Slartibartfast

The truck can be replaced. The people he blew up, not so much. Damn waste all around.

Front should be either an R200a or an R180a, rears should all be H233b. It's the gearing that matters, though. Did you check the tag in the engine bay on the donor? Should be either HG46 or HG43. If the donor doesn't match yours, then you will have to change gears.

I bought a fuse box off Amazon and mounted it to the bracket for the power steering res. One line from that to the battery terminal, six fused leads out for whatever I want. Much cleaner than a bunch of in-line fuse holders bouncing around on the battery terminal, and it's got indicator LEDs built in so it'll be easy to tell if I blow a fuse.

I assume the two wires in the spade connection are + and - (reverse the connections to reverse the motor), and the case isn't part of the circuit. (+1 for consulting the service manual.) I wouldn't be surprised if that little battery was enough, but especially if the track is binding a bit, you may need something that can deliver more amps. Looking at the regulator online, I'm seeing a drum on the motor that pulls a cable to lift the window. If you determine that the regulator is the problem, I'd be inclined to just cut the cables, push the glass all the way up, and then lock it in place somehow until you've got a new regulator ready to go in. I've seen people apply tape around the edges of the window, but this makes a mess and tends to fail if it gets warm. I once "fixed" a friend's POS Pontiac with a piece of kinding wood jammed in between the crash bar and the regulator, and AFAIK it was still in there when she scrapped or traded the thing. If you can get a pair of vise grips in there, you could probably just clamp those onto the slider part of the regulator so the glass can't slide back down (look up a picture of the part and it'll make sense). Working inside doors tends to be no fun, but they didn't weld it together with the regulator in there--there's got to be some contorted way it comes out. When I worked at a shop a few years ago we had a newer Yota pickup come in with a stuck window. We had a new one ready to go, and I'd never done one before, so I wasn't really looking forward to it. I opened it up and found that one of the screws holding the regulator to the window glass had worked loose and fallen out, and so the glass had cocked sidways and bound up. With the screw back where it was supposed to be, the window worked great! I was happy. The owner was happy. My boss, not so much Oh, and you totally can lift an R50. Lots of guys have done it and can help you figure out what all you'll need.

Making noise on hard turns does sound like a CV issue. When you say lock up, you mean the wheel itself locks or the steering locks?

I look at dash flocking and see the a similar technique model train guys use to simulate grass. Couple bags of static grass, some plaster rocks, maybe a tree or two, and you could have a beautiful rolling field for a dashboard.

I wonder if the torque bind was trying to turn the whole housing, screwing up the pinion angle vs the driveshaft, and that's where the vibration was coming from? Either way, good to see you tracked the bugger down in the end!

Crap. Forgot about that!

ECU failure is not common with these. IIRC the red LED illuminates at the same time as the check engine light, if that helps any. Did the green light flash when you turned the knob or was it completely unresponsive? The engines in these were the same across trim levels, so don't worry about that. I've read that an ECU from a manual trans truck won't play nice with an auto trans (doesn't forward the required info to the trans computer) but auto will run either. The only other thing I can think of to avoid is that I think the California-smog trucks had a temp sensor on the EGR that federal-smog trucks didn't, so a California ECU in a federal truck would throw a code. High idle and bogging has me thinking vac leak.

Damn! Good to see that's all that was damaged. I replaced my craptastic trailer light converter box with a homebrew hackjob. There's already voltage drop between the battery and the tail lights, and the box was dropping it too. I was getting nine volts and change to the brake/turn filament on the light I tested with! No wonder I could barely see the turn signals when the running lights were on. I made my own converter with relays and its own power feed from the battery to cut out as much voltage drop as possible. It's also got its own fuse, so I won't lose the lights on the truck if the trailer shorts out. I also deleted the alarm while I had the seat out to run the wire. Anyone need an alarm brain?

I assume he's wrapping something in a condom. I'm just not sure what.

They're pretty easy to remove, three screws and a plug, though one of the screws can be a little tricky to get to because the fan motor's in the way. I seem to remember taking the motor on my '95 completely apart at some point to clean it out, but that was long enough ago that I don't remember how exactly it disassembles. I do remember that it had a bunch of brush dust inside, and that stuff gets everywhere (being graphite and all), so be careful about where you disassemble it. You might find the issue just by removing the fan and messing with it by hand. A single leaf caught in that fan can make a surprising amount of noise.

Yeah, I was looking for a CL last summer and they were down. I go and buy a stock-style centerlink and now they're back up again... figures. Hoping mine gets here this week.

The inhibitor relay is there to prevent you from starting the truck when it's in gear. If the shifter's not in park or neutral, the relay disengages and breaks the circuit between the key switch and the starter solenoid. Think of it like two switches wired in series. Battery + --- ignition switch ---- inhibitor ---- starter solenoid. That's why it doesn't crank when you unplug the inhibitor. A proper starter relay would connect battery + directly to the solenoid when switched by the ignition switch, providing a shorter path for the current and also reducing the load on the ignition switch. The EL section of the factory service manual has a diagram of the starting system, though it's a little tough to follow thanks to Nissan illustrating multiple models/options in the same diagram and also mislabeling the battery terminals. (Bottom diagram on EL-12.) EL also has a set of "location of electrical units" diagrams which are helpful for tracking down relays and sensors and whatnot. EL-76 shows the location of the interlock relay for auto or manual (different sides of the engine bay for some reason).

What I did was download the lot of them, then rename each one with the section name, not just the abbreviation. After you use it for a while, the abbreviations and organization start to make some amount of sense.

Huh, you mean painting the outside of the bulb doesn't make it brighter?

I don't think I've seen a step by step for engine/trans removal in an R50 but if you haven't yet, download the service manual for your year. I don't know if there's a specific procedure for removing the engine and trans but I wouldn't be surprised.

That's bizarre. Maybe someone had that sprocket off and put it back on backwards, so the mark is facing the timing cover? It was a while ago I had mine apart so I don't know if that's even possible.

Don't the Canadian trucks have DRLs? I don't know how those are wired, but if they're just running the low beams all the time, I imagine that would cut down on bulb life significantly.

It was the front diff on my dad's Tundra that popped. Flat ground, three inches of snow. It was stuck (the joy of open diffs), he was trying to free it, and the pinion shaft just sheared off. Had the front diff assembly replaced and it's been fine since. It's had some electrical issues with the alarm (finally got that turned off) and the parking lights like to stay on for no good reason. The front tires seem to cup pretty quick, which appears to be a common issue. Tows great, though, and from what I've heard they hold their value pretty well. Looks like the Sequoia seats eight, so that's a plus for your needs.

I avoid Fram after what I've read and seen on Youtube. I'd be inclined to suspect a defect with the filter more than the oil. Either way, good to hear it's back to normal!

If the problem started when you plugged the ashtray in, then yeah, I'd start looking and see if you messed something up in there. Maybe unplug the ashtray and see if the problem changes. Do your gauge backlights work? And AFAIK just about every switch on the dash is supposed to illuminate, but the little incandescent bulbs inside tend to burn out. I've redone a few of mine with LEDs. The light on my dimmer has been intermittent even after replacing it, which leads me to suspect an issue with the connector. One of these days it'll bug me enough that I'll take the time to figure it out.

Clean install! I've had mixed luck with cheap LEDs. I think some of the sellers have no idea what IP67 means, but they know it moves product. I've got cheapos from ebay (Voltage brand) on a lawn tractor and as bed lights on a pickup and they've held up great so far, but the Kawells I used as reverse lights on my Pathy had no seals at all and let water in pretty quickly. Luckily they survived my less-than-delicate disassembly, drying, and resealing efforts, and the bumper hides the mess I made with the silicone. Good to know the Malwart ones are decent. How's the light output on those?

That's bizarre. I ran 10w30 in my '95 and never had it make noise apart from the first couple seconds after a cold start. Do you still have the oil filter you ran with the Castrol? Might be worth popping that open to see if there's anything inside that shouldn't be, or something that might've come loose and restricted flow.

Yeah, I don't get it either. I'm pretty sure they at least know how grass works though! That's special right there.