Slartibartfast

Yeah, I'll bet snow tires wear quick down there! Sounds like a good plan.

I was thinking just last night about how I need to build a roof rack with access to the sunroof, and then you go and post exactly that! Nice work.

No codes meaning you got a 55, or nothing at all? The color of the plugs might tell you if the problem is too much fuel or not enough. I'd also try unhooking the vac line from the EGR valve to see if the engine runs any differently with that disconnected. The EGRC solenoid on my dad's F150 was seized and the truck barely ran with the EGR open all the time. Also, you say the engine was recently installed. What happened to the last engine?

How's the backing plate look where the shoes touch it? Any wear/grooves? That's about all I can think of.

I had a look at the '97 service manual and GI-39 suggests lifting the truck with a garage jack from the middle of the rear axle and the middle of the front crossmember (not the one under the tranny, the one in line with the front LCA bushings). Looks like there's even a half-circle cutout in the skid plate to make this easy. The manual suggests using a rubber or wood block between the jack stands and the sort-of-frame, but doesn't say anything about a block or pad on the jack itself. And no, I wouldn't jack from the crossmember under the trans. Like you said, you'd be lifting most of the truck, and the line drawing in the manual doesn't make it look especially stout.

I'll have to give this a go in mine once I get it back on the road. Where are you holding the phone to take a reading?

The power switch is trying to tell you what's wrong. The AT section of the service manual has a decoder for what the trans computer is upset about based on which flashes are longer. The Nico forum used to host the manuals online, last I heard you could still get them from these guys. The troubleshooting starts on AT-39 (page 39 of the AT section). Looks like the light comes on solid for a moment, then makes ten quick flashes. If the first of the short flashes is longer than the rest, that means there's a problem with the revolution sensor. Second, vehicle speed sensor. Third, throttle position sensor. 4th, shift solenoid A. 5th, shift solenoid B. 6th, overrun clutch solenoid. 7th, torque converter clutch solenoid. 8th is either the temp sensor or power to the trans computer. 9th is the engine speed signal. 10th is the line pressure solenoid. If there are no short flashes and it just flashes like a turn signal, the battery's low, it's been disconnected for a long time, or the battery's hooked up backwards. If it just comes on continuously, the inhibitor switch, overdrive switch, kickdown switch, or idle switch circuit is faulty. (Nice of them to lump so many possible causes into one code.) The service manual has testing procedures to follow for each code. If I had to guess I'd say it sounds like a solenoid. Hopefully it's that easy.

The underhood light's one of the most useful mods I've done to my truck. Really nice to have when you're working under the hood.

The 3.5 has a chain. Check if it's burning oil. Some of them are fine, some of them (like my dad's '03) burn a quart/1000 miles. There was a rust recall on the front strut towers but it sounds like you should be in the clear on that front.

I'm with you on the vacuum leak, especially if it's been messed with for the LPG conversion. How do the spark plugs look? You can unplug the oxygen sensor for testing to see if the truck runs better without it. If it does, replace the oxygen sensor.

Looks like a good way to go. I added some raammat to my roof when I had the truck torn apart, but I didn't really live with the truck beforehand (and the truck before it was white) so I don't know if it's helping much. One thing I noticed, though, was that the roof ribs had come unglued from the sheet metal, so I reglued those with seam sealer before putting it back together. This was more about noise than heat but worth taking a look at while you've got it open.

Shifting hard at high RPM sounds like a fault with the throttle position sensor to me (TCU thinks you're flooring it all the time), or possibly the switch that the gas pedal hits at wide open. (Does the "Power" light on the dash stay on?) Also sounds like a PITA, and honestly, the slushbox in mine isn't exactly stellar even when it's working right. Whoever programmed it either had their power/weight numbers wrong or lived somewhere very flat. I haven't swapped mine (it's got enough things torn apart right now) but I'm definitely going to consider it if/when the slushbox quits. This thread may help you figure out what you're in for with the swap. The pictures are dead, but it looks like there are still some links and part numbers and stuff to get you going. http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/topic/33748-harbingers-automatic-to-manual-transmission-swap/

When a friend and I fixed the aircon in his Blazer, we vacuumed the system down with a pump and let it sit for a while to see if air pressure got back in. It didn't, so we added the proper amount of oil and refrigerant with the engine running and it's been blowing cold since.

I haven't worked on a turbo system, but I have watched a lot of Mighty Car Mods... My first check would be to disconnect the intake side of the turbo and check if the turbine looks good and spins true or if it's all sloppy and chewed up. If the turbine is damaged, the engine may have ingested the missing material--hopefully not. If the turbine itself looks okay, maybe your wastegate isn't closing, maybe you've got an exhaust restriction in the exhaust system, or maybe you've got a boost leak between the turbo and the motor. The usual "worst case" I read about with turbos is that the oil seals fail, crankcase oil sprays into the intake, and the engine "runs away" and revs like crazy until you find a way to stall it or until it blows up. Look for oil in the intake or intercooler. Given that it sounds like yours is just starving for boost and running rich, it might have some carbon buildup in the cylinders or emissions equipment if it's got that, but hopefully it hasn't done any real damage.

I don't know about the R50, but on my WD21, the front breather comes up on the passenger's side of the firewall behind the cruise control mechanism. I think the truck would start floating before that breather got wet.

Thanks guys--yeah, I would not be surprised at this point if I just cracked a flare or something while doing lines/calipers on the front and it's been screwing me over since. I did some testing last night with bleed plugs (made some proper ones with flared ends and nuts, not that plastic crap) and found that the pedal's hard with the master plugged completely, and still hard with the prop installed, but it went to garbage as soon as I hooked up the front circuit. I'm starting to wonder if the front circuit is what's borked--near as I can tell the rear piston is actuated by the pressure in the front brake system (there's also a spring, but I don't imagine that spring is putting several hundred PSI to the rear circuit), so if the front system is sucking air, maybe that's why the rears don't work. Clearly I have more testing to do to try and narrow down where the issue is. Also odd: I was trying the brakes before (rear axle raised, wheels spinning) and when I pressed the pedal, the rears didn't stop. Then the pedal kinda popped a few times, dropped, and then the rears stopped. What do you want to bet that popping was air bubbles leaving somewhere? I haven't torn down the rear brakes yet (disks) because they worked fine right before I tore into the fronts. And Cuong, thanks for the offer, but I've got two of those SOBs on my bench already.

Bollocks. The 2WD Hardbody master bolts up like it was meant to be there, and I managed to hook everything up (including a Wilwood adjustable prop), but the issue of a crappy pedal and no rear brakes continues. My dad and I two-man bled it tonight and the brakes are still garbage. The pedal does feel slightly better, and it'll stop the rears at idle, but that could just be because I've got the new prop set as high as it'll go. Breathe on the gas and it'll still spin the rears. The prop wasn't the issue. Something is holding air. Previous tests suggested it's not in the system behind the ABS block, and one of the mechanics who looked at it said that bypassing the ABS block didn't fix anything. The only things between the ABS block and the prop valve are two sections of hard line and one fitting to connect them. Guess I'm opening that up next, but hell if I know what would've gone wrong with two pipes and a union.

Not easy giving up on a rig. Been there. Glad to hear you'll still be around though, and hope the Yota treats you well!

^What he said! Seriously, there must've been a huge amount of crap to move over. Great work and thanks for keeping this place alive! One stupid question, though. Is the edit timeout still in effect? And what's the time limit set to?

Cool videos! So they're relying on torque bind to keep the locker engaged when you change directions, but if that doesn't work, there's not enough distance between locked and unlocked to really spin it up and break something. Nice to see a company actually show off how something works.

You ever realize you're making something harder than it needs to be? If a truck has an LSV, it doesn't need a prop built into the master. The RWD Hardbody master cylinder has no prop valve. This is good news--the HB master should bolt right up to my booster, the bore is right, and the ports are M10x1 so I don't need the $60 worth of brass fittings it would've taken to make the Chevy master work. It's only got two ports, so I'll have to use a tee, but I'm over that. I've got parts in the mail. I'll post part numbers if this works.

Oh, that sucks! Looks like you've got the shape figured out though.

Probably not. I'd want check that Nissan didn't do anything cute before hooking it up backwards, though.

I had a look at that one, but it looks like the reason he went for the larger bore was to match the larger pistons in his front calipers after the SAS. A larger bore on an otherwise stock system would probably just make the pedal harder and the brakes weaker. It also has a Nissan prop valve on it it, and at this point I'm inclined to avoid anything associated with those three words. I'm actually looking at a Corvette-style universal master. They've got two fittings on each side (and plugs for the ones you don't end up needing), so I wouldn't need to figure out a splitter for the front hard lines, and I'd only have to re-bend one of them to reach around to the other side. I'll need some thread adapters, obviously, and I still need to see what's available there. If it needs a prop valve, I'll splice it into the rear line where it hits the firewall so I have a convenient place to mount it. The downside to the Corvette MC is that the bolt pattern to the booster is just a little off (stock is 80mm or about 3 3/16, the Chevy is 3 3/8"). Looks like the holes are slotted, though, and I can always file it if needed.

I think I have the same genetic defect. It appears I'll have quite a pile of junk parts by the time this thing's back on the road. A friend and I checked the ABS again today. Once again, the actuator appears to function perfectly. Messing with the isolation valve (effectively cutting off the rear system past the ABS valve) confirmed that the sponginess is not between the ABS block and the rear rotors. After cycling the ABS, we were able to bleed a little more air out it, but the pedal is still garbage and the rears still barely do anything. We bench-bled the holy hell out of one of my spare MCs for an experiment. We bled it level with bleed plugs until air stopped rising through the res. Then we tilted it forward and got a bunch more air out. When we could no longer get air out with plugs, we switched to hoses (I have a few different bleed kits to choose from thanks to the multiple MCs this thing's gone through). More air came out. Some probably entered when we switched bleeders, but much of what came out was in tiny bubbles, like it had been stirred up during earlier bleeding. We bled that out, left it in the vise for two hours, checked it again, and then immersed the whole thing in brake fluid and took the plug off the end of the prop valve. What comes out? More bubbles. Until this point I've figured that if everybody else manages to install these without issue, I must just be screwing something up, or something else in the system is causing problems. If this master won't even bench-bleed, though, I'm out of other things to blame. I'm also remembering my uncle (who rebuilds cars for a living) having a hell of a time bleeding the master on my '95 when he replaced it--and those brakes were never quite right again either. (I don't think they were this bad, but I never checked the rears.) The OE masters probably bleed better than this aftermarket crap, but of course this issue started (near as I can tell) when I had the system open and air found its way into my OE master, and refused to leave. So, new plan. I'm trying to find a MC off something else that'll fit this booster, with no stupid built-in prop valve (I'll run an aftermarket one in line if I have to), the same 1" bore, and three M10x1 ports. Bolt spacing isn't usually listed but can likely be adapted. If I can track down the fittings to split one front port into two, I've got a couple solid contenders.