JordanHackworth

I did finish this conversion two years ago, it's been working perfectly ever since. I still need to swap gearing to 4.6, which I'll do before I do my planed VH45DE V8 swap If anyone has any questions about the conversion don't hesitate to ask!

After hearing of Pick-N-Pull's half off sale for Labor Day, I decided it was the perfect time to source parts for my 1997 Pathfinder's conversion to 4 wheel drive. The only 4x4 in the area was 192 miles away, so I conned my friend to come along and help me pull parts. If you have Pick-n-Pull in your area, row52.com will show you if it's 4 wheel drive and usually has an external photo of the vehicle. Here's a list of items you'll need for the swap: Transmission (if automatic, get the same year to match the valve body) Transfer case (TX10, manual. Don't mess with wiring by using the all mode transfer case) Rear drive shaft Front drive shaft Front differential** Front differential mounts Front hubs (both sides) Front CV axles Transmission crossmember (the crossmember on 2wd has a welded bracket) Transmission bracket (goes on the crossmember) Exhaust mount (Mounts the exhaust to the transfer case) Transfer case shift linkage and floor plate The rear differential does not need to be changed. The flanges are the same. You'll need to check the gear ratio on the doner Pathfinder as well as your Pathfinder. The gear ratio's MUST match or the front and rear diffs will spin at different speeds. Pop the hood open and check the firewall on the passenger side, there's a silver plate stamped with various things. The bottom right stamp will be HG43 or HG46. If the doner Pathfinder doesn't match yours, then pull the rear diff as well. Differentials with the 4.6 gearing are better for running larger tires, although I'm running 4.3 with 31" The front differential mounting brackets will mount to your 2wd subframe, they already have the holes and are just filled with spacers. Right now, I've got everything except the transmission, exhaust mount, and the transfer case shifter with floor plate. If anyone has those in Oregon or Washington you're selling (Manual transmission) let me know! I've pulled the rear diff from the JY Pathfinder since it's LSD and mine isn't. With a lot of people opening their LSD's to repack the clutch packs, I wanted to break mine open and see how my clutch packs looked. To my amazement, my LSD had a better arrangement of friction discs and plates than the people who have repacked their R50's LSD. As a result, I went and checked the FSM for various R50 years and found out earlier model R50's had the proper arrangement, 6 friction plates and 5 friction discs. Later models had 9 friction plates and 2 discs. LSD's don't build friction unless plates and discs alternate, plates spin freely and aren't connected to the side gears (and thus rear tires) and discs connect to the side gears to spin the tires. Having a dispoportiate ammount of dics or plates only reduces the breakaway friction in an LSD. Here's what I've found from the FSMs: 1996 - 2000: 5 discs 6 plates 2 spring plates 2001.5 - 2002: 2 discs 9 plates 2 spring plates 2003 - 2004: 2 discs 5 plates 2 spring plates 1 spacer The LSD torque rating of all Pathfinders from 1996 - 2002 was raited the same (65 - 80 ft-lb) despite the change of discs and plates in the 2001.5 - 2002 Pathfinders, which leads me to believe Nissan decided they had too much torque in the earlier Pathfinders, wanted it to match the raiting, and changed it in the later models. In support of this, if you look at the FSM for a 2002 Frontier, it has 5 discs, 6 plates, 2 spring plates, the exact same part numbers and is otherwise idential to the early model R50 diffs, but is raited to 138 - 180 ft-lbs which sounds far more realistic than the 96 - 00 R50's raiting. While I've got to remove everything, I decided to replace the suspension and go with a 2" AC coil lift, as well as replace any wear items in the JY parts, which means three bearings in each front hub (use a blind hole puller for the needle bearing) and two seals, two seals inside the front diff, rear wheel seals and bearings, as well as ball joints and outer tie rods on the front hubs. My plan is to put my Pathfinder on Harbor Freight's 6 ton jack stands ($36/pair) and drop the rear diff, front hubs & struts while I wait for the new suspension and replacement components to come in. I've put the rear diff back together and reset the backspacing and preload using a dial gauge. If anyone wants photos of any piece of the conversion or innards of the diffs, let me know.