Slartibartfast

Looking forward to it. I remember a thread a while back where a few people seemed to agree it would be possible, but then nobody got around to actually trying it out.

I dunno if spark plug selection is as dire as a transmission oil that eats synchros, but sticking with what the engine was designed with is a good general rule. When I bought new plugs for my rig, I got NGKs. Near as I can tell, they run exactly the same as the Autolites I took out. Maybe it's more a matter of a quality plug than NGK having the eleven secret herbs and spices that Nissans require. I haven't read many accounts of people being happy with Champions.

When I've had washer issues, it went from spraying to not spraying at all. +1 on dirt somewhere. If you can follow the hoses, I'd also check for leaks on the off chance your pressure is going somewhere else.

If the rotor's not moving when you crank it, the belt is stripped or broken, which is not good news. I'm pretty sure the VG33 is in fact interference--not by as much as the VG30, perhaps, but still enough to cause problems. You say you don't know engines, so I'll try and lay this out simply. Inside the engine you've got pistons in the block and valves in the heads. Both move up and down in a carefully arranged pattern as the engine turns, synchronized by the timing belt (which, as Citron said, lives behind that black metal cover at the front of the engine). The engine is an interference design, which means that the top of the piston stroke is higher than the bottom of the valve travel--they occupy the same space at different times, sorta like traffic moving through an intersection. So long as the timing is right, nobody gets hurt. When the belt fails, though, a valve finds itself in the wrong place at the wrong time and gets clobbered by a piston. My first step--if it was my rig--would be to slap a new belt on it and check for compression on all cylinders. If I was super lucky, I'd find that I was one of the very few people who've dodged a bullet and somehow escaped valve damage. More than likely, though, the test would show which cylinder had no compression, which would tell me which valve was bent, and thus which head to remove. What you do to fix it depends on how mechanically inclined you are or how much your mechanic charges per hour. A bent valve requires a fair bit of teardown to replace. If you're paying by the hour, swapping the engine may be cheaper than fixing what you have.

Towed a bunch of junk to the scrap drive, found a puddle that everyone else was avoiding, and drove through it four times because apparently I'm still eight years old.

^^My thoughts exactly, only I'd probably just pull the distributor cap and see if the rotor turns with the engine.

If I was going to put something on that gasket, it'd be the copper gasket spray stuff, but dry should be just fine.

Seems like you'd be adding a whole lot of weight. I'd look into what people have done to SAS the R50s. I don't think they have to build a whole extra frame under it. And if you can do it without screwing with the rear axle, you'd keep the flex of the five-link. As to whether it would daily drive, well, that just depends on how well you do it. So long as the alignment is good, the steering is set up properly, and it's not sitting so high it tips, I don't see why not. But do keep the consequences of failure in mind, especially if you haven't done a lot of fabrication prior to this. You don't want something to fail on the highway because it wasn't welded right. As for legality, I don't know about AZ, but I know it would be fine around here. We don't even have inspections. So long as the lights work, the tabs are good, and it's not currently on fire, nobody really cares.

Sounds like you've got your shopping list down! Don't forget to beef up the steering after lifting it. Rebuilding the rear end and transfer case aren't generally required. Unless something's leaking, or you find a problem in the rear end when you open it up, or you want to put deeper gears in the transfer, I'd just change the fluids and call it good. Sounds like the LSD for the front is getting harder to find, but there is a ratcheting locker available for it.

Borrowed its battery to exercise the Ford 460 in my friend's former motorhome/future car hauler, then swapped it back and drove home. Good to know it's got some CCA to spare.

I used the L68111s on mine. Could be a little tighter on the bushing, but they seem to work fine. If the hole in your frame is hogged out, you may change your alignment a little by putting it right. Looks like the bushings you have on it now are poly, the same ones I've got actually. The last guy just didn't do anything about the disintegrated stock cups.

Couple trips to the wreckers, few hits with the BFH, case of spray paint, should go back together. And free is always nice! Odd that the rear pillar's primered, that and the hatch suggest a very odd collision. How's the frame?

How's the windage with the spare on the roof? I've got a 31 on mine and yeah, you can see it in the mirror, but it's not enough in the way to cause problems IMO. The hatch glass clears it, though not by much (I have caught my hand in between). The racks were fairly common but IIRC you do need to get the brackets from inside the quarter panel of the donor.

Ooh. That's not what you want to see. Wrecking yard or part-out is probably your best bet. You could try a dealership, factorynissanparts, courtesy parts, but I'd expect them to be awfully proud of the unit if they have it. If the inside of the tank looks like that sender, I'd consider picking up a whole tank at the wreckers, if you can find a clean one. You could also just pick up a new tank, but if you do that, don't get the cheapest you can find--I did that on my '95 when one of the seams started leaking and had an awful lot of screwing around to do to get the blighter in because the manufacturer cut the mounting holes wrong and even managed to kink the ring the fuel pump's supposed to sit on so it wouldn't seal right. I don't remember offhand what the fuel line size is, but it looks like you could bust off that other nipple pretty easily and take that to the parts store with you. Make sure it's rated for fuel injection.

The bandit bushings got here a couple days ago and are waiting for me to get around to installing them. I'm hoping the bronze is better equipped to handle the twisting force the idler has to deal with, hadn't thought much about the wear properties though. I haven't heard any bad reviews and will definitely post an update if they eat the shaft. Hopefully the addition of a grease fitting (you get a zerk! And you get a zerk!) helps keep things happy. Thanks for the email address Adamzan, I contacted the Grassroots guy and he said he'd check and see if he had any left. That was about a week ago, and I haven't heard back yet. I may just pick up one of the Delco ones.

Maybe Nissan thought oil cooling wasn't necessary without the added heat of an autotragic.

Sounds like you're set. Good luck!

I did a little digging in the manual a while back trying to figure out the EGR system, and if I'm remembering right, the California model will throw a CEL if the smog gear's not hooked up, which the federal won't. If the headers you're looking at have an EGR bung, and are advertised for '90-95 Pathfinders, I would expect the tube to the EGR valve to bolt right in. The EGR valve itself changed slightly to accommodate the BPT but the pipe to the manifold should be exactly the same.

When you find TDC (either with the mark on the pulley or by putting something down the plug hole), you know where the piston is, but not necessarily where the cams are. To tell if you're on top dead compression or top dead exhaust, you can look at the sprockets (like Adam did) or at the ignition rotor (like I did). The cam or rotor position will not find TDC; that's still the job of the balancer, or the rod down the plug hole if you don't trust your balancer. It just tells you if you've found TDC compression (what you want) or TDC exhaust (which will have your cams 180° from where you want them). If that doesn't make sense, think of it this way: the crank's like a 12-hour clock. It says it's exactly 12. Checking the dimples, or the rotor, is like looking outside to see if it's 12 noon or 12 midnight. And let's say you do it wrong, and open the cover and find out it's not where you want it. No sweat. Leave the belt on, thread the crank bolt back into the crank (you might need some washers to prevent it from bottoming out), and roll the engine over by hand with a ratchet or breaker bar until it is where you want it. Then continue as though nothing happened. I was not so lucky with my crank seal!

Gamellot, you're overthinking this. You're not going to damage a valve moving the cams by hand with the belt off, not unless you go full gorilla and try to turn them way too far. To get the belt on, I had to turn the cams a little with the tool I made. That didn't damage anything. Neither did when I tried to undo the sprocket bolt with no good way of holding the sprocket (dumb idea) and the whole thing jumped--the 20° Citron said sounds about like what it did. I was worried I had screwed something up at that point. But that didn't damage anything either. Trying to do the belt with the engine in a weird position would be a whole lot more difficult, and much easier to screw up. First off, remember the bit about how cams can jump? Stop the engine in the wrong place and they may jump as soon as the belt comes off. This is not likely to damage anything, but it will mean that you'll have to turn that sprocket back and hold it against the force of the valve springs to get the belt lined up--and having done a timing belt on a DOHC Hyundai where two of the four cams would jump whether it was at TDC or not, trust me, you don't want none of that. Then there's the fact that the timing marks on the sprockets may not be up against the belt if stopped somewhere else, meaning that you'll have to guess on tooth count. Get the tooth count wrong and you bend your valves when you start it up. This deal is getting worse all the time! TL;DR just do it from TDC. You'd have to try pretty hard to screw up the valves. Just make sure the tooth count and tension is correct before you button it up.

Not a bad looking cooler. The angle on those tube ends might make things interesting, though.

LOL I know the struggle.

The only thing I can think of involves a massive rotisserie and some 2x4s and would almost certainly end in tears. I'd talk to guys who've done the conversion. Either they worked this out for themselves or they found an easier way. You could also just come up with a few estimates, maybe one higher than you think and one lower, plug both in, and see if the calculator output changes enough that a few inches one way or the other would present a problem.

Yeah, there's not much room behind those plastic bits, and IIRC the metal back there is formed to where you'd be doing a fair bit of surgery to open them up. That said, if you can find/make a panel that size, it could be an interesting setup. Turn them on, then open/close the hood to spot planes!

IIRC someone on here tried a jaw puller on the crank pulley and bent it. I pulled the pulley off (mark its orientation on the balancer first!) and then pulled it off with a duck's foot puller. I cut and welded an F-shaped piece of metal to stick into the holes in the cam sprockets for loosening and retorquing, and didn't even need an impact. The strap wrench isn't a bad idea either. I did have one of the cams jump when I was first trying to get the bolts out. It didn't go far, and I just turned it back the way it came and it didn't hurt anything.