Slartibartfast

Dust in the dizzy could mean the distributor bearings are going out. Not an uncommon fault and it will cause problems. If you remove the distributor (mark where it was set first!) and spin the shaft, you should be able to tell if the bearings are going.

Did you check the fuses with a meter, or just visually? Check around the + battery terminal, looks like there's some kind of multi-fuse arrangement right on the terminal that you might've missed. Also check your wiring before just replacing the fuse, if it blew one it'll likely blow another until you find the problem. I'd pull up the manual on Nicoclub and see if the electrical section gives any clues as to where the little blighter is, but their archive seems to be down at the moment. All their links are taking me to the Xterra index for some reason.

The felt pads in my airbox were excellent nesting material for a rat, until the little guy took a wrong turn on his way out of the truck, got stuck in the resonator box in the fender, and died. While I had the fender off to remove what by then resembled King Tut, I mounted a heavy screen over the air intake to keep future rodents the hell out of my airbox. I don't notice much noise from the intake without the pads, though now that I think about it I did have an annoying whistle at idle when I put it back together. Turned out to be a ridge in the rubber where the line to the idle air valves met the intake pipe, or at least that's what I modified that shut it up. Not sure if I put something back together a little wonky or if that's the noise the pads were supposed to absorb. It's been a while since I had my airbox out but I'm pretty sure the intake for the carbon can has its own separate intake in the wheel well.

You'll find a lot of lift kit info in old threads if you poke around. You might try 4x4parts or Rugged Rocks. I've heard little to recommend Calmini's customer service and can't afford their prices anyway. You'll also need to beef up your steering linkage to deal with the lift. Bumper options are mostly roll-your-own at this point. ARB used to make a front bumper, but they're expensive if you can find them. KMA or TAG or whatever they're called this week made Pathy bumpers, no idea if whoever took that over does anymore. If you find a bumper for a Hardbody pickup, you'll need to modify the brackets to make it work on a Pathfinder. Many WD21s came stock with a spare holder that's actually pretty stout. They can be fitted to a truck that didn't come with one, if you get the bolt plates that go inside the fender and don't mind doing some screwing around to make them work. I'm not sure I've seen an aftermarket roof rack strictly for these. Some people have adapted the stock Xterra roof rack to fit. Others come up with mounts for universal racks, or, again, fab their own. I've seen some pretty good-looking racks made from EMT conduit.

Well, that sucks. Not surprising Nissan wants nothing to do with it. They aren't known for owning up to their mistakes, let alone fixing them. Again, given how half-assed their "repair" procedure is, IMO you're better off doing it yourself anyway. Cut out the rotten area, cut a patch panel to fit into the hole, then butt weld it in there, followed by seam sealer, primer, and undercoat. Just slapping a patch over the rotten metal leaves a cavity that'll collect more dirt and moisture and keep the party going. I'm guessing you want this to be a permanent fix, not a band-aid. Probably a good idea to drape a welder's blanket or wet towel or something over the CV axle so you don't burn holes in your CV boots. Also obviously make sure there isn't a wiring harness, fuel line, brake line, etc on the other side of the metal before you cut and weld, that could make for a bad day. Given that it's structural, if you aren't sure of your welding skills or the best way to go about this, talk to a welder or a body shop and see how they'd tackle it.

Looks to me like the rust started between the panels where they overlap. It's tough to protect metal when it's sandwiched together like that. Dirt and water wick in between and the seam rots from the inside out, and the rust that forms is bigger than the steel was, so it forces the seam apart. Seam sealer might've helped, at least for a while. I don't know where Nissan did or didn't put seam sealer on the R50s, but I don't see evidence of sealer in the pictures above. Engine heat and bracket placement probably didn't help, but IMO having an unprotected lap joint in a wheel arch was always going to cause problems.

First I'd heard of that too! They're new enough that I'd expect the computer and the smog equipment to be a right pain to work with. I wasn't able to find any dimensions on the engine, but if you find one at an auction or even a dealer that doesn't mind you wasting their time, you could take a few measurements of your own.

That sucks! Having seen the procedure for what Nissan considers a repair, I'd take it to a body shop rather than the dealer if you want an actual repair.

I don't know, but if they do, it would open up all kinds of options (assuming you could find a four-cylinder WD21 to get the rear axle from). If anyone on here knows about the gears it's probably @hawairish. You might also check Ratsun to see what those guys are running for axles and where they get their gears. What's your target for cruising RPM at 70 with the TDI? If you can get anywhere close to the right ballpark with 4.3s, I'd be inclined to keep the stronger axle and avoid the scavenger hunt. Keep in mind though that fifth gear in the manual is about a 0.8:1 overdrive (the '95 manual says 0.862, the '97 says 0.811.) The autotragic's 4th gear is 0.694, so if you're not happy with your cruising RPM in overdrive with the slushbox, looks like you're gonna like it even less with the manual. To find an LSD H233B, look for a big orange sticker on the back of the pumpkin that says LSD oil only. I don't know what those stickers were made of, but the one on my '95 outlived the frame. Definitely get a build thread going when you start the TDI swap, I don't think I've seen that done on one of these yet. Edit: This might help too, though it doesn't answer the question of whether R200 and C200 gears will interchange. Edit again: Actually it does! Helps to actually read stuff, I guess.

Mine had some wonky camber when I got it and the tread was worn more on the inside than the outside, but it was an even fade across the tire. My friend's truck was toed out for a while and chewed up the inner edges of his front tires something awful. I'd expect toe to do the same to both tires. Did you have it aligned after the lift? I wonder if it had an alignment issue before that you hadn't noticed, and the alignment shop happened to switch the left front and right rear.

A visual inspection would not be a bad idea. Look for cracking on the back of the belt and evidence of oil or coolant leaks from the cam/crank seals and water pump. The spec in the manual is around 105k IIRC. I haven't found an age limit from Nissan, but seven years sounds reasonable. Yours is old enough to buy beer. Good luck!

The valve reliefs on some engines are deep enough to make them non-interference. The Pathfinder VG33 is not one of those engines. The valve reliefs and the small cam profile mean the valves don't spend much time in harm's way, so your chances of a piston meeting a valve when the belt fails are lower than they could be with some other interference engines. I've read a few accounts on here of people getting lucky and getting away with just replacing the belt. (Keep in mind though that this definition of "lucky" still has you stranded until you can get it fixed.) If you don't get lucky, and a valve does meet a piston, the valve bends and doesn't seal anymore. When you replace the belt, you'll have no compression in that cylinder. Replacing valves means removing one or both cylinder heads (depending on how many valves are damaged). I got my '93 without a service history and replaced the timing belt myself (using the service manual and this writeup) before I started driving it. If its prior belt changes were done at the recommended service intervals, the one I removed probably had another 10k miles left in it, and it looked okay when I removed it. But I'd much rather do a (comparatively) small job on my schedule and have it over with than have it crap out without warning at a time/place of its choosing, get it towed, and then have to tear it down to a short block to repair it.

At least you got it in the end!

V8Path put an LT1 in a WD21.

^Mr. Reverse pretty well covered it. Check the cap, pressure test the system. I pulled a cap off a friend's car once and found most of the rubber missing. Go figure, the coolant was low, though luckily it hadn't overheated yet. I suspect what you've got is a slow leak, which caused low coolant, which in turn caused the overheating you had before. The idle bump is interesting, but I don't know the R50 idle air system well enough to guess what it might be trying to do.

Best to make a new thread, doesn't seem all that related to this one. Camber and toe can make front tires wear funny. Shouldn't do anything to the rears, though.

I just plug in my ipod. No ads, no touchscreen, no cell reception needed.

My '93 came with the diversity setup. Line in the windshield, power antenna in the fender. My head unit isn't set up for two antennas, so it only uses the one on the fender. Works fine, not that I use it often (radio here sucks too).

I forgot there even was a label on the tire carrier! Been a while since I stripped and painted mine. Found a part number for it here but of course it's discontinued, and they don't have a real picture of it. Label for the 4x4 instructions? Like the card in the driver's visor?

Some weird spikes going on there for sure. Loose wiring maybe? That's a hell of a spike on the MAF. Good to hear the TPS adjustment calmed down the trans issue. I'd check the EF&EC section of the '99 manual on the off chance it explains the different resistance to what you saw in the '96-'98 instructions. (Also thanks for the link--another tech writeup for my hoard! I can stop any time I want to...)

TPS would be my bet, too, especially with that delayed shift. If you haven't yet I'd check it with a scan tool (live data) or a meter (looking for a smooth change in resistance with no bumps/spikes/dead spots). Any trouble codes? Seems like the computer would notice if a solenoid was going out. Hopefully it's not internal. I'm sure you're sick of anything transmission-related at this point.

Probably more trouble than it's worth to take the harness apart and remove it entirely. I'd just push the wiring back against the harness it comes out of and wrap it with electrical tape, if you can access that harness without major surgery. Otherwise, zip-tie it to something else so it doesn't flop around. Insulate the ends if they're cut just so they can't cause new/interesting issues down the line. Out of sight, out of mind, but still there if for some reason you end up needing it again, and one less thing to check if you have electrical issues in the future. And yeah, mine was nasty too. I knocked out most of the crusties and put it back on. EGR's not a bad idea on paper but it's no surprise that hot combustion byproducts leave deposits on (comparatively) cold surfaces and cause problems.

The ABS computer is what the warning light is wired to. No computer, no light. Not like newer rigs where everything talks to everything else and notices when somebody leaves the chat. You can get the service manual here if you haven't yet. Circuit diagrams, component locations, troubleshooting. Doesn't cover the alarm system, annoyingly, but does cover just about everything else.

The alarm system shouldn't be able to cause all that. It's got a cutoff for the starter (or my '93 did at least, my '95 didn't, though it had probably been tampered with), and taps into the marker light circuit, but AFAIK there's no tie-in to the ECU or power windows. May well share a fuse link with that stuff, though. Also in case you didn't know, the other module (the rounded one with the lines) isn't alarm-related, that's the ABS computer.

Sounds like you have a California-emissions truck. What I'd do is look for an ECU from a 90-95 donor with the same transmission and federal emissions. Those two wires on the EGR valve are for the EGR temp sensor (only found on California models only AFAIK), and if that's open or shorted, the computer will throw a code 35 (so no, jumping those won't help). You may be able to fool the computer with a resistor (the manual says the sensor should read about 85k ohms at 212°F), but I wouldn't be surprised if the ECU still threw code 32 (EGR function) afterwards. I'm not sure what all goes into setting code 32. The manual says to check the EGRC solenoid, vac lines, and the valve itself, so my best guess is that the ECU looks for temperature increase/decrease when the valve is opened/closed. Neither of mine have/had EGR temp sensors, so I doubt either would notice the absence of the EGR valve. I haven't done an EGR delete, though, so I can't say firsthand what works. How carbon-choked was the EGR valve when you removed it? Sounds like it might've been stuck open.