Jump to content

First few weeks with the pathfinder and a couple of questions?


TahoeRunner
 Share

Recommended Posts

Hi everyone,

 

Loving the pathfinder and its fitting in with the family nicely. We've been having some nicer weather so I think i'm going to be doing the fluids here in the next few weeks. My wife is diggin it and we are really enjoying having a manual tranny again, even though this one is a little picky. I found that you can't rush it into 2nd gear most of the time so you have to pause for a split second for the change to be a little smoother. I've actually been getting great gas mileage in it too. I drive 11 miles to work each way non-highway and other running around and my first two tanks have been 20.2 and 20.7 mpg so the motor must be running pretty well.

 

I have noticed a few things and have been searching around the forums and some stuff I've found on and some I haven't so I thought I'd get your thoughts.

 

1. I think I have one or two broken exhaust hangers thanks to some searching on the forums. When I hit sharp bumps I get some banging around under the driver's floor board and when I start the engine I get the same "banging" sound underneath the truck. It would make sense if its the exhaust slaping around when ever the motor moves a bit or if I hit bumps. I'm going to crawl under the truck this weekend and take a look.

 

2. There seems to be a fuel smell when the engine is cold and I only smell it if it idles in place for a minute or two. I tightened all the fittings of the usual fuel hoses that you guys mention and that seemed to help some, but I think there is a very small leak at the hose going into the fuel filter. By the way the fuel filter looks like it might be original or very very old so that is definitely getting swapped this weekend. The fuel leak must be very slight though, otherwise my gas mileage would suffer if a lot of fuel wasn't making it to the engine.

 

3. Yesterday was the first nice day that I actually was able to drive with the windows down all the way home. I noticed in our neighborhood that the engine is kind of whiny. Not sure if the engine has a natural whine to it but the best way to describe is that its sounds like a supercharger with a little bit of bad power steering pump. The belts all look pretty new from what I could tell and its not high pitched. When I got home, I popped the hood and revved the motor a couple of times and its noticeable but wouldn't call it loud. I found a few things on the forum about the TBelt being too tight or any of the other belts. It could be a bad alternator too I guess. Any thoughts?

 

4. The only other "interesting" thing I noticed is that when I start it in the morning and the motor is real cold, I get a whistleing noise from the motor. It usually fades off within 20 seconds, and the colder the longer it lasts. didn't find anything on that one. I noticed one of the later repair tickets from the previous owner, that he complained of a whistling noise when cold and the shop replaced his injector seals. So it either didn't fix it or it came back.

 

Other than that, its been doing great and just needs a bath finally but time has been scarce!

Edited by TahoeRunner
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi everyone,

 

Loving the pathfinder and its fitting in with the family nicely. We've been having some nicer weather so I think i'm going to be doing the fluids here in the next few weeks. My wife is diggin it and we are really enjoying having a manual tranny again, even though this one is a little picky. I found that you can't rush it into 2nd gear most of the time so you have to pause for a split second for the change to be a little smoother. I've actually been getting great gas mileage in it too. I drive 11 miles to work each way non-highway and other running around and my first two tanks have been 20.2 and 20.7 mpg so the motor must be running pretty well.

 

I have noticed a few things and have been searching around the forums and some stuff I've found on and some I haven't so I thought I'd get your thoughts.

 

1. I think I have one or two broken exhaust hangers thanks to some searching on the forums. When I hit sharp bumps I get some banging around under the driver's floor board and when I start the engine I get the same "banging" sound underneath the truck. It would make sense if its the exhaust slaping around when ever the motor moves a bit or if I hit bumps. I'm going to crawl under the truck this weekend and take a look.

 

2. There seems to be a fuel smell when the engine is cold and I only smell it if it idles in place for a minute or two. I tightened all the fittings of the usual fuel hoses that you guys mention and that seemed to help some, but I think there is a very small leak at the hose going into the fuel filter. By the way the fuel filter looks like it might be original or very very old so that is definitely getting swapped this weekend. The fuel leak must be very slight though, otherwise my gas mileage would suffer if a lot of fuel wasn't making it to the engine.

 

3. Yesterday was the first nice day that I actually was able to drive with the windows down all the way home. I noticed in our neighborhood that the engine is kind of whiny. Not sure if the engine has a natural whine to it but the best way to describe is that its sounds like a supercharger with a little bit of bad power steering pump. The belts all look pretty new from what I could tell and its not high pitched. When I got home, I popped the hood and revved the motor a couple of times and its noticeable but wouldn't call it loud. I found a few things on the forum about the TBelt being too tight or any of the other belts. It could be a bad alternator too I guess. Any thoughts?

 

4. The only other "interesting" thing I noticed is that when I start it in the morning and the motor is real cold, I get a whistleing noise from the motor. It usually fades off within 20 seconds, and the colder the longer it lasts. didn't find anything on that one. I noticed one of the later repair tickets from the previous owner, that he complained of a whistling noise when cold and the shop replaced his injector seals. So it either didn't fix it or it came back.

 

Other than that, its been doing great and just needs a bath finally but time has been scarce!

 

1. You're probably right, I would check the ones that support the muffler as they have broken on me twice over the years. Replacements are only about 5 dollars last time I checked.

 

2. There is a small fuel hose that connects the 2 fuel rails you can see it behind the distributor cap. Mine was leaking a bit and I could smell gas. It's a 4" (roughly) piece of hose.

 

3. Could be the T-belt is a little too tight. I've been told that there is a break in period for the belt although I never noticed it on my rig. What you can do is take off all the accessory belts (one at a time) until the whining stops. Is it like a whirring kind of whine?

 

4. Mine used to do this too and it was intake boot that had small little cracks in it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No comments for most of your issues, but the engine whine could be the bearing in your idler pulley on your AC belt. I've had that go. Know a few others that have as well. Follow adamzan's instruction removing one belt at a time if it clears when you remove the AC belt, it's likely the idler pulley.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well I didn't have as much time this weekend as I was hoping so I got nothing done on Sarge. I did have a few minutes thought to slide under and have a look around. So I do have a broken exhaust hanger. Its the one for the muffler, the little rubber piece is split in two and the exhaust is hanging down an inch or so and just barely above the frame cross member. So that's probably the banging around i'm hearing. I'm gonna try and pick one of up from NAPA today if they have one and swap it this week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

sounds like either your timing belt is too tight or the tensioner pulley spring is bad or your waterpump is on it's way out.

 

 

I can't imagine its the timing belt but it could be. It shouldn't be the water pump though. It was done about 10k miles ago with the timing belt.

 

I'll have to try the accessory belts first and see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...