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Looking at buying an 87 2 door Saturday and have a few questions


RCWD21
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I'm looking at an 87 2 door. I assume it's and SE as I've never seen an XE with a sun roof. I'm getting it for $400 and it's in really good shape minus the rear bumper (backed into a stump) and the timing belt broke and probably bent more than a few valves. It's power everything and the dash I doesn't have one single crack anywhere I can see. Even has the hard to find Lego wheels! :D I know it's TBI and in the chance that I replace the heads would any vg30 heads work? And how reliable is the 3 speed? He says it shifted fine. It was recently running before the belt broke. Now I hope to go get it this Saturday and was just wondering about those couple issues. I'm 99% sure the heads from another vg30 will work but I want to make 100% certain. I may just order some valves and obviously a gasket set with new belt and tensioner with water pump and front oil seal. I'm excited to be hopefully getting a 2 door and then I'll have one of each :D I also really like the orange cluster even though I see a lot of people hate it. Are the dual gas guages anywhere near accurate? It's got the dual trip meters, volt, oil temp, and water temp guages. Any problems I should watch for besides the rust issues and and the bent valves from poor/lax maintenance?

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That's a hell of a deal for a clean truck. The 3 speeds are pretty much bullet proof...

 

I would find a good set of heads to put on it myself. There are some changes to the heads from AB to W series. Your best bet is to find a set of heads from an '84-'3/87 300zx. '4/87+ are W series and some claim to have had issues by running them on an older block. However I haven't.

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Finding older heads may be an issue because even the old rusted out 300's are considered to be almost like gold :/ there's a couple of 87 trucks (one hardbody and one pathy) in the yards near by but in the chance that I can't find heads I'm probably going to clean these heads up real well and install new seals and valves. For around here if I can get this one I'll have the oldest pathy for quite a few miles. Everything else I've seen is an 89.

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At least in my neck of the woods you can buy a low mileage '95 VG30 engine for $350 cdn. I'm sure you could probably negotiate that down a bit but that is what I see the JDM one's listed for online.

 

Do a full heart transplant and be done with it is what I would do.

 

Good work keeping a 2 door on the road...best of luck.

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Well for me right now just redoing the heads would be the easiest solution. If I ever pull the engine out I'll be swapping in a 5 speed as well. And $400 is the lowest this gut will go but I'm a till going to offer him $350 just to see if he'll bite. From what I've seen it's in pretty good shape. Not sure of any rust under the rear seats because he's busy with work. If it's a little bit then I'll be fine with that. If it's a lot then I can try to use that to my advantage to lower the price a little more.

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I hear you. I guess you won't totally know until you see it for yourself. I hope it works out for you. I love the 2 door design.

 

I found a '90 2 door 5 speed for $500 over the summer but it was quite far from me and the owner got cold feet when I told them I would need to have it shipped.

 

I would bet he would take $300 to get rid of it in its current condition. It never hurts to ask. Good luck.

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Thanks! Today is the day and I didn't get much sleep last night from being so excited! Alot of people don't understand why I get excited over a large chuck of steel but I grew up in an 86.5 4x4 silver hardbody with the old z24. We went almost anywhere. Even a few places we shouldn't have ( water over the hood or halfway floating through a flooded trail) since then I've had a love for nissan and I haven't liked anything else that I've driven lol. That old truck rotted out and still ran and moved.

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Well there is a difference in the intake port angle and I've had some weird experiences with little changes like that. But if I have to then I will.

 

BUT IN OTHER NEWS!!! It's safely home and has a fairly bad rust issue under the rear seats and at the back left rear fender well area. Other than that only the door hinge pins, both damn door locks (drivers side probably has a broken plastic retainer clip and the passenger side has a key broke off in it. If not fixable I'll be finding a "new" set at the junkyard or something. I'll post pics tomorrow after I clean it out and do a parts inventory. The guy was a bit of an ass and really dropped the ball. I got there and he wasn't even home. When I called he was like "ohhhh alright I'll be there in a minute" only to have to wait about 30 minutes! Ugh I hate people that do that.

 

It's an SE with the lumbar support, sunroof, power shocks, alarm (Gonna check into that tomorrow too), power windows and locks, cruise control, and intermittent adjustable wipers, also the rear wiper. No roof rack or rear wing/ spoiler. It's the dark blue interior and the seats are in fair shape. No holes or rips surprisingly. All in all it needs a lot of work. The transmission is COVERED in fluid. I have no idea where the leak is or could be. The engine is torn down and nasty. It has 200 thousand miles and he says everything was original. He's pretty damn rough on what he drives so it's not a big surprise the fragile timing belt broke. I'll also need to inspect the transfer case for any damage once it's underway again seeing as he said he ran it on the pavement in 4 lo and hi!!! Don't you just love stupid people? Oh the joys of repairing a vehicle. It's no wonder his Toyota is in the shop getting fixed.

 

But sorry for the long post and rant. Just wanted to give everyone that'd looking an update and pics will follow tomorrow!

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I ran my 95 king cab to 7k rpm one day when a lady passed me going down an bridge and slammed on brakes. I downshifted one gear too far and I have never heard a v6 sound so mad. I know the vg30 engines can take a lot of abuse but honestly I'm more worried about the transmission and transfer case. Although I'm sure they're fine (hopefully!) If not I'm gonna be ripping him a new one. As of right now I'm almost broke so another parts pathy is out of the question. Plus I have no room to store another vehicle. I feel bad for this monster honestly. But it's in good hands now and will have a forever home unless something horrible happens to it :) my 90 4 door hade half of 4 teeth missing from the timing belt when I changed it. I have no idea how it made it back home 250 miles away.

 

But I have some questions about the 3 speed. I have no experience with it only the re4r01a. That was a fun rebuild and I should have made a write up on it... anyways where would the most common places for a leak to be?

 

Ya know what? I just thought of something... the cross over pipe is covered in oil as well as the transmission so maybe the rear main seal is bad? If so then I'll also need to order a seal with the gasket kit if it doesn't come with it.

 

I'm not in over my head as I've been through this once before but it's a big bite to take :/

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Sorry about not getting any pics up today guys. I've been in a bad mood since this morning after discovering the rats nest under the dash.. The dash refuses to cut off after you remove the key from the ignition. I'll take pics of the damage on that too.

 

Does anyone know where to get a dash harness from? I'd really like a new one seeing as there's a lot of messed up stuff under there... :(

 

As for engine damage 10 of 12 valves are slightly depressed. When he redid the tensioner and belt (somehow he got a belt past the harmonic balancer and the tensioner was rotated the wrong direction) he was off 5 teeth on the passenger side cam and 4 teeth off on the drivers side. Plus with the belt removed I could turn the driver side cam sprocket about 1/8 of a full turn back and forth with no resistance. So basically he made it worse by doing the work himself.

 

Everything under the valve covers is black as coal but when I'm done it won't be! :) I'm planning on pulling the engine and redoing all the gaskets and seals as well as flushing the transmission. Its almost a dark brown color and smells slightly burnt. I really like that its TBI as theres not much in the way of gettingbthe valve covers off :)

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Tomorrow being my birthday I'm getting the day off from work, so I will take pics of EVERYTHING I've found in there and maybe a couple of vids showing the cams and what I suspect to be at least 10 bent or damaged valves.

 

Could anyone link me to the wiring diagrams for the factory alarm system? I unknowingly removed a few of the wires when I was unraveling all of the previous owners screw ups! :(

 

Also could anyone post pics of what a stock TBI engine bay looks like? I need to take an inventory of what's missing and hit up the junkyard if the previous owner doesn't contact me about bringing me the rest of the "lost" parts.

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The body has a little rust but nothing major. Now under the back seats is another story. It's 90% rotted through but I think I can stop it and replace that whole area

 

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Could someone post pics of a stock tbi vg engine bay? I need to see what I need to get parts wise to replace what's missing. I have the timing covers and airbox plumbing and that's it :/

 

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In the first couple pics I posted, could someone tell me where that big hose goes that has that giant bolt in it? I'm a bit confused by that and I'm wondering what that guy did to this poor thing before it ended up in my hands :(

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That's All AIV stuff. Emissions crap can get rid of it entirely... that rats next sucks big time. MY1PATH posted a great thread detailing with pictures all of the TBI components and their funtions. It's pinned I believe, have a look.

 

Given the way the top end looks... I still say find a good motor. With frequent oil changes and a lack of heat the top end would never look like that. That much sludge is not a good sign.

 

If you want you can PM me and we'll talk about that harness. I've built a few of them.

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Well buying replacement heads is out of the question right now.. besides. I can easily scrape down through that crud. It was that way in my 90 and when I was done it looked brand new minus a few places I just couldn't fully get to. But that's just the valve train. I have no idea the condition of the internal engine. It's a little tight with the breaker bar slowly moving it around but if I remember correctly my 90 was that way too..

 

I'm just hoping and praying that there's nothing wrong... it worries me that the engine turns over slow but I think that there's a problem with the positive lead going to the starter.. or that the starter itself is just weak. Although it ran as far as i know before all this happened...

 

I can get engines for around $170 but the condition is unknown and I'd still need to redo all the seals and gaskets and little hoses on either engine. I'm going to mess with it more tomorrow.

 

One last question. I can hook the battery up and the dash lights are off, I can turn the key on and then back off and all the lights stay on like if you had the key in the run position. In the 90 after a short time you can hear a relay click and all the lights cut off. With all the mess in the engine bay I'm unsure where to look because things are moved around and just haphazardly stuck in places where they won't move..

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