Slartibartfast

Nice to see a VQ taken apart that still has the full complement of screws!

It's been a while since my fog lights were hooked up like factory, but yes, the + feed going to the switch comes from one of the low beam connections, and taps in near the headlight switch plug on the steering column. I think the pink wire you're seeing is for the marker lights, and the suitcase connector on there would've held the wire for the alarm system (so it can flash the marker lights). I don't remember the color codes for the low beam wires offhand but I want to say they're red with a colored stripe (easy enough to check the service manual or your headlight plugs). If the truck came with fogs, and someone removed them, look for another wire going to the headlight switch with a connector on it or with the vampire bite in the insulation from having one of those things clamped on. Also, are those rally lights floods or spots? The factory fogs have a very diffused pattern that shouldn't glare oncoming drivers anywhere near as much as driving lights do. I've got the factory fogs and a set of Bosch driving lights on mine (used to have Hellas until a deer stole one) and I've got the switch for the factory fogs tapped into the low beam and the switch for the driving lights tapped into the high beam. That way I can use them on the street without blinding people and without having to work a second switch whenever there's oncoming traffic.

Good luck! And yeah, I haven't heard of someone replacing the oil pump unless they have the engine out for a rebuild or something.

That sucks. Hopefully it's an easy fix once you get it apart and it hasn't chewed anything else up.

The exploded diagram you have there is the TX10A, which is the manual box (shifter sticks up through the floor). If yours has an Auto mode (with the heater-knob looking selector on the dash), you have the ATX14A, which is a different beast. The correct diagram should be in the same section of the service manual. I've heard of a few people taking these apart for various reasons but I don't think I've seen a writeup. Seems like they tend to hold up pretty well. Are you sure it's the output shaft on the transfer that's sloppy and not the driveshaft's rear U joint?

I helped a friend do the timing belt on a DOHC Kia a while back and the last guy had left one of the cams a tooth out. It still had plenty of get-up-and-go like that. I wouldn't be surprised if the last guy tried to time yours by the dimples and it's been like that since. I was nervous about turning cams with the belt off when I did mine. While trying to get a cam bolt out so I could do the cam seals, I turned one of the cams a little too far. Spring tension took over and it jumped on me. It scared me a bit, but didn't hurt anything (which makes sense--the cam jumped because of the valve springs pulling valves up, not pushing them down). +1 for not messing with it any more than you have to, but I think you'd have to try pretty hard to bend a valve by hand. "Hey, that's weird. I tried to spin this cam the whole way around for the hell of it and it's got this tight spot. Bill, hand me that cheater pipe!"

+1 on the dimples on the timing cover, they're kinda in the right area ish but they didn't line up right on mine either. They're good enough to tell you if you've got the engine on top dead center exhaust stroke instead of top dead compression but that's about it. Count the teeth between the marks on the crank and cam sprockets and ignore the marks on the cover. You'll need to set your ignition timing after putting it back together if whoever put it together last adjusted it to compensate for the driver's cam being a tooth off. Hopefully you pick up a little power from having everything timed right!

Same thing my Mile Markers have done. They work great but the chrome on the rings around the dials has hardly any adhesion to the base metal and peels right off.

Good to hear you got it in the end! Always aggravating when you're looking for a part failure and find an installer failure instead.

No worries! Gotta take what you can get LOL. Hopefully the new coil does it.

^+1 on the repair paint. Looks like a pretty easy job provided the traces aren't completely gone. If they are, see what the wreckers want for a rear window, and hope it's better. But with the way they're wired (the one on mine, anyway), a simple check from one spade to the other just tells you if any of the lines are good, not if all of them are good. The lines are in parallel, not series. The article I linked has a test for finding broken traces.

The idle systems on the VG33 and VG30 are a little different. The more I look into the two of them, the less sure I am that I'm on the right track here--or even that what I did on mine was actually the problem. All the same, here's what I found. I think the thing you took pictures of is the fast idle cam. The EC section of the '96 manual has a test procedure for it (EC-23). It's supposed to crack the throttle open when the engine is cold, then get out of the way and let the throttle close completely once it's warmed up. The manual shows how far it's supposed to move. The thing I messed with on my VG30 is called an IACV (idle air control valve) air regulator, and it appears to do the same thing as the fast idle cam, though in a completely different way. In either case, near as I can work out, a failed one would cause either a low idle and maybe starting issues when cold (if it wasn't boosting idle when cold) or a high idle once warmed up (if it wasn't dropping the idle when warm). Low idle/dying at idle once the engine's warmed up seems like it has to be something else, and makes me wonder if one of the other things I checked before messing with the IACV was the actual problem. When I messed with my IACV air regulator, I also checked the MAF plug and the TPS plug. Both looked okay, but maybe I worked a little corrosion off of something plugging and unplugging. IIRC I also poked at the female connector for the MAF to make it grip a little tighter, thinking maybe it was loose. I assumed the IACV was the problem because it was the only one I thought I saw a problem with. The IACV-AAC (aux air control) is around the back of the plenum. EC-7 and 8 show you were it is generally, and EC-204 has diagnosis info for the code the computer can set if it thinks the valve is bad (scroll down to 207 and it shows where the plug is and how to test it with a meter). If an idle valve was going to cause low idle/stalling issues, I'd expect it to be this one. You also have an IACV FICD (fast idle control device) solenoid, which kicks on with the compressor to bump up the idle. Looks like it's in the same area, though I very much doubt it's got anything to do with the problem. And yeah, I don't think a bad battery would make it die at a light and then start it up again like nothing happened. You might check your terminals and fuse links while you're in there, though.

The oil light flickering when trying to start is probably because the engine's not spinning fast enough to make oil pressure. If it's making pressure when you do get it running, I wouldn't worry about that. If it runs fine the rest of the time, and doesn't act up while you're accelerating or driving at speed, I doubt it's a fuel issue. My understanding is that the dizzy usually acts up when warm. Honestly this sounds a bit like the idle air issue I had with mine recently. Mine was idling stupid low, stalling when stopped, stalling when rolling slow with my foot off the gas, sometimes stalling when I put it in gear. I ended up scraping a little surface oxidation off of the pins of one of the idle components with a pocket screwdriver, bending the female plug end just a little so it would grab better, and the problem went away. Check the electrical connections for your idle equipment. Good luck and let us know how the drive goes!

Intermittent problems are always a pain to track down! I'd start by checking and cleaning electrical connections in the engine bay. My '93 started stalling at lights a couple weeks ago and really driving me nuts and finally I popped the hood, checked the MAF plug (looked fine), checked the TPS with a meter (tested fine), checked the plug for one of the idle controls and scraped a little corrosion off the pins, and when I started it again, it was back to its usual self. The problem had been intermittent for quite a while before it got bad enough for me to track down. I want to say it was the idle air control but because I didn't mess with each thing separately, I can't say it wasn't a loose connection elsewhere that I re-seated as I checked stuff.

Replaced the rear shocks (I'm putting off the fronts until I'm ready to do ball joints/CVs/etc) and finally tracked down the whistling noise the air intake was making at low RPM! Also discovered that my windshield was fogging up because my sunroof seal leaks like crazy and the glass was covered with water above the cover. Gotta track down a new seal for that one of these days. To my surprise, the OE rear shocks still have a little bit of gas pressure in them! I wouldn't put them back on but they're not nearly as hooped as I expected. Not bad for 240k miles.

Looks like you did some learning in between those beads! I finally got around to grounding the check connector to see what the ABS light is complaining about. Nine flashes, so it thinks the sensor has gone open-circuit. Not the actuator! Good. One of these days I'll get around to checking the sensor.

Wow, an R50 with no holes in the towers! Undercoat looks good.

IIRC the OBDII ports sometimes run off the same fuse as the cigarette lighter? I don't know specifically for the R50.

What I did while diagnosing that Ford was to just unbolt the EGR valve, stick a piece of cardboard in between it and the manifold, and bolt it up again. This effectively blocks it off. If the engine runs better, you know your EGR system has a fault. You can put a piece of vac line onto the valve, suck on that, and see if it makes the valve move; if the valve moves, check the EGR solenoid (follow the vac line from the valve). If it doesn't run better, the EGR isn't the problem--pull the piece of cardboard back out and move onto the next suspect. Also worth noting, the MAF sensor wiring on these apparently tends to lose its ground. It's not a problem I've dealt with but it's apparently common enough that Nissan made some kind of repair harness for it that gives you another ground point on the MAF wiring. Might be something to look into if the EGR doesn't change anything and the new MAF doesn't help, either.

The factory towers would probably be the best replacement, but also a hell of a lot of work to get the old ones off and get the new ones lined up properly. The issue I see with Nissan's brace plates is that they go right over the perforated sheet metal, and trapping any mud or water that gets in through the holes in the tower. Trapped moisture festers and eats its way out. I'd cut around the rot until I found solid metal, cut metal patches to fit the holes, and then weld them in. Hiding rust under steel plates and fiberglass might buy time, but IMO it's just going to rust it out worse in the long run. Probably not a problem but worth noting: I don't know that the strut towers are mild steel. The WD21 body repair manual (I don't have one for R50s) says that some of the body structure is made from high-strength steel. It doesn't come out and say it's heat treated, but it says not to use a torch for body repairs because it "causes a decline in strength of areas surrounding the welded parts," which sounds like a heat-treat issue to me. Again, I have no R50 body manual, so I don't know what the towers are made from. I can't imagine it would be an issue on the parts of the tower Nissan considers non-essential, and I'm sure it would be stronger than the fiberglass bodge Nissan calls for. It might be something to consider before laying a hot bead from top to bottom along a brace plate, though.

Yeah, I went with ovals.

A bad crank sensor shouldn't keep the starter from cranking. I'm not familiar with the starter wiring on the R50s but the starting system wiring starts on page 30 of the EL section of the '96 manual. It doesn't look like there's a proper starter relay, but there are various interlocks that could be causing problems. (The other sections of the manual are here.) The ATP relay is a new one on me, but it looks like it's part of some kind of safety system intended to warn you that the truck will still roll away if you put the truck in park while the transfer case is in neutral. I'm not sure how it's wired (it's probably in that same section of the service manual) but I doubt it's supposed to get hot; I'd check the relay itself to make sure it's functional, and if it tests fine, take a look at whatever it's feeding to see if it's taking too much current or something. Oh, and ASCD = automatic speed control device = Nissan-flavored cruise control.

Mine took a little router work on the plastic spacers. Not too bad, just annoying. I remember when I blew the foams out of the stock Clarions in my '95. I'd just started driving and I was sure that flapping sound meant something important was about to fall off.

Hmm. Interesting. Hopefully the dealership can look up that number, I'm not finding anything else related to it. If it's not knocking now, I'd assume the issue was addressed; anything that would've cropped up (or been recognized by Nissan, anyway) a year after manufacture would surely have shown up as a problem by now otherwise.

Have you checked the operation of the EGR valve? I had an EGR control solenoid seize up on a Ford I'm working on and it held the EGR valve wide open. It didn't idle too well like that!