Slartibartfast

I don't think I've read about anyone overheating a steering system on one of these, but I don't imagine a cooler would hurt anything if you wanted to add one. Plumbing it might be interesting. I remember having some trouble getting the return hose away from the exhaust when I had to replace my factory molded return hose with the straight hose I could get locally. A friend of mine put a steering cooler on his van a few summers ago after boiling over his power steering res. The only time he got it that hot he was delivering mail (lots of stop and go, lots of turning, low air speed) on a 100°+ day. The hydroboost brakes were probably not helping matters either. IIRC the cooler he used was a stock Chevy piece that was basically just a zig-zag of hard line, no fins or anything, but it seemed to do the job. I'll bet the power steering hard lines running along the crossmember below the motor on LHD Pathfinders shed heat similarly.

I meant to do my PCV while I had it open, but the one Rockauto sent didn't fit. I just blasted my old one out with carb cleaner and reinstalled it. For the manifold gasket, don't get the stamped steel ones. The first time I did mine, I got these awful stamped-steel Victor Reinz gaskets. Nothing lined up, it didn't seal, and I had to tear the bugger apart again and put Fel-Pros in there. Start with the right gasket and save yourself some headaches! And yeah, no silicone required. The exhaust connection to your EGR valve may be a bugger to get out. If all you're doing are the valve cover gaskets, you can probably get away with just unbolting the valve from the intake and leaving it supported by the pipe going down to the exhaust. There is a gasket for that. IIRC I reused mine without issue, but I'm sure they're cheap enough new. +1 on doing the plugs while you're in there. Not only are they easier to get to, you can vacuum the dirt from around them before you pull them so it doesn't end up in the cylinders. Also not a bad idea to lay a couple strips of masking tape over the holes in the lower intake manifold as soon as you've got the upper off, just so you've got six fewer places for a stray valve cover screw to explore.

Thanks, I'd forgotten the IAs can be rebuilt. I'd also forgotten the bushings in there are plastic. Looks like these guys have a bronze kit, so I might just spring for that to give the thing a chance. I've got a hokey homemade brace on there now but will definitely come up with something better when I rebuild the idler. Are the Grassroots links still available? I've read a lot of positive reviews but I can't find their web site. The Sankei and the Delco stuff looks good but man, they're proud of it! Sounds like the Sankeis end up in Moog boxes sometimes, though (whatever fits in the box like gamellot said). And yeah, I'm not even looking at the non-greaseable ones. Speaking of which, I notice the OE Nissan stuff has little screws on it where the grease fittings should be. I can just swap those for zerks, right? I wouldn't mind getting a little more out of the joints that aren't shot.

Yeah, I know, another "what part should I buy" thread. But at this point I'm just confusing myself, and I'm hoping the hive mind has what I'm looking for. My idler arm and centerlink are worn out. Those for sure need to be replaced. If budget allows, I may replace TREs and ball joints at the same time. And I'd rather not do this twice, so I've been researching the various parts on the market. I'm seeing a lot of support for Moog, but also a lot of complaints that they've gone downhill recently. I have seriously considered the 2WD HB swap to get rid of the dogbone, but it sounds like more trouble/bumpsteer than it's worth given that I'm not running a lift or planning to. So I'm thinking stock configuration + IAB. What have you guys used and how's it held up?

Like I said before... could be that the battery is well and truly borked, and the alt is struggling to keep up, or it could be that the alt is weak and won't charge unless it's spinning past a certain speed. I would expect a parts place to be able to check the battery, and possibly the alt as well. I'd want to see which one was bad before putting money down. My money's still on a bad diode in the alternator, though.

Post a picture of this thing in the steering column. I know for a fact my '93 doesn't have a big box in there.

I'm not familiar enough with the R50 to know what that goes to, but generally having a vac line unhooked isn't a good thing. You could just take a little piece of brake line, drill a hole in your filter adapter, and glue it in to create a nipple for the vac line. Look out for puddles with that cone.

Turns out the front brake lines I put on yesterday were too long, and fouled either the tire or the LCA depending on how I set them up. So I took those off, and put on a different set that do fit. Hopefully I'm done with brake work for a while.

As shown above^^ the lower hole is what the pin is supposed to be tied to. I don't think I've seen anything factory mounted to that upper hole.

Tried a new one of those too, didn't seem to change anything. I guess I might've gotten a bad one. One of these days I'll figure the bugger out. Today I put summer tires on. Then I thought, while I'm at it, I might as well check the brakes. And lube them with some of that purple ceramic goop I picked up a while ago. And install those braided brake lines, and, oh, yeah, I'd been meaning to flush the brake fluid since I got the thing. So all that's done now. I also got a good look at how clapped out the idler arm and center link are. Yeah, I think I know what I'm replacing next.

I haven't had an R50 front end apart but I remember reading that their CV shafts only have one snap ring groove, which works with either the stock drive plates or aftermarket manual hubs. WD21s have two grooves, one for manual hubs and one for auto hubs. While you could probably just machine new grooves into your CVs, it would be an awful lot of work to fit the hubs that most of the WD21 guys spend money to get rid of. The auto hubs give you no indication whether they're locked in or not. There's no way to lock them manually. They unlock themselves without telling you. To lock them in, you have to drive forward in 4x for some distance, which sounds easy until the front bumper's up against a fence post, you don't have the traction to back up in 2x, and the hubs aren't locked. I found myself in that situation with the manual hubs, and being able to lock them manually saved me from finding out if my friend's dad's Miata could pull my Pathfinder out of his yard. As far as I'm concerned, they paid for themselves then and there.

I don't know the Napa stuff in particular but I used generic dex/merc in my '93 and had no issues.

Rat Trap, because there was a dead rat in the resonator when I got it. PATJ, the upper mounts on the rear flares are these hokey U-shaped plastic bits that sort of clamp the flare to the fender, with a fastener just to hold them shut. Not all flares are alike, either, I picked one off a '93 (I think?) at the wreckers and it didn't fit my '95. I think the U-shaped bits were even different. But the ones off the '95 later fit my current '93 no problem. A friend of mine with similar wheel poke on his S10 has been running lawn edging for most of the winter and it seems to work pretty well.

Discovered that a scrap of copper tubing is not an adequate replacement for the tire carrier pin. That was fun to get out. Also, wired my trailer lights back up tried to figure out why they're still dim as hell. And it's not the ground, that was the first, second, third, and fifth thing I checked. Best guess at this point is voltage drop across the converter box.

An air bubble sounds likely to me, given that it was fine until failure of something else caused a loss of coolant. Looks like Nissan built the bleeder into the heater piping and put a rubber cap on it.

IIRC the 90 amp alt from a SOHC Maxima is supposed to be a bolt-in, just have to swap the pulley.

It's normal for a new bearing to be stiffer than an old one. It's got no wear on the moving parts and a fresh packing of thick grease. It'll wear in like your old one has.

My '95 had the resistor pack in the same place my '93 does, no idea on the R50s though.

A friend of mine has a van that would lose coolant pretty much constantly. No drip, no steam unless you let it go too long and it started to overheat, and then it would steam everywhere as soon as you shut it off. He finally tracked it down to a torn hose. Hopefully the right cap seals it better.

On my WD21, a snap ring had to come off to get the auto hub apart, and then go back on before the hub dial went on. My Mile Markers came with instructions. Pretty easy install provided the bolts aren't stuck. I haven't torn into an R50 but I think there is a snap ring at the end of the shaft--easy if you have snap ring pliers, doable if you have needle nosed pliers and some time on your hands. Also, looks like you're not replacing wheel studs, just the studs for the hub itself.

I'm not familiar with how the R50 is wired but if the dimmer is near where the crackheads tore the stereo out, I'd start there. It's a common culprit for nonworking dash lights on WD21s. If it's not that, have a look at the manual and figure out what wire should be powering up those lights, then look for that wire and see if it got torn out with the rest.

All the same. Auto vs manual in regard to hubs is only describing the hub itself.

I think I pulled power from the same place for the hood light on my '95. I suspect what's happened is that the fuse link between that box and the battery has fried. For an easy test, check for voltage between the contact where the fan wire's installed and ground. The security system switch middle position is alarm on/impact off IIRC, so the alarm would go off if you opened a door but not if it got bumped. At least, I assume that's what it does--I leave mine off. Again, though, there's no main power disconnect from the alarm.

Huh. That's not good. Is there power to anything? I'm not aware of any inertia shutoff or other "oh crap I'm dead better act like it" built into the WD21. All I can figure is that one of the wires going to that fan controller was tapped into the positive feed for something else, and touched something it shouldn't have when it came loose, popping a fuse link and interrupting power to the ignition switch. I'd start by checking the fuse links on the positive terminal of the battery--I haven't looked up the ignition wiring recently (it's in the manual) but I'd expect it to draw direct from there. If those look good, check the main fuse box. Or follow the PO's fan wiring until you find the scorch mark. I don't know what to make of the door locks popping up... sounds like a safety feature but it's not one I've run into.

Click/no start is not uncommon in these. The contacts in the ignition switch wear out and get to where they can't conduct full power to the starter solenoid, so it'll move the solenoid, but not push it hard enough to close the contacts that engage the motor. The usual fix is adding a relay so that when you turn the key, you power up a relay, which closes and sends full power to the starter. I seem to remember that the manual trans rigs had a starter relay and it's the autotragic rigs that this tends to happen to--but don't quote me on that. I haven't had to do this to mine, but it did get a friend's Toyota working. And +1 for checking the contacts, though I wouldn't expect a loose contact to mysteriously sort itself after sitting for a minute.