Slartibartfast

I'd have a look underneath for rusted-off pipes or busted exhaust hangers. I had a couple bad hangers in my '93, and after fixing them, the exhaust pipe rattled against the tow bar. Maybe the exhaust sagged without those mounts, I don't know. Once the hangers were fixed I just gave the pipe a couple good shoves with my foot until it bent far enough to quit rattling. If you want to find the rattle, get under there and work the exhaust around by hand, chances are you'll find what it's hitting.

The lock timer's in the driver's rear corner panel. It's a little box with a sticker that says lock timer on it. Redoing some solder joints on the door lock timer in my '95 seemed to calm it down a little but the locks were still funky, probably in part because I was an idiot and blew a bunch of graphite into the driver's door when I was trying to unstick the lock. I would be trying to unlock it with the key and fighting against the door lock actuator trying to lock the door while I tried to unlock it... not what you want. The locks in my current rig are less crazy but do like to lock themselves, especially if I've just unlocked it and someone tries to open the passenger's door. It's definitely worse when cold, and it's one of those things where I don't fix it because it's cold out, and when it's warm out, it doesn't act up, so I don't fix it then either. My best guess is the contacts behind the lock or in the actuator aren't in the best of shape. The only time the doors are supposed to unlock without you telling them to is if you lock the doors with the key in the ignition.

IIRC the goop is a softer stuff, sorta like Shoe Goo. I'd clean both sides of the break and try the JB weld, maybe with some of that JB putty over the edges of the break on the bottom for some added support.

Mine took a fair bit of beating back and forth to get them to move. One thing that helped was drilling a hole in the cylinder and shooting a little PBlaster in there to work on the seized pin from the inside. I used Dorman bushings and pins and had no problems with either, though I did end up welding the pins to the hinge plates since the stock pins had seized and wallowed out the holes. I did have some trouble installing the new bushings (I think those were proper Nissan parts but it was a while ago) when I did the pins in my '95. The cylinders were corroded to hell inside and I couldn't get a drill bit in to clear them out properly, so the bushings squished a little as they went in and gripped the new pins hard enough that they stripped out the brand new hinge plates (that didn't fit right anyway). The hinges on these really are a lousy design, made worse by whatever muppet decided to weld the cylinders to the door where you can't get to them properly.

That's gone way beyond a rust hole. The piece Fleurys linked to is probably your best bet, if you can afford to have it installed. Given what a strut tower does, and how important it is that it keeps doing that, I don't recommend half-assing this. Here's the official Nissan repair, if you want to see what that looks like.

Well, time to do my manifold studs. Step one: lift kit.

Interesting that they'd go to the trouble of designing two different bumpers. Good to know!

There's nothing electronically controlled that could cut power to the rear end, so none of your dash wiring could've caused this, and there's no traction control to throw a hissy fit if your tires are mismatched. (Mismatched tires aren't a good idea, but there's no way that's what's keeping power from making it to the rear end.) The only time the rear end is not connected to the transmission is when you have the transfer case in neutral (between high range and low range). My suspicion is that something has gone wrong in your transfer case, but if you're not sure, put it in gear in 2x (when it won't move) and see if the driveshaft spins. If it does, and the truck isn't moving, the rear end is blown. If it isn't, there's something wrong with the transfer case. Neither is a common failure on these trucks, but who knows what the PO did to it. The rocking or wobble you describe sounds like what they do when the bushings in the control arms for the rear axles go out. Not uncommon, and from what I've seen on here, not that difficult to fix, either. If the control arms in your parts car are still good, you could just swap those in, at least for now. The front suspension bushings (strut rod bushings especially) probably weren't helping matters, especially if you were driving it on the highway with just the front wheels getting power.

I think the pickup body sat a little higher than the Pathy body, so the brackets may be different if you go for a HB bumper. I would be kinda surprised if Nissan changed the bumper itself. What I'd do is look up the bumper for the Hardbody and the Pathfinder on Rockauto, or factorynissanparts.com, and see if the part number is the same. Same PN, same part. The one you posted doesn't look bad but I do notice the turn signals are a little different from stock.

Skookum as frig! I'd forgotten about this one. I'm hoping my exhaust studs come out with the extractor, but I might just order up some alum in case plan A doesn't pan out.

Thanks! And yeah, I did a little looking around at other consoles and decided I'd make a little more work for myself. Turns out 3" pipe is just a little too narrow. It fits a can really well, but it's just a little too small to take a bottle. So either I need to track down some 3.25" or 3.5" pipe or I need to slit this pipe and spread it a little. I've got a couple ideas but I'll need to get some stuff cut and stare at it for a while before I know for sure what I'm doing here.

My '93 has a CEL.

I figured I'd be removing the exhaust with a sawzall if I ever did take it out again, and the floor was already cut, so I just welded the two flanges together.

From what I've heard, Nissan's "fix" involves gluing patch panels over the rust holes. You might check with a body shop, IIRC one guy had his aligned and welded up that way. I suspect a NY body shop would know what to do with a rusted-out strut tower.

Good to know there's a bolt-on option. I ended up taking a router to the stock spacers.

I suspect they say to check that first because the computer might run slightly different timing if it thought there was an issue. Unless you've got a check engine light on I wouldn't worry about it.

Ah, sorry, left the tab open and didn't see you'd replied before I posted. Good to hear things aren't as bleak as they looked. The bleeder bolt is towards the back of the intake on the driver's side IIRC. Should be a sticker next to it that says don't open while hot. I think it's the only bolt on the top of the intake with the head facing up, apart from the ones holding the throttle cable bracket on. What I do is take it out, gently squeeze the rad hose until coolant starts to come out of the hole, then hold it there and put the bolt back in. Then remove the rad cap and top up if needed. Not sure about the tack noise but spark leak sounds as likely as anything else. If you look in the end of the spark plug boot, there should be a little metal bit inside that you can probably tighten up with pliers or a screwdriver. Be careful with it, though, they're just crimped in. You might also check the fan shroud to be sure it's clearing the fan, though I imagine that would be a more constant ticking. So long as the balancer is on properly (and it sounds like it is), you can trust your timing marks. And yes, the ECU changes timing based on conditions--the service manual says to warm it up, then hold it at around 2k in park or neutral for two minutes, rev it a few times, give it a minute to idle, and then set timing. I wouldn't worry about the line wavering a little. If you do suspect it's running lean, try and track that down first. There should be a vacuum routing diagram on the underside of the hood. You might also clean the MAF while you're in there. And expect to be wondering at every smell and jumping at small noises for a while until you're sure it's settled in.

From what I've read, normally it's the crank sprocket that jumps or strips, likely because it's got the fewest teeth in contact with the belt at any given time. It's odd that the cam sprocket jumped. +1 on the tensioner, but I imagine it would have to be pretty obviously bad before it would allow that kind of slippage. I remember someone on here--Devonianwalk?--got a bunch of mud in his timing cover and when it started to dry, the engine skipped a couple of teeth. If there's something bouncing around loose behind your timing cover, that could've gone in between the belt and the sprocket and caused it to jump. I remember putting a nail or something between a couple teeth on one of mine and turning the engine over to jump it a tooth when I realized I'd put the belt on a tooth out and didn't want to pull it all the way off to fix it. I'm not sure how something would end up way up in the cam sprocket, though. I wouldn't try to run it until you have the timing reset. The rule of thumb I've read is that it runs like crap one tooth off, doesn't run at two, and eats valves at three. I assume that's at the crank. Crank to cam is 2:1 so that's six teeth before valve contact, and you're at eight.

I wonder if your timing is actually way advanced vs what the light says, but the only thing I can think of that would do this is if you installed the balancer without the key and it shifted a little as you tightened down the crank bolt. I'm guessing you didn't have parts left over, though. My first check would be the vacuum lines, just on the off chance something didn't go on properly. A lean mix can cause pinging, though I would be surprised if it was enough to make it ping at low idle--when I had an intake manifold gasket leak it just sputtered and shook at idle, though to be fair I didn't run it like that long enough to warm it up. (You did bleed the cooling system, right? Not that it's likely overheating in Canada this time of year.) If you start it again, and back off the timing when it starts to make the noise, does the noise go away? If it doesn't make the noise again the next time you start it, or doesn't stop when you turn down the timing, look for other causes. None of what you did behind the timing cover should cause this unless you left a tool in there or something. I recently tracked down a minor knocking noise on mine to the air conditioner compressor. Turns out it cycles when the defroster is on (with the silly auto hvac head, anyway) and the truck only made the noise when the compressor was engaged. Again, hopefully it's something simple.

Interesting--I didn't know that. Nice of Nissan to keep things simple.

Yeah, just lift the dizzy and turn the rotor a little, set it back down, and keep turning it until the gears slide back together. And be glad it's not the kind of motor where you'd have an oil pump drive to turn with a screwdriver before the dizzy will slot in again. There's not much to screw up. Worst case, just put it back to TDC and line it up like Adam said. Keep in mind that it may not be pointed dead nuts on to #1 once it's adjusted properly--mine wasn't, anyway. I wouldn't be too fussed about whether you can adjust clear down to 0° or whether the dizzy is right in the middle of its adjustment range so long as you can lock it down at 15°. Each tick mark is 5°, so the mark in the middle is 15°. At least, I think it is, look it up in EF&EC if you want to be sure.

I would've guessed short end into the water pump, but I doubt it matters too much. Try it one way, if you don't like it, try it the other.

The pulley looks correct to me. If you had it on wrong, your timing would be out by 60°, and I don't think it would run like that. Sounds to me like the distributor is a tooth out in relation to the cam shaft (again, possibly the last guy compensating for setting it up wrong). Remove the distributor cap, remove the hold-down for the dizzy, note which direction you were turning the dizzy when it ran out of adjustment, pull the dizzy up until the gears aren't meshed anymore (the rotor will turn as you pull because the gears are helical), then turn the rotor one tooth in the other direction. Then button it up and try to set the timing again.

Should work just fine. So long as it's threaded into the pump completely, and you don't tighten the nuts like they're holding the wheels on, I think you'd have a hard time damaging the threads.

Good to hear it was the simple thing! Not surprising that it loosened up a little after running. If it's loosened enough that you're worried about it, check it and re-tension if needed. There's no TPS reset or relearn on the WD21, at least not that I'm aware of. Hopefully distributor adjustment is all it needs (which, again, makes sense if the last guy had it a tooth off). As for removing the cam sprockets, I've heard of some engines locking their camshafts like that, but I don't think the VG30 is one of them. The service manual shows a special wrench to hold the sprocket from the outside while you remove or tighten the bolt. I made my own from some round bar, but I've also heard of people looping the old belt around like a strap wrench with vise grips as a handle. I can understand not wanting to complicate things, though. I did my intake gaskets at the same time as my timing belt and ended up with quite a pile of parts that all had to go back in the right order... I found a few wrong orders before it all went back together.