M brother has a 1986(maybe 87 i forget) Pathfinder that he is going to sell to me. There is a few things wrong with it that we cant figure out. First is that when accelerating the engine seems like it wants to stall then it shifts real hard and then the truck goes. The harder you accelerate the more intense this problem is. Which can make it pretty difficult to merge when your trying to get up to speed with 60mph cars and the truck feels like it about to stall. He said that what helps a little bit is right when it starts to feel like its stalling let off the gas then punch it and it will shift, but it still shifts pretty hard. ANyone have an idea what could be doing this?

Could be the transmission, transmission control unit or a throttle position sensor mis-adjustment problem, amongst other things. Try running the ECU error codes and see what comes up. Has anything been done to it to tune it up or perform maintenance? Changed the transmission fluid?

Just so you know, the stock transmission cooler is absolute junk on these, you'll want to bypass the stock trans cooler altogether and add a LARGE external cooler on it right away before the stock one cuts off flow to the tranny altogether and kills it. Trans rebuilds run between $1100-2200...

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this pathfinder has 180,000 miles so im assuming that replacing the transmission cooler isnt worth it cause the car doesnt have left in it anyways, what do you think? How much do they cost and about how much would labor be?

If the vehicle is in good shape and you can solve your tranny issue, I wouldn't be worried about the 180Kmiles. I would probably try to trouble shoot your issue before dumping more money into tho, because a bad tranny can cost quite a bit of coins.

A tranny cooler shouldn't cost you excessively. It's an easy enough job if you do any mechanic work at all. Basicaly mount the tranny cooler (somewhere in front of your rad). Then if your existing lines are long enough, remove the lines going into your existing tranny cooler and hook them to the new one. If they aren't long enough, you'll have to replace them (a little more work, but not impossible).

88 is right, the OEM tranny coolers are crap, however I doubt your specific problem is due to a tranny cooler clog (you'd probably see slipage due to a clog, not hard shift). If you want to see if your tranny cooler is the culprit for your tranny issues, you can always bypass the tranny cooler and go for a test drive......don't do any exessive driving while your cooler is bypassed tho. Just buy a regular hose union, two hose clamps and hook both hoses going to your cooler together.

Denis