Nissan Patrol 4x4 (Africa)

I have been having a problem with my vehicle for sometime now, with it stopping with full articulation one way. This all started in the Dunes off Walvis Bay when after a full day of recovering Jeeps and Cruisers, the Patrol just stopped. Would swing over but not fire. After checking everything we finally left the Patrol there for the night. The next day we brought out a Tech from Nissan with the Diagnostic tool, and was told that the Distributor had failed. After towing the vehicle out the Dunes to Nissan and bringing a Distributor for SA, the vehicle was running again.
In Nov I met a couple of the Patrol guys at AD for a Friday drive, and on the first obsticle the same thing happened. Once again I was towed home.
After much testing of distributors and sending the vehicle to an auto lecky, it was found that the fuse on the fuel injectors had blown.
I have checked the wiring on the fuel injector circuits and all looks good.
On the trail at Kam'Bati, I replaced the fuse 6 times, and everytime it was when the vehicle flexed one way uphill. We tried moving the injector harness around with the vehicle idling, but no blow. Vrey strange as the harness runs along the top of the engine, then into the main harness, through the firewall and into the ECU!.
Now offroad I do 1 fuse to every kilometer!!!!!!!!!!!!

Coming back from Kaokoland my GQ would blow the fuse for the instrument cluster every time I went over a speed bump.
Long story short, due to the weight of the car and 1000km offroad with it, the one of the bolds holding the third row of seats touched the wiring harnas. The weight caused the the bodymounds to flex just enough to rub through one of the wires. Nothing would happen until I drove over a speed hump at 40km/h or more. The bold would then go through the harnas and cause a short with the one wire where the insulation has been rubbed of.

The only way of finding the fault was to follow the wires from the fusebox to the taillights as the tail lights are on the same fuse as the instrument cluster. It took me about 20 hours of searching, once I found the culprit it was an easy fix.

I would inspect the harnas if I were you especially where it go between chassis and body.

Hi Alan,

I have to agree with Abri. If the Nissan "consult" diagnostics computer does not give you an error code somewhere in a component, it is 99% likely a short somewhere. It is an irritating problem but not a big one. However, sort it out quickly. A "flamed-out" Patrol does not look good.

Looks like I have found the problem in the harness that was causing the fuse to blow. Will head down to the dunes and give it a test later on.
I popped into a friend of mines workshop in Wynberg to see if he could give me a hand in finding the problem. We parked the vehicle on the lot across from his workshop, and with the vehicle in low range held the brake and let the clutch out to see the movement of the engine in conjunction to the wiring loom. When he went in reverse I noticed that the engine lifting bracket was pulling the loom backwards towards the firewall. I then went home and left the patrol to cool down over night.
Now this is where a 75mm lift and 35's becomes a pain. This morning armed with a ladder and lying across the top of the engine, I pulled the loom out infront of the firewall, and what did I find, one of the white injector wires was chaffed through and black where it had been chaffing. I then reinsulated the wire, wrapped the exposed part of the harness with insulation tape, and then pull plastic tubing over that to stop any further chaffing.

Classic problem. You were lucky to have found the problem area relative easy.

Excellent Alan, glad you got it this easily.

Went off to the dunes and went to my testing spot where I know it blows fuses from testing last week Friday.
Did a couple of runs with great success, No more blowing fuses.
(anyone need any 10A fuses, got about 20 left)

Well done

Well done Allan,I am glad youn found the problem