I picked up a 93VE5 this weekend because it had VTC failure.

The guy I got the car from said it was clicking bad and never stopped even after having it grounded.

My guess is that the cap took all the banging it could take and finally shattered (pieces of the cap were found).

I am putting the motor from my 93auto in it (after replacing studs and rebuilding VTCs) and painting it to sell.

enjoy the pics:

 

Like you have any experience fixing up VE 5spds and selling them.

 

...this one will not have quite the options my last one had though should be pretty nice.

 

That's exactly what happened to the old engine that came in my 92. The front VTC cap broke apart, went down and busted the timing cover and trashed the sprockets etc.

 

nice

 

how about swapping the ve and the 5-speed into mine?

 

pics of how it should look:





This is the motor from my 93 auto. It is really clean and is going to make someone a good motor. The previous owner used synthetic in it and he owned it for most of its life. The motor has around 118K on it.



Goon...I can do that for the same price I was going to sell the car for .

 

umm.. i dont see anything broken in there

 

you dont...study the VTC sproket in the first pics and compare them to the ones I posted just above your post. Also look at the timing chain.

here is a hint...there is supposed to be a cap on the VTCs...its on my second set of pics but not the first.

 

Okay first off sorry for bringing up an old post and it seems this may have been beat to death. But here I was all happy to read that my car has a timing chain so I don't have to pay to replace that like I just did on my Harbody and now I read all this VTC crap.

Okay I read the sticky to understand what my tick tick is and searched the forum but I still have some questions:

If the tick tick goes away after my car warms up am I okay or do I still need to fix it?

Why the he!! does that cap blow apart? It looks like it doesn't even do anything. Can I go in there and just remove the cap?

If it already blew apart is there anyway to know without removing the cover and would it be okay to still drive?

Is there any other options because I can't afford to pay for a mechanic for this and I don't know how to rebuild them?

If anybody has any scenarios or even if you can link me to other posts that may talk more about this (still learning my way around) I would appreciate it.

And I was all stoked that it had low mileage. Guess thats not always so good. I just paid $2800 because the transmission was blown and now I'm worried I am going to blow the engine. This sucks. Its 2:30 in the morning and now I can't sleep.

 

Would this be of any comfort to you????

 

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=491753

This might make you feel a little better, too.

Even with clacking VTCs, it's fairly uncommon to have a complete failure. Look through the stickies and try to keep up with oil changes and use the Toyota filter.

It appears that about 90+ percent of all these cars develop clacking of some kind. The cars generally keep going for a long time afterward. It is irritating, but I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it.

My car has some clacking, especially when cold and I wouldn't hesitate to drive it across the country.

 

its more common than you think. This forum represents a small portion of the 3rd gen crowd and I know i have read of probably 10 (maybe less maybe more) that has had this exact problem (2 of them being from cars I have bought because of this problem). Yes that is a small number compared to the amount of people on here but to me I would either fix it or at least ground it to keep the thing from banging the cap.


To answer some of your questions lil humungus...

Your cap is not busted or your motor would be dead. The ticking is not the cap busted...its the spring weakened. Its the constant banging on the cap that causes it to break which causes the VTC sprocket to slip out of the casing and makes the chain jump time which bends valves and destroys motors.

Craig B ran a LONG time with his VTCs grounded. If the noise isn't there then the inner assy isn't banging up against the cap (read no failure) so grounding the VTC is a viable option for a while until you can afford to rebuild or replace the VTCs

If its just ticking a little in the morning it will eventually get worse but not right away...it will not go away though once it starts unless you rebuild or replace them. It can tick a while before it fails though because some have had theirs ticking for a while...I just prefer not to take chances when its not that hard or expensive to fix (if you are mechanically inclined).

You can not take the cap off or you will have engine failure...again its not the cap that is the problem but the inner assy that slips off AFTER it breaks the cap.


Now with all that said your car will be fine if you take care of it and when the ticking gets worse ground the VTCs. I wouldnt do it until it got worse though...a little ticking in the morning is nothing to worry about...right now.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


I have had my vtc's grounded for 120,000 miles now,they tick from time to time,mostly at cold start up..I wouldn't worry about them too much...

 

Thanks for the all the info and replies fellas. I thought the ticking was just in the morning but I drove it a while today and it didn't seem to quiet down once it was warmed up.

I am going to do what you all recommended. Like ground the VTC with an in line switch, use the Toyota filter and switch to synthetics. I was even thinking of doing that oil pressure flush first. I know those services are usually not needed but in this case I think it might help. What do you think?

I've read alot about people saying not too worry about it much and most Max's suffer from this. Makes me feel a little better. But I read alot about blown engines due to this fault also which is not too comforting. I am going to search & read a little more but if someone knows a quick link describing how to ground them I'd appreciate it.

Thanks. Eric

 

http://www.geocities.com/bracecraig/maxima/vtc/vtc.html

 

[QUOTE=Michael]
I am putting the motor from my 93auto in it (after replacing studs and rebuilding VTCs) QUOTE]
you prob. know this but just in case...remember to use the 5 speed intake
with the powah valve
i put a motor from a 5 speed into the 92 ve auto i got
the orig.a\t's motor had that same front vtc cap break and fall and shoot out of the t cover and ruined the lower chain sprocket bolt hole which made the block trash... 3500 miles later and still goin(some vtc clack when cold)

 

Yeah another thing you could do is just ground them and use a switch, If you want them on for power or off for quiet. I almost just want to take mine out and put exhaust cam sprokets on there.

 

lol yeah I know about the power valve.

Good idea mentioning it though for those without experience.


btw this was an old post (over a year ago) before the other guy brought it back. I have the motor in the car and have for a while...click the link in my sig to see the motor in the car and the painting I did on the motor. I should finish the paint on the car itself soon as well.

 

has anyone done this would it work? would you just lose a little top end?