The Nokeyssan is gone!
Hello Rustlovers,
I’m happy to report that I was able to fix, smog, and sell the Nissan, it just took 3 months. The engine was much easier to repair out of the car but no less rife with problems. Here are the highlights:
I finally got the two timing chains aligned only to have the idler sprocket bolt strip out in the head. Helicoil went well.
Drove over 700 miles trying to run all the monitors but the EGR monitor never ran. I taped a vacuum gauge to the windshield and tee’d it into various vacuum lines then drove around watching when I had vacuum to various EGR components. I discovered I had a bad back pressure transducer. It’s the little disc with the 2 vacuum lines in the following pic.
The clutch would. Not. Bleed. I tried conventional bleeding, blocked conventional, vacuum, reverse flow, everything! I have worked on a lot of ford ranger clutches so I’m used to bleeding nightmares but this one was the worst. I ended up borrowing a top force bleeder that pushes pressurized fluid into the top of the resevoir @ 10 psi. Also it gets brake fluid everywhere. Thanks Dave.
Went to smog it and they couldn’t because the check engine light bulb was burned out. That took a while to change.
If you ever need to pull the oil pan off of one of these keep in mind there are two additional bolts BEHIND the clutch inspection cover!
Yeah, hope you have some seriously flexible socket extensions because these were absurd to remove and replace.
Once the engine was back together I wanted to make sure to get all of the water out of the oil so I ran the engine until warm, allowed it to cool, put in a bottle of motor flush, ran it again for 5 minutes then changed the oil and filter again.
The oil looked so good that I could barely see it on the dipstick. I was right about it being fun to drive too, I drove it for 3 weeks trying to clear the stupid EGR monitor and it revved high and shifted quick. Not fun enough for me to not hate the car though.
Even though I didn’t pressure wash, sandblast and/or paint any of the engine parts like I normally do this job took so long that although free I only made about $6 an hour by the time it sold.
Good riddance!
Now on to fun projects! Like having babys! That’s right rustlovers I’m a dad all over again! Patient wife and I take DIY seriously and decided to have our second daughter at home. We had done it at home before and were totally prepared but not prepared for how fast it happened. By the time the midwife got to the house P.W. and I had delivered a healthy baby girl without help.
We accidentally took DIY to the next level and will continue to do so with upcoming projects:
- The summer project is getting a full engine rebuild.
- Everything is getting keyless entry.
- My old Cummins truck is getting a transmission.
- Big Black is getting lots of stuff.
- I start over with another free car!
Yay!
Until next time Rustlovers,
Do it yourself!
