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This is your Rear Windshield Wiper Motor, you will need to remove your rear wiper arm and then there will be a plastic nut that you will need to remove from around the wiper motor shaft which will then allow you to remove it from your R50 hatch. Chris.

Heat is your friend for that EGR tube nut. Heat, lube, beat on it, repeat. I've had some luck with candle wax for stubborn threads. Heat, melt wax into the threads, try again. Seems to stick around better than PB. I tried just brute-forcing the nut in my '95, and it took some of the threads off the valve, so, yeah, don't do that. If it's a California-emissions truck, an EGR delete will trigger the check engine light.

Hopefully the Amazon ones are good! I had to butcher the hubcaps to clear my Mile Markers. Came out nice enough, but a little nerve-wracking taking a wood router to old plastic. I'm waiting on parts for mine too, at least officially. Haven't gotten around to installing the parts I do have yet.

IF you can get away with it in California, it would be a perfect time to defeat the EGR, Otherwise, YES. That is going to be a giant PITA!!!

Spark but no fire on carb cleaner suggests it's either massively flooded, or the timing is way off. Do you have a timing light? The ignition timing should not have changed if you haven't moved the distributor, assuming everything's as it should be behind the timing cover. I'm also assuming the last guy had it set up properly, given it ran before you opened it up. Confirm that you've got 40 teeth between cam dimples, 43 cam to crank. If you had the sprockets off to do the cam seals, confirm that you reinstalled the sprockets on the correct sides. Left and right are marked from the driver's perspective, not the mechanic's. I've never had an issue with it, though I have heard of people washing the oil off the cylinder walls by using too much. Some starting fluid has oil in it, that's probably better for extended use if you have to run it on spray. I mostly just use it to make sure a small engine's worth buying a carburetor for. I don't know if it's the ether or the stuff they add to stop people from huffing it, but starting fluid gives me a headache real quick. Not that carb cleaner is healthy, but it doesn't hit me like that. I see guys on Youtube using brake cleaner, and they seem to get away with it, but I don't want to know what's coming out the tailpipe when that stuff burns!

I don't think carb cleaner is a good substitute for starter fluid. Any time I had sent that stuff down the throat of a carb, it would bog and kill the engine. But then, I have never really messed with that stuff on car engines. I was always warned from using starting fluid in a 2-stroke engine though. All of that being said, I would check to make sure that the timing of the valves is correct. I think the best way to do that is to check the position of the cam gears when the crank is at TDC. If you're confident of the timing mark on your pulley, you can set the crank to TDC and go from there. The markers for the cams should be on position or 180 out depending on the compression or exhaust cycle. If you're way off, I would suspect that the engine would sound weird when trying to crank on it, but I also suspect there might be some degree of coughing from the engine since you're probably still getting some fuel in the cylinder and spark even if the timing is SNAFU'd. Good luck!! I hope it gets figured out!!

I just stumbled across some info on the 190F thermostat. It does exist, but Nissan warns of cats and dogs living together if it's used in a VG. The problem with the 190F thermostat is that the VG does not run at the temperature of its thermostat. The VG's thermostat is located on the lower rad hose, the cold end of the system, so the engine actually runs 10-15C hotter than its thermostat. Nissan's target for max engine temp is 90C (194F). 76.5C (170F) plus 15C is right on target at 91C. 82C (180F) plus 15C is pushing it at 97C, but apparently Nissan was comfortable with this, because NTB94-020 recommends swapping in a 180F thermostat to help the heater keep up with winters on Hoth (like Adam did), and (as Adam noted) they later spec'd 180F thermostats for the VG33E. 88C (190F) plus 15C is 103C, and apparently that's out of Nissan's comfort zone, because they warn that it could cause overheating, detonation, engine damage, computer trouble, and a voided warranty. The 190 thermostat was used in earlier (pre-VG) Nissan engines. They had the same 90C/194F max temp target, but their thermostats were on the upper rad hose, so they didn't have that 10-15C offset to factor in. TL;DR: 170 is stock, 180 is OK, and 190 is not recommended.