Slartibartfast

Nice score!

Yikes. I'd be looking for a new stator coil for that. Even if you uncoiled the damaged wire and straightened it, the damage to the insulation is already done. I'd also be suspicious of what caused it get caught up like that. Did something get in between? Or is the bearing so bad that the outer part wandered in and grabbed it? The damage looks like more than I'd expect from the end just coming loose. Magnet wire is a PITA to work with at the best of times. Unwinding that whole spool, straightening it, recoating it, and re-coiling it sounds like way more trouble than it's worth, unless the part is unavailable or you're desperate for a challenge and untangling Slinkys just doesn't do it for you anymore.

This is the same LPG motor as your last thread?

Looks like it came out nicely!

From what I've read, a home-gamer can solder better than he/she can crimp, but a professional with the right tools can make a crimp that's better than a solder joint. I'm not a professional with the right tools, so I solder/shrink wrap and haven't had any issues with it.

Yeah, mine's shot too. I've read that Nissan used the same sunroof on the the first-gen Xterra (and something else, don't remember what) so if you find one of those at the wreckers with a good seal, you can grab the glass and seal as an assembly and not have to mess around with it.

I can see what you mean about the tail lights--not sure I prefer them to stock but they do look right on the truck. I drove into town the other day and found myself behind a trashed Yota pickup that had one tail light from one year (three-color) and one from a later year (all red with a round part) and the bulbs weren't in the same places on either side. That right there messes with your head!

All I can think of (and keep in mind, this is just a guess) is that maybe the pump has a tight spot, so it catches as it goes around, making the belt slip just a little each time. Each time the pump binds, and the belt slips, the power steering system pressure falls, and the varying pressure is what's giving you the shimmy. The new belt would've forced it past this tight spot, for a while, until the strain made it glaze like the last one and it started slipping again. If you take the belt off and turn the pump by hand, does it turn freely all the way around, or does it feel like it's binding? I'm not familiar with belt routing on the R50s, but if the PS pump has its own belt, I'd try removing the belt and driving it around the block without power steering. If it still has a shimmy, it's not the pump. If the shimmy is gone, then yeah, my money's on the pump. In any case, it does sound like your steering pump is damaged, and replacing it wouldn't be a bad idea. If it eats itself, all those metal fragments are headed into the rack you just replaced.

Replaced the centerlink, rebuilt the idler arm with brass bushings instead of the stock plastic, found that my homemade IAB doesn't fit anymore, made a new one, then went for a test drive and quickly realized that all that work just screwed my alignment. Hopefully I can fix the toe tomorrow and see if the new parts have done anything for the handling.

Could swear I posted here, but don't see it now. I've been amazed at what carpet can bounce back from. The worst carpet I've seen cleaned was in a friend's Astro van. The PO had not been kind to it, and neither were we when we pulled apart the engine through the doghouse to replace the head gaskets. Grease and oil everywhere. He found some kind of cleaner in a can that got it looking surprisingly good again. That said, there's a point where you just pitch it, especially if replacements are cheap. I didn't even try to clean the cigarette stank out of my '93's carpet because I had a non-stanky donor to pull a cleaner one from!

If it's trying to apply a vacuum to the canister, and the canister's not sealed, you'd have a vac leak messing with your fuel mix. That's the best I can think of.

Come down to the states, pick up a clean one with a blown trans for $500 off Craigslist, trailer it back, and transplant the good bits from yours into a solid shell. That was my plan, until I found my '93 for cheap with better mechanicals than the '95 I was going to swap parts from.

I could be wrong but I don't think the evap system is essential enough to trigger limp mode.

If anything, I'd expect the evap system to make it harder for water to get into the tank vs having just a vent on it. Plus it means you don't smell gas around the truck unless there's a leak.

Thankfully the WD21s didn't come with silly chip keys. The usual click/no start issue with the WD21 is that the contacts in the ignition switch get flaky with age, and don't pass enough current to the starter solenoid to get things going properly. IIRC the manual trans rigs have a starter relay, but the autos don't--they've got inhibitors to break the circuit but nothing to take limited current from the switch and use it to switch something useful. Some people add their own starter relay to deal with this. I haven't had to do this on either of my rigs, but it worked great on a friend's Toyota. That said, this doesn't really explain why the problem would seem to be heat related. The other thing I'd check (not that this is heat related either, or that you haven't already checked this) are the connections on the starter itself. A loose wire there could also be causing intermittent issues.

There wasn't much holding it down in my '93 either, and it was brittle enough that I just chipped out what was left.

Source? Just about everything I've read suggests that while this may have been true in the early days of radials, it doesn't matter now unless the tires are marked as directional (in which case all you lose by running it backwards is performance in wet conditions). I have yet to hear of a tire failure due to cross-rotation.

It is doable at home. I helped a friend of mine fix the A/C in his S10 a while ago and with a cheap vacuum pump, gauge set, a cheap aircon recharge kit, some PAG oil, and a bunch of those little 134a cans, we were able to vacuum the system down and recharge it afterwards. The redneck recharge worked and it's still going! But yeah, it's a PITA to deal with.

I did a bit of research into rebuilding the compressor in my '95 when oil started coming out the front side seal, and found out that the front seal (or bearing? Don't remember) was actually some kind of ceramic and require some special tool to deal with, if the part was even available. I decided to let it ride until it blew, and it still worked when I parted out the truck. My '93 makes some noise, too, and I'm taking the same approach with it. One of these days it'll give me a reason to replace it. Until then, top up as needed and deal with other things.

I'm not sure the IFS can go much higher than that without the CVs binding up (if they're not already). I suspect your rear lift gave you quite a bit more lift than it was supposed to; your picture in the what-did-you-do-today thread looks way higher in the back than other lifted rigs I've seen on here.

^ One of these days, I need to pick up one of those vacuum testers. I've tested vacuum components just by sucking on the hose, and that works, but the taste leaves something to be desired. The test I've heard for the EGR valve itself (doesn't test the diaphragm) is to reach a finger under the diaphragm with the engine idling, and push up on it, which should cause the valve to open. If the engine idles fine on its own, then stumbles when you open the EGR valve, the EGR valve is working.

LOL I can think of a few family members I wouldn't last two weeks with. My acrylic tube came in today! I went with the cheapest I could find with an ID of 1 3/8", which fits snugly over the ignition cylinder. I cut about a 1" section of it, notched it out to clear a couple things, sanded it matte, hot-snotted an LED strip around it, and painted the outside black. I tapped power from the driver's foot well light, but I didn't want this thing to turn off as soon as I shut the door--seems like that would defeat the whole purpose here. Rather than build some kind of timer circuit, I wired a 3300 microfarad capacitor in parallel with the LED strip. A diode isolates the capacitor so it's not trying to power the whole dome light circuit. Luckily most of the assembly is hidden inside the clamshell, so it doesn't have to be pretty. Here's full brightness with the door open. And here's the same shot fifteen seconds or so after pressing the door plunger. The light peters out quick at first but sticks around at a low level for a while, and even that low level is more than enough to find the ignition in the dark without turning on a map light. It does what I wanted it to do, it was cheap, and it looks like something out of Tron. I'm pretty damn pleased with this thing! Also, that's the lower clamshell all done up in CAD. Steel to come!

I would start by checking the condition of the battery terminals--that white/blue sulfur rabies they like to make around the posts is not good for electrical conductivity. Clean those up, make sure they're on tight, and check the cables themselves for corrosion. Does the battery read 12v with the key on? A well and truly knackered battery may show voltage just sitting there, but drop off as soon as you load it. Bad connections can cause the same effect, but you should be able to tell if the battery itself is bad by testing at the posts.

Well, first off, it would probably be easier to resell the battery and get the right one than to rewire the leads and then have to remember to get the same type of battery that's not the one that's supposed to fit an R50 when this one wears out. Do you mean the posts are back to front on the top so the leads are too short to cross over, or it's got side posts like Chevrolet uses? If it's the side post, IIRC you can get adapters that screw into the terminals to give you top-post style terminals that your stock clamps will attach to. If you're hell-bent on rewiring, this might give you some ideas. Ground is the easier one, since it doesn't really branch off. Follow it to where it bolts to the body and there you go. Looks like the R50 positive terminal's got a thick red wire with its own tab and a clump of thinner ones sharing a tab, and both tabs bolt to the clamp. When I replaced the + clamp on my WD21, I just unbolted the fuse link wiring, cleaned it up a little, then bolted it to the new clamp. I had to cut and strip the cable end for the replacement clamp, but it looks like you don't even have to do that on the R50, just unbolt and re-bolt. Wouldn't be too hard to make a little cable extension if the post is on the wrong side. I'm not sure what gauge it is, but you could just grab a battery cable from the wreckers and cut it to length. If you're planning to install a winch, a massive stereo, or an upgraded alternator, this could be a good time to re-do the system with thicker cable. If not, I'd just sort out the connectors and call it good.

Damn tweakers. At least the parts are going to use--and at least you got some closure on it. That 460 sounds like a hell of a thing. A friend of mine has one in a project (making a flatbed truck out of an RV) and even bone stock, that thing sounds good. I can only imagine how it would sound with a cam in it!