Saturn

So I've decided to convert the ole R50 to 4 wheel drive and have it be my trail rig, and I want to buy a truck to drive while I'm working on it and then to daily at least for a while if not permanently as I have trouble getting rid of stuff. I'd like to grab an ext. cab hardbody, preferably with a KA24 so it's easy to work on and get parts for, and a manual transmission so I can impress the females of course. I know these trucks are pretty tough and simple, but are there any pitfalls in their construction or major changes between years I need to look out for? Certain engine/transmission years? Just general info about them would be great, I don't always trust wiki and I know ya'll are more familiar with em. And NO I am NOT going to sell my R50 and buy a 4x4.

I'm an R50 guy, but recently my brake and batterly lights came on, turns out this is sort of a code in a lot of japanese vehicles to warn of a failing alternator. I replaced mine, haven't had the lights since. But my truck never shut off or wouldn't start. But those two lights usually means you have a charging system issue, have a shop or parts store run a starting system check on it

Supreme's highest kit, 2.5" front/back, is 195$, Fleurys 2.5"/3.0" back is 185$ I believe. The code might make supremes cheaper but Fleurys' does have threaded bolt holes (SS doesnt say), and I really wish my lift spacers had threads when I installed i them, I have the allroads kit. It's a major PITA trying to line it all up and hold the spacer and bolts up. Just my .02$. Thanks for the info dude, I've never even heard of this company before. Sadly they don't make anything else for R50s or WD21s.

If you mean a body lift, like between the frame and the body, you can't on an R50, it's unibody, all welded together. You could do a subframe drop if you have some serious tools, I think Johann Peralta is making them, not sure but I know he has in the past.

Haynes manual says as follows "remove master cylinder, disconnect vacuum line leading from engine to booster fitting, remove under dash panel, locate the pushrod Clevis connecting the booster to the pedal, remove the Clevis pin retaining clip and pull out the clevis pin, remove the 4 nuts holding the brake booster to the firewall, slide the booster straight out, then reverse to install." I can't really dig into this myself as there's a hurricane on my front door but the manual seems to say that you just disconnect this pin and it'll come off easily.

Nice clean truck! How do you like those wildpeaks? I'm looking at getting a set, just haven't heard many first-hand accounts, and none from pathy owners.

Sorry to sound noobish but I'm just a lowly lube tech lol, what is the oil pickup? Is that the same as the oil pump? And where is it? at the back of the pan near the bell housing? Like I should lower the pan as far as I can and unbolt the pickup, then i'll be able to lower it the rest of the way? We have different motors too, I'm not sure if your pan is super different from mine but if I'm interpreting this correctly you might have given me a way to pull this off.

Search is broken so here I am. So I need to replace my oil pan gasket, and my Haynes manual says I have to drop the crossmember and subframe and remove the engine mounts and support the engine with a hoist which I don't have and can't really keep in my garage, It looks to me like I could get all the pan bolts off and drop the back of the pan down and slide the whole thing out pretty easily but I wanted to ask if any of you have done it if there's enough room and how you did it before I dive into this.

Just bought a smittybilt XRC 9.500 yesterday, 350$ from 4wheel parts with 3 year all inclusive warranty, even if I crash the truck lol. I really wanted to try a badlands cause I've had great experiences with harbor freight stuff before but for something like a winch I was totally willing to go smittybilt which lists for the same price as the badlands 9,000 lb, so it pulls more for the same and I trust smittybilt over HF as a general rule

Finally got around to adding myself, I know there's some more in NE Florida, folks gotta represent!

How much longer are the bilsteins? My Ranchos are just hydraulic, I'd like to go to longer/gas charged.

Thanks man, I'll have my buddy at Infiniti check the part differences on the transmissions, if it looks like more trouble than it's worth I'll just replace the whole thing when I go to do it. R50 crossmembers are different based on drivetrain, or at least that's what I saw in a 4WD conversion thread a while back.

Screw the quick lube places, especially sears, heard of lots of bad experiences with them. Full service mechanics service shops know what they're doing. Also consider a reputable tire shop, a good one will have excellentalignment techs because a bad alignment will wear out tires and cause warranty issues. That's the first thing I trained on at my old tire shop once I got tires down. I lifted my truck with a lift kit almost exactly like fleurys (Would've bought his if I had known about it at the time) and I aligned the truck myself with 0 issues, even the camber was just within spec.

Air filter didn't come loose but it was totally clogged, had a few rips in it , probably from the vacuum once it was soaked. Not a whole lot of mud got in, just a little in cyl#2, like I said it's been a while and the motor runs great now so I think the oil protected the cylinder walls from the dirt. MAF cleaner is kinda expensive for a spray, but I carry some of that too now.

I dunno, I certainly have been exceedingly lucky. I guess I thought that when the piston was at TDC the fuel/air would be so compressed that any additional substance would be too much, but maybe not. The dirt was sucked out before the truck ran and the oil was changed before it was driven. This happened over a month ago, I just never got around to posting it cause I like to post full stories and I've been super busy.

Anyone have knowledge with the VQ35 on this matter? I know my timing chain will make noise before it kicks the bucket, but I'm curious as to whether it's high interference or not.

So I had recently seen a couple threads from folks having water entry issues, one with a blown motor and a few with close calls. Here's my story. Skip to the second paragraph for just the mechanical stuff, but who doesn't love a good story I foolishly ignored the warnings to relocate the R50's low-hanging intake and took my Pathy out into an area with a big puddle in it, I had a that I like girl with me(mistake #1). I crossed the puddle (more like a miniature lake) fine all the time so I figured I'd show off my truck a bit, especially now that I had added a 3" lift, what could go wrong? Well I crossed it fine to a dry spot in the middle I always turned around on, it just got really swampy and dead-ended after that. On the way back through I figured I'd hit it hard and rev it up, throw some mud to impress the my passenger, but the extra revs and entry speed ended up vacuuming up water, more than I expected. Now, I've had water in the motor before, and it always just bogged a bit and then ran fine, but this time the lights started going out and the revs dropped super quick as I neared the edge of the puddle so I killed it and it just coasted out. Because of my previous experiences where I was able to just force the water out through exhaust ( a trusted mechanic had me do this, and it had worked twice on wheeling trips in Ocala), I ignored every single other piece of advice on this matter and tried to start it. It started, ran for like 3 seconds, the died. It didn't sound like it was knocking, so I hopped out and pulled my plugs (thank God I carry a ton of tools), and turned it over, a small amount of water came out, but not a whole lot, I'd seen videos of guys doing this before and it was always way more explosive so I thought something else must be off, it still wouldn't stay running. I I tried drying stuff off, only running the cleaner-looking spark plugs, just wouldn't work. Luckily the girl had an F-150 that she drove to meet me, so she dragged my truck to the parking lot as it was starting to rain and get dark out. After trying to start it with the gas pedal down to cut off the fuel pump so it flush all liquids out, it still wouldn't go, so we began dropping the driveshaft so she could flat tow me up to my shop about 7 miles away. It was pouring rain and pitch black by this time, but waterproof worklights and tons of tools got the driveshaft down and tied out of the way. It was an incredibly sketchy trip with no brake booster in the darkness but she got me to the shop and drove me home. Bad news was I had to work the next day and was leaving for Moab right after I clocked out. So I drove my mom's car (thank God she was out of town) to work and told the guys the had a good mechanical ticket on my truck, make it run before I get back in a week. I trust the guys there with my life every day, so I trusted them with my beloved Pathfinder, after going over it with the mechanic, i wondered if it was maybe an electrical issue, and considered the MAF as I knew R50s had common issues with those, but I was still a nervous wreck at the possibility of my Pathy needing a new heart. I went to Moab and relaxed, went jeeping with some family, and finally got a call from the head mechanic, who's kinda my mentor, on the 4th day of the trip. "CAN YOU HEAR THAT?" He tried to shout over the air compressor. "NOT REALLY" I said. "WELL YOU'RE TRUCK IS RUNNING. NOW GET BACK HERE, THE OTHER TIRE TECH SUCKS!". So I picked my R50 up the night i got back and drove it home. So now for what happened mechanically, and how I adjusted my truck and my kit. First, water got in and drowned the MAF sensor, I honestly didn't think about this until I got it to the shop, and I kicked myself for that. The motor couldn't tell how much air was coming in. The mechanic who was working on it said that he unplugged the MAF and it ran, but very rough and it wouldn't rev high. So he replaced that, ran Seafoam through it, threw a new set of plugs in it, and she was purring like a kitten again. So here's the thing: water and mud got into the motor, I looked into cylinder #2 with a borescope before I left and there was definitely mud in it. This is the third time water has entered the cylinders of this engine. EVERY mechanic and 4wheeler on forums youtube says that water doesnt compress and WILL destroy your engine no matter what because fluids don't compress, but then again gasoline is a fluid too and the engine handles it just fine on compression. I'm not saying water doesn't do anything to the engine, but how in hell has my VQ not blown? It runs perfect now, no damage was done to the motor itself, happily revs to redline whenever I please after water intrusion 3 times. I did learn my lesson though, I did sort of a Fleurys style intake relocation ( http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/topic/25150-my-new-selectable-air-intake-with-a-little-extra/?hl=%2Bsnorkel+%2Bwater+%2Bsensor ) with some 3-inch universal intake hose by Specte, the stuff is great, I might do a full thread on that later but but it's pretty similar to his. If you haven't done it yet it is DEFINITELY worth it, it was like 20$ for everything I needed, no reason not too. I just lazy and overconfident before. I also went to a junkyard and grabbed a spare MAF sensor from a derelict QX4 as well as bought a new set of spark plugs and a can of seafoam, so even if this happens again I can get my Pathy running. So yeah my .02$, actually quite a bit more given the length of this post. I also want y'alls opinions on what to do if you think you have water in the motor, keep it running or shut it off? I'm always inclined to shut if off so I can flush it out, as long as I'm not in super deep water, which I avoid as I always check depth before entering. I knew the depth of this puddle, I just hit it too hard. but yeah, cheers!

What year is yours dude? I always see them mounted on 02-04 pathys, the post facelift ones, the pre facelift ones have different fenders for the headlights but I would think the mounting points are the same. Honestly though I wouldn't pay for an ARB, a local shop can custom make one for less, at least here in the states but if you're in Australia they might be cheaper. They're like 1200 USD here.

Nice truck dude, it'll take a lickin and keep on tickin if you're nice to it. You plan of 4-wheeling that thing or just driving it? And if it's 2WD thats no excuse, it's still fun to just get out there!

So I see that you converted your WishIhadmorepowerD21 to 4WD, did you just replace the transmission or did you swap the shafts and other parts as well? Should I even consider reusing my transmission if I go through with it eventually?

I have a 2WD pathfinder and i've toyed around with converting it to 4X4 but never did because I thought I needed a transmission from a 4X4 and that was out of my league given the amount of time i would have to work on it because it's my daily. But the other day I was cleaning the underside of my truck with a wire brush and noticed way up on the side of the transmission it has "4WD" pressed in the metal from the inside, like it pops out, so this was definitely factory, no one engraved it or embossed it later on. So basically...why does it say this? Looking at the pictures of a TX-10 transfer case's forward bolt pattern I don't THINK it would bolt up but is it possible? Have I been looking at wrong year parts or am I missing something?I have a 2002 LE 2WD, door date 11/01 because I know that matters for transmissions. Any ideas? Cause if the transfer case just bolts up then I'm doing this very soon.

Little late in this one but it's very likely a bad cam sensor. We get those a lot on nissans in the shop, it seems to be a relatively common issue, especially in R51s. Do the sensors first, they're pretty easy.

That's the only place I jack on the front, never had an issue going metal on metal. I slammed the crossmember into a tree stump while 4wheeling once, barely dented the thing, still aligns fine.

Jacksonville, 2002 R50 RWD, I go out to ocala a lot, and I know NovaPath is around somewhere in FL. PM me if you wanna go riding some time.

second on air, it took me a little while to work it all out of my system, but my steering is still heavy cause I ran the pump with no fluid, honestly i kinda like it, feels more precise, I plan to leave it till the pump goes completely.