The Nissan Path

I feel incredibly thick asking this but I spent two hours under the vehicle last night and can't find the damn thing.

According to the VIN lookup it's a '1999 Nissan Pathfinder 99.5 4dr XE 4WD Auto' (Weird because it's a manual but anyway).

Following a manual (http://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/Pathfinder/1999_Pathfinder/) for the '99 the sensor is accessed from under the car as per this diagram but I can't see or feel anything up there or any wires leading to that position:


Other web sources seem to think it's accessed from the top on the right side or from the back of the engine.

Has anyone replaced the sensor themselves on this model? This should be an easy 15 minute job and I'm going nuts.

Well I had my mechanic have a look and he found it where the diagram indicates but further than it looks.

Unfortunately there must have been some rust buildup becasue he snapped the damn thing off.

He says it's going to be an absolute b*stard to get out, mainly becasue there's no room to get at it and need to either push the gear box back or removing the intake to get any space. Has anyone here had this happen to them on a Pathfinder, and how did you get it out?

At the moment I'm thinking to somehow gain access and drill in a screw and use that to lever it out.

The other side of it is do I need to bother at all? It seems to run fine, and my understanding is that the camshaft position sensor more or less covers the issue of timing. The manual states that "This sensor is not used to control the engine system. It is used only for the on board diagnosis.", so can I just ignore the OBD code and continue driving?

Technically, yes, but if the CEL is illuminated all of the time, you won't know when another, more critical trouble code is set. Plus, it may not pass your state's inspection with the light on.
It is a bear to get at, especially on 4WD models. You can get to it, sorta, through the driver's front wheel well if you remove the wheel and splash shield and bend the sheet metal in the wheel well a bit to squeeze your arm through.

Thanks for the reply.

I have a Bluetooth OBD reader that I use every few days so should pick up any additional codes that come up. Luckily I'm up in British Columbia and don't have emissions tests (it's running pretty clean anyway, thankfully). But aside from that you don't think there's any real direct issues running without it?

I'll have a look at the wheel well but... yeah, that sounds like a bear all right.

It's not a sensor used for engine management...only monitoring.

Sure, thought it was worth double checking. Cheers.

I had the same problem about a month ago, if you are having problems with the crank position sensor I suggest checking the distributor since I did the mistake to change the sensor first, the car was still idling like crazy, checked the distributor and boom! That was the problem, if its the sensor from the bottom your engine should not turn on at all, if it turns on and idles like crazy and stalls when driving it is worth to check the distributor. I spend about $300.00 on part when I could of easily save myself $50 on the sensor that is located in the transmission housing.

It'd definitely the Crankshaft position sensor as it's been disconnected and is currently separated into two pieces (one wedged in the original location, the other on my kitchen table). I don't think I have any distributor issues (I hope).

I drove it on a 600km round trip last week and the fuel economy is if anything better. Aside from the CEL light I wouldn't realize there's an issue.

I'm not sure why it's running so well since by all accounts it shouldn't be running at all. Either it's going to die on me at random or I've gotten very lucky.