Slartibartfast

^^Like he said, the alt's amp rating is the maximum load that it can keep up with, not what it puts out all the time. It only puts out enough power to maintain its target battery voltage. The more you load the battery, the harder the alternator charges to keep up. The better the alternator, the more load it can keep up with. The only difference your electrical system (with the exception of the charge wire!) will see from a better alternator is that the battery voltage will be more stable under load. I was surprised by how thin the stock charge wire is. After looking at the wiring diagram, I would cut the stock charge wire where it splices into the sense wire for the alt (they share a fuse link) and run a thicker charge wire from the alt to the positive terminal, with a maxi fuse or breaker at the battery end in case the alt or the charge wire shorts out. You can find charts online for selecting a wire gauge based on max amps and wire length. There's no penalty to going thicker than you need, except that thicker wire is of course more expensive. I'll probably upgrade mine when it goes out, but looking at Aaron's high score, that might be a while!

Generally a radio has two power feeds, a constant + and an ignition-switched +. I would check the radio plug for a constant + with the key off, and if it doesn't have one, that'll be why it isn't remembering your settings. I don't know why this would take the radio with it, though. The radio in my dad's '03 had issues with not turning off, controls not working, all kinds of weirdness. We replaced it with one from the wreckers, worked fine after that. No idea what was wrong with it.

Ultra black is good stuff. Again I would only use it around the coolant ports if the surfaces are pitted, and just enough to fill the pits. I would assemble wet. Cured silicone above the surface might prevent the gaskets from sitting flat, causing other leaks. The VG33 gaskets I had were stamped steel, which I would not expect to conform to an uneven surface.

The service manual shows the gaskets going in dry. If the coolant ports on the heads/manifold are pitted, though, I'd be tempted to give those surfaces a skim of silicone before doing them up.

Huh, I didn't know there even was a nav system for these. Best I can do is a link to the service manual. It's a US-model manual, but if the nav system was available in the US, you should be able to work out whether the climate control wiring is the same between the nav/climate unit you have and the climate-only unit you want. My mom's '04 Lexus has a similar early infotainment system. It looks like it was designed in Microsoft Publisher (or maybe Powerpoint) and makes everything it controls more difficult than it needs to be. I see why you want to get rid of yours! Good luck.

They're similar enough that I wouldn't expect any difference that would matter here. Make sure you get the intake manifold gaskets for the 33, the 30 gaskets are thicker. I accidentally got 33 gaskets for mine and nothing lined up. Not sure if they've got the same tapped hole on the back of the head that I used for the knock sensor.

When I had my VG30E apart, I relocated the knock sensor to the back of the driver's side head. There was a drilled/tapped hole right there ready to go, and the harness reached. It hasn't caused any issues, though I doubt it would be as sensitive if there was a knock to sense. +1 for chasing holes, just make sure you get the tap started straight. I salvaged an oxygen sensor bung in an exhaust the other day that I was sure was wrecked. The lower rad hose hooks up lower than the lower intake, so I imagine you'd be alright just draining the rad. I remember pulling the drain plugs on mine for some reason, but I don't think it was before I had the manifold out. One of them didn't even drip until I jammed something up into the hole and broke through the sediment at the bottom of the water passage.

I had the same problem with my center console. The second or third time I had to remember where all the spade terminals hooked up, I bought an extension cable for something in a PC (similar to this), cut it in half to make two mating pigtails, and wired one side to the switches and the other to the harness. I'm not going to call this the right way to do it, but it was cheap, it was easy, and it worked. Looks like you can get ethernet cable in "extension" form as well, and I'll bet it would be easier to fish through an A pillar. However you do it, draw up a wiring diagram so you're not reverse-engineering your own work later on.

As you've discovered, Hawairish is the Nissan diff guru. I don't have much to add here, except to say that I'd love to see a project thread on either of your 4x4 conversions!

I like the handle placement! Good way to save a little space back there. Too bad about the hatch.

The Xterra trans is normally used because they're stronger, not for a gearing change. From what I've read, it bolts right up, but may need the wiring extended. If the donor was supercharged you'll need the flexplate and torque converter to go with it. If you're cruising 55 at 3000, something's not right. Sounds like it's not going into overdrive. Check whether the overdrive switch on the shifter is turned off. You may need to lift off the gas for a moment to make it grab fourth, especially if it's in power mode. The trans looks at pedal position and vehicle speed to decide when to shift, so if you're having to give 'er to maintain 55, it's not going to upshift, because there's no point (if it's working that hard in third, it won't keep up in fourth). The service manual says at half throttle it won't grab overdrive until between 64 and 74 mph (varies by final drive gearing). These aren't rocket ships, and, again, higher gearing doesn't make it faster if you don't have the grunt to push the taller gears. I turn my overdrive off entirely when hills are involved because it's got bugger-all power in fourth. It'll cruise in fourth no problem if the road is reasonably flat, but on anything with grades, third works much better. Better engine braking for descents, too. I haven't noticed any difference in fuel economy lugging it in fourth vs revving it in third, and I don't get passed by motor homes in third. You might be able to swap enough bits around to make a 2WD trans work, not sure on that. I'd hold out for a 4WD trans unless you're looking for a science project.

Good luck!

Looks pretty good for aftermarket! Great use for wasted space.

Sounds like you've covered most of what I'd check. I'm assuming you've also gone over the vacuum lines. If you can borrow a timing light, that might give you some idea--not as much what it's set at (unless the distributor somehow moved on its own), more seeing if it's jumping all over the place or missing beats. I've read you can replace the transistor on the early systems with the later version from the multiport, might be worth looking into if you decide to fire the parts cannon. If it runs well at high RPM under load, I doubt it's fuel supply, though of course that doesn't rule out the computer or injectors doing something weird. How's the idle?

Man, that sucks. I would've expected what you did to work. Seems like the chip key reader on the used ignition would read the code from your key, which was matched to the computer already. The thieves tearing it apart when they didn't need to makes me wonder if something else went wrong and they were trying to get around it. Or they might've just been tweakers who tore into it for no particular reason, and they damaged something else that you haven't found yet. From what I've read, the security system is pretty much baked into the R50s, so you don't have much choice but to work with it. You may need to have a dealer get in there with their special Consult computer and reprogram it to work with your key. The service manual should have some explanation of the process, though of course it won't be that useful without the special scanner. It might have some wiring diagrams and component checks you can do to rule out physical problems, though.

RE the hood light, I stuck LED strips under the hood of mine a while back and wired them through the anti-theft hood switch. Hood up, lights on. Honestly one of my favorite mods I've done to the truck.

You've got a rare critter! Most two-doors had the TBI (VG30I) and the four-doors had multiport (VG30E), so that's why they're marked as two-door and four-door. The actual body shouldn't make a difference, AFAIK they're only different from the B pillars back. The smog controls are different between the two engines, which I assume is why there are two styles of header available. Unless Nissan did something really weird, I'd expect yours to take the '90-'95 headers to match the engine.

You can often get away with re-using copper washers, but, yeah, it's not ideal. They deform a little each time you tighten the banjo bolt on them and there's a limit to how many times they'll do that before the copper work-hardens or gets too thin. I doubt the steering banjo nuts have been tightened enough times to kill the washers, so if you don't have replacements ready to go, I would check that the washers and the surfaces they seal against are clean (no chunks of sand or dirt holding one of them cockeyed), maybe clean up the washers on a flat piece of fine sandpaper if it looks like they need it, and see if that does it. If not, or if the washers are obviously hashed when you get them out (dents/cracked/squished), cut your losses and order new washers. I bought an assortment of metric washers online a while back when I couldn't get them locally. If you're not sure which line is leaking, don't feel around for it with the engine running. High pressure hydraulic leaks can mess you up.

The climate control head is right above where you were working, so I would start by pulling the radio back out and looking for damaged wiring or anything obviously loose on the back of the HVAC head. Failing that, I'd check the EL section of the service manual for the wiring diagrams for the heated seats and HVAC to see what they have in common that could've taken both out at once (shared ground point, shared fuse, something like that). Hopefully one or the other leads you to it!

That seems to rule out the bearings. Check that you have the auto hub clutches stacked right. It's been a while since I messed with auto hubs (and it seems unlikely you would've messed it up on both sides), but I would check the exploded diagram in the service manual against what you've got and make sure everything's as it should be. I downloaded an '89 manual ages ago and can't remember where I got it, so I've got it on Dropbox now. The hub assembly is shown on FA-16. Another dumb thing to try, do the auto hubs fit over the ends of your axles? There are 27 spline and 28 spline axles for these, and I've been told '89 was the cutoff year. I wouldn't expect the spline count to change where the snap ring groove is, but it's something to check.

Ah, that sucks. A friend and I did a bunch of screwing around on his S10 trying to track down a belt squeak. Finally we realized he hadn't gotten the steering pump pulley lined up quite right when he replaced the pump. It was some kind of press-fit BS IIRC and it just wasn't seated all the way, or it was seated too far, I don't remember which. I'm not sure if the edge of the belt was squealing against the PS pulley or the misalignment was causing it to ride sideways across an idler or what, but it did not sound happy, and it took us an embarrassingly long time (and a few blasts from the parts cannon) to track it down. If you don't have a mechanic's stethoscope, you can fudge it with a long screwdriver. One end to your ear, other end to the bolt holding the idler pulley, see if you hear more of a grumble from one than the rest. Obviously look out for the fan and belts while doing this. You can also try wiggling pulleys with the belt off to see if any of them flop around or feel crunchy. And yeah, having everything on one belt makes it tough to work out which one is making the noise.

That Ford Patrol is hilarious. Yeah, just slap a badge on it, nobody will notice it's not really a Ford. Maybe pull the side cladding off, too. Yeah, there we go. Totally different. At least the Guangcurysan Quilladong isn't insecure about being a minivan.

If it's not the usual ignition suspects, either it's the distributor like Adam said, or it's not spark. If having the EGR disconnected made it run better, I would check that the EGRC solenoid is hooked up and functional and the EGR valve isn't leaking.

Sucks about the title and the hoops! The front brakes are harder than they should be, but not, like, Jaguar-inboard-brakes difficult. They're captive rotors, meaning you have to take the wheel hub off to get to them. They're bolted to the back of the hub. Good time to repack your wheel bearings and do the seals. The rears are conventional and should pull right off, unless they're rusted to the hubs, in which case they'll fight you and you'll need some heating and beating to get them off. They're disks and drums in one, drums for the parking brake, which you might need to back off to free it up if the drum is worn. The parking brake drums aren't self-adjusting, so you'll have to do that manually afterwards. I bought a new set of shoes for mine but discovered that the originals were still in good shape, just not adjusted anywhere near right. If you're just bleeding the brakes to flush the fluid, it's not that hard, provided the bleeders aren't stuck. Gravity bleeding is pretty easy (just keep an eye on the res!) and if you use a clear tube on the bleeder, you can see when you've got fresh fluid coming out. Do not get air in the system or you may have a fight on your hands getting it back out. I got air in the rear circuit on mine and it turned into an ordeal that made me want to burn it and buy a horse. I have more time than money and a shop to work in, so I'd DIY it. If it's cheaper to have it done than to get fined by your nosy neighbors because hell is a place we pay to live in, have the shop do it.

That's an odd one. Sounds like something in the front end is loose and when the front wheels are pulling, one of them (probably right front if it's pulling left) is moving forward in the wheel well, screwing up the camber/caster/toe on that side and making it pull left. In 2x, it's loaded the other way by drag, and sits closer to where it should be. Normally I'd guess at bad LCA bushings, but if this started after you did struts etc, I'd check your work there first. Maybe the strut top is shifting around? Seems like you'd have a hell of a racket if something was just loose.