Slartibartfast

Sounds like the switch controlled by moving the stalk is okay, but you've got an open in the time delay circuit. I would hook an ohmmeter to the two-pin plug from the switch and see if you've got a resistance that changes when you try to adjust the interval. If not, I would guess broken wire or bad pot, or maybe some stupid fiddly bit of plastic connecting the knob to the pot. The question then is whether the stalk will come apart in a civilized fashion or whether the old plastic is gonna do old plastic things and leave you worse off than when you started. If the resistance checks out, I would take a second look at the wiper amp. EL-71 in the '90 manual has a check for it (not sure what exactly it's checking, though) and EL-68 shows the circuit diagram. If you've got resistance at the switch, and the same resistance at the plug for the amp (looks like you'd test from red/blue stripe to ground), I'd have a poke at the amp. Edit: found this. Same symptom, bad amp.

I can't find a photo for that part #, I'm guessing it's the one with the twist knob at the end for the wiper frequency? I've got a spare wiper switch, but it's off a base model Hardbody, so it doesn't have the intermittent function. I haven't checked whether the plug is the same. (Edit: just checked, yep, same plug. Plugged it into my '93, works fine. The intermittent function is a separate two-pin plug.) Gonna have to be more careful with mine. I didn't realize they were unobtanium.

I was going to say there's no way this primitive ABS system could tell if the rear brakes were working, but I just checked the service manual and among the codes you'd expect there's a code just marked "other" (code 5). The diagnostic procedure for "other" is to overhaul the rear brakes, and if that doesn't do it, replace the ABS brain. The manual offers no further explanation. There's no cutaway or hydraulic diagram for the actuator, probably because they didn't expect anyone to take it apart. The electrical diagram shows an unmarked switch inside the actuator that I would lay money is a shuttle or a pressure switch or something of that nature, and would explain this mystery code, if only they'd been bothered to label it. So, yeah, I don't know how it knew what was wrong, but it sounds like it did, and you did exactly what the manual calls for! Mine was boring. It just coded for an open speed sensor circuit when it got wet.

Drop a line if you're in the area this summer! I'm hoping not to need that tool again for a good long time.

Turns out I shot way more footage than I thought I did. Also turns out I mumble, but I knew that. Anyway, here's what I did on mine.

Yeah, RA did sell me a set of VG33 intake gaskets for my VG30 once. That was a fun job to redo. I had a look and found the footage from when I did mine. I think I was letting it sit until I knew if my rear wheels were going to fall off afterwards. They haven't, so I'll brush that up and get it posted. It's less a "how to" and more a "watch this guy struggle" but there might still be something useful in there.

The Rockauto system is usually pretty good. Nissanpartsdeal is my usual go-to for identifying parts and year ranges and whatnot. I ordered most of what I used from RA, but they didn't have the lock washers, so I bought those through Partsouq. I like those CNC'd sockets. Mine is not nearly that nice. I cut some strap steel to fit the splines, then welded them to a pipe to keep them in formation. I tried welding a bolt to it to use with the torque wrench, but, yeah, that didn't hold up so well. A sacrificial 1/2" drive socket would've been better, but by that point I think I had realized that my torque wrench didn't even go that high, so I welded on some rebar handles called that good enough. The drawings in the service manual call out PNs for some of the tools they suggest (though others just say "suitable tool"). I looked some of them up when I did mine and found what I think was the right kit, but the listing didn't have any pictures and it was priced stupid high. And yeah, I'm not sure what function the torque spec is serving here. It's not like you're gonna set preload given how tight those inner races are pressed onto the shaft. Maybe it's supposed to push the races home if you didn't get them fully seated with the press? It might just be a standard torque spec for that thread size and pitch for all I know. I bought a cheap press for mine (the cheapest Northern Tool had) and had to stack some wood under its legs to get enough clearance to get the whole axle in there. Worked great after that, though. I do like Towndawg's solution.

The R50 drum/WD21 disk rears are built the same, but the drum WD21 rear is a different beast with a single row on either side and the axles butted up against a thrust block in the diff, with shims on either side to set the end-float. I did the rear bearings in mine recently (WD21, disk) and there isn't really an adjustment for them. Just a very high torque spec for the nut that holds it all together, which I'm not sure how you're supposed to get, given that you'd need the world's deepest socket or a really weird crow's foot to get a torque wrench on it. I just gave 'er wha by hand with the spline wrench I welded up to remove them. I've seen people use a hammer and punch instead, but I didn't want to risk damaging the stupid spline nuts. And, yeah, you'll need a press and some creativity in setting it up for the various operations you'll have to do to get everything separated. The service manual has a pretty good breakdown, though of course it assumes you have the super-special Kent-Moore kit for everything. Too bad it has to come apart for a seal, that's a lot of screwing around for one piece of rubber. But if there's oil coming past the outer seal, that suggests the inner has been whupped for a long time. If you're going to the effort of replacing the seal, I'd plan on doing both seals, the O ring, and the bearing as well. Mine weren't actually bad (much to my annoyance--I was hoping they were the source of an annoying noise) but they did show some discoloration on the rollers and races, and there wasn't a whole lot of grease in there anymore. Looked like the inner seals failed and diff oil washed the grease out. I also had to put a fair whack of stress on the old bearings to get the axle to budge. This didn't leave any obvious damage, but I was happy I had new bearings that hadn't been abused like that to put it back together with. (And then there was the race I dropped, where the plastic cage broke and the rollers scattered from hell to breakfast.) I shot some video of the job when I did mine, then never did anything with it. Let me know if you get stuck on something and I'll try and work out what I did there.

Sorry, WD21 is the Pathfinder chassis code ('87-'95). D21 is the pickup. What's your original look like?

Yeah, they won't work at all if the hazard switch is borked. The plastic does get fragile. I see a few WD21 hazard switches on eBay for $30 used. Try searching D21 if WD21 doesn't pull much up. There are a few styles, though, so make sure you get the rocker version for the square dash rather than the round-dash push switch or the weird early pickup one.

Got a picture. Naturally I can't embed the damn thing, so click here. Looks like the dipstick is about 21 1/2" from the tip to where it seats in the dipstick tube. The Hot marking starts 1 7/32" from the end and extends to 1 19/32". (I'm sure these would be nice whole numbers if I had a metric tape.) Hopefully this helps make a temporary one at least.

A wrecker is probably your best bet. I'll try and get a picture of mine tomorrow, though.

I removed the ABS from my '93. There's not much to it. The computer is under the driver's seat (the rounded box, the square one is the alarm), though I'm told earlier models have it under the radio. The valve block is on the passenger's side frame rail, about even with the B pillar IIRC. If you're running new lines anyway, just remove the valve block and run your new line. The hard lines on mine were in good shape, so I cut the squiggly bits off the ends, then scabbed in a straight section of line with flare nuts and unions. (I tried working with the lines as-is, but the result looked like a rat's nest, and I didn't like the idea of it vibrating around.) The fittings are M10x1 invert flare. If you have trouble finding them, try a Miata supplier. The ABS block flows straight through when it's not powered up, so removing it shouldn't change how the brakes operate under normal circumstances. I never got mine to kick in under any circumstances, though I never locked it up at highway speed just to see what it would do. I deleted it both because I thought it might be contributing to another issue I was having (it wasn't) and because it was coding for a $250 speed sensor that looked like a pain to replace.

If the hazards don't work either, you can rule out the headlight switch. +1 on the turn signals going through the hazard switch. I worked on a clapped-out VW a while back where the turn signals didn't work unless the hazard switch was in just the right spot. Fuses were a good place to start, but brake and turn are fused individually, so both would have to be bad. This is not impossible, but assuming both issues started at once, you probably have one fault causing both. The flasher unit is shared, so that would've been my next check. I've got the '90 service manual up and there's a diagram of the hazards and turn signals on EL-48. You can download this free from cardiagn.com. I can suggest some things to check, but you will need a test light or a voltmeter, and a piece of thin wire you can wrap around one lead to get down into electrical plugs for testing. To be clear: are the turn signal lights on the dash coming on but not flashing, or are they not coming on at all?

I did all the small-diameter ones with bulk hose. The molded lines for the PCV and whatnot were okay, so I didn't mess with them. You may be able to find them on nissanpartsdeal, or at least get a part number to search elsewhere. Failing that I would bring the tricky ones to an auto parts store and see if they've got a molded hose for something else with the required bend in it that you can cut down to suit.

Ah, now I see what you're saying. I found a couple of threads on that issue and as near as they could work out, it was just the cluster acting up. I had a brief look at the service manual to see if maybe it meant something and didn't find much. Troubleshooting for the 4WD warning lights starts on TF-135, but naturally there's no procedure for your symptoms. EL-139 and 147 show what I assume are the wheel lights wired individually to the unified instrument control whatsit, but it of course doesn't mention why. The lights are also wired to the transfer case computer, but they're spliced together on that end, so it can't control them individually. I see no mention of the 4x4 display for the ABS or the traction control. Mechanically, the truck has no way of engaging one wheel at a time even if it wanted to. TL;DR, yeah, it's probably just the cluster acting up. Unless it's making something else freak out, I'd file it under "old electronics doing weird things," like the clock in my dad's Tundra that displays letters in place of numbers sometimes. Why does it say it's 4:3H? Nobody knows! Don't worry about auto hubs, I don't think the R50s ever came with them. Nissan got that out of their system with the WD21, and good riddance! They were unpredictable and irritating to live with, even when they were working properly. AFAIK all R50s came with drive flanges (perma-locked). I don't think auto hubs and auto mode would play well together. I think my dad's '03 was KX0/bronze. It was very brown. I'm not a big fan of beige, but, yeah, faded out it's actually not that bad. Until you have to match it, anyway!

That is one calm cat! Mine hates car rides, though to be fair I haven't tried putting him on the dash. There shouldn't be anything to engage in your front end. If you tested with the front wheels off the ground, you might see one wheel spinning and the other not if one wheel has a dragging brake or something, because the diff applies the same amount of torque to both sides--so if one wheel is dragging and the other isn't, it'll spin the easy one. Same issue when the wheels are on the ground and one is on something slick. If you can spin a front wheel without the CV spinning, either it's got manual hubs that aren't locked in, or there's something very wrong with either the CV or the drive flange, and I wouldn't expect a mechanical failure like that to be intermittent. 4x4 not engaging until you're moving sounds more like a transfer issue to me. I'm guessing by your description that you've got the ATX14A (with the knob on the dash). I haven't had one to bits, but from what I've read there are two pumps inside, one driven mechanically when you're going forwards and one electric to fill in the rest of the time, and they're what makes the wet clutch engage and send power to the front end. If it won't grab until you drive forward, maybe that electric pump (or its wiring, or whatever turns it on) is getting flaky. If you haven't yet, start by changing the fluid, even if it looks okay. The fluid in the manual box in my '95 looked alright, but it quit sticking in 4x after I changed it. If that doesn't work, and there's no obvious damage to the electrical harness, the best I can do is point you to the TF section of the '03 service manual. I feel your pain on buttoning it up and having a vac leak. I didn't know VG30 and VG33 intake gaskets weren't the same when I did mine, and Rockauto sent me the wrong ones. At least it goes quicker the second time!

Coastal's website has an option for '96-'99 vs '00-'04, but it looks like it only changes whether it has cutouts for the turn signals. I don't remember an early/late split coming up in Hawairish's bumper bracket thread either.

Rolled over 250k yesterday.

Replacing the headlight switch isn't a bad idea, especially if you have a spare. Usually it's the headlight circuits that have issues in those, though.

Brake fluid is commonly neglected and usually looks like hell unless something in the braking system was replaced recently or the owner decided to do some preventative maintenance. The fluid absorbs moisture from the air, and the cap is not airtight. Moisture in the fluid is not a good thing (corrosion, lower boiling point), but I wouldn't expect it to do what yours is doing. And, yeah, I'd expect any leak that would allow mud puddle water into the brake lines would blow brake fluid from hell to breakfast. My first thought is electrical. When the speed sensor for the ABS in my '93 started to go, the ABS light turned on pretty much whenever the sensor was wet. The ABS is able to release brake pressure to stop a skid, so I would not be surprised if moisture in a damaged harness or actuator opened the wrong valve and nerfed your brakes until it dried out. If you don't see any obvious damage to the actuator or the harness, I would get a helper to pump the brakes (engine running) while you spray various things with a hose to try and make it act up. Seems like the ABS computer should be throwing a fit (or at least an idiot light) if it was malfunctioning that badly, but I don't know the R50 that well. My only other thought is that you can get a long pedal travel if the rear drum brakes aren't adjusted right. Obviously a tadpole didn't reach in there and spin the adjusters while you were in the puddle, but maybe some mud and debris got in there and did something? Long shot, but if you run out of ideas, pull the drums and make sure everything is in order. Oh, and if you can get it to act up again, see if you can figure out if any of the brakes are still functional. Dual-circuit brakes means a fault in the front can't take out the rears (and vise versa). Might help track it down. Also, when you bled the brakes, did you bleed the load sensing valve as well? That's a bleed point on the US R50, I assume the NZ spec would be the same. I doubt that's the issue, but, might as well get all the goo out if you have to bleed it again anyway. Good luck! I hate working on brakes.

I found the lock washers for my rear wheel bearings through Partsouq. Will have to check out Amayama, first I've heard of that one.

Sharp looking truck! Always liked the green/chrome. Rear bumper looks like mine when I got it, looked like a replacement that wasn't plated or painted on the inside. The alarm system is really easy to get rid of on the WD21. A few wires are scotchlock'd in, the rest just unplug and the harness plugs back into itself like the alarm was never there.

Nice design! Looks hell for stout.

I've loaded mine well beyond what I should've done, but it's hard on the interior and kinda sketchy when you've got a log splitter aimed at your head. When I need to move something that I can't/don't want to fit in the back, I just bring a trailer. My dad picked up a homemade pickup bed trailer at a yard sale many years ago, and we have gotten so much use out of that thing. Dump runs, engines, moving boxes, floor tile. It's great. And it's half a Ford Ranger, so who cares if it gets dented up? There's no anxiety that you're gonna mess up your nice truck, provided you don't overshoot and hit the tow vehicle. I'll bet you could get a front-end-wrecked D21 (or any small pickup really) and make a utility trailer out of that way cheaper and easier than cutting up your Pathfinder. I'd expect the leaf springs to handle the load better than the WD21 coils, too. The trailer lights could be interesting (standard four-pin combines brake/turn and D21 taillights don't), but it wouldn't be hard to rig up some non-standard five-pin wiring for that.