Slartibartfast

+1 on the lawyer screwing this up. The title shouldn't be "Michigan court rules lug nuts don't need to be tightened," it should be "Michigan idiot tries to eat soup with a fork."

You're gonna have to take your fence down to get that out of there! Holy crap that thing is wide.

The X diff will work (and the first couple years of Xterra got a better LSD than the R50 did, which is supposed to swap right in), but the X housing is different because the Xterra went back to leaf springs for some reason. Weird that the noise would go away for a bit after messing with the brakes. Surely a bearing wouldn't calm down briefly because you messed with the brakes. Like the brakes are self-adjusting into the drum or something? If you do end up swapping the axle I'd be interested to see what's inside the old one, if it really is roached.

Forgot to mention the "don't drop it on your toes" part! I can relate on the trailer hitch. I did that at a gas station once and swore loud enough to make the guys at the next pump look uncomfortable. You may need to replace some seals before putting the axle back together if you do take it apart. Again I'd want to rule out the brake first (maybe wearing steel-toed shoes this time!) just to be sure you're not stepping over the easy thing to do the hard job first. Doesn't sound like it's got anything to do with the ring and pinion if it's just coming from the one side. I'd be surprised if the incorrect/worn out link caused much trouble apart from handling and noise, like you said. Maybe the link hammering back and forth could've damaged the brackets, but I'd be surprised if you caused any serious damage that way unless you were really beating the hell out of it. As far as I can see on Rockauto, the left/right arms look about the same, just slightly different brackets, so I doubt having two right arms would've caused damage, probably just made the E-brake cable or whatever hooks onto there more difficult to work with.

So the misfire went away after messing with the plug wires?

I'm not familiar with an HG4B code. Should be HG46 or HG43. I'd expect 46 if you've got the auto trans. LSD oil does indicate limited slip. Before assuming it's the bearing, take the brake drum off and run your noise test again to make sure you're not mistaking a brake noise for a bearing noise.

I can't think of a way the trans could cause a misfire. Maybe if it was slipping it could feel like a misfire. The torque converter lockup clutch in a friend's CRV seized up a while back (at least that's what we assume it was, the trans guy who fixed it said the converter was all burned up) and it juddered like hell if you stopped with it in gear, but that felt less like a misfire and more like the car was shaking itself to death. It also went away in neutral or park IIRC. Look for pending codes, see if you've got any weird fuel trims. Might be able to watch for misfires in real time. If it's a real nice scanner with a scope you might be able to check out the wave form for the position sensor and/or knock sensor and see if you notice the signal doing anything weird when the misfire acts up (assuming it doesn't clear up completely when you have the scope plugged in, then act up again on the drive home). And one stupid thought... does it misfire more when it's wet? How old are the plug wires? No idea on the noise, that's just weird. Crawl underneath and see if there's some masking paper that you missed?

#whyarewespeakinginhashtags #ohgoditsgotmetoo #sendhelp

Seems like the engine would've overheated long before the trans had issues with rad blocked off. Wouldn't hurt to check the fluid, though. Unless the paper had spikes on it I doubt it damaged the cooler. Odd that it would be misfiring and not coding. If you have a scanner that can show pending codes, give that a go, it might be waiting for a certain number of misses before it bothers telling you anything. The wind noise is odd, especially if it happened after you removed the paper. Fan clutch maybe?

^That's where I'd start. The reverse lights are switched by the inhibitor switch on the transmission, which is also what prevents the starter from engaging if you're not in park or neutral. That switch is also what controls the PRNDL display on the dash, if yours has that. Is that display working? Looks like there's a 10A fuse for the inhibitor, I'd check that first in case your aux lights or a wiring fault overloaded that circuit. When I wired aux reverse lights on mine, I went full overkill with a relay and a fused power lead. That way the inhibitor switch is passing very little additional current (only what the relay coil takes), and if my wiring or the cheap Chinese LEDs short out and pop a fuse, they can't take anything important with them.

So you tapped into a random 12v switched wire in the engine bay for the fan controller? Or to run the fan directly? The fan takes a fair whack of power, so no surprise if that fried some other circuit that wasn't designed to handle that much extra load. I'd be more surprised if just a controller nuked something, but I guess that depends on what you tapped into. Pull up the EL section of the manual, find the wire you tapped, and figure out where it goes. It's tough to say what would've popped without knowing which circuit you overloaded. If it goes to the ECU, pull the ECU and check that it's getting power (the EL section should have the ecu plug pinout and tell you which pins to check for power and ground). If it's getting power but not communicating, that's not a good sign for the ECU. If the ECU isn't getting power, figure out where it gets power from and check that next. Also, how did you tap into the wire? If you cut it, make sure it's back together. If you used one of those Scotchlock suitcase connectors, make sure the conductor's not broken inside the insulation.

You can download the factory service manual here. The EL section is your friend. Unfortunately you may need to do some squinting and cross-referencing between the wiring harness layout and the actual diagram to work out which wires within the harness go where.

I wouldn't call it common but it's not unique, either. A wrecking yard's probably your best bet for the engine unless you find someone parting one out.

It sounds like you're closing in on the problem. The blower and stereo should both be on the dash harness, but the wiring for the blower shouldn't have anything to do with the door harness you're messing with. If it's shorting something out enough to take power away from the blower, it should be popping fuses or smoking something else. My guess is that you've got a loose or screwed-up connection in the driver's kick panel area, and moving that door harness is wiggling that bad connection. Looks like there are some body grounds in there as well. I'd give all of that a good look for loose/melted/corroded connections before digging into the whole dash. The Arizona heat may be harder on wiring than what I'm used to, but I'd be surprised if the wiring was brittle and falling apart just from wiggling it. The wiring on my '93 is still entirely usable.

Looks like you may have to swap more than just the intake, but it is doable. Loctite the power valve screws while you've got it apart.

Make sure you loctite the power valve screws while you put it back together, they're known for dropping into the VQ engines and causing problems. Also, the EM section of the service manual (which you can download from here if you haven't) should have all the procedures/torque specs/etc you need for the rebuild. Good luck!

Good luck! One other thing, is yours auto or manual? If it's auto, that might complicate things slightly, as '87 had a three-speed and the rest had four-speeds. I don't know if the MPFI computer and harness would work with the three-speed trans computer. I also don't know that they wouldn't.

This is a multiport swap from an Infiniti, this is a multiport swap from a Z31. Not sure why I haven't seen a thread of someone swapping in the 90+ WD21 MPFI. These might give you some idea of what you're up against, though, and what results to expect. The easy way would be to get an MPFI donor that you could strip of its intake manifold, air filter box, wiring harness (that'll be the fun part), computer, and any other bits and pieces you end up needing as you get into it. You don't need to swap the engine itself unless the old one's whupped. There may be a small difference in the head castings on older VGs (no idea what the cutoff was on that), but I'd expect the MPFI to run just fine on a VG30I either way.

If you have to drop both bars, make sure you label them so they don't get mixed up. And if you can, mark where the adjusters were to save yourself some time when you go to reassemble them! I haven't removed mine but have adjusted them, and getting the truck sitting how I wanted it took some screwing around. When a friend and I dropped the bars on his Blazer, we shot a little paint at the adjusters before taking them apart, which gave us a witness mark of where the adjuster was to begin with (and, because we used two colors of paint, which side the components came from). As always the service manual has diagrams & procedures that can help you figure out where things unplug and how things are supposed to come apart.

I like Great Mistake, hadn't heard that one. We're pretty sure the "LS" trim badge is short for "Leaking Something."

BR-41 in the '97 manual shows the circuit diagram. Looking at the diagram, it doesn't look like the ABS control unit could cause this problem if it wanted to. Its power supply is switched by the ignition, and its only other possible source of power is through the brake light switch. It controls the motor through a relay (looks like there are two relays in a unit right next to the ABS motor, there's a drawing of that on BR-40), which connects the motor to its own fused line off the battery. I'm guessing you pulled that 30A fuse link to stop the motor. Unplug the relay unit and check for continuity across the contacts of the motor relay. If you've got continuity through the motor relay, the contacts are welded together and the relay is toast.

Usually those type of plugs come apart without too much screwing around. Try jamming a small screwdriver between the tab and the other half of the plug and pushing down on the plastic connecting the tab to the catch. That should release the catch and give you some leverage to pry the male end out if it's stuck for some other reason. I'd be surprised if the dash drew enough current to melt stuff, but it might if it's popping fuses. The color coding on the wires matches the PDF as far as I can tell, and the neat ends on the wires make me think it's either original or a very well-done repair part rather than a home hackjob. Looks like the regulator in yours is mounted upside down vs the one in the PDF due to the construction of the heat sink, which would explain the blue and yellow wires appearing reversed. If you're not sure, power it up and check for 12v at one wire and 8v at the other. While the dash is out, you could try replacing the fuse and turning the key on to see if it pops again. If it does, you know the problem is elsewhere. Maybe that's what that crap was! I helped a friend swap the trans in his S10 this summer and we couldn't figure out why one of the plugs wouldn't let go, or what the brown crap inside was when it finally did. Sounds about right for the engineers who managed to design a truck that leaks ATF into the ashtray.

That's quite the hook on your cherry picker! Looks like it's coming along.

AFAIK engine wear and low oil pressure don't generally heat the whole engine, just whichever bearing(s) get the short end of the oil supply, and they don't suffer in silence for long. On an engine that's overheating but not obviously beating itself to death, I'd expect retarded ignition timing, restricted airflow, or a fault with the cooling system rather than a lube issue. I'd be concerned for the trans if it was making enough heat to overwhelm the engine's cooling system, but adding a cooler to the system certainly won't hurt anything. The only time I've had mine overheat was going up a tight windy mountain pass in 100°+ weather with the aircon blasting. Pulling over or turning off the aircon got the temp back down in a hurry, though like OSB said, running the heater is also a good way to dump some engine heat if you need to.

PD-84 of the '00 X FSM shows a 4.3 ratio LSD offered. The '02 manual only shows 4.6 and 4.9 rear ends available, so '00-'01 is probably what you're after (and the '01 manual suggests you'll only find 4.3 gears in a manual trans donor, so good luck). Haven't checked on the Fronty but I'd expect a similar story. Hawairish compiled a table here of breakaway torque for various years. Looks like there wasn't really a good year for the R50 LSD, though they did get worse for '03-'04. Also IIRC the R50 rear end is 33-spline, for whatever that's worth.