Slartibartfast

They're trying to sell kits to mount the engines into other things, so of course they want to show the absolute best you can get out of the motor. They're going to talk about the highly modded race engines putting out 600hp rather than the 153hp plant that we're working with. Gaining power is possible, of course, just a matter of time and money. The best HP gain I've seen on mine was from pulling out the throttle body and cleaning it. One thing that caught my eye, that site says you could bore a VG30 out to 3.3 with the same cylinder wall thickness of a VG33. I remember reading (not sure where of course but the author seemed to know what he was talking about) that the water jacketing was changed between the two motors to allow for the wider bore, and there wasn't much room to safely bore a 3.0. Anyone have light to shed on this?

My friend's Chevy van has hydroboost. It works, but it does have an odd pedal feel and it seems to contribute to heating up the power steering fluid. He managed to boil it once, but it was 110° that day and he was working the system pretty hard. We're actually planning to rebuild or replace it soon because it's started to leak. I don't know why you'd need a running engine to bleed brakes.

Yeah, that connector's a PITA. Luckily the last guy to take my '93 apart before me put antiseize on it. It got a lot more antiseize before I put it together again.

IIRC it's illegal for a shop to vent it, kinda grey area for private work but still better to have it evac'd professionally. It's not an ozone depleter like R12 but it is a pretty effective greenhouse gas. Adamzan, sounds like he's using the little nozzle things with the gauge built in--not professional grade but it does give some indication. Air left in the lines isn't ideal but I don't know whether that'll bite you. A lot of the air probably got flushed out during your failed charging attempts. Might've been smart to replace the drier though. I'm not sure when the R12-R134A changeover was, but my '95 and '93 are both R134A, and I haven't noticed any obvious adapters or anything. The last R12 rig I remember dealing with was my grandma's early 90s Subaru Legacy.

Peace of mind, maybe. If you know how to bypass the switch in case of emergency (so you're not stranded when it dies for good) then I can't think of any real harm done by leaving it alone for now.

Before replacing the pump I would put a length of hose on it, direct it back into the res, and have someone hit the washer switch. If it shoots out like they normally do, I would suspect an issue with the plumbing rather than the pump and look for a gummed up check valve or a leak in the tubing. I've resurrected the pumps on my '95 at least once for each (two pumps). They come apart fairly easily and usually just need some cleaning out inside. I finally replaced the front pump because the bushing between the impeller bit and the motor was worn so oversize that it would leak washer fluid out through the hole, through a drain hole in the motor, and down the fender well if I filled the res more than halfway. Even then a glob of grease on the shaft got another few months out of it. Sounds like your bushings are working fine--if you do open the pump up again try cleaning the brushes and commutator. (I usually chuck the armature in a drill and run the comm against some 800 grit or finer sandpaper.)

The readings your meter and new gauge are giving you are what battery voltage should be, and I'd be inclined to trust a good meter over the factory gauge. If the charging system was running up to 16v I think you'd be having battery issues. I guess you might get a higher voltage reading right off the alternator but only if there was a problem with the cable between the alt and the battery. Terranovation, that's odd, I've seen them go much longer than that. The one in my '95 has May of '09 stamped on it and still works fine. The battery in my mom's Honda had at least seven years on it when we replaced it (as a precaution) and my cranking amp tester whatsit says it's still up to spec. (I use it around the shop to test motors and things.) Maybe your climate's tougher on batteries than mine?

I dunno, the hardbody kept the same bodystyle up to '97. I would be kinda surprised if it didn't fit. Probably the easiest way to check is to look up buying a windshield for a Hardbody and see if the year range listed is the whole run or if they have different part numbers. (I imagine part numbers would differ for window-mount mirrors, so that could complicate things.)

Thanks for the PN, Rob. At $16.29 each though I think I'll leave mine alone.

Rattling noise and oil pressure light means, well, low oil pressure. If the pump is good, it either isn't getting oil (clogged or leaky pickup, oil level too low) or the bearings the oil is pumped to are worn oversize to the point where they're not holding oil. Did you drive it much with the oil pressure light on?

Zip tie

Host them somewhere, click the "image" icon above the reply box, paste the direct link into the little box that comes up. I use Photobucket but any host will work.

Sounds like the glove box light harness to me.

Huh. Were the distributors new or used? And what diagnosed the original problem as the distributor?

Huh. Can you get a picture of the damage?

Steady one. Shook a little at idle, got worse when I revved it. It would move the truck without stalling out but it was clearly not happy. It's all smooth now.

Check your spark plugs, if they're white you're running lean--likely a dirty MAF like Cuong said or a vacuum leak. There should be a sticker on the underside of your hood showing vacuum hose routing. Find the lines it shows and examine them for cracks (or go ahead and replace them, vac line is cheap). When I first checked my '93, the fuel pressure regulator line at the back of the intake had come loose. Also check the intake tube between the MAF and the throttle body for cracking. The MAF is pretty easy to clean. I did one in a hotel parking garage with denatured alcohol and a clean rag. Just be careful with the filaments and don't use any cleaner that'll leave a residue (no rubbing alcohol, WD40, that kind of thing).

Huh. What kind of shape is the hole they pass through in? Washers/sleeves on there right?

Good to hear the insurance isn't jerking him around too bad. I got my cheesy stamped Victor Reinz intake gaskets out of the 93 and some Fel-Pros in and the misfire is gone. Then went to move the bugger, forgot I'd parked the '95 so close, and made a little more work for myself...

Yikes. Good to hear everyone made it out. Hopefully the only lasting damage is to the Evo. Today I rolled under my '93, tried to figure out where the oil leak was coming from, and found fresh oil all down the driver's side of the engine... having just done the valve cover gaskets I'm trying to figure out what could be leaking up there that's not the head gasket. I also discovered that the front wheel bearings need doing and one of the CV boots is ripped. Still waiting on the manifold gaskets to (hopefully) get rid of the misfire. Gotta love the writeups here for making this stuff a little less intimidating!

Thanks for the info! I considered LEDs but most of what I saw were a little more disco-looking than I was after (and more than I wanted to pay for stuff I wasn't sure would fit). The nearest Nissan dealer is 2-3 hours drive from where I live. I did look on factorynissanparts to see if I could find bulbs listed, but no luck. Does sound like a good option if there was one nearby! I did put the 194s in and they look about the same to me, except that they all work now.

Well, I took one of the cluster bulbs and the smaller bulb from the cigarette lighter (same as the bulbs for the idiot lights in the cluster surround) to a couple of local parts places. The first one looked at the larger of the two and said, oh, that's a 74, the little one's probably a 17 but we're out. The second place looked at the smaller bulb and insisted it too was a 74, and I'm pretty sure the bulbs they sold me were a different size from the 74s I'd bought at the other place. It gets more confusing from there but long story short the bulbs marked 74 do not fit tightly into the dash and do not fit the idiot lights in the surround piece at all. I did manage to find enough bulbs between what I had and what I'd bought to get the dash lighting up properly again. What I recommend for anyone else looking for bulbs, and what I should've done, is to take the little twist connectors in with you and test fit before you buy. There are way too many bulb types to hold two up and go, yeah, that looks close enough.

It sounds like it might have something stuck internally that's keeping a clutch pack applied when it shouldn't be, so when it goes for third, it's fighting two packs against each other, burning the bejeezus out of both and bogging your motor at the same time. Even if you unstuck it the clutches are probably wiped out by this point. You're on the right track looking for a new trans. Make sure you flush or replace the transmission cooler lines (and bypass the stock cooler) before installing the new trans. You don't want that debris in the system. Good luck with the wiring, that's always a pain.

Hi guys, I'm planning to replace the bulbs in my cluster before sticking it back in. It's a '93 square dash and it's got two sizes of bulb in it. The bulb lookups I've found suggest a #194, which looks like it's correct for the larger bulbs, but I can't find anything regarding the smaller bulbs (most of the idiot lights and the clock). I've checked the owner's manual, the FSM, even eBay listings for LED conversion kits, and I've found nothing helpful. Anyone know what these little buggers are called? If all else fails I'll bring them to a local parts place and try to find a match, but the last time I did that they sort of looked at it funny and brought out what looked like a Christmas tree light.

If you want to look into a manual swap, check out Harbinger's auto to manual thread. Some Xterras and Frontiers came with a supercharged engine and a beefed up trans. I've kinda lost track of which years of which rigs had better clutches, revised valve bodies, or whatever else different inside but IIRC the best ones did go into the supercharged rigs. The non-supercharged trans should work just fine so long as it's in decent shape.