Mr.510

My '88 is now up to 386,447 miles. The engine and transmission are not original, but most of the rest is.

^ This. Any Patrol prior to '97 is a far better wheeler than a Pathfinder, right outta the box. Solid front axle, full frame, etc. I have a 1964 Model 60 Patrol. It is much better built and a better wheeler than an FJ40. I'm not going to say that you cannot bend or break a model 60, but you have to do something seriously stupid to hurt one. The thing about the Model 60s is the paint on the frames and and bottom of the bodywork did not last. Most that you see in original condition these days are rusted bare metal on the entire undercarriage. Mine is this way. The sheetmetal and frame are both very heavy material and don't seem prone to pitting or structural cancer, at least out West where they didn't salt the roads at all until just a few years ago.

Your transfer case is different than mine, but sometimes mine does not disengage the front drive when shifting from 4hi to 2hi. The dash light goes out but it stays locked in 4wd. Usually I just have to rock it back and forth a couple times and it comes out of 4wd. But a couple times it would not disengage no matter what I did so I just unlocked my hubs and eventually the front driveshaft, diff, and half shafts stopped spinning. I would put it in 4hi with the hubs unlocked. Drive it around a bit, a couple circles in a parking lot will do, then go back to 2hi. Next physically look at the front drive shaft and see if it's still turning when someone else slowly moves the vehicle. If it's not possible to see the driveshaft in yours you can look at the half shafts (CV shafts) but you have to look at both since often times only one will actually turn with an open front diff. If it is sticking in 4wd and you go onto dry pavement with the hubs still locked you can break stuff. When I do this my Pathy vibrates insanely bad, the steering gets stiff, and the handling is all messed up due to drivetrain wrap-up and binding. Another thing you can do to help diagnose this is an old wheeler's trick: Put a zip tie on the front driveshaft in a location that the tail of it hits something non-critical as the shaft turns. (Be sure there are no wires or hoses it can hit!) The end of the zip tie will make a light slapping noise that you can hear from inside the truck. This will tell you if the T-case has stuck in 4wd and the front end is still turning.

Hahaha! I just figured the playing field needed a bit of leveling, given the number of active members vs. the low number of votes for ToTM and ToTY polls. Hopefully some of the people that see this thread and yours will remember to check in and vote more often. The SAS'd R50 is pretty cool... for a unibody station wagon with way too many doors.

Go here 2011 NPORA ToTY Voting and vote for Truck of The Year! It just takes a minute and there are some cool pics to look at. At the moment a caR50 has a huge lead because someone posted a thread like this one yesterday in the R50 section to draw voters. You don't have to vote for me, but you should vote for one of the WD21s. Come on, click the link RIGHT NOW!

If you hit something hard enough to break a weld or tear a tube you'd get a rush of pressurized air out, and nothing more. Depending on the size of the hole it would take between two seconds and several minutes to lose all the pressure. To find a crack or pin hole use 409 multi purpose cleaner or soapy water just like you do for finding tire leaks. Even the tiniest of air leaks will make an obvious stream of soap bubbles.

I use a CO2 tank for airing tires as well. I use CO2 for shielding gas with my MIG welder so I have a few of the 20 pound aluminum cylinders. These are the same cylinders that restaurants use with their pop machines: CO2 is stored as a liquid, and maintains a steady tank pressure of about 800psi until there is no liquid left, then it drops rapidly. I have not done the math to figure out how much volume of CO2 is actually in one of these tanks but I could easily air up 100 33" tires with a full tank. Exchange of these tanks at the local welding store is about $22 and I typically get at least a dozen trail runs airing up 2-5 trucks with a tank. Since the tank maintains pressure until the liquid is gone you have to weigh a CO2 tank to know how much you actually have left. The gauge is meaningless until you run out of liquid and the pressure starts to drop. Also keep in mind that a CO2 tank must be in a vertical position to use it or you'll get liquid CO2 out of the regulator and this is a *major* frostbite danger!

There are also straight-tube driveshafts and swedged-tube driveshafts in WD21s. The swedged-tube shafts are larger diameter and taper down at the ends where they are welded to the yokes. I recently twisted my straight-tube driveshaft in two wheeling and the replacement I had at home is the swedged type. The straight tubed shaft cleared but I think the swedged one just barely rubs. I am running long shocks and have a ton of droop/flex. I'm going to add a single limit strap attached between the center of the diff and the frame to limit droop. This will help in keeping from yanking the shocks apart should the truck become suddenly airborne but will not limit flex. The other easy solution is to add a spacer between the trans and isolator, as was mentioned above.

I've pressurized the cage on a couple vehicles. It's amazing how much volume there is in a tube structure when you add it all up. The downside to doing this is you can't drill any holes in the tubing to mount stuff (not that you should really do that anyway). Any tubing strong enough for use as a roll cage is strong enough to take more air pressure than you could likely pressurize it with. 250psi is nothing for .120 wall steel tubing! The other thing to remember is that unless you drill a hole where each tube intersection is while building the cage there will be no way for air to pass between the various tubes. Every roll cage or other tube structure I build has all the tubes connected by 1/4" holes just in case I or some future owner decide to use it as a reservoir. It only takes an extra minute to drill a hole at each intersection and this saves the major PITA of drilling them and plug welding the "access holes" later. Way back in the day some F1 cars had the chassis structure pressurized with nitrogen and a gauge installed. As long as the chassis held pressure there were no stress cracks between tubes hiding under the paint. - Wish I'd thought of that one!

And you posted this why? You post everywhere and rarely say anything useful to the conversation. I don't wanna be a jerk but maybe you should spend some time learning the automotive basics before asking questions about elementary stuff in the middle of threads where everyone else clearly understands the subject at hand. Leave the answering of questions to the people that know the answers. </rant> 5k rpm is nothing for a VG30, a stock one with 200k miles will go 7k rpm all day long. They sound pretty freakin' mean up there too. Headers by themselves will probably gain a few HP. Headers with free flowing exhaust using a good muffler and either a high flow cat or none at all will probably gain you 10hp. Ceramic coat those headers inside and out and you should get 5-7hp more (assuming you aren't drawing intake air from under the hood, you'll gain much more with coated headers if you are). So replacing everything after the heads might net 15 *real* horsepower. If it were a Honduh there would be ads with dyno graphs claiming a 35hp gain.

I have wanted one of these for a very long time: It's a Kyosho 1/9th scale gas powered four wheel drive two door Pathy! They were also available electric powered if I recall correctly. This kit has been out of production for a very long time and they fetch $500+ whenever I do see them for sale. I have some vintage Kyosho R/C stuff but sadly no Pathy!

To answer a few of the questions above: MY1PATH has a gutted 2wd HB steering box and pitman arm in place of the stock steering idler. You can do a double steering box setup with a stock or HooHaa CL. The second steering box is just a bomb-proof idler arm. There's a thread here somewhere, I think it's called "Double Steering Box Mod" or something like that. Search should find it. The HooHaa/Grassroots center links are modified stock ones. He cuts both ball joints off the CL, welds on machined housings, and presses two spherical bearings into each. This is the same as the old "TK1 mod" except he does both sides so they share the twisting force. This reduces the strain on the idler arm to some degree. To install one you have to drill out your pitman and idler arms to 5/8". Then 5/8" bolts go through the bearings and the arms with locking nuts on top. As far as I've heard nobody has ever killed a HooHaa CL. At the very least every Pathy that goes off road even occasionally needs a steering idler brace. CLs wear out but they don't generally bend, break, or otherwise catastrophically fail. When the idler fails you suddenly have no steering and this is not a bandaid-able thing you can fix on the trail unless you carry a spare! (I do) I've been running the AC idler brace for several years and it has done it's job well.

My guess is that 33x9.5s on Legos would clear everything with no trimming or massaging at all, with stock length rear shocks anyway. With increased rear travel any tire over 31" will rub the rear edge of the rear fenderwell opening when flexed out and stuffed. This is because the drooped side moves way forward due to the short upper arms of the rear suspension. This forces the stuffed side rearward until it buries itself in the quarter panel. The way the quarter angles inward at the bottom means that it contacts the middle of the tire so width doesn't have much effect here.

This may have been posted elsewhere, or even in this thread for that matter as I've not read the whole thing in ages. Anyway, you can download the '89 & '90 D21 FSMs in .pdf here: D21 FSMs It's basically the same manual as the WD21, I've been using it and it has notes on things that are different between 'truck' and 'wagon'. There are tons of Nissan FSMs on the download page at nicoclub, this is the main FSM index: nicoclub FSM index

This 50% off coupon sale runs through MONDAY in case that helps anyone get there.

I replied to the OP's PM but for anyone else reading this my goal is to sell the crank pulley adapter hubs for less than $100. Only one has been made so far, the prototype that's on the VG34 in my Pathy. I should have production parts in stock by the end of the year.

Another good 'temporary' fix for a fuel tank leak is to rub a bar of soap into the leak while it's wet with fuel. This is an old trail repair trick and works very well. I know of several tanks that have been sealed this way and have gone many years without issue. Another option rather than replacing the tank would be to use one of those liner kits like Kreem. They coat the interior of the tank with fuel proof resin. There would be very few vintage motorcycles still on the road if it weren't for Kreem! www.kreem.com

Ah, I didn't realize the OP is in Canada or that Nissan pulled BS like that on you guys. The O-ring is still available in the US but the pickup tubes that use an O-ring are not. The gasket for the later style pickup tubes is Nissan P/N 15053-1E400. Unfortunately an oil pressure gauge won't really help if the pickup tube O-ring leaks. What typically happens is a little bit of air is continually sucked past the failed O-ring and the air bubbles erode the very soft bearing material until failure occurs. If you're asking about the WD21 alternator it's mounting is the same 'old school' layout that physically interchanges with most Nissan models all the way back to 1968. The Xterra alternator has different mounts and does not directly interchange. I do not know if caR50 and X are the same. The X alty has the adjuster mounting piont offset further forward and also closer to the block than the earlier stuff. Accessory layout is the same between X and Fronty, or at least it is on the S/C models. Probably. If in doubt take what you have with you and/or take lots of pics before you go to the yard. You might also do a quick measure of how far out the accessory belt grooves are from the lower timing belt tin to be sure what you get is going to line up. Swapping accessories/brackets/balancers around between VGs and having the belts line up correctly is often a problem. Don't quote me, but I *think* there are eight different VG33 harmonic balancer/pulley part numbers in the US market. I had my brother order one of each when I was trying to find an elegant solution to the VG33 with VG30 accessories problem while retaining a harmonic balancer. There was no way to modify stock parts to make it work so I designed the adapter hub that replaces the balancer.

With most Nissan hood latches you can stick a long screwdriver through the grille and pry the ear the cable end attaches to sideways to release the hood. I don't recall if this works on a Pathy and the weather is like the inside of a dishwasher or I'd go look at one of mine. Look through the grille with a flashlight, preferably when it's dark outside or in your garage so you can better see the latch and where the release is located.

The figure I had always heard was that a typical automotive application V belt could reliably transfer about 7hp. Given that I've worked on many machine tools with two similar belts on slightly larger diameter pulleys transferring 30hp all day long with nearly instantaneous acceleration and deceleration I would guess that's pretty close. The bigger the pulley diameter and the steeper the V-belt's angle the more traction and therefore the more power that can be transferred. My slidebed wrecker has a GM 250amp alternator that's turned by a belt of the same approximate size as a Pathy belt. When thinking of inertia of an alternator at 5k rpm remember that the general rule of thumb is that an alternator spins about 3x crank speed. So when my VG510 hits the rev limiter the alty is spinning about 24,000 rpm. And yes, I've thrown the windings off the stators of a couple alternators with such shenanigans.

We are talking about the '87-'95 WD21 Pathies here, your '98 is an R50. I have zero knowledge of what fits on the R50 with various lifts, wheel widths, and backspacing. I suggest you take a look in the R50 section and see what's been proven to work. You did remind me of one thing that I didn't mention in my above post: To run 33x10.5 tires on a WD21 with no lift or suspension lift only and have room to stuff a tire without massive rub or serious trimming you have to run stock Lego wheels or 15x7 aftermarket wheels with the same offset. When my truck stuffs a tire there is less than 1/4" between the sidewall and the quarter panel. If the outer edge of the rim stuck out just 3/8" more I would lose about 5" of travel! Also keep in mind that the further outward the outer edge of the rim is the more rub you'll have at the firewall and the more leverage the tire will have against suspension components.

BFG 33x10.5s on Legos fit with no lift... just freaking barely. I've been running them four or five years I think. A little fender massaging with a rubber mallet at the corners of the lips is all you need. You'll need that massaging regardless of suspension lift, since the wheel will still "stuff" to the same place when the suspension is compressed. In the rear as you increase articulation the tire stuffs even farther than it did stock. I think much more serious pounding with a plastic dead blow is going to be required to make my 33x10.5R15 Swamper Radials fit. BFGs are much smaller than their published size while Swampers are a little on the big side. I think the Swamper is 3/4 of an inch taller and it's certainly more 'square' at the shoulder and this is where tires rub. Swamper Radial. Makes most other mud tires look like all terrains! But they are $1250-ish for a set of five. I've been on AT KOs since I went to 33s. They are an amazing tire. I climb stuff easily on KOs that friends on KM2s struggle with. If you've got greasy slick mud get something else because they won't self clean well enough. KOs work very well in fairly deep snow and are one of the best truck tires I've driven on compact snow on the street. KM2s are OK on compact snow but are probably the worst deep snow tire in the offroad market. They look like they would work great but they're horrible in even a foot of snow.

Welcome to NPORA! You should introduce yourself in the section marked "New People Start Here". All of the interior panels snap-in with the exception of the two rear upper corner panels at the very back which have one screw each. Look at where the pieces overlap each other and remove whichever pieces are necessary to get the big piece around the pop out window out, it's the one that has the speaker in it. If I recall correctly you have to remove the panel behind that one and the one above the big window, but it's been a while. You can remove the panels by slipping a flat blade screwdriver in behind them and twisting it to pop the plastic fasteners out of their holes. Some of the fasteners will probably break since they are getting old. I snag a handful at Pick N Pull once in a while to replace the ones I break.

Nissan superceded all VG pickup tubes to ones of a new design that takes a flat gasket. There have been many cases of the O-ring turning hard and leaking causing oil starvation and engine failure. I do not remember when they made the change, but it *should* be impossible to buy an O-ring type pickup tube new from Nissan. Also, I'm running the pickup tube from the '03 S/C X and it's flat gasket type stock.

I can guarantee that an '03 Xterra pickup tube will work in your stock WD21 oil pan. I'm running the '03 X oil pan as well, but only because it was in better shape than my WD21 pan. The two oil pans are identical except for the angled area where the drain plug goes. The X has the drain hole lowered so you can get a teeny bit more oil out. Oh, and don't forget the pickup tube gasket!