anyone familiar with nissan pathfinders?

[Ben824]

I know this is our Jeep forum but since many of us own many different vehicles along with our Jeeps I figured I would see if anyone could help me out with a problem.

I have a 99 Nissan Pathfinder 2wd that makes a popping/clunking sound when turning. It does it while moving or stationary and whether it is turning right or left. It makes the sounds repetitively throughout the entire motion from lock to lock. It is completely repetitive and predictable. I have had someone turn the wheel while I laid underneath it and observed the steering in motion I did not see anything jump out at me as being the obvious problem. I cannot hear the noise from underneath the vehicle either. When I lay my hands on the top of the fender and can feel each clunk/pop that it makes. I am wondering now if maybe the problem might be ball joints. Any ideas as to what I should look at would be much appreciated as I have not received any help on the Nissan forum.

 

[The Hard Struggler]

Sounds like the rack and pinion is worn out.

 

[xjintx]

Post here http://nissantrailriders.com/forum/ these guys are really good with all things Nissan

 

[Ben824]

Yah I think I have pretty much settled on the rack on pinion being the point of my problem but glad to know from what I described, someone else is thinking the same thing.

 

[sam24th]

My buddy with an xterra had the same issue. He wheels it pretty hard so hes constantly fixing stuff on it. Sounds like a rack and pinion to me also. We went through and replaced just about everything until we got to the rack and pinion and it ended up being the culprit. Good luck with you pathfinder.

 

[Ben824]

I have searched a lot of local you pull it yards around here and there are just about no Pathfinders there or even the Inifiniti QX4 that I can grab a steering rack from. A reman unit is $304 with core return which would be worth it except we want to sell the vehicle and with it being a 99 with 200,000+ miles on it, it wont bring back enough money to justify spending that kind of money to fix a vehicle we are selling. The sad part is that it drives straight and turns fine with no sloppiness just has that annoying clunk sound when steering more than one steering wheel revolution. We would like to sell the thing sooner than later but I guess we will just continue to hang onto it until we can pick up a used part at one of the local yards and get it fixed.

Thanks for the help though guys.