Slartibartfast

Yeah, that's some rust alright! Sorry to see that. I like the idea of replacing them with square tube, sort of an integral slider kind of thing. If you can get one in there, a wire cup on a grinder works wonders on surface rust--but make sure you've got a face shield and long sleeves, I've had those things embed wire in my arm before, and they do like to catch and kick if you aren't careful around the edges. And practice on some of the scraps you cut off with the new welder before going for it on the truck, the body metal is thin and requires some practice. When I patched my floors (and a spot in the rear wheel well, about where yours is bad looks like), I had mine on its lowest setting and had to to basically make a row of tacks, or very short stitches at the most to not burn holes through it. It's easier if you're overlapping it of course but then you have to worry about seam sealer. If you run into budget issues, keep in mind that it doesn't have to be new metal so long as it's solid. I patched my floor and wheel well with sheet metal from the roof of a scrap Mercury Cougar. Sucks having to torch the old paint off, but it welded up just fine afterwards and having part of a Ford on my Nissan doesn't seem to have jinxed anything.

Nicely done! Not a mod I'm planning on but I'll bet it's nice to have the visibility while wheeling, and much better than just taking the doors off. Nice Chevy in the background too

A cracked expansion tank would explain a little coolant loss, but unless your motor is designed differently from motors I've worked on, that tank should be an overflow only--it shouldn't see very much coolant going in or out, and even then, only when the motor's hot. Coolant pushing its way out a crack--in the top--is very odd. I have heard of bad head gaskets pushing coolant into overflow bottles (exhaust gas displacing coolant), and there's a chemical test for this that looks for hydrocarbons in the coolant. Before you do that, though, check your radiator cap. If that's not sealing right (I replaced one in a friend's Yota where the rubber was half gone) it could be letting the coolant out when it's not supposed to. But, again, I haven't worked on these. For all I know, that tank could be a pressurized part of the system that the tablet has marginally re-sealed. I think Chevy used that on some rigs. Hopefully your mechanic would've spotted that, though. Cleaning the rad is not a bad call and it sounds like it helped. Any loss of coolant now that the rad is clean?

I wouldn't be surprised if they just set it up to move slowly so people wouldn't see it move around and get worried. Same as how the gas gauge moves kinda slow so you don't see the gas sloshing. Does sounds excessively slow though, hopefully cleaning wakes it up a bit. And it could be worse, a lot of Fords have a dummy gauge that goes to the center of its range when the oil pressure switch closes!

I'm not familiar with your motor, so I'm not much help beyond the obvious. Hopefully it's something simple. A friend of mine had a ripped hose on his van that leaked slowly enough that everything would be just fine for a while, then the coolant level would drop far enough to cut circulation and the temp would shoot up. We limped it through the whole road trip by adding coolant regularly and he found the ripped hose long after we arrived home. It was hidden away behind other stuff and only seemed to leak when the van was up to temperature. It could also be a head gasket issue. See if bubbles come out of the radiator if you start it with the cap off. Check the oil, see if it's got coolant whipped into it. I've seen a test where the guy put a drop of oil on some tin foil and heated it with a lighter--if the oil has water in it, it'll sizzle and pop as it turns to steam. If you've got or can borrow the tools, a compression and/or leakdown test might help narrow things down as well. In the meantime, keep an eye on the temperature gauge and fluid levels.

Yes, it does. Most people do the belt/tensioner/seals/thermostat/pump at the same time.

Auto trans, yeah. I'd be surprised if the lockouts were different on manual vs auto but it wouldn't be the first weird thing Nissan did. And yeah, leverage makes everything better. Well, except WD21 centerlinks...

My '93 and '93 both have brackets that look like this. Your 2H to 4H does sound a little loose. Mine isn't difficult by any stretch, and can be moved with two fingers, but it's not just a tap-and-it's-in sort of thing. There's clearly something slowing it down between positions. It would take a pretty well-aimed bump to push it into/out of 4x. Hopefully a D21 shifter and lockout get yours working right.

I had some trouble with the transfer boot too. I got a new boot, installed it, and couldn't figure out how it was supposed to go to not stretch like crazy in low range--finally I just said screw it and buttoned it up. Fast forward to when I was disassembling that rig to build up the '93 and the new boot was all torn up again. I ended up making a sort of baffle from old inner tubes and calling that good enough for now. Your lockout looks different than the one on my '93. Yours has the bolts almost in line with the lockouts, mine is spaced up a bit on legs. I'll see if I can get a decent picture of it. But if it worked before, my bet is that the boot's a big part of the problem.

You only used the lube on the slides and the back of the pads, right? The destroyed driver's side pads and constant squeaking makes me think the driver's side caliper might be hanging up. Soft pedal makes me think +1 on air in the system somewhere.

I would take a look at the service manuals for your rig and for your intended donor, especially the layout of the plug for the ECU. If it's the same plug, with the same wires in the same places, you might be able to swap ECUs with minimal re-wiring. The only electrical difference that I'm aware of between the two motors is that the ER has a supercharger bypass solenoid, which you would have to run a new wire for (and possibly add a pin to the ECU plug).

There's a test mode on the ECU that lets you check O2 sensor operation (number of flashes in a period of time).

Picked up a '92 (I think, door with date code was missing) pitman arm from the wrecking yard. One step closer to a 2WD steering swap.

IIRC there was a Canadian guy on here a while back trying to sell his R50 that had a the 3.2 diesel, factory I'm pretty sure.

I just spray it down with a hose. Don't do it with the engine hot, and probably best not to spray directly at the distributor/oil cap/power steering res/brake master if you can avoid it, but otherwise it shouldn't give you any issues. I did find a little water intrusion in the PS res in my '95 but oddly it didn't make it past the little screen inside--just a little milkshake in the screen and (apparently) none in the system. And that was after using the high-pressure sprayer at the car wash, I've never had issues with just a garden hose.

One dumb thing to check, does it have the right lug nuts on it? A friend of mine had the wrong kind of lug nuts for her wheels (switched from alloys to steel wheels that needed different nuts), and she said it shook the wheel a bit when she got up towards 60.

How are you planning to mount the WD H233B in an R50?

Gearing should be marked on the data plate on the passenger's side fender wall back by the wiper motor. HG43 is 4.3, HG46 is 4.6. I think the 2WD Hardbodies had some other ratios, but if you've got a V6 and 4x4 I would be very surprised to see anything but 4.3 or 4.6 on the data plate. The disk brake conversion has been done and written up, but the LSD/disks package was not that rare--unless it's way cheaper to do it piece by piece I would just find an LSD/disk donor, match the ratios, and go from there. Your dome light issue sounds like one of your door switches is stuck on. Usually it's the one in the rear hatch that craps out. Just remove the trim from the inside of the hatch look for the one wire going to the latch. Then unplug it. If that's not it, test the switches for the side doors by removing the screws that hold them to the body. Power has to go through those screws to get to the switch, so no screw = no power to that switch. I tried to fix a bad hatch switch once and decided it wasn't worth it. Not a great design and clearly not meant to be fixed. The side door switches can be opened and cleaned out, though the little latches you have to pry open to get into them are a bit fiddly.

Looks like the VG and TD have very different air filter boxes but they use the same hole in the fender wall, so hopefully it'll all line up properly. Good luck!

* I had fog lights on low beam and driving lights on high beam, not the other way around.

First off I'd see if the bar was designed as a fog light or a driving light and whether it's got the cutoff it needs to be any good in fog. Some of those things throw an amazing amount of light, which is great if you're alone but not great if it's blinding oncoming traffic. I've driven past bro-holes with their LED bars on and it's about as bad as HID high beams in your face. Second, where you wire it in depends on how strong the stock wiring is and what else is running on it. If you keep your factory fog lights how they are and just piggyback the LEDs off that circuit, you'll probably cook some wires--best to run separate wiring and a relay. Also I think around here you're not supposed to have more than four forward lights on at once, so if you're running headlights, factory fogs, and an LED bar at the same time, check your local laws. (Also check if the bar is even legal, I don't know if they do DOT ratings on those or require them for road use where you live.) If you're nixing the stock lights and hooking up the LEDs instead, look at the wattage on your LED bar vs the wattage on the stock bulbs, if it's the same draw or less it'll be fine. Finally, how you wire depends on how you intend to use the thing. If it's off-road only, a switch on the dash and a relay should do. If you're running it on the road, I'd hook the + feed for the switch to one of the high beam wires rather than constant +. Run a wire from the high beam, to your switch on the dash, to the relay coil, then ground the other side of the relay. Then run fused + to one relay contact, the other contact to the LED strip, then ground the other wire of the strip. That way you can leave the switch on and the bar will switch on/off automatically with the high beams, no additional switching required. IIRC the factory fogs are set up the same way, only they're switched from low beam instead of high beam. I had the switch circuits for my fog and driving lights on my '95 tied into the high and low beams respectively, and will again on my '93 once I get around to mounting the switches.

Yeah, you could just mount a toggle to the core support, so long as it clears the hood. A friend of mine has a two-way toggle on his van running a tail light bulb in a tuna can glued to the hood (nothing but the finest parts and craftsmanship) and we wired it so he can turn on one filament or the other, so he's got a bright and a dim setting. Or you could just get a hood pin switch from a part out. It's a small piece and I'll bet the bolt holes are there already.

How's the power feel? Our Cornbinder heated up the exhaust like crazy when the timing was retarded. I'm not sure exactly how the timing is set on the VQ, what sensors would have to go bad or out of alignment or whatever to make it do that. Or the ECU could be pulling timing and dumping fuel if it thinks you're pinging under load. Hopefully the code gives you a better idea. Also, how's your brake fluid look? Level, condition? If it's old and sketchy, the boiling point could be lower than it should be--but they sure as hell shouldn't be heat fading when you're going uphill.

And I did a video.

Should be the mark in the middle, IIRC it's marked at intervals from 0° to 30° BTDC. I took mine off when I did my timing belt, just because it looked like it was in the way. I marked it with a paint pen first though so it all went back like it needed to. And yeah, if it needs a timing belt anyway, might as well just plan on doing that.