pathybuilder

I'm kind of stuck at a crossroads. After a full summer of house renos, I'm finally starting to work on my truck again. It sitting at a place right now where the torsion bars and transfercase / driveshafts are already out. My 5 speed transmission was re-built less than 10,000km ago, flywheel resurfaced, and clutch replaced. I'm debating whether to pull the transmission again to replace the rear main seal. I'm going into just about everything else on the truck and I would hate to have it start leaking in the next 10,000 - 20,000km. Removing the tranny would be easy enough at this point, but I would have to cut my y-pipe out as it's welded in place. Has anybody had issues with this seal leaking, and how many miles/time were on your pathfinder before issues showed up.

I could've sworn that I read somewhere on here that the Terrano uses a R180A front diff, while the V6 Pathfinder uses R200A, but I could be way out to lunch on that.

There must be a difference between R50 and WD21 then, or Auto vs Manual, cause here's a photo of the my transmission / t-case mating surface, definitely not sealed on the 5 speed. They are sealed from each other, and do use different fluids, but the seal is at the mating surface, so you need to drain the oil. I did the crawler gear swap as well. I could reach the mounting bolts, but 2" Body Lift helps.

I'm pretty sure you do need to drain the transmission. They aren't internally connected, however the separation between the two is at the matting surface to the transfer case. If you don't drain the transmission fluid you'll have a pretty messy job on your hands. As far as time goes, just to unbolt, remove and replace, I would say you can do it in a day. Remove rear drive shaft, front drive shaft, drain t-case and tranny oil, unbolt the shift lever, mark and remove your three electrical plugs, unbolt and drop to the floor. Reverse procedure putting the other case in. Beware of the alignment dowels that will stay with either the t-case or the transmission (pretty sure the t-case has them as well). I did a transmission swap a couple years ago where some of the alignment dowels stayed with the bell housing and some with the engine. These were the opposite dowels that were in the used transmission I was putting in. It made fitment interesting to say the least. Just check before throwing it in place. Also I don't know if the R-50s have different size tires depending on model, but if your used t-case came out of a model with different size tires from factory, you may want to swap your speedometer sensor over before you put it in.

Should be just three. Your speedometer / 2WD Switch / and 4LO Switch,

I'm not sure about the VG33, however when I bought mine the block heater cord was burnt off from the exhaust manifold. If my memory is right, on the VG30E the plug in is kind of underneath the heat shield under the drivers side exhaust manifold. If your truck didn't come with a block heater, you can buy magnetic ones that stick to the bottom of your oil pan. They aren't as good, but they do work...sort of. Not sure if yours is manual or auto. My manual is very stiff in the cold. Running Quaker State Synthetic 75W90 GL4. While you're letting it warm up, throw the transfer case in neutral with the transmission in 1st gear. It'll get the oil moving in the transmission. Shifts smooth as butter after that.

I say why not. You do what you gotta do when you live in Inuvik. You guys must clear snow there like 10 months out of the year. My dad clears snow with an 89 F-150, works great. You would have better luck with some snow tires and some weight in the back.

Disconnecting the electrical plugs always give me problems, although I don't have any solutions for this. A friend is helpful to keep it balanced on the big ass jack to get it to the ground, you can also use a ratchet strap. Don't know about crossmembers and whatnot on your R-50 though.

I would still disconnect the drive shaft. In the photos below, you can see an oil gutter that moves oil from the front of the transfer case to the bearing and speedometer gear at the back of the case on the output shaft, When your t-case is in neutral, the rear shaft moves, but nothing in the front portion of the case moves because of the position of the shift fork. This would cause no oil to flow through this oil gutter and likely cause wear on this bearing if towed for a longer period of time. I don't know what the manual says, but I'd remove the driveshaft just to be safe.

If welding isn't an option, you can still make it work without a fab shop. You can notch the bumper out with an angle grinder, then notch the body panel inside your fender so you can reach the mounting bolts. To make it look better you can make a custom grill to extend down over the gap. I ran around with a 2" BL and ARB bumper for a couple years. Just looking at doing the fabrication mod now. You can see the gap, under my headlight in my signature. A custom made grill would fix this.

X2

Precise1 sent me this a couple months ago, because I had the same question. The last part of the thread has the modification for the body lift. http://www.nissanpat...__fromsearch__1

This is sweet. When I first heard the bearing race cup mod, I was thinking to myself, What if you could replace the rubber bushings with a full bearing. If this is tested and in production before I get a chance to put mine back together, you might have one more buyer to add to your list.

I wish. Been too busy the last couple months to touch it. Hopefully soon.

When mine went, I just replaced the bearing, It didn't completely seize though, just started whining really bad. You could take it apart and see, there's a snap ring you remove, then the rest comes apart easy. If it's just the bearing, go to any bearing supply store (I went to BC Bearing), and they can get you a new one.

You can offroad light to moderate trails in a stock pathfinder with very little modifications. Make sure you have tow points front and rear (factory tow hook in the front and a receiver hitch in the rear works well). Go with another vehicle so if you do get stuck or break something they can get you out. Over time you'll learn what other modifications are necessary.

For the time involved in finding coils / cutting pigtails plus the cost that the scrap yard charges you, you could buy Daystar coil spacers for the front of a 1500 - 3500 Dodge 2WD Pick-up. They come in 1", 1 1/2", and 2 1/2". The 1 1/2" set I bought cost me $40.

With a buddy you could try holding a shop vac to the shifter hole, while the other one uses an air compressor to blow some compressed air into the oil drain. If you can get the bushing moving around with the air, there's a chance that the shop vac will suck it out.

This would give you access to the area below the shifter. Although not too hard to remove, (one person can do it) it would be better if you could fish it out. If you do decide to remove the transfer case, you'll obviously have to remove your drive shafts, all the wiring connectors that connect to the T-case, and your shift lever. You may be able to slide the T-case out on in input shaft far enough to get the bushing out without dropping the case on the ground.

ID or OD, if 6.2 is OD they might work. I would go to a scrap yard and just start measuring other vehicles. That's what I did. Found a Dodge 2wd spring to be about the same as a WD21. Daystar makes 0.75", 1", 1.5", and 2.5" spacers for this spring. These are 5.75 OD so they won't work for your R50, but you might find something else.

That's just factory. The factory roof rack on the 94-95 years are different than pre 94 I believe. In all honesty I don't really like it. I can't find a way to lock the bars in place. I used to have a roof basket on it. If I put anything in the basket that would catch wind, everytime I stopped I would have to push everything forward again because the bars would slide.

As I picked up my new wheels and tires I had to mock them up just for a taste. This obviously isn't ride height. They are Pro-Comp 8069 wheels with 33 x 12.5 Mickey Thompson Baha MTZ tires. I was originally going to go with steel wheels for their durability and price, but these alloys are being discontinued so I got a great deal on them. They have a similar look to the steelies, which I like but they are 15 lbs per wheel lighter. My gears showed up so I started on the front diff today. Didn't do much other than drain the oil and remove the cover.

Got a few updates and some more photos. I finished the transfer case gears install a while back. Came out pretty good. This weekend I finished painting the frame with POR-15. I thought it turned out really good. I used the POR solvent to dilute the paint so I could spray it with an engine wand. I was able to fit the end of the wand into each of the inspection/drain holes in the side of the frame, and rotate it around. I'm pretty sure I coated everything inside and outside the frame. It worked way better than I expected. 2 coats to finish it off. Dried rock hard. Here's some photos of the transfer case modification. Man it's sketchy how thin you have to make the oil gutter to fit the new low range gear. Here's some photos of the frame work. I painted all my control arms also.

X2, sounds like the only thing it could be. Hopefully it's just the adjuster and not the torsion bar itself.

Understandable. My comment was based off of information I received from other guys that wheel IFS. It made a lot of sense to me when it was explained in the same fashion. I've never removed my say bar for this reason, but can definitely understand why others would want to try it.