adamzan

After having done this 3 or 4 times on Xterra and WD21 I'd agree pulling the diff is much easier than wrestling the transmission back far enough, because I also had to pry the torsion bar xmember down or just remove them.

That's insane the @!*% with ups... I can only hope this insanity stops soon. It's not good for either side of the border.

I have an old set of yokohama winter tires on lego wheels, that I use as "rollers" for my projects. The date code is from the year 2000... Of course these don't see the road.

I know a lot of people like to delete stuff like those lines but the truck just runs better when you don't try to engineer it yourself lol.

That sounds more like sommething external to the motor. Do what @Slartibartfast said, if that isn't it, these trucks were kind of known for the harmonic balancer separating (it's a 2 piece press fit rubber thing IIRC). I would check that out as well. My parents 2000 R50 with the VG33E had this happen, twice. The first time, the dealer replaced a ton of parts before finding it. An easy way to check rod knock is to loosen all the plug wires at the distributor and then while the truck is running, remove one at a time and see if any make the knock go away or less pronounced. Good luck and keep us posted. For what it's worth, of all the Nissan vehicles I've had with the VG engine, I only ever had one with a rod knock and it was severely overheated several times/ran without coolant.

Thanks! Glad to help out.

That same guy has the username "Nefarious" on here. He hasn't been on in a while but maybe PM him and it'll email him to remind that npora still exists lol.

Any first gen Pathfinder, hard body, Xterra, or frontier wheels will fit. Supercharged Xterras came with 17" wheels. Probably not hard to find a set of those. The 2nd gen Xterra/frontier like slart said have a different bolt pattern and won't fit. Many aftermarket Chevy wheels will also fit. Be careful with Toyota wheels, you'll likely need different lug nuts for those.

It wouldn't be too hard to delete the sunroof, weld some sheet metal in and finish it off with short strand fiberglass/body filter, then paint. My friend did it on his R32 Golf track car.

You can bypass it with a union, there was a post on it on here somewhere. The dampener is to assist with smooth shifts IIRC. First I would check the return spring on the pedal itself as well as bleeding the clutch fluid. I still have mine In place and have never had an issue. Just replaced a couple bad slave cylinders. If it were me I'd check everything else before hacking into it to bypass it.

@hawairish I just wanted to say thank you for this info.... I remember paying $400 CAD PER SIDE for the parking brake bits on my old 1994 many years ago. And my current 1995 needs a refresh, with the board being down I couldn't remember what year Passport/Rodeo. Got the kit on order so I can finally put the brakes back together. Now if I could only find rust free or new dust shields for the rear. Hope everything is good with you

The early 2000s knock sensors were notoriously bad on the Nissan trucks/SUVs. I've replaced probably 10 on the various Xterra/Frontiers that I and family/friends have owned. You might get lucky but it'll probably come back.

Car parts are such a crapshoot these days.

Did you get it running again?

My parts hoard has saved me several times lately. Torsion bars for my Xterra, one let go. Found I had a nearly new oem set I bought off of a guy 15 years ago who fitted aftermarket bars on his. Perfect, free repair! Fan clutch went on the X, ripped the one off my old 94 wd21 that wasn't that old, it looked the same so I put it on.

I have had this same problem but find it is the brand that makes a difference. That or there is a burr or something on the spindle stopping it. But usually it'll get past the point it's stuck at and be fine.

I was surprised how long the one in my X ran after it ingested the drivers side catalytic converter. I drove it for like 10-20k just having to add a litre of oil every fill up of the gas tank lmao.

I'll be doing mine when I replace the rad support. Might see if ol' daddy nissan still sells em. Had really bad luck with aftermarket parts lately. Also planning on converting my square tooth 91 engine in my 95 to the proper teeth.

I had this happen before too. There seems to be multiple seals listed as cam/crank for this engine. I ordered 2 cam seals and they were different, only one fit. Of course they gave me a hard time about returning the one that was wrong.

Good luck man, I have to do this job on my 1995, luckily I have the whole front clip off right now, easy access!

Take an old margarine tub or something like that and cut the side out, roll it up and stick it into the centre of the seal, slide it over the crank and then slide the seal over it and onto the crank. This is how I've always done them.

Some people do delete the coolant lines to the intake. Where you live it probably doesn't get that cold so it might not matter. My friend deleted them on his rig here in Canada and then wondered why it would run like @!*% when it was -20 and had low oil pressure on cold starts.

The aftermarket belts are fine on these, I've used gates, dayco, continental, and mitsuboshi without issue. Bando was the OE manufacturer. In 2020 I put a complete OEM timing/waterpump kit on my Xterra, the water pump is already dribbling started in 2022, I don't drive it much so have ignored it, but that was an OEM part... I think it came from Mexico. I don't think the OE parts are that good anymore unless they're old stock from Japan. I'm sure you've finished the job by now but yeah...

Are you running a 3.3 now? They're just M10 studs, or M8 on the VG30. I opted to use bolts when I put the headers on.

There is a 2 door I see around here, very rarely and it looks to be very clean. I suspect it is driven sparingly and not at all in the winter. There were a few others I used to see driven by elderly people, also pretty mint. I found one of them in the junkyard and took as many body panels as I could haha, they were the same colour as my old 94. Where I live people tend to dump cars and get a new one at the first problem or sign of rust, so they disappeared pretty quick. I used to see them all the time 15-20 years ago, in various conditions.