Slartibartfast

Good idea with the grease nipples, haven't seen that done for bushings before.

I doubt there would be much of a downside, other than looking like you've got too much stuff in the back.

I would expect heavy-duty front springs to change the ride or at least the rake in the summer. I think our plow rig (old IH Scout) has standard front springs, and they do just fine. My only reservation with putting a plow on an R50 would be figuring out how to mount the thing to the unibody. It's bolted to the frame on the Scout, and those mounting points take a hell of a beating. This might give you some ideas for mounting, if you don't already have that side of things locked down.

Nissanpartsdeal lists 33251-2W510 for an '03 R50 with the ATX14A (which their diagrams call the XN3) auto transfer case, and 33274-7S110 for an '06 R51. The pictures look reasonably similar between them, but they've only got a line drawing for the R50 actuator. I suspect you'd be better off tracking down the right part from a wrecker vs trying to make the R51 actuator work.

Nice! Did you do anything to it, or is it just the neutral>reverse trick keeping you going? If that's all it takes to make it grab reverse, I wonder if the shift cable might just be a little wonky.

NissanPartsDeal lists three ASCD computers that'll fit a '99 (18930-0W000, 10/'95-12/'98; 18930-1W200, 7/'97-12/'98; 18930-2W600, 12/'98-01/'00), but all three are listed for MT and AT. So, yeah, swap the auto trans shifter safety for a clutch safety and you should be golden. I'll bet pin 12 is how the ASCD tells the TCM to shift up or down. Might be straight-up commanding the TCM to shift, might just be feeding it the target speed so it can make up its own mind. I assume the ASCD doesn't expect a reply and so doesn't know/care if there's a TCM present or not. I remember someone came up with a rail shifter kit for the RE4R01A, but they were using it in a W/D21. I can only imagine how upset the VQ R50's electrical system would get if something else was controlling the slushbox.

It's been a little while since I messed with mine, but IIRC you just loosen the two screws that hold the latch down, move the latch forwards a little, tighten them down again, and then shut the glass and see if it's tight yet. Rinse and repeat until it's where you want it. Inspect the seal itself before you get too crazy with the latch, and make sure the leak isn't coming from the larger seal around the hatch, or from rust up near the hatch hinges.

Link's not working on my end, guessing this one? I haven't tried it, but wouldn't expect it to do much. Carb spacers, sure, but all that's doing is adding a small amount of volume to the plenum. I wouldn't expect gains from the hot-air intake in that thread, either.

Maintenance is always a good idea. I did the transmission and transfer case fluids when I got mine (at similar mileage), and the junk that came out of the auto trans made me glad I did. If yours is manual, make sure you use GL-4 fluid, the more common GL-5 eats the synchros. I added a cooler and an external filter to the trans cooler plumbing while I was in there. If you replace the diff oil, and you've got the limited slip in the back, make sure you've got the limited slip additive to keep that alive. Power steering and brake fluid are usually neglected and nasty. Check the brakes. Have a look at the brake hoses, too, they may be in rough shape if they're original. Check that the front wheel bearings are tight, and the boots on the CVs and rack aren't blown out. Look for any obviously loose suspension/steering joints. Shoot some grease at any zerk fittings you find. Check for rust in the strut towers and fuel filler neck, or anywhere else you find it. Check the drive belts. Check the cooling system. If you don't know when the timing belt was done last, or it's been over 100k, do the timing belt. These are interference, so you don't want that to let go while the engine is running. While you're in there, do the idler, bypass hose, water pump, thermostat, and the cam/crank seals. There are instructions in the service manual, and in 5523's writeup, which has a less fussy way of setting the belt tension. Manual hubs should get you some mileage. Having it tuned up and running right will help too (plugs/wires/cap/rotor, air and fuel filters, maybe check the timing while you're in there). Make sure the MAF is good and clean, the vacuum lines are intact (including the one to the fuel pressure regulator at the back), the throttle body is reasonably clean, and the tube between the MAF and the throttle body isn't split. If you've got any OBDII codes, chase those down.

I haven't messed with a lift on mine, other than a slight t-bar crank to level it out. I will say however that 31x10.5 was a factory size on these, so you shouldn't need a lift to clear those, assuming you're not running weird offsets.

Oof. Yeah, that sounds like time to give up on the arm. A relief cut should do it, just make sure you don't nick the splines. Cut it most of the way, crack it with a chisel. Replied to your PM. Arm is off the donor, just need an address to send it to.

Cutting/welding might work if you've got the skills and time to do it right. I wouldn't tackle it myself, but after seeing this guy get away with far worse on a Ferrari engine, I'm sure it's possible. I don't see why the VQ40 wouldn't fit, given they got the VQ35 in there. IIRC it's direct-injected, so you'd need pretty much the whole fuel system out of the X, and the electronics could be a struggle given how interwoven all the electrical systems are on newer stuff. If the transfer case output is on the driver's side, you could get driveshafts made to work with the stock running gear.

Nissanpartsdeal says they have them. The part number might help you find one listed cheaper, but given it's not a part that wears out, I wouldn't expect to find an aftermarket version. I bought one from a wrecking yard a while back, but keep in mind you'll need one off a mid '92 or later. Earlier arms have smaller tapers, and the very early/4-cylinder arms have smaller splines too. Expect a fight getting it off the steering box. Which side broke, the bolt or the joint? If the link is still on there, have you tried a pickle fork? If you're using the pullers with two arms, I haven't had much luck with those either. I use one of these and haven't managed to break it yet. Usually I'll tighten it up and whack the end of the screw with the hammer. If it still won't come loose/air hammer turned it to hamburger, and you can't find one locally, PM me. I've got one on my parts truck.

The transfer case from an auto truck should bolt to the five-speed without issue. The transfer the five-speed comes with is basically the same box apart from a lip under the input shaft seal. Not sure what it's for, haven't heard of anyone running into issues without it. Same driveshafts. I've read the bellhousing and transfer case bolts are longer for the manual than for the auto, so try and get those with the transmission. I didn't even know there was a six-speed in the second gen X. I would not expect it to bolt up. Different engine, different transfer case. Not sure about the six-speed but I don't think the five-speed has a separate bellhousing.

Reminds me of doing the starter on mine. Hopefully you don't have to do it again any time soon!

I'm no help on backspacing, but I would want more than bare minimum clearance on the brakes. My dad had a set of winter rims/tires for his Tundra which sat pretty close to the calipers. Most of the time, they were fine, but now and then they'd make a racket like the world was ending. Near as I could work out, this was due to a rock or something getting caught in between the caliper and the rim. It never tore off a caliper or punched a hole in a rim, but the noise scared us pretty bad once or twice. Also keep in mind that the calipers may stick out more with new pads on them, so what barely clears now may not clear after your next brake job.

Nistune, maybe? They don't officially support Pathfinders, but My1Path got one working on his WD21 ECU, probably because the computer was similar enough to one of the models that they do support. There may be a similar close-enough compatibility to get one running on the R50. I don't know if anyone's done it yet.

The service manuals confirm what you've found with the wiring. The '87 manual shows the white wire from the tach going through a 2.2k ohm resistor to the + side of the coil. The '90 manual shows the white wire going to the computer, then a white/green wire going from the computer, through the same 2.2k resistor, again to the + side of the coil. So, yeah, sounds like the TBI system runs the tach right off the coil, while the MPFI runs it off a signal generated (or at least modified in some way) by the computer. If you're married to/stuck with the '87 cluster, you could cut the white wire from the computer to the tach, tape up the end going to the computer, and splice the end going to the tach into the white/green wire. That would give the TBI tach the signal it expects. Or, if you'd rather modify the cluster than hack up the harness, you may be able to swap just the tach from the MPFI cluster into the TBI cluster. The drawings of the clusters in the two manuals are not quite identical, but they are very close. I would not be surprised if the tachs interchanged mechanically. I would however be a little nervous about swapping the plastic needle from one to the other to make the tach look at home (I'm assuming the '87 is orange and the '91 is white). If the tach itself is the same between the two clusters, but has different control circuitry, and that circuitry is easily separated from the tach, maybe you could just swap that circuitry from one tach to the other and leave the rest alone. If that pans out, you could basically convert the TBI tach to an MPFI tach, and get the job done without hacking up the harness or prying on a 36-year-old plastic tach needle. Or, yeah, if you don't mind the look of the '91 cluster, save yourself some screwing around and just huck that in there.

I'm pretty happy with the LSD in mine, but I'm not climbing any trail class ladders with it. An LSD is just an open diff with clutches jammed in behind the spider gears to make them harder to turn, so if you're looking to build a rock crawler that'll spend half the trip with a wheel in the air, the LSD will probably disappoint you. Short of that, and on a budget, LSD is good, or at least a hell of a lot better than an open diff. The R50 LSDs were pretty nerfed, possibly for stability reasons (the WD21 LSD does make it pretty easy to get the rear end to step out in the snow). Hawairish did a great writeup on how to repack them to make them useful. Sounds like there's a limit to how tight you can go before you start breaking stuff. If I was going to throw money at my diffs, I'd leave the rear LSD alone and put a ratcheting or air locker up front. But, yeah, some of us is poor, and my truck needs a lot of things more than it needs a front locker I might use once every couple of years. I don't think I've had it properly stuck since I put a decent set of tires on it.

I don't know the throttle body injection, but, yeah, could be a loose connection, a leaky injector, something along those lines. Best I can offer is the '89 service manual. Should be the same as '88 AFAIK. '87 has a different list of trouble codes, which is just different enough to trip you up, so if yours is an early '88, make sure you know which version you're working with. If it codes 44 for "no malfunction indicated," you need the '87 codes; if it codes 55, it's got the codes described in the manual linked above. I have a paper manual for '87 and can send you the earlier code list if you end up needing it. If the manual doesn't get you anywhere, I would look for any obvious loose connections or damaged wiring, clean the throttle body if it's getting gross inside, clean the MAF (very carefully) if it needs it, and maybe throw a can of berryman's in the tank on the off chance it does something.

Good to hear you got to the bottom of it! Bulb sockets can be a pain when you can't see what you're doing. Easy to get something cockeyed. And yeah, if you swap in the Hardbody buckets/grille/corner lights, you can run the conversion housings with H4 halogen bulbs. I'm not crazy about the look, but I'm told the light output is better than what you've got. A while back I saw conversion housings (pretty sure they were projectors) in the Pathy "sad eye" shape, but I haven't seen them for sale recently. They had LED halos and crap, don't know if they were good or not. So many other vehicles used the same standard rectangle sealed-beams as the Hardbody that there's no lack of options there. I relayed my stock lights, and the output/pattern suits me alright, except that one of my headlight housings is aftermarket and projects a weird little puddle right in front of the truck. Not sure why. Can't see it while I'm driving so I haven't looked into it yet. I've got most of the HB conversion kit off my parts car, but again, I'm not crazy about the look, so I may or may not get around to trying that.

I would expect the inner sheet metal to be the same across the board, but I don't know for certain. Early ones might have different mounting holes.

Good work finding it in the end! Hopefully it wasn't the fuse links that got hacked up.

Assuming your truck was originally delivered to Canada, it should have a daytime running light module. That might be your issue. My truck doesn't have it, so I've only seen it in the service manual, and I'm not entirely sure it could kill the high beams on both sides. I'm not sure what else it could be, though. I would expect a bad ground to kill the high and low beams at the same time. The switch is a common fault on these (stupid non-relayed headlight wiring), but it has separate contacts for each filament, so it's unlikely to lose both high beams at once. You can get the '90 service manual for free from cardiagn.com, or the '94/'95 free from Nicoclub. Either way, you want the EL section, page 39 in the '90 (probably the same in the later one). No troubleshooting, but there is a schematic and wire colors and whatnot for the Canadian DRL system.

4WD Pathy/pickup outer fenders are the same AFAIK. 2WD pickup fenders aren't flared out as far. I remember finding out the hard way that the mounting points for the rear plastic fender flares changed at some point (probably mid '92), not sure if they did the same for the fronts. Inners, do you mean the plastic liner or the sheet metal behind it?