Anyone know anything about 1st gen pathfinders?

Do plenty of “while your in there” stuffs. There is little hidden radiator hoses near the thermostat if i remember right. Also you already mentioned it but do the water pump when you do the timing belt as you will have to remove the timing belt to get to the water pump. While your in there, see if your knock sensor is bad yet. Ifs buried under the intake towards the firewall. Pretty common to move it to a more accessible area when servicing it. 

Also the steering on these is famously terrible.  Can be ok if you leave it at stock height, but if you crank up the torsion bars for lift, the steering suffers bad. The increased angle gives leverage to move the centerlink and wears it out quick. Can saw the steering wheel back and forth and not move anywhere, nice huge dead spot. There is/was some aftermarket solutions to this. 

Oh and i had previously missed the price, but heck yeah, if its running/driving, under 1k is a steal. 

In reply to TJL :

Good to know! Thanks!!!

ALL_READY!

She made it up “Dead Mike’s Curve” (steep hill with 100’ drop into creek beside it) in 4L no problem.

Curious, in what ways was the seller dishonest?  and did you talk him down??

jfryjfry said:

Curious, in what ways was the seller dishonest?  and did you talk him down??

1. CEL on. He claims it’s been on for 5 years. Says he “tried to have it checked but thuh compyooter is too old to check.” I think it’s OBDI or OBDII? Regardless, he said “But it always passes emissions!” I told him I thought you couldn’t pass emissions in GA with a CEL on. (I don’t know for sure, as we don’t have emissions in my county, but I’m 99% sure.) At which point he got half bowed-up and proclaimed “WELL AH AIN’T NO LIAR!” Whatever. 

2. Didn’t picture...or tell me about the front bumper being smashed when I asked him “Is there any damage not pictured?” Looks like it was tee’d up on a tree. NBD, but would’ve been nice to know. He *claimed* his son was driving it, got rear-ended, and pushed into another car. I asked him why he didn’t just get a check from the insurance company from the dude who did the rear-ending.” 

“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuh........”

Anyway. It has a new radiator & fan, and nothing is leaking, but my deductive reasoning skills tell me this has something to do with the CEL. Maybe the kid hit a tree (or car) busted the rad, and drove it home hot. Who knows. And maybe that’s why he’s unloading it. OR

3. Stupid me (again.) He kept proclaiming proudly on the phone, in person, and in the ad “HELL, IT ONLY HAS 140k MILES!”

Oops. I was so concerned with all the other E36 M3 to check, I never thought to check the goddamned mileage till the ride home, when I noticed the oil change sticker said “178k” berkeley! It’s got 177k miles.

Oh well. So it’s DEFINITELY due for a timing belt. That and brakes are on the top of the list. I probably would’ve walked had I had the sense to look at the goddamned mileage.

I’ll run to vatozone tonight or tomorrow and have them check the codes. Would’ve done it on the test-drive, but the closest parts store was 30 miles away, and mamma was sitting at dude’s house with the girls in the car.

Drove home fine, so hopefully something chicken-E36 M3 like an O2 sensor. We’ll see.

He wouldn’t budge a nickel on price. He said every kid in the county had called on it in the last two days and he wasn’t going to call them back till I’d looked at it. That part I kinda believe. <shrug> 

In reply to poopshovel again :

its obd1 here are the instructions to read the code http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/topic/21-ecu-self-diagnostics-for-87-95-pathfinder/

Yup was just going to say, if still OBD 1, it has a 2  light diagnostic setup. On my 94 i put some pacesetter headers on it. The headers werent that bad but the crossover pipe had zero chance of fitting without mods. But anyways, the bad fit put the oxygen sensor wiring into the front driveshaft. Disconnected the o2 sensor until i could relocate it. Drove like that for over a week before a code popped up. Made no difference in driving too. Good thing with obd 1 is it was pretty dumb. Easy to keep it going. I ran for a while with no exhaust past the 1 cat. It didnt care. Sounded alright too. 

Mass air sensors would need cleaning fairly often on mine. 

One of my favorite things on the WD21’s/pathfinders of that era was the interior. Nice clean smooth dash, the drivers/passenger seat go back to make a lounge chair if your sitting in the back row. Gotta take the headrests  off. And the little plastic buttons on the lower seat backs that you could clip the seat belt buckle too. Fold rear seats down and put big stuff in the back. 

love how they made the 4 door models look like they were only 2 doors, and glad they carried that theme over into the xterras (i have a 2nd gen). 

MrChaos said:

In reply to poopshovel again :

its obd1 here are the instructions to read the code http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/topic/21-ecu-self-diagnostics-for-87-95-pathfinder/

Cool. Thanks!

I'd drive the E36 M3 out of that! Looks like a decent buy. Following with interest

“Ice cold A/C” lasted about an hour. I wish people weren’t such berkeleying dicks.

poopshovel again said:

“Ice cold A/C” lasted about an hour. I wish people weren’t such berkeleying dicks.

Dicks, Bob Costas, and shiny happy people.

if the AC was cold for a while, at least you know all the major components work and you should just be chasing a leak.