Slartibartfast

You can get the full service manual here, which should have the torque spec listed on the exploded diagram. Probably in the EM section somewhere. I did mine up to the old German spec, gutentite. Check your battery terminals too.

If it's just a low-voltage code, I'd just clear it and see if it comes back. The ECU might've just gotten pissed off when you replaced the battery.

Generally people recommend keeping the injectors matched. Mine's got five blue dots and one black dot (or the other way around, don't remember) and it doesn't seem to care. And yeah, brakestand it with someone watching the engine and see if it lifts up off its mounts. Should be pretty obvious if it's got a bad mount. Some people reinforce stock mounts with a chain from top to bottom to limit how far the mount can pull apart (preventing the rubber from separating or keeping the mount mostly together if it does). Rugged Rocks has heavy-duty mounts if you want something stronger than stock without modification. IIRC they're stiffer than the stock mounts, so you may notice a little more vibration getting transmitted to the frame/body. If your mounts are shot, check your air intake tube while you're in there. It may rip if it's the only thing besides gravity holding the engine down.

There's probably a thread on the Bob Is The Oil Guy forum going into detail about why/whether the high-mileage is better, if you're curious. I'm running a Valvoline high-mileage blend in mine because it was cheap and I figured why not. I don't expect it to fix my oil leaks, make me more attractive to women, or bring peace to the middle east, but the oil did seem a bit cleaner than usual the last time I changed it, so maybe the synthetic part is doing some good.

Oh, that does not look pleasant. At least you got a good story out of it! When I was a kid, my dad and I went fishing at a lake in the middle of nowhere. His 2WD pickup (old square-body Chevy if I remember right) got stuck on the ramp, though thankfully it didn't slide in. There was no getting it out, and I don't think my dad had a cell phone, so we said screw it and fished until somebody else showed up to use the ramp and pulled us out.

If your hydraulic rear brakes are drums, the e-brake uses the same set of shoes, so they won't do much if your rear brakes aren't adjusted properly. If you're got rear disks, they've got little drums built into them, and those also need adjustment to work properly. I've got rear disks on mine and didn't know about the adjusters on the little brakes at first, so when adjusting the cable didn't do much, I figured the shoes were whupped and took it apart to replace them. The old ones looked about the same as the new ones, so I left them there, put it back together, adjusted both sides, and then adjusted the cable, and now it grabs hard enough to stop the truck... or get the rear end sideways when it snows and I feel the need to act like a teenager.

I used an impact on my crank bolt (to remove and to reinstall). If you don't have an impact, you'll need to come up with some way of holding the crank while you loosen the bolt. If you've got a manual trans, you can put it in gear to hold it. If you've got an auto trans, you might be able to pull the starter and wedge something against the flywheel. I've heard of putting a breaker bar on the crank bolt, bracing it against something, and bumping the starter to loosen the bolt, but I haven't tried that one myself. To get the cam bolts out, I welded up an F-shaped tool that slides into two of the sprocket holes and has a long handle, and used that to hold each sprocket still while I removed it, and then again when I retorqued them. You can also use your old timing belt and a pair of vise grips to hold the sprockets like a strap wrench. Make sure you don't mix them up. PB's helpful when you've got rusty/dirty threads, especially when they're exposed (back side of a nut for example), but in this case I'd be surprised if it made it way to the threads with the bolt head in the way. Might be a good idea when it comes to pulling the balancer, though, if it's reluctant to slide off. I bought a duck's foot style puller for mine and it worked great. To get my seals out, I took a long straight-blade screwdriver, heated the end, and beat it into a hook shape, kinda like a paint can opener. I sanded the outside of the bend with fine sandpaper to prevent scratching the sealing surfaces, then worked the tip in between the sealing surface of the cam or crank and the seal lip. A little grease on the end wouldn't be a bad idea either. Once it's past, swing the handle to hook the seal, and pull. You might need to work your way around the seal and pull in a few different spots before it'll come free. I like to put a big socket on the screwdriver shaft before I stick it in and bang that against the handle like a slide hammer to help break the seal free. There's probably a proper tool, but this worked for me. I've heard of drilling a hole in the seal, threading in a screw, and pulling it out that way, but I couldn't get a hole started and didn't want to slip and garf something. You can press the new seals in with an appropriately sized socket. I didn't have one of those so I pushed them in with a nut driver, working around the seal and pushing a little at a time. I like to put a little oil on the sealing surface before pushing them in, both to make them a little easier to get on there and to make sure they don't run dry when you first start the engine. Make sure they've got the right side out. Also note how far the old ones are pushed in so you know when to stop. I reused my woodruff key. They're not supposed to wear out. My understanding is that they waller out if you leave the crank bolt loose, leaving the key as the only thing transmitting torque. This is the writeup I used when I did mine.

The geometry of the trailing arms does have an effect on how the suspension moves. The uppers are shorter than the lowers, so the axle housing rotates a bit as the suspension cycles (like how camber changes with ride height in an IFS). This also means that when you apply torque to the axle, the suspension pushes it up or down. If it's set up right, the rear suspension effectively firms up when you get on the gas, preventing the back of the truck from squatting. This is called anti-squat (creative name, right?). Messing with the angles of the links would change the effect somewhat; whether it would be enough to matter on an SAS'd truck on 40s, I don't know (and it's not like your rear suspension angles were stock to begin with). I'd be more concerned about the extended axle brackets or the upper links hitting the body when the suspension is compressed.

Mine makes a noise like that from the back when it's hot outside. Tracked it down to the check valve for the fuel tank (prevents fuel draining out through the evap system if the truck rolls over). Replaced it on my '95 and the new one did it too, so I haven't bothered doing anything about it on my '93. I'm not sure where the check valve is for the R50.

I keep wondering when mine's gonna do something like that. The HA section of the '95 service manual (you can download the whole thing here if you haven't yet) has troubleshooting for the auto HVAC starting on HA-55. Scroll down a bit and there are diagrams of the circuits and where everything's hidden. Unfortunately I'm not seeing much about heat in there, but it might help you figure out what you're looking at, anyway. As for easy to get to, I tried to open up my HVAC box apart when I had my dash out, and found that the piping for the evaporator was not going to let it come out unless I discharged the system and unhooked the lines (which I didn't want to do at the time). There may be a trick to it that I don't know, but I screwed around with it for a while and succeeded only in screwing up the foam seal between the case halves. Looks like the actuators are on the outside of the box, so if that's what's gone out, hopefully it's not too difficult to get into. I opened up one of the servos in mine when I had the dash out, just to see what it looked like inside, and it looked fairly straightforward; you might get away with just cleaning/bending some wipers depending on what's worn out. I keep threatening to convert mine to the cable setup, but that project's pretty low on my list right now.

The BPT valve is supposed to tweak the EGR operation based on the backpressure in the exhaust, regulator sort of deal. I'm not sure how much it actually does. I had a hell of a time finding an EGR valve with the right fitting for the BPT for my '95, ended up getting a used one IIRC. And yeah, getting the cat warm before you go in should help, I've heard of people taking a rig out and just running the hell out of it to get it good and warm before bringing it in to give the cat a fighting chance. Good luck!

I think I've seen solid axle swaps done with coilovers. I don't think you'll get them to fit past the CV axles and the upper control arms of the IFS, though.

The console in my '95 always wiggled and rattled. Also the latch was broken, so the lid would pop open at random while I was driving, which was fun. IIRC I beat the sheet metal around the plastic inserts flat again and replaced them with spares left over from replacing my front corner lights (different clips but I think they fit), but I don't remember it fixing the problem. Maybe it worked for a day or so until I elbowed it by accident and it loosened up again. If you can get to the mounting holes from underneath (they go through the floor) without too much trouble, I'd be inclined to just use nuts and bolts with washers as big as you can get away with to spread the load. The center console was not one of Nissan's better designs. I junked the console in my '93 and built one from scrap metal and an ammo can. No rattles, real cupholders, no stupid plastic clips.

Best to make your own thread for unrelated questions. Condition after 300k will depend mostly on maintenance. The manual transmissions are pretty stout, only common issue is bearing damage if they're not overfilled per the TSB on that (or synchros if filled with the wrong stuff). Engine may be a little tired or dead clapped out, again, depends on how it was treated.. Suspension will probably need work. Check the frame over the rear axle for rot.

Yeah, that alty's seen some leakage, but I doubt anything inside would mind except for the brushes, and it looks like most of the crud is on the outside of the case. I'd get the belt off, make sure the bearings aren't worn out, then wire-brush the loose stuff off the bottom if it bugs you and check it once the engine's back together to make sure it's charging. I've heard auto parts stores will bench test them for you, might be worth a try if you're concerned. The color gradient on the rockers is pretty normal. The PCV system pulls fresh air into one valve cover, through the crankcase, and out through other valve cover, so one side gets a constant supply of fresh air and the other gets a constant supply of blow-by gasses and other crap coming out of the crankcase. Mine looked about the same IIRC. The connectors are a bit weird, but honestly not that tough to get apart once you pop the C clip out (assuming they're the same ones Nissan used on the WD21). Other cars I've worked on (looking at you, Audi and Ford) have much dumber connectors. Good luck harvesting injectors!

I think he meant the trailing arms, not the swaybar end links.

Had a look at the TSB and it does specify 4WD only. Given the difference in fluid capacity, I assume the 2WD trans has a different case--hopefully Nissan got the fluid capacity right on that gearbox the first time.

Rear end failures aren't common in these but it is possible. I'd want to confirm the noise (rear axle jacked up, front wheels chocked, turn the driveshaft by hand and listen) before digging into it, or just drain the oil and see if it's got metal in it. I'd expect the oil to be darker if a bearing is trying to cook itself, unless it was changed recently by someone looking to quiet the noise. You could try rotating the tires to see if the vibration moves around, but I'm not sure how an out-of-balance wheel would heat up the diff. IIRC the rear third member from an '01 Xterra had a tighter LSD than what's in the R50. Might be a good upgrade if you can find one with the right gear ratio. Later Xterras had very weak LSDs, as did later R50s.

If you're running an auto trans, put a cooler on it.

Hope it works!

That is odd. Yeah, must've been some vibration they were trying to quiet. Unless the new exhaust has a buzz or something, it's probably not necessary, though I would be curious to hear why Nissan bothered with it.

If you like the color, go for it. You're not taking an R50 to the Pebble Beach Concours, right? I've got Buick and Volvo paint on my Triumph project.

Yeah, the dimples aren't exact, and the count is right, so you should be good there. Have you tried adjusting the timing by turning the distributor while it's running? Do you have a timing light? Hopefully it's something simple, sounds like you've already ruled out the worst. If changing the timing makes no difference, I'd check any sensors or other wiring you disturbed while digging into the timing, especially the coolant temp sensor.

Had a look at the service manual and it doesn't look like you're gonna find both turn signal wires in one place unless you go all the way up to the dash. The wires to the rear turn signals separate into the left and right body harnesses and run separately to the tail lights. Some vehicles have everything together in one convenient harness, but this ain't one of them. Just run a wire under the trim at the back of the cargo area.

EL-245 of the '97 manual (you've got the VG33, right? I always forget the cutoff for that) shows the fuel pump relay in the fuse box by the passenger's strut tower in the engine bay. There are three relays, a fuse link, and some blade fuses in there. The fuel pump relay is the closest one to the stud for what I assume is the battery terminal. (I also had a look at the '03 for the hell of it, and apparently Nissan moved it way back by the driver's tail light on those.) If that's not it, pull up the EL section of the correct manual on Nico, scroll way down to the "electrical units location" section, and that should show where they've hidden it on yours.