You can see the rust hole at just NE of the fuel gauge sender unit and immediately above the fuel lines. I need to remove more paint and probably more rust before fibreglassing.

Some recreational fishermen spray it on their artificial lures for warmwater game fish. I have no idea how well it works and would be leery of limited anecdotal information. Anglers get rather caught up in myths and superstitution.

Question: Does the rust removal gel pose a threat to animals and children if diluted and dumped on the car port asphalt? Just checking. =================================== Next? Clean up the ground and try to test with a wire to another surface. Now, that I have some reassurance that a soldering iron will not blow up the gas tank, I'll get more aggressive with wire brushes, emery cloth and more rust remover gel applications.

Pictures follow. Rear cargo area. the windex bottle contains tap water for rinsing the resut remover gel. A closer look at the cargo area. Note the rust hole in the NE corner. Close up shot of the heavily corroded ground.

Downloaded the 1994 manuals a couple of days ago. Glad to have it but I did not find a detailed diagram of the fuel gauge sending unit. The fuel gauge is erratic. It starts out full, then dives quickly to 1/4 tank and stays there until it slowly goes to zero. All the other instruments work so I am assuming a problem with the sending unit, possibly the ground. The ground connection is heavily corroded. I'm afraid of breaking off the tab as opposed to pulling it off. If that happens how do I re-attach? Hence the query about the safety of using a soldering iron above a partially full tank of gasoline. RedPath88: If I have to solder, it will be done with a small, simple soldering gun. Thanks to both of you for feedback on soldering near the fuel tank. Pictures might be a good idea. I'll try to take some and post tomorrow. ================================================= On a related subject, I usually try to thoroughly wash the pathie everytime it goes off-road at a self-serve, coin-operated high-pressure hose station. It would appear that I am not being as effective as I would like to think.

I removed the panel from the cargo area. I can see 4 wires plus a black wire that looks like a ground wire given the way it is simply attached to the fuel gauge sender unit. Now I'm feeling a tad stumped. I wish I had detailed diagrams and instructions. How do I clean it up? I presume I should clean it before any checking. If the connection is lousy because of corrosion, then how do I clean up and re-connect? Is a soldering gun safe to use, with a tank partially full of gasoline? I'm focussing on the sender unit because all other instruments (except the fuel gauge) work fine.

I used an old throw mat to buffer the fuel lines. The ground out hole is now over twice as large as the original rust area.

Thanks to MrJim and others for this thread. We 'discovered' this problem when canoe-tripping and touring in the Queen Charlotte Islands off the north coast of British Columbia about 8 years ago. For 6 of 9 days of the trip, we sat through 50 knot + winds and 3 to 4 metre waves. Then there were was the ferry delay and then the ferry we finally managed to board for the long trip to the mainland turned around in 4 metre seas to rescue a small native salmon gillnetter who braved the seas likely to take advantage of the tiny openings (days, sometimes just hours) caused by massive overcapacity resulting from decades of salmon-wealth-destroying management. The vehicle started to idle rough and stall during this challenge-filled vacation. (Actually I loved it--stormy seas are in my veins--but my wife wasn't so keen.) Anyhooow, I now carry a canister of throttle cleaner in the emergency boxes in the cargo space at all times. Next step will be to examine and clean the MAF thanks to 88pathoffroad's excellent instructions and informative images.

Thank you both RowdoggNZ and nunya. Good ideas. I like quick 'n dirty as long as it works and lasts. I do not have easy access to welding equipment (been over 30 years since I welded anything). Current thoughts: The rust area is almost as big as a C$2 coin (we call them toonies). Structural strength is not an issue. Place aluminum foil between the cargo floor and the fuel lines to catch the sparks. (I understand the interest of a grind mat and assume that it is fire proof but don't have one.) Grind out rust with power-drill mounted Carborundum stones. Fibreglass, paint, spray rock guard from below, cover with foam and the original carpet. Done.

I discovered some rust in the cargo panel just NE of the fuel gauge sender unit and rather close to the fuel lines.. Do I need to take special precautions while using grinding tools to get rid of the rust? Suggestions? =================================================== Our '93 pathie has a wonky fuel gauge. It works but drops much faster than it should and occasionally goes to zero. All the other instruments work just fine. That suggested to me a fuel gauge sender wire problem as opposed to the voltage regulator. So I removed the cargo rug, and then unbolted the fuel gauge sender unit cover. I saw no obvious solution to the fuel gauge issue, but I found a an area of rust just north east of the cover very close to fuel lines, hence the concern.