Slartibartfast

^ Yeah, the test looks for hydrocarbons in the coolant.

The ECU shouldn't need to learn anything for the engine to idle. I've had power unhooked from mine many times, sometimes for months, and never noticed a difference in how it runs afterwards. This isn't a finicky modern ECU that needs idle re-learn procedures or other calibration because you replaced a sensor or because it's Tuesday. It should run just fine on its default settings. I don't know much about how or what these ECUs self learn, but I suspect it's just refining its fuel trims and timing curve. My first thought is rodents. This is mostly because my '93 sat for a while before I bought it and had a rat's nest in the air filter box. It jammed up against the screen on the MAF sensor, blocking off the airflow and fouling the MAF itself. It actually didn't idle too badly but it had no power on the road. I would also check for vacuum lines popped off or gnawed off, damage to wiring (especially the spark plug wires), and the usual looseness/corrosion in the electrical connectors (wiggle the MAF plug and see if it changes the idle). You might check under the distributor cap too and make sure it's dry and clean in there. My second thought is that this thing sat for a year. Did you put fresh gas in it or is it trying to run on year-old gas? My '95 runs fine on old gas but then I did throw in some stabilizer before parking it. If all of that checks out, I would check the throttle position sensor and the idle air control valve. Cleaning the throttle body won't hurt anything either, and actually freed up some power on my '95.

No worries! The way I bleed my VG30: with the engine cold, remove the bleeder bolt. Leave the rad cap on. Squeeze the upper rad hose until coolant starts coming out of the bleeder--squeeze gently, you don't need to spurt coolant at the hood, just make sure there's coolant to the top of the hole so you're not trapping air in there. Then, still holding the hose, thread that bleeder back in and snug it up. Release the rad hose. Then pull the rad cap and top up if needed. I've also heard of people parking on a hill with the front end facing up to try and burp the system. I'm not sure if this is a different way to do the same thing or what the advantage is. While you're at it, take the rad cap off and run the motor. A bad head gasket can make a steady stream of bubbles coming up through the coolant.

I like the lift strut! Might have to try and adapt something like that for my '93. I lost the silly peg that was supposed to hold the carrier open a while ago.

Looks like the same set I used!

Yep, the yellow/black is supposed to get + when the key is turned to the start position. I'll bet even jumpering it to one of the other contacts on the ignition switch would do the trick if the key's in the run position. As for the alarm, kind of depends on what all it's been tied into. Chances are it's interrupting the starter like the original dealer-installed junk, but if whoever installed it was feeling ambitious it could be interrupting other stuff too (fuel pump maybe). It's probably tied into the dome light circuit and the power locks as well. I would figure out all the wires going to it, figure out which ones are interrupted (two wires of the same color going to it probably went together originally) and keep at that until there's nothing going to the alarm anymore.

I'd start by checking the pressures in the A/C system, it might just need more gas. If the pressures are good, compressor cycles like it should, but it's not blowing cold, maybe there's something not working right under the dash. Hopefully it's something simple, Dubai with no A/C does not sound like fun.

Could be the head gasket but I think you'd notice other issues. Is it losing coolant? Does the oil look okay? White smoke out the tailpipe? The other thing I'd check for is air in the system, especially if the issue started when you had the system apart to change coolant or replace the rad or whatever. The 3.0 engines have a bleed screw near the back of the intake manifold to bleed the air out, and I assume the Z24 would have something similar.

The starter wire is black with a yellow stripe. I would follow that wire and see if it's been messed with. It's what the factory alarm cuts off, and probably what aftermarket alarms would cut off as well. You could also just jumper + to it and see if the engine cranks. The only fusible links I'm aware of are the ones hanging off the battery. Any wire out of place under the clamshell I would assume was a previous owner's bodge. Somebody had done something like this to my '95. There was a section of wire crimped in, then apparently it went around something it shouldn't have so they cut it, stripped the ends, tied a square knot with the bare ends to bridge them, and then wrapped the lot in tape.

I don't think the guy did a writeup. IIRC the trouble with our aircon compressors is that they don't have internal oiling like a York, but instead rely on oil flowing through the system with the refrigerant. This means you need an oiler on the input side (like you'd use for automatically oiling air tools) and an oil catcher on the other side so you don't fill your pressure tank with oil. I've read some good writeups elsewhere for using a York (with parts lists and all) but not for the compressors we've got--then again I haven't really looked. I like air conditioning!

The big/long one is front. The small one is the rears.

Definitely sounds like it lost timing. I haven't had a KA apart but I'll bet you can check timing without opening it up. The distributor drives off the cam, right? Set the crank to TDC and see if the rotor points anywhere close to #1.

3.0 Pathfinder vs a 3.0 4Runner... that's a pretty sad drag race LOL. I had a look under the hood just to see how stuff was doing and was surprised to find all of my upper intake manifold bolts were loose. I could swear I ran all those down the last time I had the intake off, but I did have it off a few times, so maybe I forgot on final assembly. Still ran just fine. I ran them down again and plan to keep an eye on them, maybe add some loctite if they back out again.

Kinda sounds like the ECU got left in diagnostic mode 3 (code check). No Malfunction is five flashes of the red light and five flashes of the green light, and the red light is on the same circuit as the check engine light. I would just disconnect the battery, wait a few minutes, reconnect the battery, and see if that turns the test mode off.

Is it like the engine's weak and not revving, or like the engine's revving but power's not making it to the wheels? If the transmission is slipping you'll want to sort that out ASAP.

How's your coolant look? How's the fan clutch?

Damn, two in a row! That sucks. Hopefully the loctite fix holds up.

Again, the HU does not have the power to run speakers, that's what the amps are for. What comes out of the HU is something like the power you can get from a cell phone or ipod audio jack. It'll do alright with earbuds, but it doesn't have the balls to move the door speakers. And again, trying to run my old HU like that on the bench eventually killed it. Adding a resistor across the speaker wires would increase the load on the already-overloaded HU without adding any volume to the speakers. Get an aftermarket HU or figure out why the front amp isn't working.

That's not good. Not unheard of, but not good. I've heard of welding up the damage to the keyway, or just cutting a new one on the other side. I'm not sure how people repair it without removing the motor. It looks like the crank spun inside the balancer with bits of sheared-off key grinding both sides, which I'm sure didn't do them any favors. If it was my rig, and I needed to get it going for cheap... first I'd slip the balancer back on and see just how loose it is. Installs/removes by hand is fine, but you shouldn't be able to rattle it. I would expect the balancer to wear faster than the hardened crank snout, so you might get rid of most of your play just by borrowing the balancer from your other rig. My first thought would be to fill the damage with the welder, but it's hardened steel, which means the heat could weaken the crankshaft (not good). Apparently the Miata guys have a lot of issues with these and use Loctite 660 Quickmetal--no idea if this is a good idea but it could be something to look into. If you don't mind a wall of text, this guy goes over a few options and what ended up working for him on a big block Chevy. Honestly, though, if all the red one needs is its timing belt reset, that's the one I'd be working on first. That's all wrench work, and the timing belt setup for these is pretty well documented. Seems like that would be easier to fire out in an afternoon so you can take your time on this keyway issue later. And now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go and check on my crank bolt!

55 isn't really a code that gets set, it's just an "all clear" sort of deal. (Though it sounds like yours is saying "no, really... it's fine.") I'm not sure what would set the CEL but not set a code. Watch it, I guess, see if it makes up its mind, and maybe check for any wiring that may have gotten pinched or something during the engine swap. It's also odd that it's taking that long to trigger. Are you checking for a code before doing the shutdown/restart or after? I don't know how these ECUs are about storing codes, but if turning it off and then on again makes the CEL go away, I'll bet it's making it forget the code as well. If you've got an intermittent issue, and that circuit only skips a beat after driving for a couple hours, the ECU would see nothing wrong when you turned it on and so assume all was well (and give you a 55). I would wait for it to set the CEL again, then stop and check codes without shutting it off and see if that helped it tell me what was wrong.

Washed most of the tree piss off of it. I dunno if we have aphids or what but the whole truck looked like it had been misted with clear coat. I guess I have one more reason to avoid parking under the walnut trees. Also found another little difference between pre and post '93. The rubber stops for the rear window changed from simple buttons to a hollow thing shaped like a number 9. Same mounting holes and the stops from my '95 replaced the dried-up stops on my '93 no problem. Hopefully that's one more rattle taken care of.

Looks like you found your problem! Good thing you caught it before it got far enough out to eat valves. The next question is why it slipped. Loose tensioner, debris getting in between the belt and the sprockets, crappy belt? But yeah, you should be able to turn it back without too much trouble. You can take the belt off and do it that way (would be a good time to check the tensioner/water pump/etc and make sure nothing's loose) but I've also heard of slacking the tension and rolling the engine over with a dowel or a nail or something in one of the grooves on the sprocket to intentionally jump the belt one tooth at a time one way or the other. If you don't know when the belt was done last, this would also be an excellent time to do a little refreshing in there. When putting it all back together, make sure you've got the tooth count right, don't just rely on the dimples. I think it's 40 teeth between the cam dimples and 43 teeth from the driver's side camshaft to the crank but double check a writeup or the FSM to be sure. IIRC the VG30I has the other temp sensor on the cylinder head somewhere. As for the timing marks, it's been a while since I looked it up but I think one end of the scale is top dead center, and the other end is 30° of advance. Because the engine spins clockwise (looking at it from the front), the mark furthest counterclockwise should be top dead center.

Odd. Seems like it won't go past second. I'd start on AT-241 in the '03 manual. First thing it suggests is something wrong with the PNP circuit (no idea what that is, tach signal to the AT computer maybe?) and the second is a problem with the position sensor in the gas pedal. Looks like it can flash a light just like the WD21s to give you some idea of what's gone out.

You can find TDC without opening the timing cover. Pull the #1 spark plug and find top dead center there. Some people will put a thin rod down the hole and crank the engine over by hand until the rod is up all the way. That'll tell you top dead. A mechanic I know recommended taking the Shraeder valve out of a compression tester and putting a balloon over the end, so when the balloon inflates, you know you're on the compression stroke, and when it stops inflating, you're topped out.

FSB sounds like it could be useful! Also, sounds like a hell of a motor you've got there. Sorry to hear about its first thirty miles. Are you running the VG30 or the VG33 intake? I think most people use the VG30 intake on the 33, which should allow you to use all the original smog gear. All first-gen Pathfinders had EGR; mid '93 a BPT valve was added to the system on federal rigs (IIRC it was there earlier on California rigs). I'm not familiar with the EGR setup on the 3.3 but I'm not surprised that the parts don't interchange readily. I thought the temp sensor code was a California thing, but maybe, like the BPT valve, it spread to the federal rigs for the last few years. 32 is just EGR function, and the manual lists either the solenoid or the valve itself. Wouldn't hurt to check your wiring to the solenoid to make sure that's alright, but I'll bet the ECU expects a change in engine operation when it tells the EGR to open, and with the EGR capped, it's not getting that.