Hello all,
I'm going to spend a good chunk of my Christmas vacation replacing the timing belt and oil seals on my 1997 Pathfinder. I just ordered the kit with the belts, seals and water pump, and I'm doing my research on what headaches I'm in for . I'm looking at the suction line for the AC that runs across the top where the cam gears are, and it is mostly a rigid aluminum pipe that appears to be about 40mm in diameter. It appears that this pipe will be in the way when I get to the point of removing the timing belt cover. Am I correct in assuming that I've got some ability to lightly bend the pipe up and out of the way, without having to open up the AC system and remove the line?
This is just one of the challenges that I am seeing, besides getting the cam oil seals out without removing the cams.

Any help is appreciated!

you can see the rubber AC line transition to aluminum, comming in from the middle left, and dropping down behind the fan guard, right in front of the timing belt cover.

bumpity bump.

Hows your project coming along? Just finishing the water pump, timing belt, tensioner & all other belts replacement on my 96. Don't worry about the AC pipe across the top of the cover, you can get the cover off without the pipe causing a problem. The only problem I had was undoing the 27mm crankshaft pulley bolt. I had to wedge a bar against the body & kick the engine over to loosen it!

theexbrit wrote:Hows your project coming along? Just finishing the water pump, timing belt, tensioner & all other belts replacement on my 96. Don't worry about the AC pipe across the top of the cover, you can get the cover off without the pipe causing a problem. The only problem I had was undoing the 27mm crankshaft pulley bolt. I had to wedge a bar against the body & kick the engine over to loosen it!

Thanks for asking! The project went well, and I did find that I could wiggle the upper TB cover away without messing with the AC line!! I was pretty relieved........

I did the same for the Crank bolt....... I had a breaker bar that I placed on the body near the fender well, and popped the starter. No problem, but I was a little tense after hearing horror stories about bolts not coming loose. Did you use any threadlock on the bolt when you re installed it? Also, I used only Permatex on the thermostat housing, only to find that there was a gasket that came with the kit, after it was all installed. the shop manual did not mention a gasket for the tstat, so I hope it will be okay. no leaks so far.......

I did chicken out on replacing the cam seals and the crank seal......... about half the people I talked to, said, "If they ain't leaking......don't mess with them"............

Good to hear it went ok. I didn't use any thread lock on the crank bolt, the way the engine turns its going to tighten anyway. As for the thermostat gasket, mine didn't come with a gasket (although I made one from gasket paper & used RTV on both sides) & everyone says you don't use a gasket so you should be fine. I replaced all the other belts & I noticed that the other two tensioners are noisy so I'm going to replace them also. I need to replace top & bottom hoses too & I'm done. I installed an FF Dynamics Extreme 2 elec fan kit as I'm a desert treker & wanted to improve the gas mileage also. They kick in at about 180f & go off at about 175f. I'll tweak them a bit more over the next few weeks but they seem to be working out fine. Also, I didn't do the seal either, they weren't leaking & it seemed like a hassle.

sounds like you were dead on. the tstat has no gasket. liquid sealer is way to go. aftermarket tstats sometimes come with their version of a gasket but the factory says its not needed. cam seals on these are irrelevant as you will see if you ever remove the valve covers. the oil cant really get up to them and pool so they never leak. ignore them. the valve cover seals do leak and the driver side IS. A. NIGHTMARE. I've just done it 2x. on my Pathy and QX4. 2nd time was better. also you will find the steering rack bushings get super squishy and the rack slides after being leaked on by oil for a number of years. the crank pulley is requiring a puller and the bolt gets no locktite or similiar. previous poster is right. direction of rotation will tighten the bolt more anyway. a good tool for loosening it is a chainwrench. sears has a craftsman version and all the tool trucks running around sell them too. impossible to break so a professional tech may loan you his or rent it to you. I would, mine is bulletproof. plus they cost like 100 bucks or more.

Funny you should mention the steering rack, I had to replace the rack mounting rubbers as they had indeed rotted away. In fact they were non-existant! So that fixed one knocking sound. My rubbers had been affected by a leaky steering rack return pipe though. That's my next project.

Thanks for the comments on the valve cover gaskets, I also need to do the knock sensor so I might as well do it all at once being as it looks like the inlet manifold needs to come off for the knock sensor.

yep it does. and the driver rear spark plug is a real pain too. do it then if it needs it.