Slartibartfast

Great info dump on the trans! Also good thinking with the driver's seat, I've been hoping to find a clean-ish passenger's seat for my '93 to see if WD21 cushions swap as easily as the R50 ones do.

Wow! Yeah, that's a hell of a bulge. I replaced mine with straight hose when I did my timing belt. The belt job isn't bad. There's a whole song and dance in the manual for setting tension that I skipped and did by feel following a tutorial on here, IIRC it boiled down to putting an Allen wrench in the tensioner, pointing it more or less at the crank, tightening the tensioner nut to lock it, then making sure the belt was still slack enough to twist 90° by hand. Getting the cam sprockets off to do the seals meant making a special tool, but you can also use the old belt and vise grips. Replace everything you can while you're in there, it's not a horrible job but it's not one you want to do again because the one part you thought looked alright fails as soon as you put it back together.

Does the dash work otherwise? If it's just the lights, try messing with the dimmer control, sometimes they get janky.

Hopefully it stays fixed! I might have to look into that stuff before my next oil change. Good luck with the throttle cable.

Having seen what they're calling a Lincoln these days, I have to agree! Nissan put the fill hole too low on the manual transmissions, so the countershaft bearings starve for oil and wear out. In fourth, the countershaft isn't loaded (the trans is 1:1), so the bearings are quieter. If it's bad enough to make noise when it's not driving anything, that suggests the bearings are well and truly buggered. Manuals after '96 had the oil fill hole raised up a little to increase the oil capacity and keep the bearings happy. The trans from a 3.3 R50, Xterra, or Frontier should bolt in. Rebuild parts should be available as well. You can overfill the older transmissions (if they're not roached yet) by removing the shifter and adding oil there. More info here.

Looks clean! Hopefully the oil pressure is a sender issue rather than the engine being clapped out. Unfortunately you have to host pictures elsewhere and link them in. Kind of a PITA but the forum's server space is limited.

I haven't heard of one doing that, and I'm not sure what would go wrong in the trans that would cause that noise with no other symptoms. Clunking with the truck completely stopped makes me think it's not U joints, suspension, or a bad engine or trans mount, and only clunking in park or neutral does suggest it's somewhere in the trans. Fluid level and condition look alright? Does it drive normally apart from the noise? Reverse still works? Does it sound any angrier while you're accelerating than it does when you're stopped in drive? Is it worse in one gear than another? When you turn the ignition on, with the E-AT switch on "auto," does the light in that switch flash/flicker several times? That's how it codes for faults. IIRC it can only see electrical faults, so I'd be surprised if it had any idea what was going on, but it's worth checking on the off chance. If it is flashing, check the AT section of the FSM (get it here) for an explanation of how to read the code and what it means. Has the engine or trans been out recently? Maybe a long shot, but I'm wondering if your torque converter bolts might be loose. I've heard of loose converter bolts making noises mistaken for engine knock.

One of the options for a 3" rear lift on these are the front springs from a V8 Grand Cherokee (I've read 93-98, haven't looked into it myself though) with the pigtails cut off. I think there was also a Ford front spring that people used? Either donor should have aftermarket springs available, and those aftermarket springs might have their spring rates listed or available. This thread has some spring rate numbers for the WJ springs, might be a place to start. Sounds like they give more lift than most people need, which might be just what you're after. Does look like people have used the WJ springs on R50s as well, so, yeah, that may open up the Land Rover option as well.

Nope, no misfires, at least not that I remember. I wouldn't be surprised if a heavy application (or the heat soak stuff) made it hard to start and stumbly until it burned off, but I'd expect it to clear up pretty quick once it's running unless the dislodged schmoo fouls a plug or something. I like the idea of the CRC. The more time it has to work, the more I'd expect it to actually do something. I'd definitely change the oil after that one though.

I'll have to keep an eye out for those Yota jacks, that's pretty nice. The screw/bottle jack in my '93 will just barely get the wheel off the ground if you put it in the right place. Clearly a minimum-viable sort of thing.

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.