Tech Thread - Nissan Frontier, Navara, Pathfinder.

[lighthammer]

This was no sales rep this was the service manager i had a lengthy talk with him about the thump noise i am hearing when i accelerate he insisted that the van does not have a electronic LSD

That's diff-backlash. Very common in the automatic Navara's (both 4x2 and 4x4). Happens when there's some play between the gear teeth and when the transmission down-shifts, there's a small "thud" sound coming from the back cuz there too much play between the teeth.

May have to open the rear diff and have it inspected.
Possibly a bad carrier bearing? I dunno... I'm not a mechanic (though I like to play one!).

Call James Mosely - 374-9339
He was able to fix that problem on a 4x4 auto navara late last year. I know cuz I was there servicing that Navara too, did his oil-change and fuel/oil/air filter changes for him. It had a bad carrier bearing in the rear diff, but I wasn't sure if that was the problem itself or if anything else had to be replaced.

BTW, that same customer's Navara had been in and out of Neal and Nasty about 4-times, and he paid more than $1000 everytime it was down for servicing.

So... yeah.
Call James.

[ravist]

they changed the two front shocks again (06-mar-12)..... no difference in ride and will have to monitor if tire still continues to feather.....
randy bailey came out openly and said to me that he does not know what the problem is and that he has never seen an issue like this...

these are the tires i just changed after two mhts of usage....
will post some pics of how the new michelin (currently installed) tires are looking after the shocks were changed..

[lighthammer]

Hmm... are both shoulders on each tyre wearing thinly like that?

What tyre pressure are you running at?
Underpressuring a tyre can cause the shoulders to wear faster than the belly (middle part) of the tread. This is cuz the tyre sidewalls are supporting most of the weight, and not the entire tread itself.

On the other hand, overpressuring a tyre can cause the belly of the tread to stick out more, and the center partition of the tread will wear faster than the shoulders.\


If you look on the lower part of the driver's side door just by the rubber, there's a small chart that says for the Navara, 35psi is recommended tyre pressure (remember it's a 1950kg truck, at least in stock form. Almost 2 metric tons - over 2 metric tons with a driver in it).

[lighthammer]

Here's some more advice that pertains to tyre alignment - I suspect that your camber is off slightly. My own navara had a camber problem back when I had the Pirelli Scorpions that Neal And Nasty couldn't fix at all - not that their wheel/tire center was any good at all either.

I took my truck to the Aranguez Alignment Center (Rambhuju Trace, Aranguez Road - second left after you turn right at the roundabout) and the guy there used their Hunter Machine and found that the camber was off - AFTER i had it aligned the day before at AutoMotive Components in Arima (a subco of N&M).




Anyway, have a read of this material:

Original site: Here....



Camber is the angle of the wheel, measured in degrees, when viewed from the front of the vehicle. If the top of the wheel is leaning out from the center of the car, then the camber is positive. If it’s leaning in, then the camber is negative. If the camber is out of adjustment, it will cause tire wear on one side of the tire’s tread. If the camber is too far negative, for instance, then the tire will wear on the inside of the tread.

If the camber is different from side to side it can cause a pulling problem. The vehicle will pull to the side with the more positive camber. On many front-wheel-drive vehicles, camber is not adjustable. If the camber is out on these cars, it indicates that something is worn or bent, possibly from an accident and must be repaired or replaced.

Caster is the angle of this steering pivot, measured in degrees, when viewed from the side of the vehicle. When you turn the steering wheel, the front wheels respond by turning on a pivot attached to the suspension system.





If the top of the pivot is leaning toward the rear of the car, then the caster is positive. If it is leaning toward the front, it is negative. If the caster is out of adjustment, it can cause problems in straight line tracking.
If the caster is different from side to side, the vehicle will pull to the side with the less positive caster. If the caster is equal but too negative, the steering will be light and the vehicle will wander and be difficult to keep in a straight line. If the caster is equal but too positive, the steering will be heavy and the steering wheel may kick when you hit a bump. Caster has little affect on tire wear.


The best way to visualize caster is to picture a shopping cart caster. The pivot of this type of caster, while not at an angle, intersects the ground ahead of the wheel contact patch. When the wheel is behind the pivot at the point where it contacts the ground, it is in positive caster. Picture yourself trying to push the cart and keep the wheel ahead of the pivot. The wheel will continually try to turn from straight ahead. That is what happens when a car has the caster set too far negative. Like camber, on many front-wheel-drive vehicles, caster is not adjustable. If the caster is out on these cars, it indicates that something is worn or bent, possibly from an accident, and must be replaced or repaired

The toe measurement is the difference in the distance between the front of the tires and the back of the tires. It is measured in fractions of an inch (in the US), and is usually set close to zero … which means that the wheels are parallel with each other. Toe-in means that the fronts of the tires are closer to each other than the rears. Toe-out is just the opposite. An incorrect toe-in will cause rapid tire wear to both tires equally. This type of tire wear is called a saw-tooth wear pattern.

If the sharp edges of the tread sections are pointing to the center of the car, then there is too much toe-in. If they are pointed to the outside of the car then there is too much toe-out. Toe is always adjustable on the front wheels, and, on some cars, is also adjustable for the rear wheels.


There are two main types of 4-wheel alignments. In each case, the technician will place an instrument on all four wheels.

In the first type, the rear toe and tracking is checked, but all adjustments are made at the front wheels. This is done on vehicles that do not have adjustments on the rear.
The second type is a full 4-wheel alignment where the adjustments are first made to true up the rear alignment, then the front is adjusted. A full 4-wheel alignment will cost more than the other type because there is more work involved.



Other facts every driver should know about wheel alignments:

A proper wheel alignment should always start and end with a test drive.
The front end and steering linkage should be checked for wear before performing an alignment.
The tires should all be in good shape with even wear patterns. If you have a tire with excessive camber wear, for instance, and you correct the alignment problem that caused that wear, the tire will now be making only partial contact with the road.

Pulling problems are not always related to wheel alignment. Problems with tires (especially unequal air pressure), brakes and power steering can also be responsible. A good wheel alignment technician can usually determine the cause.

[ravist]

on both front tires the wear was one sided not two sides... the left tire wore outer left and the right tire also inner left....
i always try to maintain 32psi bearing in mind that 35psi was too rough.... if you look carefully at the pics above, you will see it is not a normal wear/cut, it has a rounded lip at the edge of each bead which clearly indicates feathering.... i visited approx 5 alignment shops and all said that everything was ok in terms of suspension.... they all told me that alignment, camber/caster was ok too but i knew that something was wrong and took it to master serv balmain where they found it i had two leaking shocks....

the shocks were changed yet i still continued to get erratic tire wear, which prompted massey to change the shocks again....

to date, i still have the same problem and even though massey is telling me that the issue is resolved, my tires are telling me there are still problems....
if you look carefully at the pics below, you will see that the bead's edge is also starting to get rounded just the the ones above.... you may not be able to see the wear so clearly but you can definitely feel it if you pass ur fingers on the tire....
is it possible to get two bad shocks installed??

[trvs]

Hey Guys,

What type of Alarm did your Navara come with from N&M?

[gready123456]

Hey Guys,

What type of Alarm did your Navara come with from N&M?

factory alarm unless u asked for a viper which will have a additional cost to have in installed of course

[trvs]

No I didn't ask for a viper. Is the factory alarm an audible one or just remote lock/unlock?

[gready123456]

No I didn't ask for a viper. Is the factory alarm an audible one or just remote lock/unlock?

audible

[Aaron 2NR]

There is a horn that goes off. The Navara comes with NATS so installing a viper makes no sense. Electronic chipped key

[trvs]

Sweet. I'm getting Car Search and one of their packages includes alerts where they alert you in the event the alarm is triggered. Need to confirm if this would work with their system.

Hopefully my Navara will be in my hands within the next week. 4X4/Auto/Black Leather

N&M's Shipment supposed to be here tonight or tomorrow.

I'm have a Greaddy Full Auto Turbo Timer II to install. I was looking over the install manual and saw the "purple" wire on the unit that you need to splice into your ECU so it can auto detect how long to run the timer for. Anyone did the splice or used a special harness to do this?

I can't wait yes... lol

[venum]

Hopefully my Navara will be in my hands within the next week. 4X4/Auto/Black Leather . . .

I can't wait yes... lol

traitor . . .

I'm have a Greaddy Full Auto Turbo Timer II to install. I was looking over the install manual and saw the "purple" wire on the unit that you need to splice into your ECU so it can auto detect how long to run the timer for. Anyone did the splice or used a special harness to do this?

don't set it on auto

use 1 min for reg driving and 2-3 min for hard driving before switch-off

[trvs]

My daily drive is usually 50KM +/- twice a day... I'm sure I would forget to manually set it at times so I was hoping the auto function would do the job for me.

Anyone have the full auto setup on theirs?

[lighthammer]

Mine is set to Prog-1, 1:00 countdown.... all the time.
I've put 51,000km on my Navara (4x4 manual, LE-spec) and a lot of those miles were HARD driving (both on highway and mud).

No turbo problems, making good boost, no oil leaks, no backpressuring.

Remember, the VGT turbo in that YD25ddti powerplant is both water & oil cooled.
Hence it doesn't need as much cooldown time as the older Garrets in the ZD30T, nor even the smaller capacity turbos in the Ranger WLT engines.

1:00 is plenty time for most applications, plus if you have it set to auto and you do the ECU splice (or just use a proper Greddy harness, as should come with most of the 2nd gen kits like yours and mine) it'll automatically add more time (mine usually does this when I push the RPM's beyond 4000RPM for a good amount of time, eg. doing a south run.

[Aaron 2NR]

My Navara was set to 1:30.

I have an auto in my Hulix but by the time I get home it only count down about 30 seconds since there are a lot of street humps where I live lol

While on the highway you actually see the time up to 3 minutes

[trvs]

Aaron which model timer you have?

[Aaron 2NR]

i had a greddy auto timer in the navara...

ranger has an apexi auto timer

hilux has one that came with the van

[trvs]

Orr ok cool.

I think I read a post where you was unable to locate the speedometer write on the ecu to splice for the GReddy. Did you ever sort it out while you had the van?

[Aaron 2NR]

Nope just left it on manual

[trvs]

Excellent thanks.

[vickyexp]

i had a greddy auto timer in the navara...

ranger has an apexi auto timer

hilux has one that came with the van

Did you get the Navara's timer installed at NM or
it was done outside?

[Aaron 2NR]

outside

[vickyexp]

outside

thanks,

I'm seriously considering getting one, went to N&M yesterday & got a quote for $212k 4x4 DC manual w/fabric seats, the same spec w/leather & 6 disc changer is $217.

If I do, I'll have a timer & liner installed on the outside
plus some form of GPS tracking.

[lighthammer]

@vickeyexp - the leather and 6-cd isn't really worth the extra $5K - unless you wanna tout that as some extra features to add on extra price when you ready to sell the truck (as most trini's do).


My Navara is fabric, and I changed out my cd player for a USB/Ipod Clarion deck (got it on sale on Amazon, with free delivery too!), so IMO, save your $5K and use that for insurance (the cheapest I found was Sagicor, if u want I can give you my agent's no) as well as bank fees. Most ppl forget to budget for those extra fee's when buying a vehicle.

[vickyexp]

getting a $5k discount on the quoted figures, so I might spend it back on
the vehicle if I do decide to get one. My current 3.0 frontier is performing
excellent @ >170K km, I hope these Nav's can last just a long, just need
to be sure before I spend that kinda money

[AdamB]

At what mileage would you get out of a 2006 Nissan Frontier 3L diesel engine? Just need a figure that generally would be considered as risky that it may soon require replacing or rebuilding? The van was serviced regularly. mileage over 200,000km

[vickyexp]

At what mileage would you get out of a 2006 Nissan Frontier 3L diesel engine? Just need a figure that generally would be considered as risky that it may soon require replacing or rebuilding? The van was serviced regularly. mileage over 200,000km

I got >725km on a tank already but that was mostly highway driving, usually get 600-650 per tank with a combination of highway & some traffic

[lighthammer]

At what mileage would you get out of a 2006 Nissan Frontier 3L diesel engine? Just need a figure that generally would be considered as risky that it may soon require replacing or rebuilding? The van was serviced regularly. mileage over 200,000km

you'd have to make sure it was properly serviced, and if you do end up buying it, you'll have to scrap it down and check the condition of the interiors. What price is the owner asking for it? Average price of frontiers on tirnicarsforsale now is around $80-$95K... if you feel the engine not in good condition, you cna beat down the price.

Last time I saw a Frontier ZD30T engine with 250,000km on it, it had problems with compression, the O-rings were bad, the chamber walls were scorched, and had injector problems. Ended up having to buy a new block in bamboo. But that original engine wasn't properly maintained, all the owner did was change oil and filters but ran that diesel hard.



ZD30 engine head and blocks relatively easy to get in bamboo, but they're mostly from the vans, not the frontiers. A couple ports are different, fuel lines are slightly different but everything else is the same. Average price for a zd30 - $7000-$10,000.

[vickyexp]

guys,
decided to upgrade to a 4x4 Navara,
I've got my Nissan Frontier 3.0 fully loaded up for sale,
if you know anyone looking for one, here's the link:
viewtopic.php?f=55&t=429173

[AdamB]

@lighthammer,
Thanks for the advise man, the vehicle is a basic, company maintained with synthetic oil, not burning oil (so they said), getting it for $65k. I figure it sounds like a good deal for a 4x4 and should close it by next week. will let you know how it turns out.