Slartibartfast

All I can think of is trying stuff with a multimeter, and possibly a 9v battery to figure out which contacts go to which motor. The two mirrors should have two motors each. I'm not entirely sure how that's wired with three contacts, but clearly it's possible.

Any junked Pathfinders or Hardbody pickups in the junkyard? Seems like finding a new LSD diff would be loads easier than trying to hack up a Jeep axle to make it fit. I'm pretty sure that the later R50s used the same rear differential unit (H233B), so you could just pop it out and go. The R50 LSD isn't as tight as the WD21 setup though. Look for the orange sticker on the rear diff casing, those things stay on through hell or high water. That said I've never heard of the LSD fully crapping out. If it's just the clutches, those are replaceable separately. Edit: I just read that the R50 233b is the 33-spline variant, whereas the WD21 233b is 31 spline. Sorry for any confusion.

My uncle helped me do mine today. It wasn't too bad, but the bolts needed a little torching to come off, and the job certainly needed doing. Both sleeves were worn through, and the rods were a little worn, but nothing we decided to worry about. The cups were knackered though. The passenger's side one was actually broken, which might explain some of the thumping noises the truck made on corners. So we welded L68111 bearing cups in their place. I had the idea to use one of the old buggered rubber bushings on the rod to center the cup for tack welding, and this seemed to work pretty well. Once it was tacked my uncle pulled the rods back out and welded the cups on the rest of the way. The rear cups looked okay, so we just did the fronts and called it good. We didn't bother sandblasting, but we did apply anti-seize to the rod bolts and bearing grease to the rusty bit of the rod to protect it from moisture. Now it just needs an alignment! And thanks for the write-up, it helped a lot.

When I fixed mine, I pulled off the wheel, the flare, and the plastic inside the fender. I was able to remove the entire unit and feed in the new antenna, which still works great (not that I use it much). It'd probably be loads easier with the fender off though, plus you could clean out behind it where dirt etc collects.

Or for bumper protection from people on cell phones!

My dad an I considered doing that with mine, but the cheapest local yard wanted $400 for just the rear frame from a WD.

If you do decide to do the timing belt, don't cheap out on parts. The PO on mine did that, put a cheap t-belt/tensioner/etc in it, and we had to have it all done again maybe 1k later when the tensioner bearing started whining. The main cause of failure was that the belt was way too tight, but still, for the amount of work (and the risk of damaging the engine if the belt fails), use good quality parts. And yeah, good luck in surgery!

Seeing as how it's bolted to the motor and all I imagine it would heat up a bit... then again I don't know the diesel engine setup. 1665XX and counting.

How hard could it be? Cut the front end out of a wrecked one, frame and all, weld it up in place of the rear frame, rotate the diff... hell, you could have the first 4-wheel steer Pathy! That would be a hell of a thing.

When it's ready it'll claw its way out of that garage... let's just hope the garage door's up at the time!

Stock trucks have no headlight relays, and even with a custom harness there's one relay for highs and one for lows, so both would be on. Does sound like the switch contacts are buggered. It's pretty easy to take apart and clean out. If your truck has a DRL module, it's behind the battery and the side of the engine bay. Unless your truck was sold in Canada, however, it'll just have holes there with nothing mounted to them. Here's the inside of the headlight switch with the contacts labelled. Either the little pads have somehow welded together (are you running crazy high wattage bulbs?) or something's broken in the switch that's holding one down. Usually these fail so that one headlight doesn't work, so this is a little unusual.

IIRC I used alcohol on a q-tip, just gotta be careful not to screw up the little wires or use a chemical that leaves a coating (WD-40 would be a bad choice).

I'd take a look at the metal around the A-arm mounts/struts/etc to make sure it's not rusted out or busted. If all that's good, jack it up and see if you can push the camber around by hand... the see what's moving that shouldn't be. Pretty much anything else that would let the wheels move that much would probably make enough noise to make itself obvious.

The dual exhaust idea's been argued to death, general consensus IIRC is that the VG doesn't have the right firing order or whatever to work properly with duals without some kind of crossover. I took mine to a shop, and the guy ended up fabricating a new Y-pipe as mine had all kinds of holes. He didn't touch the manifolds that I know of. Now that I think of it, I don't think he put a single flange in the system... just welded or clamped. Hopefully I don't have to take it apart any time soon!

What would a redneck do? Cut the exhaust, then stick it back together with beer cans and hose clamps until time/finances permit taking it to an exhaust shop.

Was the oil in the intake fresh? There's usually a little buildup in there from oil vapor that gets through the PCV. All I can think of (and it doesn't explain the grit) is that the PCV wasn't working right with the cracked lines, and got gummed up inside to where it's not filtering the oil properly out of the blow-by gasses. You might try taking the valve cover off, see if it's sludged up, and clean it up if it has. Also there's a bristle brush looking thing that's supposed to be in one of the PCV lines to catch oil vapor, make sure that's still clean/there. Can you think of anywhere you've been that the grit could've come from? Wheeling in sand maybe? If it's abrasive and it's been entering the engine, you may be in for bigger problems. The factory service manual (http://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/pathfinder/1995_Pathfinder/ if you don't have it already) has a procedure to test the carbon canister, and should also tell you what should be in the open relay spot. Mine has a couple open spots in it too. These were made with pretty much one wiring harness for all the possible options; Manual vs Automatic have a few different bits, the Canadian models have a DRL module, I'm sure there are more. I think I've got an empty relay plug near my battery too, now that I think about it. The ground is probably good, or at least better than wrapping it around the hose! No idea on the dizzy/timing, sorry, but that's another thing the factory manual goes over. It also covers test procedures for the EGR system, so you can test that. I pulled out my EGR-BPT valve a while back, discovered it was stuck open, and got it working by cleaning it out. I also found a small hose underneath it, which looked fine, but had rotted clear through where I couldn't see. The EGR valve itself looks like a PITA to remove, but it can probably be cleaned out as well. A few guys have removed the whole EGR system, but IIRC it'll hurt the gas mileage a little. You can test for other vacuum leaks with a cigar or something. Blow a little smoke at the hoses and watch where it goes. You can also do this with an unlit propane torch (the idle should speed up when you get near the leak). After doing all this, unhook the battery for a few minutes to reset the ECU. It adjusts its settings based on how the engine is performing, and now that you've changed a few things, it'll be running on old info.

Nice work. I opted to replace the mast part of the factory antenna, and it was a serious PITA to get everything wound back up.

Out of curiosity, is there any way to replace a fuel filter without getting gasoline all over yourself? I did the pull the fuse and let it die thing and it still barfed a good cup and half of fuel. I caught it and poured it back in, because I'm cheap, and that's, like, $0.30 worth of gas. I tore apart the old filter, a Napa Gold 3022 with unknown mileage. It'd been in there since before I got it, and probably for quite a while before, judging by the surface rust on the outside. Is the filter part supposed to look like this?

Grandpa X went the other way, put a round dash in a square dash car, in the '87 twin turbo sas' thread. I'm sure you could make it work, but it would take some creative wiring and be sort of a PITA to fit everything. You'd have to swap out the speed sensor setup for the cable setup, which I can't see why wouldn't work so long as nothing broke during removal. On the bright side, you'd have a working voltmeter, which for some reason the round dash lacks. But yeah, how long do you want to spend on this?

First off, this mechanic sounds sketchy. Anybody who'd deliver a car that's shifting wrong and showing a CEL isn't much of a mechanic. I don't know what the consumer protections are in Queensland, but if he's not standing behind his work, you might want to look into your legal options. Water out the exhaust in that quantity says head gasket... loss of compression from said gasket could be why it won't start. The shifting problem... sounds like the trans computer isn't getting an RPM reading, possibly due to a damaged or unplugged sensor. This would probably explain the CEL as well. I can see how the sensor could've gotten unplugged, but there's no reason the head gasket on a low-miles motor should blow unless it's been overheated or driven into a lake. Edit: I know she said to email, but given that I'm not sure of any of this, I figured it'd be better to hash it out here first.

IIRC there was a dealer version and a factory version?

Looks like the Patrols are radius-arm. Raise or lower the axle and it would twist, which I guess would strain the shock mounts etc. With enough lift this could become an issue. More likely (especially on the front axle) this could fugger up the steering angles. Pathfinders are 5-link in the back, and the links take care of keeping the axle aligned. The only reason to do link bushings during a lift is if they're worn out. And as Tungsten said, the front end is IFS, so it's a different beast entirely.

Yeah, I always drool over that truck. Got any pics of how you did yours?

Sounds like one rear window got busted out, and all the junkyard had was tinted glass. But yeah, I'd call around and see if anybody can match.

The thermostat is a ways in... it's something usually done with a timing belt change, and you'd be wasting your time not to do the belt etc while you were in there. If the engine isn't getting to temp, it could stay in open loop and run rich... but it's supposed to do that, and it shouldn't throw a code. Watch your temp gauge and see if it's acting funny. More likely is that the sensor is buggered, or the wiring is loose/corroded. A bad O2 or buggered wiring could make it run rich.