Slartibartfast

Nice! And that's with the LED in the dash? These alts may be less finicky than the ones I've read about. Or, looking at the circuit diagram, the bulb check relay might be passing enough power through its coil to wake up the alt on its own. RE the canbus bulbs, some newer rigs monitor current to see if the bulbs are burned out, and mistake the lower draw of LEDs for dead incandescents. These trucks aren't nearly that fancy, but they were designed around incandescent bulbs, and some of those bulbs may serve other purposes in their circuits. In either case, the resistor wired across the canbus LED (black rectangle with numbers on it in the picture) dumps enough power as heat to fill in for the LEDs' efficiency and makes the bulb work like the original in the circuit. Looks like the draw of the canbus 194s is reasonably close to that of the incandescents they're replacing.

If you've got a voltmeter, test across the battery with the engine running. That'll tell you quickly if the alternator is charging. I doubt the other lights need to be changed back unless something's acting up. The error free ones might work. They're supposed to look enough like a standard bulb (electrically speaking) to not trip dead bulb alerts on cars that check for that. Seems like they'd do the same here.

Battery light, yeah. Sorry I didn't make that clear. I haven't messed with it myself, but I've read the same stuff it sounds like you just did. I would put an incandescent bulb back in that spot. The tire carrier switch works opposite to how you're thinking. It completes the circuit to the warning light when released, not when pressed. Same way the door switches, the brake light switch, and the hood pin for the alarm work. Opposite to how the button for a doorbell works. The bulb gets ignition-switched + from the cluster and ground through the tire carrier switch.

Thin double-sided tape maybe? I'd expect glue to make a mess. Wipe both surfaces with alcohol first.

It's Barney the purple dashboard! Reminds me of my mom's old Passat. Regarding the stuck on/flickering idiot lights, I doubt the cluster is defective. Some circuits just weren't designed with LEDs in mind. It doesn't take much to light an LED, and some circuits intentionally send a small current through the bulbs for one reason or another. Ford did this with the brake light circuit on some of the '90s F-series trucks. The transmission computer monitors the wire going to the brake lights. It sees + through the brake light switch when the brakes are applied, or - through the brake light filament(s) when they're not. The higher resistance or forward voltage or something of LED lights interferes with the computer finding ground--so swapping all the brake lights to LED on one of those makes the torque converter act up. On a similar note, how's your alternator? I didn't think to mention this before, but the light on the dash is wired to the alternator, and that circuit is what tells the alt to wake up and do its thing. It may not work right with an LED in there. Check your battery voltage with the engine running if that wasn't one of the bulbs you switched back. The inop tire carrier light might be the switch. IIRC it's the same as the door switches. You may be able to open it up and clean the contacts inside. For future reference, what bulb sizes/part numbers did you use? Might help the next guy.

And here I thought I went overboard when I wire-wheeled mine! For the tight crevices, you might get in there with a pointy buffer on a rotary tool, or sanding sticks for making models (or just emery boards for fingernails, cut into strips). Depending on where the crevices are, baking soda blasting or something like that might get in there more easily. For what it is and what you stared with, I'd say that looks pretty good already.

That's odd. I think some codes self-clear if the computer goes a certain number of drive cycles without seeing the problem again. Hopefully a fluke--if not, chase it when it returns. And yes, I would assume passing the smog test means the cats are working.

AFAIK those are just to keep stuff out from behind the timing cover. It's been a while since I did mine. The pins don't look familiar--I'll bet I siliconed mine too. Good luck with the tornados!

I doubt the flasher would notice the bulbs in the dash so long as the outside turn signals are still incandescent. +1 on the door and tire carrier lights. IIRC the round-dash cluster from my parts rig has a blank spot over the tach too.

There aren't a whole lot of R52s on here, and I haven't heard of this particular issue. Best I can do is link you to the service manuals. The auto climate control in my '93 doesn't kick the fan on full until it sees the coolant temp has come up, so it's not blasting you with cold air. Might be the coolant temp to the rear heater core (assuming it's got a separate one like some minivans?) is taking longer to come up in the cold, and the fan isn't kicking in until the heat reaches the core. If the lines run underneath, might be worth checking that whatever insulation they've got is intact.

I have no idea what the factory used. The body repair manual doesn't mention the sunroof at all, and the BF section of the manual doesn't mention adhesives. I don't remember finding any adhesive residue when the seal on mine gave up. The PO of my parts car used what looks like Ultra Black, but it didn't stick to the glass very well. I'll bet a windshield urethane would work great. Or, yeah, the glass shop would probably have the right stuff.

The codes appearing together, so soon after you bought the truck, makes me suspect that the previous owner had the same issue, cleared the codes, and sold it to you before the computer noticed that the problem was still there. The service manual Hawairish linked to will be your friend in tracking this down. Hopefully it's a wiring or sensor issue and not the catalytic converters. And hopefully tracking this down fixes your fuel consumption! While you're bringing the truck up to speed, look into checking the power valve screws. Common issue on the early VQ. Hopefully unrelated to this issue.

Looks like aftermarket metal skids for the R51 are available, or you could hit a wrecking yard and get an OE one. I would look at how many of the mounting bolts the oil change guy snapped off before "losing" the skid plate, to make sure you can still mount its replacement.

Maybe the previous owner fought this too, and the 180 thermostat was their fix. I don't know why else you'd put a higher-than-stock-temp thermostat in something.

I didn't even know there was a code for that! Shows what I know about the VQ. i'm used to hearing about air pockets causing the opposite problem. Then again, I've heard of temp sensors reading low when not immersed in coolant, so maybe an air pocket is fooling the sensor. Given your #4, I'd start with bleeding. If you've got a coolant fill funnel that goes in place of the radiator cap, you could fill that to above the level of the bleeder, take the bleeder cap off, wait for coolant to come out, and then put the cap back. What I've done without the funnel is to fill the rad, put the cap back on, remove the bleed bolt (the VG has a bolt instead of a rubber cap), and then squeeze the upper rad hose until coolant comes up to the threads. Hold the hose, put the bolt back in, release the hose, top up the rad. I assume either trick would work on the VQ. I also assume that if it's got a bleeder, it needs bleeding. Hopefully it's that simple. What was the bleeder tube clogged with? Seems like a weird place for a clog to form. Also, long shot, are the thermostats installed with the bleed hole/jiggler at the top? And on the off chance there's a connection, what are the other codes you're chasing?

IIRC mine looked like the one on the left. If the tooth profile is the same, the new one should be fine. There is a round-tooth variant (mid '93 and later), doesn't look like that's what you've got there though. The diagram in the manual makes it look like the washer between the sprocket and the oil pump is flat, and the one between the sprocket and the balancer is dished out (bent away from the sprocket). I would assume you'd want the washer curving away from the belt to guide it without shredding the edges. I don't remember exactly how mine was set up, been a while since I had that apart. For the rad hose, I think I just bought a piece of straight hose of the correct diameter and trimmed it to length. The marks on the cover are approximate. Count teeth. 40 between cam dimples, 43 between the driver's side cam dimple and the crank dimple.

Obviously you'd save yourself a whole lot of work by finding one that already has the interior you want--but, yeah, I've seen swaps the other way, so it's possible if you don't mind some screwing around. Round dash has an electronic speed sensor, square dash has a speedometer drive cable. Radio is the same AFAIK, though the amp location changed over the years. Vent controls should be the same. These never had airbags (with the exception of the '96/'97 HB), so you're not losing anything there. The slip rings are different between round and square dash wheels (because the later wheel had the cruise control buttons on the wheel), not sure how much you'll have to swap there. The door panels and seats should swap. HB parts should fit just fine. My '93 (tail end of square-dash) does not have those metal covers, not sure if they were an option or an earlier thing. The front seats from the two-door trucks have a flip-forward function that the four-doors don't. Pretty sure the Hardbody seats have the flip-forward action too. I don't think the bolt pattern changed, though. You can get a '90 service manual from Cardiagn and a '94/'95 manual from Nicoclub to compare the wiring diagrams. I would also look for a dash swap writeup on the Infamous Nissan forum. If anyone has a walkthrough, it would be them. I agree that the square dash fits the shape of the truck better. I'm less sold on the red interior, though. Blue is nice. I don't think I've seen that tan interior before. I'd take it over the red, but, yeah, definitely ten years newer than the look you're chasing.

Thanks for keeping the lights on Red!

Can you catch a fingernail on the groove? I did wonder about that when I saw the list of shims in the manual. What do you do about that when you re-gear these? Weird that the torque spec changed. Maybe they changed the thread pitch?

First one has the pink/blue and pink/black wires of the dash illumination circuit, so it's probably for a dash switch. If all your dash switches are present/functional, it may be for an option yours doesn't have. Second one, not sure, picture's kinda washed out. Relay looks like the starter kill for the alarm (black/yellow are starter wires). The two plugs could be identified using the wiring diagrams in the EL section of the service manual, free download from Nicoclub. They're not too tough to read once you realize "L" means "blue." The alarm system is not in the manual.

Yeah, I got it too, on Safari. It's happened before, I think it's an expired security cert or something. I imagine Redpath will sort it out when he gets a minute. It's annoying how protective browsers get about that sort of thing (mine made me enter my admin password to get in!) but they're probably assuming we're about to send our bank info to North Korean hackers or something. I had to partially lobotomize Microsoft Entourage a while back to open an attachment it didn't like. Some weird obscure file format. I knew who it was from, and I knew it was fine, but try telling Microsoft that. I found the file with the list of blocked file types, removed them, opened the damn attachment, and felt like a hacker for about five minutes.

Yeah, it's weird that the manual doesn't show doing that. They show using a puller to get the flange off, maybe they thought the splines were tight enough that it wasn't necessary? I doubt a light coat would hurt anything, though I would wipe off any excess that squeezes out before putting the nut back on. And yeah, I hadn't looked that up before, and now I'm relieved that I don't have an H190 or C200! What a PITA to replace one oil seal.

I haven't dug into this on mine, but I had a look at the service manual, and it looks like it's easier than you think it is--assuming you've got the H233B, which AFAIK all 4WD V6 Pathfinders do. PD-16 in the '90 service manual says that all you have to do to change the pinion oil seal on an H233B is remove the flange nut, remove the flange, replace the oil seal, grease the oil seal, reinstall the flange, and torque the nut to between 145 and 210 lb/f--and that's an acceptable range, not an adjustment. Pinion bearing preload and pinion height are set using shims. There are specs (in inch pounds) for how hard the assembly should be to turn, to make sure you didn't screw something up after an overhaul. If you haven't done an overhaul, these tests should not be necessary. I don't see anything about measuring the loosening torque. The H190 and C200 rear ends (only used in 2WD and/or four cylinder applications AFAIK) use collapsible spacers (crush sleeves) to set the pinion bearing preload. The manual says you can't replace the pinion oil seal on those without overhauling the whole thing. You can download the '90 manual from cardiagn.com or the '94/'95 manual from Nicoclub. Both are free. If you want to talk to someone who knows more about the H233B than the rest of us combined, try @hawairish.

I remembered today that the only time I've had the steering fight me in a 4x4 was when I shredded the spider gears in the front end of our IH snow plow. What was left of them kept trying to lock up, which made turning very difficult, though I suspect that was more aggressive centering than torque steer. Jack up the front, in 4x, hubs locked, and turn one wheel. See if it all turns smoothly. Then check over all the front suspension. Strut rods and UCA spindles especially. If a damaged strut rod chose this moment to let go, or a spindle bolt pulled its threads because it was too short after the lift (too many shims behind it), or something along those lines, the wheel could be dragging the damaged suspension around when you put power down. If this is the case, I'd expect it to be spooky under brakes, too. Edit: if you've got a tape measure and a couple pieces of something straight (I use angle iron), you can get a ballpark toe reading at home. Sounds like that's the first thing to check.

Where did you find that part number? It's not getting me anywhere either. Poking around on NissanPartsDeal, I found what looks like the right critter, but there are two part numbers for what looks like the same thing, and both are discontinued. 33084-5W900 and 33084-5W905, both listed as 07/2002+. Your VIN might narrow down which one you've got, and the part number might turn one up elsewhere. Worst case, you might get lucky at a wrecking yard. TF-48 in the '04 service manual (available here) shows you where to find it in the truck. Did your mechanic say how they narrowed it down to the control module? I would go through the TF section of that service manual before assuming the module is in fact the problem. Should be some troubleshooting in there that'll help you narrow down what's gone wrong. It assumes you have Nissan's special scanner, but there's often a "without CONSULT" diagnostic procedure. The manual calls your transfer case ATX14A. The diagrams on factorynissanparts call it out as XN3, for some reason. Does it drive like it's stuck in 4x4? Does low range work? Long shot, do you have manual locking hubs? Sometimes those trigger the trouble light, not because they're hurting something, but because the computer wasn't designed with that in mind and it gets confused. The ATX14A is not a unit I would want to open up or try and jerry-rig. It's a complicated little bugger.