Slartibartfast

What part did you get that didn't work? This one is listed for all VG30/VG33 trucks, but I don't see one shown for the VQ35 trucks (not sure which one you've got). Worst case, how bad is it broken? Do you know anyone who can weld aluminum?

You mentioned you have an FSM, do you have the '89 or the '94/'95 from Nico? I've got an '89 manual PDF I can hook you up with if you need it. That's about all the help I am on TBIs unfortunately. +1 on checking that the timing belt hasn't slipped.

Looks good! I'm surprised you found another one that color, I don't know if I've ever seen a red R50 in person.

Wouldn't hurt to try rotating your tires, maybe check the brakes before assuming it is in fact a bearing. I've got one going on my '93, or at least I'm 90% sure that's what it is. It doesn't change with load, so it's not ring and pinion or U joints, or with braking, so it's not the brakes, but it does get angrier when I'm turning right. Mine doesn't start making noise until I approach highway speed, or maybe I just don't hear it until the trans hits overdrive. I tried jacking up the rear end (with the fronts chocked) and turning the wheels by hand to see if I could hear/feel a bad bearing, but the limited slip made this difficult and I couldn't tell for sure if what I was feeling was the bearing or something else. You may have better luck with this test if your bearings are bad enough to make noise at lower speeds. The service manual makes rear bearing replacement look like a whole lot of fun requiring a press and a special spline wrench. I'm considering picking up some shafts (or a whole axle) from the wreckers and just swapping the offending bearing/shaft assembly for now, then possibly rebuilding the old one later as an exercise in "how hard could it be."

The MAF connector is a common trouble point on these, possibly because they get reefed on when people check the air filter. Recently mine started having a stumble just off-idle. Breathe on the throttle and it would try to die, but then catch itself. I found that pressing on the MAF connection cleared it up, so I unplugged it, tweaked the female pins in the plug to tighten them up a little, and stuck it back together. Good so far.

I think it's catalytic converters wreckers aren't allowed to sell. You can buy used airbags on eBay, so I don't see why a yard couldn't sell you one. You might also look for a private party parting one out. I'm not familiar with the R50 or its plumbing, but it shouldn't be too hard to follow one end of the pipe to what it connects to. I'd hazard a guess at aircon, given where it is and where it looks like it's going, but it could also be the transmission cooler or the power steering.

I'm not sure why your TX10A would've made clicking noises in 4H with no CVs. I've run mine in 4LO with the hubs unlocked many times (great for backing trailers) and haven't heard any unusual noises from it. I had a look at the TF section of the '03 manual and it looks like the system's response may vary by what options the truck has, because the trucks without VDC get front end speed info from the front revolution sensor on the transfer case, and the VDC trucks get that signal from the VDC/TCS/ABS actuator, which I assume gets it from the wheel speed sensors. This might explain why some people have more trouble with blinking lights and pissed-off computers. I don't know what auto mode with the hubs unlocked would do with either setup (and I wouldn't want to be the first pig through that chute), but I don't think I've ever heard of someone's ATX14A actually blowing up because the hubs weren't locked.

The listing for a new aftermarket MC should specify if it's for disks or drums. They're identical externally as near as I can tell. The part that's different between them (the proportioning valve) is internal.

+1 for the snap ring pliers, I've done it without and it's much easier with. And yes, make sure you've got any seals you'll need, and think about the order you're putting stuff together in so you don't put the seal on and then realize the bearing doesn't fit through it. You can use a hammer and a brass drift to pop out the old races. I didn't need the impact screwdriver when I did mine, but the screws were so chewed up already that I replaced them while I was in there.

The service manual for your year should have that circuit and mechanism laid out, hopefully well enough that you can see what to unplug or how to get past whatever the PO did to it to blow the drains out. If the silicone leaks, and the drains are still blocked, you've got a lovely little cavity for rust to fester and rot your roof out. I didn't know the R50s still had wind-up antennas! Should be easy enough to unplug the actuator inside the fender, or there may be a separate power antenna amp like there is on the WD21. Again, service manual's your friend here.

I hooked my cooler up in line with the stock one. Unless you're working with an R51 (they had crap coolers that broke and dumped coolant into the transmission), or you've had a trans fail and fill the stock cooler with gunk and you don't want to replace the rad, I'd leave it in.

Generally you test injectors for resistance, not voltage. If your meter shows no continuity between the injector pins, either the injector itself is bad or there's a break in the wiring between the injector and the computer. If you do have continuity, compare the resistance against what's spec'd in the manual. If that doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll pull out my '89 manual and see what I can work out. I haven't stared too much at the TBI troubleshooting because I don't have one, but the FSM's usually pretty good about laying out how to test stuff like this.

Yeah, it seems like the front end shouldn't be doing much with the hubs unlocked. I've found that my hubs do have a little bit of drag when they're unlocked, which could still be trying to turn stuff, but yeah, that shouldn't be transferring enough energy to do much. I'd be tempted to test it with the transfer unplugged, to rule out the computer doing stupid things, but I don't know the ATX14A well enough to guess at how it would behave without power. I like the camera idea, hopefully that'll give you a better idea of what you're up against.

Looks like you've got plenty of light going forward already. Maybe two facing sideways for work lights and two backwards for reverse lights? I've got aux reverse lights on mine and they're a massive improvement over what it came with. I've got mine wired to come on with the stock reverse lights, but if you go that way, make sure you've got a kill switch for when you're driving around town so you don't blind everyone behind you.

Shouldn't be anything spraying from the pan. Oil filter leaking maybe? Nothing else on that side that I'm aware of. If you can't figure it out, clean it as well as you can, drive it, and check it to see what's wet again.

Don't remember if I asked before (may have been on a different thread), did you check the mounts for the front diff? Someone on here had those go bad and the diff would **** around when it was loaded, putting the U joint at a weird angle, which caused a vibration. If your bushings are completely flogged, the diff flopping around could explain the noise coming and going. Hopefully it's something like that rather than something going out in the transfer case. If you haven't yet, you might just do a drain/fill on that to see if it changes anything. It's a completely different beast of course, but the manual transfer in my '95 quit sticking in 4HI after I changed the fluid. Looks better with the bumper shell back on!

Also these computers aren't very perceptive. The only time I've gotten a code out of mine was when there was a literal rat's nest stuffed into the MAF sensor. I've chased idle issues, stumbles, and misfires that the computer never noticed. I had no idea the earlier ones didn't come with a CEL. Maybe it wasn't a federal requirement yet? If it functions normally when you add a bulb to it, I'll bet you could letter the square yourself, have it display "danger to manifold" or something.

Hey, at least you got it in the end! The CEL should come on if you turn the key on without starting the engine. Mine's at the far left, second from the top I think, but mine's a '93 (special one-year-only cluster for some reason). If you can't find it, pull the cluster, pull the bulbs out of the back, and shine a flashlight through the holes to illuminate the various idiot lights until you find the one you're after. I find the '90 manual from cardiagn covers my '93 better than the '94/'95 manuals do. I'd still like to find a dedicated '93 manual at some point, but not enough to pay what paper copies go for when they show up.

The pictures aren't working. Gator skin headliner sounds... entertaining? Unique for sure. I keep trying to talk one of my friends into using shag carpet for a headliner so it'll feel like he's driving an anemone. I made a shift boot out of an air mattress for my transfer case. It would've looked pretty good if I hadn't used the part of the mattress with the inflation instructions printed on it.

I wouldn't call it the pick of the litter, but for $500, you did good! You're not missing much with the LSD, by '03 Nissan had dumbed them down so far that they have less breakaway torque than what the lug nuts take. The first couple years of Xterra had better LSDs that I'm told will bolt right in, provided you match the gear ratios (or take the opportunity to swap both diffs to the 4.6 ratio if you're planning to run larger tires). The LSDs can also be rebuilt to higher specs if you're willing to tear the rear end all to bits. If you're not in a hurry to lift it, these guys are working on a subframe drop kit, though they're not cranking them out yet. The electronic transfer case is too complicated for my tastes and requires special care if you run manual hubs (like Kiwi said), but they seem to hold up alright, and they actually have a lower low-range ratio than the standard box (2.596 vs 2.020). My dad had an '03. It was comfortable, had plenty of power, and handled well, but the electronic throttle body was a bit laggy and the engine burned a ton of oil (not an uncommon problem on early VQs). It smoked like hell on warm starts, otherwise you'd have no idea it was burning oil until it ran out, so keep an eye on the dipstick. Hopefully yours is in better shape. If you've got the auto trans, you should pull the intake apart and Loctite the power valve screws as well, they tend to back out and fall in. Before you start throwing mods at it, take it out, see what it's got, see if you like it. If you do, see what it struggles with and start upgrading there. There's lots of good info here and some nicely built-up rigs to get ideas from.

Looks like it's this critter. Good thing you're only missing one, they're proud of them. Hopefully the missing one is actually gone and not snapped off inside. If you end up needing a few of them, let me know, I think I've still got the bolts from mine.

Good to hear it's going again! The T-bars can be a bit of a pain. Adjust them a little at a time once you're in the ballpark, it's easy to over/undershoot because the suspension settles a little (set, drive, check, reset). I kept a log going of which adjuster I moved how much, and what measurement that gave, which served as a sanity check if nothing else. Make sure you have jackstands under the frame while adjusting the bars, I don't think it's common but IIRC somebody on the FB page stripped the adjuster and just about dropped the truck on himself. When a friend and I dropped the bars out of his S10, we spray painted the adjusters on both sides to mark where they were before so we could put them back in the same place afterwards. Saved us a whole lot of trouble. Little late for yours, though!

#1, could be a worn starter, could be crap connections. I'd try hotwiring it (wire straight from the battery terminal on the starter to the spade to the ignition switch) and see how it likes that. If it's still janky, and it's not the wiring, that leaves the starter; if it's fine like that, it might be the ignition switch (which is surprisingly easy to replace). You might also try tightening up the female side of that spade connector on the off chance it's just loose. #2, yeah, hopefully just a cable adjustment thing. #3, if you've got no driveshaft in it, you're spinning up the transmission's innards and then throwing it into park. That's like putting it in park while the truck's still moving. I'd be surprised if it didn't make bad noises. You did flush or replace the cooler since pulling the old dead trans, right? Don't want to get chunks of dead trans inside your good one. An external filter's not a bad idea either, I've got a Magnefine on mine to hopefully capture whatever wear material was left after my trans flush.

I don't know if this is in any way relevant, but the transmission in my '93 buzzes when the battery is low. I have no idea why. I remember the buzz starting/stopping with throttle position when the battery voltage was just on the edge of making noise. I'm not familiar with the R50 but I'd verify battery voltage, then check voltage at the computer. Maybe you've got some green crusties in a fuse link or something reducing the voltage to the computer?

That doesn't look terrible, but I'd want to take a close look at the fuel/brake lines and around the strut towers. Have a look at the pictures here to see where the towers rot, and marvel at the horrorshow of hack repair that Nissan wanted their dealers to do. Some R50s also had rust issues with the fuel filler, but it looks like they may have figured that out by the time they made yours. Unless you're going to clean the holy hell out of everything first, I don't think any paint will stick properly, and paint that doesn't stick just traps more moisture. An oily coating wouldn't be a bad idea. One guy I watch on Youtube uses bar and chain oil cut with thinner so it sprays more easily.