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What broke on your Pathfinder today?


onespiritbrain
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I took a rough road, my exhaust broke immediately. I’ll have to pull the exhaust out and weld it up. The whole thing looks pretty terrible..

6d31fbac564de9ea913d7dd5dd91fad8.jpg

 

Also I’m not sure exactly when it happened but my wind visor broke off and is now gone. As you can see it needed to be replaced anyhow..

296c77a58295c4c967ae2fb3f8c3b7cf.jpg

 

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Nothing broke on it today, since I don't really drive it most of the time. But what is currently broken:

 

Throttle position sensor

Rear main seal leak

ABS light on

PCV hose broke off

Random coolant leak I can't seem to find behind the engine.

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On Sunday, when heading up into the hills to do some shooting with my daughter, had my fans give up on me. Saw the temp at hot and couldn't hear the fans with the engine off(have the controller set to run on temp even with the engine off), so opened the hood to see what was going on and found the relay was gone out of the controller. Thought that's odd, had a spare that I put in and the fans tried to jump out of the engine bay. Pulled the relay and took a look at the fans and found both were missing a blade and chunks out of the rest. Guess 20 years was about the limit for the Maxima fans I installed. Stuck the relay back in and let the paint shakers tear themselves apart to get back home. New fans arrived today, so have that fun project to do when I find a few hours to pull the radiator to get the broken fan assembly off and build the replacement. 

 

Hard to get motivated on all the work I have to do on my truck. After 9 hours a day of working on other people's cars, working on mine just isn't very interesting to me anymore. 

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It’s funny your story would come up right now as I am about to install an electric fan on mine this weekend.

I might try to keep the clutch driven one in the back with all my other stuff when I go to the mountains for emergency.

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No regrets honestly for giving up the clutch fan myself. I have seen them break as well. For me, the e-fans are worth a bit of hassle once every decade or so for making access to the front of the engine easier and the quicker cooling when the engine is shut down. 

 

The suspension lift on the other hand, really doesn't give me enough off road performance to make up for the aggravation of the constant fiddling to try and keep the alignment somewhere acceptable and the poor street manners. However, going back to stock will be even more work and expense, so it stays. 

 

The pair of 14" fans I got on Amazon for about $38 seem to be working. Installed them yesterday and then stress tested them by doing a run up into the mountains. Rough road, long slow climb and warm day let me see they will be fine. The radiator on the other hand, is in bad shape, so need to come up with an upgrade there. Found that the radiator and the steering gear are rubbing at the lower tank seam and has almost worn through. Lots of fin damage on the core, and a suspect area where a tube is looking a bit sketchy. Plenty of other little issues to deal with though. Still need to find the money to replace the tires. For me, 13 years is pushing it for tires, even if they were a great tire when I bought them. 2 of the 5 are worn out, but the rubber really doesn't like all the UV that the high desert has. 

Edited by Mr_Reverse
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  • 2 weeks later...

My brake light on the lift gate popped off on one side. Now it is hanging awkwardly and banging around as I wait until it moves up to the top of my to-do list...


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A little over a week ago, I was wandering in the hills and managed to break my pitman arm. I have a modified steering system in my truck, an old L&P stage 3. The web between the top plate and the pitman arm broke along the top of the weld bead on the arm. Caused the steering to get a bit sloppy like a worn CL does, but had no problem getting back to the streets and home. Pulled it off last Saturday and my manager took it home and rewelded it for me(only welder I have access to is a little 110v wire feed that simply doesn't have the heat to make a good weld on more than 1/8"). Reassembled it Monday, just need to get around to realigning again. Just been hot and a little busy at work, so haven't felt a pressing need to get it done. I don't really go anywhere right now and the leaking radiator is causing the engine to run hot. Just need to get the personal forest fires put out and under control before I can do much else. 

I would post pictures, but I haven't got a host and haven't learned how to resize and post with my phone. Yes I am one of those old guys that can barely figure out how to even take a picture with their phone. Texting is not the easiest thing to me either ?

Edited by Mr_Reverse
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  • 5 weeks later...

Honestly it’s my fault it happened. I cross threaded it when I first installed it and then when I put new springs on it had all it could take and must have let go some time afterward. It’d been making some strange noises for a while and the molded rubber piece where the threaded portion goes into was chewed up, so I must have been riding with it like that. Thankfully I didn’t hit a big bump at highway speeds because it would’ve been nasty!

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On 8/26/2019 at 4:52 AM, onespiritbrain said:

Honestly it’s my fault it happened. I cross threaded it when I first installed it and then when I put new springs on it had all it could take and must have let go some time afterward. It’d been making some strange noises for a while and the molded rubber piece where the threaded portion goes into was chewed up, so I must have been riding with it like that. Thankfully I didn’t hit a big bump at highway speeds because it would’ve been nasty!

 

Dang, that's exactly what happened to me. Ugh. Are you sure you assembled the struts correctly? Take a look at my thread.

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2 hours ago, zakzackzachary said:

 

Dang, that's exactly what happened to me. Ugh. Are you sure you assembled the struts correctly? Take a look at my thread.

I definitely did not install them correctly haha, I stripped the ever living frig out of the shaft threads on the first installation, then when I installed new springs it stripped completely and I made a stupid attempt to clean the threads with a die which apparently gave up the ghost right away, probably on the first drive but it all stayed together until I creamed a speed bump which dislodged the strut shaft.

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Nice of it to pick a convenient time to let go! The side of the stud looks like it was loose for a while.

 

Speaking of funny noises, my driver's front wheel bearing has been grumbling at 60 since the Gambler (and howling if I go much faster), so there's what broke on mine recently. I tore it down to see what I was up against and the grease for the inner bearing is black and the grease seal's all torn up. Not sure when/how that happened (not like I bombed it around the sand dunes and clonked the front end on a whoop or anything :whistle:), but I know what it needs next.

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16 hours ago, onespiritbrain said:

I definitely did not install them correctly haha, I stripped the ever living frig out of the shaft threads on the first installation, then when I installed new springs it stripped completely and I made a stupid attempt to clean the threads with a die which apparently gave up the ghost right away, probably on the first drive but it all stayed together until I creamed a speed bump which dislodged the strut shaft.

 

That's literally exactly what I did... Shame on us, haha. Although I also assembled the strut incorrectly, and forgot the 1" metal spacer. Hopefully you did that correctly. The reason I ask is because I noticed that your upper strut top mount hole is oblong (similar to mine) from the threaded portion sawing away at it.

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You will want to save yourself some aggravation in the future by replacing the strut mounts when you replace the struts. The R50s are well known for the mounts wearing and making a lot of noise. To me, spacers make more sense than longer springs for the front. That way you get the lift, but keep the better ride and the struts don't top out as much. 

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That's literally exactly what I did... Shame on us, haha. Although I also assembled the strut incorrectly, and forgot the 1" metal spacer. Hopefully you did that correctly. The reason I ask is because I noticed that your upper strut top mount hole is oblong (similar to mine) from the threaded portion sawing away at it.

Metal spacer??
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Metal spacer??

It appears your strut has spacer built into shaft. Some manufacturers have a separate metal spacer for tophat


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3 hours ago, RainGoat said:

OEM struts have the spacer as part of the top hat. Most aftermarket strut sets have it as a separate spacer.

 

That's a perfect picture to illustrate this. @onespiritbrain If required, ensure this spacer IS INSTALLED. In my experience, all the aftermarket top hats have the spacer separate, where as OEM has it built in. Update us if you learn more, I'm just curious.

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That's a perfect picture to illustrate this.

 

In my experience, all the aftermarket top hats have the spacer separate

Well,[mention=37543]TowndawgR50[/mention] had me take it just for you! BTW, I did run into one aftermarket which did have the spacer grafted on but I can’t remember which.

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