Slartibartfast

The question is whether I'm getting bad parts, or whether I'm an idiot and I'm destroying everything I touch. The pistons extended just fine, but working them back and forth didn't fix the pedal. I swapped in the old caliper, which wasn't wiggly at all but didn't improve the pedal either. It actually seemed to be dragging on the rotor too much, so I swapped it back for the new one. Both front brakes will lock the wheels on dirt or gravel, even with the pedal bottoming out, so I'm inclined to rule them out as the problem at this point. I found an old ETCG video where he said his fix for Hondas with mushy brakes after bleeding is to lock up the and cycle the ABS. "Works every time," he says. Trouble is, I've never gotten the ABS to kick in, even when the brakes were good. But the ABS computer just has the one speed sensor on the rear axle, so all I need to do is spin that up, then stop it suddenly, and then the ABS should cycle, right? I jacked up the back end, put it on stands, put it in drive, spun up the rears to 25 or so, and then stabbed the brakes. And nothing happened. I don't just mean the ABS didn't kick in. I mean the wheels kept spinning. The engine tone changed slightly, so I guess the brakes were trying, but they barely had the power to stop the wheels in neutral (took them a good few seconds with the pedal to the floor). My best guess at this point is that the dump valve in the ABS block is jammed open, giving the fluid that should be going to the rear brakes a nice accumulator-looking thing (labeled "Reservoir" in the manual) to fill instead. I'm not sure how replacing the front calipers made the ABS block unhappy, but I can think of a few things I did between then and now that probably didn't help matters. I'm clearly out of my depth here and pouring more time and money into it ain't gonna change that. It's got an appointment on Monday. Hopefully a real mechanic with brake tools that aren't a Snapple bottle and a piece of vinyl hose can explain a few things to the ABS valve. Otherwise, I suspect an ABS delete is in this truck's future. Either way, I'll be much happier when this cluster is over with.

Four wheel disk, new soft lines. Did a gravity bleed tonight. Drained however much fluid the res holds between max and min marks through each bleeder in the FSM's preferred order (left rear, right rear, left front, right front, ABS block). Took a while but didn't help. Think I might've found the problem, though. The driver's front caliper is loose--you can grab it with your hand and rock it around. This didn't seem right. My understanding is that the inner seal is built so that the piston will extend out to meet the pad as far as it needs to the first time you apply the brakes after assembly, then retract just a hair when you let off to reduce drag. I propped up my phone with the camera staring at the pistons and inboard pad, hit the brakes, and watched the pistons extend a good mm or so before they even touched the damn pad! When I released the brake, they pulled away just as far. I jammed some wood in the caliper so the pistons started right up against something, and the pedal felt a little better. This tells me the problem is that the master is wasting its fluid extending pistons through air, just like what you'd get from a drum brake that's not adjusted right. I did a little research and it looks like pistons tend to stick to their seals when the caliper's sat around on some shelf for a long time. I'm going to try and break them free. Figure I'll swap the inboard pad for something thinner, extend the pistons, retract with a C clamp, extend again, retract, then button it back up and see if that did the trick.

Yeah, a hot fuse link doesn't sound like a good thing to me either. Unless something in the truck is drawing gobs of power for no well-explained reason, the link or its connector is probably just corroded and has more resistance than it should. Amps through resistance makes heat. I haven't looked into rewiring mine yet but I like the idea of something easier to replace (or simply reset) if something goes wrong. The 100A might be well-sized if you end up upgrading to the 90A Maxima alt. If you're planning to leave the stock charge wire to the alt, though, I'd check the gauge of that wire (and what it's good for) before selecting a fuse. Anything's a fuse at some amperage, and if your blade fuse is stouter than your charge lead, it's not gonna do you a whole lot of good.

My brakes are driving me mad and I'm running out of ideas, running out of brake fluid, and running out of time to fix this SOB (need it for some volunteer work this weekend). Any ideas appreciated! This all started recently when my passenger's front caliper started sticking. I replaced both front calipers with remans, figuring if one was giving me trouble, the other probably wasn't far behind. I put them in, bled them, and the brakes were mushy. They would stop the truck, but with the engine running, I could bottom out the pedal. Pumping didn't raise the pedal. Bleeders are on top like they should be and brake fluid comes out clear from all four corners and the ABS valve. I noticed that my master cylinder was leaking out the weep hole and thought, hey, I'll bet these two problems are related. I bought a Beck-Arnley MC. It came with no instructions or bleed plugs, and after a whole lot of screwing around, all I managed to make it do was lock up the prop valve somehow to where fluid wouldn't come out the rear port even with both fronts plugged and my foot on the pedal. That ain't right. I sent that junk back and ordered a Dorman MC. Came with instructions and plugs, bled properly on the bench, got it down to the 1/8" free travel specified in the instructions. Put it in, hooked it up, did a little bleeding. Pedal felt mushy like before. Bled a bunch at the calipers, the ABS module, and where the fittings meet the master. Zero change. It'll lock up the front brakes on dirt, but with the engine running, I can bottom out the pedal with very little effort. I adjusted the push rod between the pedal and the master, no change there either (not like that's what caused the problem in the first place). If I remove all three lines from the master and replace the bleed plugs, the pedal is hard as a rock. Clearly the master's not the problem. I tried plugging one port at a time, thinking I'd find the one line with air in it. Mushy each time. I blocked the rear and passenger's front ports and tried just the driver's front, thinking I'd start with the shortest line, and of course it was mushy. Bled it at the master (propped the pedal and cracked the fitting until air quit coming out), bled at the caliper. Still mushy. I have no idea where air would hide in that line. Maybe the caliper pistons are retracting too far? I'm really running out of ideas here.

I'm seeing both types on Rockauto for the '99, but the service manual just points to the general vicinity of the upper coolant neck. If the one-wire tests good, though, then it sounds like you've replaced the right one and the problem is between its plug and the dash.

No fault with the cooling would make the temp jump to operating temp at startup after sitting eight hours. This sounds like an electrical fault. If it's not the sensor, I'd be suspicious of the wiring between the sensor and the dash. I'd expect it to only spike hot or only spike cold with a wiring issue, though; spiking both ways makes me wonder if the gauge itself might have something wrong with it. I'd still start by checking the wiring to rule it out. One test you could do is to figure out what resistance the sensor should have when the engine's at operating temp. Warm up the truck, unplug the sensor, test from the connector to ground. Then the next time it reads cold or hot when it should be at operating temp, pull over and check it again. If the sensor reading is more or less the same, you know the sensor's not the problem. Also make sure you changed the right sensor. If yours is like my WD21 (and I'm pretty sure it is), it'll have two coolant temp sensors right next to each other. The 2-wire is for the computer, the 1-wire is for the dash gauge.

I've got the same UBJs on my truck. Not impressed with the boot design. Hopefully they hold up once I get it back on the road.

I have vague memory of throwing away some kind of cover over the ECU, maybe that's what you're thinking of?

I'd expect it to fail on HC rather than NOx if the cat was hooped, though I've never had to deal with emissions issues on a car (no smog checks out here). Hopefully chiselling the crap out of the EGR system makes the smog machine happy. I'd check the vac lines too before you bring it back in, on the off chance you've got a leak somewhere. The wiring on these is dumb in places, but it could be a whole lot worse. My family's '63 Scout has no fuse box, and just about every wire is green. The '87 F150 I've been trying to revive has some of the worst electrical connectors I've ever worked with (fiddly when new, and that was thirty years ago), second only to the fuel pump connector on my dad's '04 Audi, which is damn near tamperproof. The fuse links on these just plug in, so unless the plug end is corroded to hell, you should be able to just swap it out. Looks like they're still available and reasonably cheap. I don't know what the amperage rating on them is, but the alt is only 70A, so that might be enough to go on. If you're going to the trouble of re-wiring, though, I'd be inclined to run a fatter charge lead (the stock one's pretty small) with a fuse to suit what the new lead is capable of in case you decide to upgrade the alt later.

The distributor is geared off the driver's side camshaft. You can turn the housing of the distributor to change ignition timing. It's a four-cycle engine (suck squish burn blow) so the crank turns twice in the time it takes the cams (and distributor) to turn once. The #1 piston hits top dead center on the compression stroke and the exhaust stroke. If you haven't messed with the distributor, you should be able to see that the rotor is pointing either roughly at the contact for the #1 plug lead (compression stroke) or 180° away from it (exhaust stroke). Also worth noting, the crank pulley doesn't have anything to stop you from clocking it wrong on the balancer. You can install it six different ways, one of which will result in the marks on it lining up with actual TDC. If your ignition timing is making no sense to you, stick something like a dowel down the #1 plug hole, turn the engine by hand to find top dead center, then see if that agrees with your timing marks on the crank pulley. (Orientation of the crank pulley will not change your valve timing, but will confuse you when you go to set your ignition timing.)

Bizarre. I guess you could find the check connector for the ABS and follow that wire to the module. Or look at the harness routing diagram and see where that harness is supposed to tie into the main harness, find where it branches, and then follow it to wherever somebody stuffed the ABS brain. I think the harness comes off the main harness going along the driver's side by the doors, though I'm not sure where they would've found the slack to stuff it somewhere.

Piston rings don't just go. No compression after timing work sounds like there's still something wrong with the timing, or the timing was too far out when you tried to start it before and the valves hit. Or your new compression tester is junk and something didn't get plugged back in properly. Hopefully it's that.

Yeah, that's a mess, all right. Fat red wires with copper showing make me nervous. The ABS computer looks like this. I'm not sure what your black box is. Is it labelled on the other side?

Makes sense! Hopefully that's all it was. The dimples on the timing cover are a rough estimate at best. Don't trust them. Time from the dimples on the cams and crank. Should be 40 teeth on the belt between the cam sprockets dimples, 43 from the driver's side cam to the crank. Your belt may have reference marks on it already at the right tooth counts. Mine did.

Holy thread necro, Batman. I just had the same failure on my '93, tore it down with the right tools, and got a better idea of what's going on in there. Looks like that little hole is actually some kind of air/fluid drain that lets the proportioning valve move freely. It was probably weeping fluid because the seals on the prop valve were shot. I also opened up my new (garbage) MC that's got no bleed there. It uses a different type of prop valve with no external springs, just one big block with two O-rings and some holes that I assume lead to internal valving.

If Xterra transmissions fit WD21s, I don't see why they wouldn't fit R50s too.

My '93 has one mismatched (don't remember if it's blue or black). It doesn't seem to care. It's been like that at least since I got it. No reason not to match them if you can, though.

The switch is threaded like a bolt (like how a coolant temp sensor mounts up). There's a little plunger sticking out the end that closes or opens the circuit when some part of the shift linkage pushes on it. Maybe the spring that returns the plunger is buggered and it's letting the plunger flop around as the transfer vibrates? If you want to check it, you could remove the switch (have a drain pan ready in case it's holding back fluid), then shake it and have someone in the truck tell you if the light's going nuts. And yeah, the ABS computer is under the seat. It's the one closer to the door.

I remember there was some common issue with R50 filler tubes, but IIRC it was an issue with them rusting out, not a restriction. Makes sense that the jerry can would work where the pump didn't, they tend to drain pretty slow in comparison. I'd start by just checking the filler, see if it's got an obvious dent or a kink or something.

I don't know the TBI, so I'm not much help there. I'm guessing the pipe is the same design, though, and it's a pain if it hasn't been off before. The threads on my '95 were rotten and did not survive removal; I was luckier on my '93 (probably because it's much less rusty in general). I recommend heating the hell out of the nut part that threads onto the valve, spraying into the threads with your choice of lube, and going after it with a wrench and a cheater pipe if necessary. (Leave it bolted on for this so you're not just prying against the pipe.) If it won't go, heat it some more. Maybe try quenching it with a wet towel to see if you can break up the rust that way. Good luck! A dab of antiseize when you go to put it back together should make it easier to deal with later if you have to dig into it again.

Pull the outer part of the hub, pull the snap ring from the CV shaft, and hold onto that because you'll need it again. There should be three pieces behind the snap ring. The manual calls them Washer B, Washer A and Brake B, but they look like a washer with inside splines, a washer with tabs, and a sorta bearing cup looking deal. All three can all go right in the bin with the rest of the auto hub. Basically just tear it down until you see the wheel bearing lock nut/washer (with the two Phillips screws holding it all together), and then you're ready to install your manual hubs. I made a video back when I installed Mile Markers on my '95. The video quality ain't great but it might help if my description isn't ringing any bells. There's also an exploded diagram on FA-19 of the '95 FSM.

The bodies on these things are hell for stout, but anything will bend if hit hard enough from the right direction. Having some sheet metal and a steel bar tying the pillars together in the event of a crash strikes me as a good thing. Honestly though I'd be more worried about getting ejected from the truck in a rollover, or being unexpectedly joined in the cab by part of someone else's car. Or, you know, bees. I haven't had any issues with my inside door handles, but yeah, the plastic outer handles are weak. I bought a cheap set of chrome handles off eBay (I think they were listed for a D21) and I've been using those for years with no issues apart from a little surface pitting.

Eric the Car Guy on Youtube fixed a similar issue on a Mustang a while back by putting a zip tie around the end of the cable between the pedal and the ferrule to take up the space (stretch in his case). Also have a look at the other end of the cable, where it hooks to the throttle; I don't know how the VQ cables are set up (my dad's was drive-by-wire) but if it's like my WD21, you should have two nuts holding the cable sheath to the bracket, allowing you to adjust the cable tension.

I ran codes on my ABS system and the computer thinks there's a fault in the circuit for the speed sensor. I'm hoping it's a plug issue like yours because that sensor ain't cheap! It's been a low priority since it's not like the brakes are good enough to lock up the rears anyway. How do two mechanics in a row mix up ABS and alarm system wiring?

The grey one? Yeah, that should be the 4x light switch. Sounds like it might've just been a loose/dirty connection then. Nice! Hopefully my ABS light turns out to be a similar issue.