chrisfromthelc

Just be sure to use a low setting on your iron. That board is pretty fragile and easy to burn through the traces on. I dropped mine down to 15 watts, and it was still almost too much. For most things, I run it at 30 watts, just as a comparison.

I can't tell you exactly what to do since I don't have yours disassembled in front of me, but there may be some cold or broken solders on the board. First, though, I'd try slightly loosening and re-tightening the screwed on the back of the main cluster (the ones through the flexible circuit board) that go into the tach. Many times, that's all it is. If tightening the screws doesn't work, you'd need to reflow those solders on the back of the tach board, and I'd recommend a pretty fine tip because of the tightness quarters on the board. Soldering that board is a bit tricky if you aren't experienced, so proceed at your own risk on that. Bad solders are not often visibly bad, so I would just do everything. I got lucky in that the previous owner tried to repair it and actually burned part of the board, so the issue was very apparent when I opened it up. I hope this helps!

I don't have direct experience with snorkels yet, but I do with real cold air intakes (where the input is on the "outer edge" of the engine bay) on other vehicles. Those do make a difference, albeit minimal. A snorkel is closer to a CAI than just deleting the airbox is. So, maybe there's some minimal power advantage from pulling in outside air, although I think the ram-air like advantage you might have with a true, far shorter CAI would be lost since it has such a long route back to the throttle body. You'd really need to do some experimentation to know for sure, but that's my hunch. I don't plan on doing deep water crossings like that myself, but with the dust out here in the desert, being able to easily put a pre-cleaner on it and keep it up out of the dust cloud (somewhat) is an attractive proposition to me. Plus, I just think they look cool.

The previous owner of my rig put one one (with a throttle body spacer). It's not a true cold air intake...just basically removed the factory air box and used an adapter with a cone filter. It's probably actually worse than the factory air box given our already scorching air temps here (only 104ish today, which is a tiny bit cooler than usual for this time of year). Having the engine heat on top of that can't do good things I'd think. I'm just going to stick with it until I go full snorkel, though. If I weren't planning on that, I'd probably pick up an original air box and reinstall that. The open filter does make a nice, almost turbo-like hiss when you get on the throttle, though... ?

That's good to know...I was looking at the Nolathane stuff, but hadn't seen much mentioned about the brand. I'm used to Energy Suspension and Prothane from my import days, and those are even kind of harsh on a daily driver vehicle. I'll checkout the SuperPro stuff...something slightly better than rubber is probably where I want to be for offroading. I stopped tearing through motor mounts on my 1G turbo Eclipse when I switched those to Prothane (big 16G turbo, ~22PSI, upgraded everything from the top of the head down)....then, I just started breaking more expensive stuff, like clutches, transmissions, and CV axles. That was a fun car, but dangerous to the wallet...

Yeah, I should've specified that I planned to do that, not fully replace it. I think I'll probably do everything in poly that's available when I do need to refurbish.

I've been reading everything I can about lifts and other people's builds, and have come up with a plan of my own. I'd love to get feedback and see if I'm missing something, or going about things the wrong way on this. I realize this will introduce some rake in the back. I do plan on either adding weight to the rear via built in storage/rear bumper/tire carrier, and the occasional trailer tow, so I want to be ahead of the game and not end up with sagging when that happens. Additionally, a front bumper and winch are going to help with loading the front a bit as well. Ideally, I'd like to end up in the neighborhood of 2-2.5 inches once everything's in place and weight down. I'm not going for rock crawling status, just a solid, capable, offroader with enough height to get where I want to go. I also want to stay out of the SFD territory if possible. Here's what I'm currently thinking about: Front OME 2928 HD springs with 1" spacer KYB-GR2 struts (stock replacement, or a longer version? Part numbers would be super helpful if anyone has them for non-stock replacement sizes) Rear Land Rover NR9449 springs (I like the higher spring rate for loading/towing purposes) Bilstein 33-185552 5100 series shocks I do also plan on putting in manual locking hubs up front (quite soon, well before I start on a lift) since most of my driving is pavement to save wear on the front CV axles. It's not my daily driver, but I do take it to the store a fair amount since it's easier to get in and out of parking places than my F150 Supercrew when traffic is busy. I'm currently going over the other suspension components with a fine toothed comb to make sure they're in great condition before I start any of this. Surprisingly, it looks like a lot has been replaced not too long ago...only one rear lower control arm that might need replacing, so I'll do both sides on that soon. Does this list make sense? Am I missing anything? Do you have an alternative for any parts I listed that might be cheaper or better?

I have one in my windshield...I wasn't really sure what it was until I looked in the FSM. I thought it might've been a front defroster element at first (in addition to the normal defrost vents). Some vehicles have them in the same manner, but it would be uncommon for a brand like Nissan to do it...I've only seen them on higher end brands. My stock antenna is pretty much completely gone (broke off down inside the housing), so the diversity antenna seems to be doing its job. I'm probably going to replace the real antenna with some kind of stubby since I don't use the radio that much, especially once I replace the crappy bargain basement deck that's in it.

I linked to that in my original post. What's listed there doesn't seem to match what's actually in my gear cluster. The T5s @Strato_54 linked look like they'll work.

The first ones look to be what I'm looking for. They don't seem to be really removable from the base itself (at least not without likely breaking the bulb).

I fixed the tach on my 1997 today (the board inside the tach was poorly "repaired", so I had to make a jumper to bypass the burned trace). I noticed a few bulbs are missing from the tach. I tried swapping around to the blank spots, and they all light up as expected when you flip the key on, so I can't imagine they were left off from the factory. Ironically, the CEL was *not* one of the missing bulbs. Anyhow, where can I find these smaller bulb bases I have marked in green here? They appear to be smaller than the 74 sized base bulbs for the general illumination. The guide here suggests that they're 74s, but I think that's because they're going off of a 2001.5 model. Anyone know the proper size for this, and for extra bonus points, where I can get them in LEDs? (on a side note, if anyone has a spare housing/lens that's undamaged, I tripped over the cat while taking it out to the truck to reinstall, and cracked the corner of the lens. I'd be willing to buy it from you to replace it)

I'm super spoiled with that, too. I got irrationally angry about something that was supposed to arrive the next day and was delayed. Actually...still hasn't gotten here; it's going on 4 days late at this point (just some bulbs for the wife's vehicle). Thanks for the welcome!

Just an update, this set I purchased at Amazon worked great. The battery was dead in one, but I have spares always hanging around from my other vehicles. Once I had good batteries in both, they synced right up.

That's identical to the Amazon pair I just bought. Hopefully they'll actually come on time (Amazon's been late on 4 shipments in a row this week!) and I can get them programmed later tonight.

I've had better luck with Amazon than buying this sort of thing from eBay. Addressing issues with these things is far easier with Amazon than some random eBay seller or junkyard just dumping stuff online. And yes, it's the full remote, not just a case.

Looks like Amazon has ones that are compatible for $29 that I can get today to try. I did check for the relay as well in the spot marked Keyless Entry, and it's present, so that seems to confirm that it's keyless-ready.

The guy I bought it from had never had remotes for it. The manual (the original was actually included and is in perfect condition!) says "if equipped" when referring to keyless, which is why I was wondering. I might just grab a replacement remote and try to program it. After digging through the OEM parts site, I do see this module is present right behind the lower dash panel at the steering column: https://www.nissanpartsdeal.com/parts/nissan-control-assy-ke~28595-0w010.html I assume that means the capability for keyless is there, I just need to get remotes for it.

My recent purchase didn't come with remotes, but has the "security feature" which seems to work. Locking the door from the outside and reaching in and unlocking/opening triggers the horn alarm. Does this mean that it has factory keyless? I've seen instructions on programming remotes and remotes available online, but nothing really definitive on how to determine if the vehicle has keyless entry built in. I plan to put in a more robust system with remote start in the future, but I'd like to at least have remotes now if possible.

I'm interested to see what you came up with for a tablet mount. I was thinking about the same thing...there's not a ton of room if you have a front seat passenger.

Runs like a top. I drove around all day today getting registration/title squared away, and picking up some things for it (the usual junk like jumper cables, etc). The AC works great...it got put to work in the heat today for sure. It does have a suspension clunk that needs to get looked at. I'm going to take it to an alignment shop since it's got a slight left pull, and have them make a list of everything that needs done suspension-wise (which, I'm guessing is "everything" ).

Yeah, I guess the previous owner put them on. I'll probably end up replacing them completely when I do tires.; they have a good bit of road rash on them. I honestly thought it was black in the ad, but I'm more partial to the blue myself....I haven't seen many that color, mostly white, black, or red around here. I kind of like the "classic Nissan" look to it, but the post-facelift ones are sexy in their own right. I've just been working on cleaning it up today (the above pic was just a quick spraydown at the self-serve wash). All that chalky gray fender plastic is black and shiny again. Some of the black metal painted parts I'll get around to removing and painting later on, but just getting those back to blackish goes a long way. Will do! Maybe on day we can all do a mini PHX area meetup.

Scottsdale area. It looks like there might be a few folks around the area from my casual forum browsing.

I've been looking for an R50 for a while now, and went to check out a few that were posted on FB/Craigslist today. I ended up walking away with this diamond in the rough. It's a 1997, 4WD, with the LSD (of *course* I checked for the sticker...before even test driving it!). It's got around 220k on the clock, but the previous owner had taken very good care of it. No real leaks, the interior is clean, and while it's got a few little bumps from being 22 years old, the paint is surprisingly not completely oxidized (pretty common in Arizona heat). I'm going to spend the summer just combing through everything and getting it back to 100%, but the first mod on the list is tires and a mild lift. Maybe a keyless entry for convenience before that.