Slartibartfast

Seafoam's probably less aggressive than carb cleaner, but it also doesn't evaporate as fast, so you could suck some into the valve and let it soak for a few minutes. Might work. This writeup looks like a good place to start. The guy says to change the oil afterwards, but he's also flushing his crankcase. I doubt much of it ends up in the crankcase if you're just doing the intake, but still, probably not a bad idea to wait and do it when you're about to change the oil anyway. I didn't see a change when I seafoamed my '95, though to be fair I don't know that I did it properly. I used a spray can version with the straw in between the throttle body and the intake pipe and all I got out of it was a lot of smoke and a headache. Speaking of which, before you start, make sure you're upwind of the tailpipe.

Do some research and familiarize yourself with the mechanism before trying to use one in an emergency situation. The handle can whip around if you let go of it at the wrong time, or the whole thing can fall if one of the pins hangs up. There are some good Youtube videos covering how they work and how to use them safely.

My dad had an '03 VQ R50 that used a quart every thousand miles before the odometer hit 100k. It didn't seem to be leaking anywhere, but it smoked like hell on warm starts. We never tore it down to figure out why. The local mechanic didn't want anything to do with it. I wasn't impressed with the drive-by-wire ('03-'04) either. It did have plenty of power, though, especially compared to my VG30.

Yes. Trucks that came with the carrier have reinforcing plates, but members here have found other ways. The R50 rack is kinda rare, so, good score! The R50 and WD21 carriers are different.

My thought on the wax element is that it might not be extending when it's supposed to. The element's supposed to open the throttle when the engine's cold. If it's getting lazy and not opening the throttle until the engine is dead cold, it might not be giving the engine as much air as it expects when it's cold-but-not-dead-cold--so it starts, isn't getting as much air as it expects, then bogs for a moment until the IACV picks up the slack. I dunno, I've only seen VG33 idle controls in the service manual, and I haven't worked with one. I don't know how much accuracy the computer expects from a pot of wax with a piston in it, and I'd expect the IACV to do a better job of picking up the slack if it was working right. When I sprayed mine, I sprayed the carb cleaner down the hose towards the IACV and then started it pretty much immediately (don't remember if I hooked the air hose back to the intake pipe first or not). I was hoping the spray would soften whatever schmoo was in the valve, and engine vacuum would suck the cleaner and the dissolved schmoo through the valve. If you let the spray evaporate, it's just moving the schmoo around inside the valve, if it even makes its way to the valve. I think I repeated this process a few times. The engine did not want to start because it was flooded with carb cleaner, but once it cleared that out, it was back to normal. The right way to do this would be to remove the valve and clean it out on the bench, or just replace it, but just spraying it did seem to clear up the stalling issue I'd been having.

Good thing the OE clips fit! I think I've used Eagle Eyes corner lights, sorry to hear their headlights aren't as good. I've got one OE (as far as I know) Koito headlight and one aftermarket TYC on mine at the moment. The only complaint I have about the TYC is that it makes a funny little splash of light on the ground right in front of the truck, and I have no idea why. It's the second TYC I've had and the first one did it, too. It doesn't seem to hurt anything, and it works just fine, it's just kinda weird.

Yeah, the fuel pressure will bleed off eventually on its own. The only other check I can think of there (short of pulling plugs) is to remove the intake boot, open the throttle (engine off obviously), and see if you can smell gas after letting it sit for the 20 minutes or so that gives it issues. IACV's not a bad thought. I can't remember if the R50's also got a wax element for the cold high idle (holds the throttle open a little more when it's cold). Something to check. The IACV on mine gets sticky and idles lower than it should, sometimes to the point of stalling at lights. The last time it did that, I shot some carb cleaner down the hose that feeds air to the IACV and that cleared it up, at least for a while.

Looks like a nice piece of kit. How does it read caster? I see the bubble for it but I'm having a hard time working out how that would work. And yeah, I'll bet that handled like crap. Did they think it was a circle track racer or something?

Good to hear it's settling in, and good catch Adamzan on the Xterra box--I hadn't even considered the fittings (or the splines for that matter). Figures that Nissan would change another part of the steering system that wasn't the problem.

I can see doing that in a four-banger Hardbody or a Z car, but on a Pathy, I think you'd miss the low-end torque.

Welcome back! Haven't seen Rob around in a while, unfortunately. Hopefully the R50 guys here can help you find parts and get it back up to speed.

Unlikely that the stalling has anything to do with the intake, unless it sucked water. Gauges going crazy is interesting, has me thinking electrical fault. Start by pulling the code to see what the ECU is upset about, that might give you some idea of what you're up against.

I just had a look at my VG30, and if I had to replace the reg on that pig, I would pull the plenum. I'm not sure I could get my finger on the bottom screw, let alone a screwdriver. The plenum's not too bad to remove, though the EGR tube may fight you. And yes, if you hook up a fuel pressure gauge, you should be able to see if the fuel pressure is dropping off. That said, it sounds like your leak is fairly slow (if it takes twenty minutes for it to flood), so you may not see a fast pressure drop even if it is leaking. EC-25 of the '97 manual has a procedure for all that, but doesn't have a spec for how long it should pressure, at least not that I've found.

I know you can get to it on the VG30 without removing anything else. AFAIK the VG33 is the same. I think I replaced that vac line on mine entirely by feel. A leaky reg or injector sounds reasonable to me. If the reg is fine, the next time it struggles/starts rough, shut it off before it can smooth out and check the plugs. If you've got one leaky injector, I'd expect to see one wet plug. Also check your oil, see if it smells like gas.

If you can't save the buffalo, at least you can use all the good bits of it.

Sounds like you've pretty much got it. I did about the same as you've done, just a small lift to level it out, along with a whole lot of front-end work. I don't trust the muppets at the local tire place to touch anything I own, and I'm not done messing with the front end anyway, so I did my own alignment. A proper tech with a proper rack could do a much better job, much more quickly, but I have neither of those things, so here we go. Caster's the tricky one to measure. Mine seemed alright when I started, so I just tried not to change it when I adjusted the camber (add/remove the same number of shims front/rear). I'll bet you could make a jig with legs going to the upper and lower ball joint bolts and a flat spot for an angle finder if you want to be sure. If you really screw up the caster, you might have stability issues (not enough caster) or a pull to one side (more caster on one side than the other). I set camber using a cheap digital angle finder and a piece of scrap metal across the face of the rim, though you could probably use the face of the hub if it's flat. Make sure you're parked on a level surface and the suspension has settled (you haven't jacked it up since you moved it). IIRC the spec for camber is a little positive. I too aimed closer to neutral. I found shims at Rockauto, but I don't think I actually used any of them. I think I actually removed shims to get it where I wanted it, which is odd, because lifting this front end should make negative camber. I suspect I shifted the LCAs in a little when I replaced the strut rod bushings, and had to compensate more for that than for the inch or so I cranked the bars. The nature of shims means it's only gonna get so close, which is fine, because you'll get tired of lifting the truck, loosening the UCA bolts, messing with the shims, doing them up again, setting it down, test-driving it to settle the suspension, re-checking it, rinse and repeat. (The manual has a "this many degrees means this many shims" chart, which could save you some time, if it makes more sense to you than it did to me.) Screwed-up camber results in uneven tire wear and unironically using the term "hellaflush." To set toe, I take two long-ish pieces of straight angle iron and set them against the front tire sidewalls, on jackstands, below the hub but above the bulge at the bottom of the tire. Make sure they're tight up against the sidewalls and not being thrown off by casting tits or crazy raised lettering or whatever. Measure the distance between them, right in front of the tires, with a tape measure, making sure the tape isn't sagging excessively or hitting on the skid plate or something like that (any deflection in the tape changes the measurement). Then move forward along the angle iron about the diameter of your tire and measure again. (You can try to measure behind the tire instead, and the math works out the same, but there's usually a truck in the way.) If the front measurement is longer, you have toe-out. If the front measurement is shorter, you have toe-in. I shoot for 1/8-1/16" toe in. Toe-out makes it dart and wander, and excessive toe in either direction eats tires. Write down your measurements and adjustments ("1/4 toe in, adjusted both sides out by one flat") as you go as a sanity check and remember to settle the suspension (drive back and forth) between adjusting and measuring. You can bias which adjuster you move to try and straighten the steering wheel as you go. If the toe is where you want it, but the wheel is cockeyed, lengthen one adjuster and shorten the other, check again, repeat until you're sick of it and decide it's close enough for what it is. TL;DR it's a pain in the ass and it takes a while to get it right, but it is entirely possible to do your own alignment.

Roll under the truck with the exhaust cold and inspect the clamps, whack various parts of it with your fist, see if anything rattles. That's how I found a loose exhaust clamp on mine that was only rattling under load. I assume the engine was rocking on its mounts just enough to unload that clamp. It's also how I found a bad cat on my friend's Blazer. The matrix inside had broken free of the walls and beat itself undersized, and it was rattling around. That was a much more expensive fix than mine. Big tires don't help acceleration. If you've got a manual trans, you have a 4.3 final drive, which you could upgrade to 4.6 with parts from an automatic to offset the tire size increase. The 33 also has less aggressive cams than the 30. You can download the service manual here.

I can see how the ATX14A's auto mode would be nice in some settings, like a wet road with ice patches, or handing the keys to someone who isn't experienced at driving in snow. The TX10A can be a little clunky sometimes. That said, the ATX14A uses two hydraulic pumps, a wet clutch pack, an actuator, and a computer to do what the TX10A does with mechanical shifter and a little thought on your behalf. Kinda like the automatic hubs on the WD21. It's a neat idea, and I get why some people like it, but IMO it's more trouble than it's worth. And yes, the ATX14A is not a true center diff. It contains a clutch pack, like what's in an automatic transmission, which the computer engages to send power to the front wheels when it thinks the rears are slipping. I think some AWD crossovers use a similar system, though typically the other way around (front wheel drive until the rear is needed). Clutch packs have a little drag when they're not engaged, I assume mostly due to the fluid being dragged around between them like My1Path said. An automatic transmission in neutral will still spin its output if there's nothing holding it (which is why you have to shift quickly between high and low range with a TX10A, or your auto trans will spin up its output while the transfer's in neutral and prevent you from completing the shift). It makes sense then that the clutched front output of the ATX14A would tend to spin when the rest of the drivetrain spins, even with the hubs and clutch disengaged. I doubt this is hurting anything, unless the clutch is less like an auto trans clutch than I think it is, or unless the computer does something dumb in response to what it thinks is a problem. I don't have confirmation on this, but my theory as to why some trucks code with the auto transfer and manual hubs and some don't is that some trucks get their front wheel speed info from the ABS sensors, and others get it from a sensor on the front transfer case output, depending on whether they've got VDC. If the transfer output is spinning slower than the wheels, or not at all, and that's what the computer is watching to see what the front wheels are doing, it stands to reason it would get a little confused. The only resource I've found for understanding what goes on in the ATX14A is the TF section of the service manual. The pictures don't move, but they're the best view you'll get short of disassembling one.

It's a flat-bottomed tank and the pickup doesn't come out of the bottom like on a lawnmower gas tank. It'll suck air before the tank is fully empty. I'm not sure much usable fuel capacity the R50 has, but I don't think I've put more than 17 gallons in the 21 gallon tank in my '93 (though to be fair I haven't run it completely empty). If you check the pump and don't find anything obviously amiss, you might be able to get a little more out of it by messing with the height of the pickup (measure the tank depth and compare to see if it could go lower), or make the gauge more accurate by bending the float arm a little.

Nice! Looking forward to seeing this in action. I'm curious how much Nissan left on the table when they tuned these things.

When I adjusted my steering box, I just barely moved the screw, and it got really stiff around center, to the point where it felt like it was trying to lock up. By the time I realized it wasn't just the Grassroots (I did both at once), the adjustment screw was jammed and wouldn't move, which told me that the box was done for. At that point, I bought the reman, which, well, it's not locked up, but that's all the good I can say for it. The idler arm shouldn't be tight enough to change the steering feel. Hopefully your box isn't overtightened, but it sounds like it is. This is the box I've been looking at. It's not listed for a WD21, but I'm curious whether it would fit given the similarity of the WD21 and the W/D22. The shaft in mine is tight (yes, I know, that's what she said), but when a friend and I checked over his S10, we found massive play in the joint in the column. We checked it by holding the shaft at the box with vise grips, then seeing if the wheel still had play in it. His did, mine didn't. I could however grab the end of my pitman arm (when it wasn't bolted to the center link) and wiggle it back and forth a surprising distance, producing a clacking noise inside the box. Sucks about the crash, hopefully the car is the only casualty.

I've got that same centerlink sitting in my "need to get around to installing this" pile. I wasn't impressed by the shark-bite construction either, but I haven't found any complaints about them separating. I do like the idea of running a weld around both ends to be on the safe side, though. Wrap a wet rag around the joints first so you don't burn holes in the boots. I've been down the same road trying to get rid of steering wander ("all over" the same road is more like it). While loose joints don't help, in my case it really came down to the slop in my steering box. I tried to adjust the original, destroyed it, and ended up with a crap BBB/VisionOE reman that's sloppier than what I started with and also leaks. Now and then I consider whether the later box sold by Redhead would fit, but then I look at the price and remember why I stopped considering that option. I've got a Grassroots link installed now, which has enough binding in its joints that the steering doesn't explore the play in the box, which does actually help. I've got a steering stabilizer/damper to install when I mount the 2WD link. Let us know how it goes!

I'd expect an ABS light and soft pedal, that started at the same time, to have the same cause. +1 for checking the line, they shouldn't have needed to mess with the caliper but who knows. Have someone hit the brakes and see if the line inflates. Good luck, I hate working on brakes.

My dad's '03 did what you're describing. Didn't throw a code but if you gave it more than a little throttle it lurched like it was trying to throw something off the roof rack. The guy he took it to said he'd seen it before and replaced the swirl control valve solenoid valve. Never had a problem with it again. I have no idea how it failed or how it caused the issue, though I remember dumping a couple chunks of what looked like salt out of one of the vac lines when we were trying to troubleshoot it.

If you've got a voltmeter, I would start by confirming the shop's diagnosis of low voltage at the ECM (might also be able to do this with a scan tool, which is what they probably did). If it is significantly less than battery voltage, you can check from the computer's negative to ground, and its positive to battery positive, and see where that power is getting lost.