Slartibartfast

Yikes. Hopefully nothing else was damaged, and the engine you took out has the parts you need to put it right.

^^What he said. Manual hubs stay locked, or unlocked, until you get out and switch them yourself. When they're locked, the 4WD will work just like it does with what you've got now. When they're unlocked, 4WD will not work, but you'll have less rolling resistance. The auto hubs on the WD21s locked and unlocked themselves, which was less helpful than you'd expect. They were a little weird about reverse, but I don't remember the specifics. I got rid of mine and installed manual hubs years ago.

Sounds like your Chevy had clogged cats. Unless the R50 does too, spend your time/effort elsewhere. Look into manual locking hubs. Easy upgrade, supposed to give better fuel economy when you don't need 4WD (less rolling resistance). Also consider an electric fan in place of the clutch fan. Less drag on the engine, but a bit of screwing around to set up, one more thing to fail, and it may struggle to deliver enough air flow. If you want reliability, focus on maintenance. Plugs, cap/rotor, fluids, filters, vacuum lines, timing belt. Clean the crap out of the throttle body/butterfly. Check for cracks in the rubber tube between the throttle body and the MAF. Check the MAF, clean it (carefully!) if it's dirty inside. If you want more power (who doesn't), do some research on cams. People who swap the VG33 into the WD21 Pathfinders often swap in the cams from their VG30, which are a little more aggressive. I think you can still get aftermarket cams for these, too. I don't remember anyone camming up a VG33 in an R50, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. If you want to go crazy with this thing, it is possible to build these engines up, and I hear they respond well to boost. The evap can holds the gasoline fumes from the tank, then releases them to the intake when the engine is running. It's full of charcoal, which the gas vapor sorta sticks to until the engine sucks it back out. Basically it means the truck doesn't always smell like an open gas can. It's supposed to keep fuel vapor out of the atmosphere. I suspect it also helps the gas keep longer if the vehicle is parked for a while.

That's about as far as mine goes, though it's been lower lately in the cold. I'll have to check the rad hose the next time I take it out.

Unless the smog gear's causing problems, all you'll get for deleting it is a few more OBDII codes, and some gasoline fumes if you decide to pull the evap can. If you decide to tear stuff out, make sure you know what you're looking at so you don't mess up something it needs to run. I haven't done the trailing arm bushings on mine yet, but they sound like a PITA. If the complete links are cheap, save yourself the hassle, especially if you don't have a press.

Aftermarket ECU and a big turbo, you say?

Tough call. EFI's generally better, but you'd need a bunch of parts off the donor to make it work. Computer, harness, evap gear, fuel system, oxygen sensors, catalyst. Then the fun of fitting the harness to a shell that wasn't designed for it. But, yeah, easy starts, OBDII, probably better on gas. Looks like some of the Ratsun guys have carb'd the KAs and worked out which earlier distributors will work. Less to set up, less to go wrong.

Yeah, I went around it with the silicone spray after that. Got the door locks working a little better too.

Went to drive somewhere today, shut the hatch, and it bounced. No latching action. Shut it a few more times, nothing. Checked the latch with a screwdriver and it just flopped around. On a hunch, I heated around the catch with a little butane torch for a few minutes. Sure enough, it went click, and then it closed again. I guess some water condensed back there and froze the mechanism. First time it's done that. On the plus side, by the time I got the hatch to stay closed, the windshield had finished defrosting!

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.