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Lol, years ago I had an 80.5 210. It was the sport version, 2 door hatchback with the 5 speed and the big engine, the mighty 1.4L OHV. Good times, that car hated me, but loved my wife at the time. She kept wrecking it, but always started and ran for her. With me, not so much. Did like the 28 mpg City and I could pass the speed traps at 80 in the 55 mph days and be completely invisible to the police. Guess they thought that little wreck couldn't really go that fast and ignored what the radar would tell them.

So... After already starting a topic or 2 I thought I'd just start documenting all of the madness of trying to pull a Frankenstein. This will certainly test my patience but I'm all in on this project and it's just due to boredom and sentiment. My parents had a '93 hardbody and a '96 R50 so I wanted to buy one to fool around with but ended up buying 2 of them in need of major TLC instead. It's going to be slow and steady but I can be long winded so read on with a grain or 2 of salt. The first two topics are: And I've already had a handful of issues and really haven't documented a whole lot but I'm going to try to start from my current position and hopefully get help where needed. You'll find that this is truly a rescue thread more than a build because there are sooooo many things that need work. Anyway, I'm off like a herd of turtles. I'll post a few pics tomorrow and cover where I'm at with this project. Thanks to all in advance for your patience.

hitch and d ring adapter!

I keep wondering when mine's gonna do something like that. The HA section of the '95 service manual (you can download the whole thing here if you haven't yet) has troubleshooting for the auto HVAC starting on HA-55. Scroll down a bit and there are diagrams of the circuits and where everything's hidden. Unfortunately I'm not seeing much about heat in there, but it might help you figure out what you're looking at, anyway. As for easy to get to, I tried to open up my HVAC box apart when I had my dash out, and found that the piping for the evaporator was not going to let it come out unless I discharged the system and unhooked the lines (which I didn't want to do at the time). There may be a trick to it that I don't know, but I screwed around with it for a while and succeeded only in screwing up the foam seal between the case halves. Looks like the actuators are on the outside of the box, so if that's what's gone out, hopefully it's not too difficult to get into. I opened up one of the servos in mine when I had the dash out, just to see what it looked like inside, and it looked fairly straightforward; you might get away with just cleaning/bending some wipers depending on what's worn out. I keep threatening to convert mine to the cable setup, but that project's pretty low on my list right now.

Finished my thesis and graduated, so decided to buy myself a plasma cutter as a graduation gift to myself. Ended up cutting out the 4 link brackets yesterday for the rear end. Hopefully tomorrow I'll start getting them mocked up, maybe even tacked in. Stripping the Nissan underlining in tight areas, especially on the stock brackets where the ends are bend outwards is a pain in the rear. I still haven't decided on what to do for the springs... Need springs that are at least 10" longer, or need to incorporate spacers and longer springs. Ideas? what needs to be done still: 4 link brackets, panhard relocation bracket, longer brake line & breather, figure out what to do to lengthen driveshaft..

Pics got too much shadow to see them well. What wheels are they?

Oh then I must've misunderstood when I read it a couple years back lol. Well hopefully I don't need to replace the valve covers anytime soon hahaha Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

I know it’s not the same as the stresses from a winch pulling, but for a basic strength test I’m happy to see the bumper has no problem supporting the weight of the truck (at least the front of it). This is just lifting from the round tube on the front of the bumper. I took it slow, but it lifted both wheels with no complaints. It’s hard to tell in the picture, but the drivers wheel was off the ground just enough to spin it by hand. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

These are from Saturday last weekend. Notice something out of place here? I let my friend drive it so I could make sure the springs seated back in properly haha We got back kinda mid afternoon and hung out in the hammocks the rest of the day. No trees? No problem. The next day we went shooting and did some more wheeling and my buddy rode his dirt bike behind me once we were up in the mountains. Bilsteins doin work [emoji1377] And I’ve reached the picture limit so I’ll continue in another post Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nice work! It’s very interesting to see that new carrier. You might well be the only one on the road in the U.S. I’ve certainly never seen one before.

I agree, replace the water pump, seals, hoses, and the woodruff key while you are in there. The parts add just a little more to the cost and a little more work, but you won't have to go back in in a few months when the pump or seals let go. The pattern on the injectors is normal and not anything to worry about. I have had only a few failed injectors over the years of working on these things so should be ok. One thing you might want to check if your engine was refusing to start or run is the distributor. I have seen a few with failed bearings and when I was working in the dealership, the guys I worked with who had been in the dealerships for years said it was a common problem in the VG engines. Take the rotor off, then remove the dust seal so you can see inside. If there is any rust or grey dust in there, it is a sign the bearings are going bad. Also you can turn the gear by hand. If it is smooth and easy, it is ok. If you feel any roughness or binding at all, it is time to replace the distributor.

Good call on the pump! One less thing to go wrong and make you do the whole thing again. Same goes for the cam and crank seals, tensioner pulley, and water pump bypass hose. LC-9 in the '97 manual has a diagram of where the plugs are. Looks like the right one is between the motor mount and the power steering pump bracket, and the left one is between the motor mount and the alty. One of mine was seized stiff enough that I was worried I'd break something and left it alone. The other came out, but water didn't until I jammed something up the hole to break up the crud that had settled above it. I'd assume the crap on the injectors is the same as what's inside the manifold (mix of oil vapor and blow-by from the PCV and carbon from the EGR), though seeing it all on one side makes me wonder if you just bumped the injectors into the valve cover or something while removing them and the ends scooped up some crap. Are they all like that? Probably worth cleaning while you're in there but not a sign of creeping death or anything as far as I'm aware. I never disconnected mine from the lower manifold, so I don't know what mine looked like to compare. I had some cleaning to do when I pulled my manifold, too. The plug wells and the valley under the intake were all full of dirt and rat crap, and I didn't want any of that going into the cylinders when I changed the plugs. There was some casting flash on the heads keeping junk in the plug wells, which I busted out with a screwdriver while I was at it to hopefully keep things cleaner in the future. Not sure if that's just a VG30 thing or if the VG33 heads have the same issue. Good luck with the creeper and the bones!

Thanks mikah, I moved to Missoula 3 years ago and haven't had a chance to roam yet. Once I feel comfortable driving this thing long distances I'd be up for a fun run, it'd be nice to have a guide.

Yo dude welcome to the forum!! I'm from Bozeman, if you ever want help on anything or wanna go wheel some weekend I'd totally be down to hang!

Well alrighty then. Here is a pic of my garage in my apartment complex. As you can see it's a little cramped in my garage but the nose is about 2 inches from the door when closed. In the rear of the garage there is a small workbench and an industrial shelf for all of the goods. The tire carrier is removed for now and the tailgate is open so the trunk is acting as a small parts counter. Pretty snug but manageable. Watching me trying to get on the creeper is probably a little humorous with my old bones trying to get situated on the moving object. I have recurring lower back problems so I take everything pretty slow so the creeper helps a ton. I'm going to backtrack a bit here to show a couple of pics from the donor vehicle. Just a few reasons why I chose the black Pathfinder to be the fixer upper and the green machine to be the donor. Some body rust right in front of the passenger rear tire. One of my favorites, the outer shell of the resonator held on with bailing wire. Backwoods engineering all the way. So where I'm currently at? Still dismantling the top engine area. Today I removed the fuel rail and injectors. I'm not sure what to think about what I found. Some carbon build up on the injectors or oil? I'm trying to be really careful right now but I'm going to get out the shopvac tonight and suck up everything that is lying around on the intake manifold. Small bits of caked oil, dirt and such hanging out right near the holes left from the injectors are making me nervous. I am getting close to my current objective though so I need to clean up anyway. The valve cover gaskets were horrible, I actually removed one of the bolts with my fingers so you can imagine there is oil everywhere. Which leads me to the current objective. The timing belt. Slartibartfast recommended that I replace it so that's where I'm headed. I need to order new injector seals and a few more things while I'm at it. Since this thing has never run for me I'm taking a chance that the water pump is still good but I'm replacing the thermostat. I hope that doesn't bite me in the butt later... Here are a couple more random pics... Throttle body has been thoroughly oiled... Slight boot irregularities... Barnacles close to growing on the struts... Oil, oil everywhere... At least I'll get to clean the manifold now... Well that's it for now. I've got a vision but unfortunately I wear glasses so I'm not too sure I want to see it. Have a good day.