Slartibartfast

If you disconnect the fuel line at the fuel filter (in the engine bay), you could connect up a hose to a jerry can, jumper the fuel pump relay, and let it pump most of the fuel out that way. To get the last of it, you'll need to remove the fuel pump (under the cargo area carpet, guessing you know that given how much you've done with it already) and pull out the last of it with a siphon or a lawnmower-style electric fuel pump. Might be better to drain it all that way, actually, so you're not running not-gas-anymore through the fuel pump. I would take a look at the inside of the tank before deciding for sure that you're not going to drop it. I've seen some awful schmoo in tanks that have sat. Hopefully yours isn't too bad. Welcome back, and good luck!

Wrecking yard is probably your best bet. The strut rods often have wear issues where they go through the hole in the frame bracket, so get a good look at them before buying them. Unfortunately the only way to get decent-sized pictures into a thread here is to host elsewhere and link in. Sounds like the Tapatalk app has a picture host built in, I haven't tried it myself.

If you can't re-use the bolts from the donor, you may still be able to get the bolts from the dealer. A writeup I saved for manual-swapping an R50 says you want M10x1.0 30mm, Nissan PN 12315-D0210. (I assume these are the same for the VG30, but I would confirm that before ordering them.) You need six of them. I would order seven because I've met me and I know how I lose things. (If you want that PDF, shoot me a pm with your email address--I would just link to it but as usual I have no memory of where I downloaded it from. It's for a different platform obviously, so the interior and electrical won't match up, but some of the info may still help you.) Whether to do it yourself or not depends on your tools/skills/confidence. If you have a friend or family member who does good electrical work, rope them in. A mechanic may not be excited to finish the wiring on your half-done science project, especially if they're not familiar with the platform. Practice on some scrap wiring, get to where you can make a decent solder joint without starting a fire, and learn as you go. I highly recommend the marine shrink tube with the glue in it.

The diagram on nissanpartsdeal shows the bolt plates (#s 57284 and 57214E), but those aren't full part numbers and they don't list those below for some reason. You might find them elsewhere (maybe they're in another diagram?) or one of the tire carrier install threads here might have the part number. If all else fails, check out how the R50 guys install theirs.

Your auto trans ECU won't care that the slushbox is gone. You'll need longer bolts for the flywheel (the flexplate for the auto trans is much thinner, so the bolts are shorter). If you haven't yet, check out Harbinger's swap thread. The pictures are long dead, but the text should still give you an idea of what you're up against. For the wiring, I would start with the service manual (free download here), EL section. There's a "how to read wiring diagrams" section, but it's pretty straightforward, except that they abbreviate "blue" (for wire colors) as "L." The starter wiring shows separate diagrams for auto vs manual. Auto uses a park/neutral inhibitor (won't start in gear) and manual uses a clutch inhibitor (won't start if you're not pressing the clutch), plus a switch on the dash to bypass the inhibitor if needed. That's if you want it factory-correct, of course--if you just want it to start you can bypass the inhibitor relay (at the risk of starting it in gear and running into something). Nissan calls cruise control "Automatic Speed Control Device" just to be that way. It's in the EL section too. You'll also need to hook up your reverse lights. I'm not sure how much will plug and play as far as the harness goes, but even if you have to wire it from scratch, there shouldn't be that much that needs doing. Just keep it clean and write down what you did if you don't wire it like factory, so you're not scratching your head later trying to troubleshoot your own rat's nest.

You're not nuts, they exist. My '95 and '93 both had them. (Try searching parts for a '95 if you haven't, that illustration looks like an older style.) I didn't think to hang onto the piece you're after, unfortunately. Naturally I kept the lids that you don't need. I don't think they were any kind of rare, though, so surely someone's got one gathering dust. Mine didn't break like that (might be a hot climate thing?), but the one in my '95 wobbled and rattled and drove me nuts. Then the one in my '93 was disgusting and I couldn't be arsed to clean all the little crevices just to deal with it wobbling again, so pitched it and made my own. You can make the console from an R50 fit with a little screwing around. It's the whole console, not just the box, and you have to move the E-brake over a little, but it doesn't look massively out of place and you do get proper cupholders out of the deal. I decided plastic consoles were stupid and made my own (also with cupholders!) from scrap metal, an ammo can, and the console lid from a Lexus ES300, which fits over a 50-cal can surprisingly well.

I had a stumbling just off idle issue that ended up being that MAF plug. I tightened up the terminals with a pick (probably not the right way to do it) and it's been fine since.

The snap ring holds the sealing surface on the CV against the seal on the back of the knuckle to keep the wheel bearing sealed up. I wouldn't expect it to change the ability of the hub to lock and unlock. Sometimes snap rings get deformed during install and removal (stretch them a little too far and they don't spring back), so it might've come free on its own, but that doesn't explain how it got itself wedged into the hub mechanism. I guess if it was bouncing around in there while the hub was freewheeling, it might've caught between a part that was moving and a part that wasn't and sort of rolled itself into where you found it.

Ah, didn't realize this was older. Figures it was too easy to work, good to hear you got it in the end though.

I could swear I've seen that TSB too, can't seem to find it though. My understanding is that you basically run the engine off injector cleaner for a short period of time to flush the crud out of the fuel system, like adding fuel treatment to the tank except it's much more concentrated, and therefore more likely to do something. Seems like a good idea to me. Let us know how it goes!

The manual VQ R50s are pretty rare and parts may be a challenge to source. A guy on here a week or so ago was looking for a flywheel for his and the only ones available are stupid expensive through Nissan, and the PN didn't cross-ref to anything else that I could find. (I didn't check the second-gen Xterra, though--they had the 4.0, not the 3.5, but I don't know that the bolt pattern is different.) The auto VQ engines have a set of valves in the intake that the manual VQs don't, suggesting that the computer is different too. If you're dead set on it I'd start looking for a whole truck--either as a parts donor so you've got everything you need in one place, or to build up with parts from your current truck so you don't have to mess with harnesses and computers.

I'm not too familiar with the R51, but I'd start by checking for strawberry milkshake of death (SMOD). Defective trans cooler in the rad mixes ATF with coolant and kills the trans. Look for schmoo floating in the coolant overflow tank, swollen rubber on the rad cap, and check the trans dipstick. Easy to prevent, expensive to repair. IIRC the 4.0 had some timing chain guide issues as well.

I did mine with a twelve-point. Unless the bolt head is chewed up, I'd expect the twelve to work just fine. Good luck!

Fleurys makes spacer lifts for the R51, looks like a cheap way to go.

That clutch plate doesn't look like it enjoyed being pried on.

Yeah, I wanted to rebuild my starter, but the brush pack didn't match any I found online. Kinda hard to rebuild it without parts.

The stalling sounds like what my '93 did when the idle air control was acting up. Cold idle was fine, but now and then, on warm idle, it would try to idle very low, low enough that it would stall when I put it in gear or came to a stop in gear. It drove fine otherwise, it just forgot that idling was a thing that it was supposed to do. The issue was intermittent and drove me bats as I'd mess with something, think that fixed it, and have it crop up again later. What finally worked (so far!) was to disconnect the hose going to the idle control (there's the big corrugated hose between the MAF and the throttle body, and there's a smaller hose with some elbows coming off of that and going under the intake back to the idle control--I disconnected that one right at the corrugated hose where it's easy to get to), shot some carb cleaner down it, and started the engine to suck it through. I did this a few times in a row in hopes of flushing out whatever gunk was making the idle control stick. It was hard to start immediately afterwards but cleared up quickly afterwards, and it the idle hasn't been an issue since. My '95 did the surging thing, though I don't remember the aircon being involved. I don't remember finding a smoking gun, either, IIRC I just messed around under the hood checking stuff for a while and then it sort of went away. The aircon system tells the computer to bump the idle up, so it could be a different symptom of the same fault with the idle control valve, or maybe I had a bad connection in one of the plugs I checked for corrosion. I think I checked the plugs for the MAF and the TPS, and probably the EGR control solenoid as well. I remember it stalling out once when the EGR solenoid plug fell out. That was fun to plug back in on a hot engine. It's probably not a vac line issue, but if they're original, go ahead and change them. They're cheap and easier to replace than to try and diagnose around if they're old and suspect. Not sure what you mean by a no-crank start. Click/no start is pretty common on these.

Ah, that makes sense. Now that I think about it, there's a bit in the manual that has you set CV end-float by swapping to a different thickness of washer. Makes sense that a thicker washer might not fit at all if the axle groove is at the other end of tolerance. Good to hear you got it in the end!

The compressor in my '95 did the same thing. Neon yellow oil all over the air filter box. I thought that seal was some special sauce ceramic thing, looks like a rubber seal in the picture? I'll have to look into it again for mine, assuming I ever get around to putting the aircon back together.

The fender doesn't say it's plastic, so I'd be surprised if it was. The rear quarter patches specifically call out being metal. Not sure I've seen plastic body parts for these, though I've heard of plastic rocker panel covers for some domestic trucks. I would look at an oil-based undercoat rather than a hard shell. If the hard stuff doesn't adhere well, it'll just trap moisture behind it, which will rot the metal faster. Look carefully around your strut towers, enough of those rotted out that Nissan did a half-ass repair campaign on them.

I checked nissanpartsdeal to see if there was some part number overlap between the models you mentioned and, yeah, the first part of the PN is the same, but the rest of it isn't, and naturally they don't offer dimensions or anything along those lines to tell you what the difference is. Short of finding a used one to have machined ahead of time, it looks like you're stuck paying the money or hoping yours isn't too chewed up and the machine shop can turn it around quickly. Good luck!

If it's got a good amount of thread engagement, it held torque, and it's not bottomed out, I'd expect it to do just fine. Good luck with startup! Double check your heater hose connections, the clamps are hard to see and easy to forget to do up.

Ah, that sucks. The click can be easy to miss when the torque wrench is set towards the low end of the scale, and on a torque spec that low you may not realize "it shouldn't be this hard" until you're well past spec. My 1/2" torque wrench isn't even marked for anything below ten. It's also possible the threads were already damaged by corrosion, or by the last guy going too far. Good thinking with the longer bolt! I didn't have the right torque wrench when I did mine, so I went to German spec (gutentite). No issues.

If you're going to do it, I'd do it while the intake is off, just because the plugs are easier to get to. Take the towels out of the runners first, of course.

Should be fine. If you're worried that coolant went down an intake runner, spin it over with the plugs out and it should eject anything it ingested. Good call taking the hood off, I did the same when I had my manifold off. One less thing to bang your head on.