Slartibartfast

No worries, hopefully those work. Good luck with the old studs. When I get around to mine I'm hoping I can get the welder in there and do it the easy way.

Some do. Sometimes there's an access panel under the back seat, my dad's Audi is like that (it makes up for it with a massive fuel sending unit that barely fits through the hole and some of the most fiddly connectors I've ever worked with). The WD21 pump access door is a little more fiddly than it could be due to the stupid plastic fasteners holding the rear trim (and the carpet) down, and the stupid Phillips bolts holding the cargo hooks (and, again, the carpet) down. Once those are out, though, four 10mm bolts and you've got access to the pump.

I bought a set of studs and nuts from the Acadiana Sports Car Orphanage a while back. I think they were for a 300zx, same size as WD21 but supposedly better steel. PN BK056-0030. Looks like their website is currently down, though, so I'm not sure that helps you any. I haven't gotten around to installing them, so I can't comment on their fitment, but I can tell you that they've got 19mm of thread on the head side, 11 mm of shoulder, then another 19mm of thread on the manifold side, and then a little hex head on the end of that for installation. The thread is M8x1.25.

1) High range (2HI/4HI) stays the same (1:1). Low range gears only change low range. 2) I'm not sure I understand what whoever told you that was talking about (and I'm not sure they did, either). With a TX10a, in low range, the front and rear driveshafts are locked together by the chain, so one cannot spin faster or slower than the other, regardless of the gear ratio.

Not sure, I haven't done the swap myself. If you want to keep V belts (to use your old accessories), you'll need an adapter for the crank pulley. if you can use the donor's accessories and brackets, you don't need the adapter, so that's one less thing on the parts list (assuming the accessories came with the engine and didn't cost extra). The usual recipe as I understand it is VG33, VG30 cams (not required but recommended), VG30 intake/exhaust/distributor, and mod the oil pan (and possibly the oil pickup) as needed to clear the front diff. I would plan to do the timing belt and just about every seal I could get to while the engine is out, as well as engine mounts, given what happened the last time I went into an engine swap without new mounts on hand. This thread goes well beyond a simple VG33 swap, but if you skip the bits about porting the heads and fitting larger pistons, it's still a good look at what you're up against.

The fuel efficiency isn't great on these to begin with, but sensor issues can make it a whole lot worse. I expect 15/16 MPG from mine. Best I've seen was 19mpg on a long trip on mostly flat ground. If yours is worse than it should be, I would check the oxygen sensor and coolant temp sensor (the two-wire sensor, the one-wire is for the gauge only) first. A bad oxygen sensor can make it think it's running lean, and a bad temp sensor can make it think it's cold as hell, and in either case it'll run rich trying to correct.

The difference is the proportioning valve built into the brake master. The prop valve limits pressure to the rear brakes. Disks need more pressure than drums to work properly, so a disk master may feed more pressure to your rear drums than they need, which could lead to them locking up under hard braking.

Check the air filter box for critters. Might check behind the blower motor resistors, too.

Welding tanks is sketchy, that's why none of the pros would do it (that and not wanting to spend all afternoon chasing pin holes). If it smelled like gas, used-to-be-gas, or whatever the rad shop boiled it with, I'd purge it too.

Most stuff I've bought off Rockauto has been fine, but I don't count on their returns/service being worth anything. I bought a door handle for my '95 that their computer said would fit, so they insisted it was the right part. Nevermind that it said Sentra on the bag and it didn't fit on the door. Nobody else has complained, they said. Yeah, because they know there's no point. Also got a set of VG33 manifold gaskets listed as fitting a VG30, that was a fun job to do twice. Didn't even try returning that crap. Most orders have been fine, though. I'm sure it's more of a PITA when you're dealing with shipping to South America!

I had some trouble when I did mine, too. I replaced just the mast on my '95, which wasn't actually that difficult, but things got interesting when I tried to swap that assembly over to my '93. I couldn't work out how to get the antenna cable out of the truck, short of cutting it, and naturally the '95 mast was different than the '93 mast, so I ended up Frankensteining the two assemblies into one in the wheel well. Good to hear you got it in the end. Hopefully there's enough on the radio where you live to make fixing the antenna worth it!

If you've running the usual dropped ball, and that's what's hitting, you could also try a raised-ball setup like this. It wouldn't get you a whole lot, but it would be a cheap place to start. If that doesn't do it, a company called Dobinson makes a spring kit. I'm not familiar with the R52 and I don't know how good its stock trans cooler is or isn't. But given the reputation of Nissan's CVTs, and the stress of towing off-road, I would be looking for overkill.

Banned for having a kink for Devo!

Yeah, that doesn't sound healthy. First thing I'd check is the fluid level, it might just be having issues because it's low (due to the leak at the bellhousing). Check it running, warm, after going through each gear. Seems like low fluid would cause issues in all gears, though. Not going into third or fourth makes me suspect it may have a solenoid issue, but I haven't dealt with that on mine and don't know the trans well enough to say. When you turn the key on, does the POWER light on the dash (or the light in the E-AT switch, depending on which dash style you have) flicker? If it does, the trans computer thinks something is wrong, and there's a procedure to figure out what it's upset about in the service manual. Even if it's not flickering, I would have a look through the AT section of the manual anyway--you may find your symptoms listed in the troubleshooting section.

Well, there's that ruled out, then. I'd have a look at the hoses/carbon can/etc for the evap system on the off chance something there is allowing fuel vapor to escape. Depending on where/how bad the leak was, it might even throw a code. I've heard of R50 carbon cans dropping their carbon into a solenoid and causing issues, but I don't remember anyone complaining of a gas smell along with that. Also now that I think about it there was a recall for the fuel filler neck in salt states. They rot where the bracket in the wheel well meets the tube. It's ref # NTB07-078, I think I downloaded it off Nicoclub a while back. Worth checking given where you are.