nutty dredd

I recently sold my 04 e46 330ci and the max has become my primary car again. Everything has been fine for the past 6mnths but all of a sudden its become 1 problem after another. A little history before I get into the problem. Car is a 96 with about 170k on odometer. Bought it in 04 and drove for over a year then gave it to my sister who drove it for about 6mnths before she bought her own car and the maxima got garaged. Between 06 and Dec last year I had my 330 and a 03 toyota camry as cars that i drove and the maxima was barely touched. In 07 I did a lot of suspension work on the max installing new sway bar end links, energy suspension LCA bushings, new outer tie rod ends, new ball joints and new wheel bearings. I also went ahead and changed my tranny out with 1 from a 99 i30 that had belonged to my friend which got t-boned and car was totaled. my tranny had started leaking right after I bought the car and thinking it as maybe just a leaky gasket I took it to stealership was basically told it needed to be replaced. While changing tranny I did the rear main seal, will explain why I am mentioning this a little later.

Between 07 and end of last year I probably put at most 50 miles on the car, starting every once in a while and running 1 or 2 short errands to make sure nothing would seize up.I sold my camry in Nov last year and put the e46 up for sale. I am going back to my home country end of this year to start a transportation business so I needed money to buy semi's. With 1 car sold and 1 car up for sale I decided to get the maxima up and running. Back in 2006 when the gd started on the ksport coil overs I bought a set and they basically set in the box unmounted until Dec. I slapped them on and dropped car about 1.5" all round and installed other parts I had gathered over the years including cefiro's, 97-99 grill and bumper, fogs, 97-99 trunk conversion and other smaller things interior wise. To say I was happy with the outcome would be a lie, I WAS THRILLED!!! The car finally was in a place i wanted it. I ran stock wheels through out winter and about a month and half ago I put on 18x9 motegi's on 245/40's no spacers, no rubbing.

The car drove like a dream until problem number 1 started 3 weeks ago. It became a b**** trying to start it up. It would turn over but sputter and backfire before kicking in after about 15secs of cranking. Checked injectors, crank and cam shaft sensors and all were good. Did research on the forum and found out it was grounding issue that occurred if you separate tranny and engine and didn't clean and sand surfaces down before putting back together. Ran 4 8 gauge wires for grounding and car fires up with 1 kick. Problem solved, so I thought. Welcome problem #2. While dealing with prob #1 I noticed after cranking and start up black smoke coming out of exhaust. Figured it was burning oil and was probably mixing oil and fuel so I did oil change when i grounded car. While under the car doing the grounding I noticed oil on the bell housing. Make no mistake this was motor oil not ATF. Didn't think much about, cleaned it up changed oil and moved on. Now every morning I wake up and notice an oil spot slightly bigger than quarter size under the car. Only thing I can think of is the rear main seal but like I mentioned earlier that was replaced and it hasn't even been 3k miles since I did it. Could all the cranking during the hard starting have caused the seal to fail or is it something else?

Problem #2 is a problem but its something I can live with, but problem #3 just developed and is driving me insane. Started last week Thursday while on the highway, it was a slight squeak/squeal under acceleration. It sounded like a bad belt but not as ear piercing as a belt. my belts were changed less than 1000 miles ago. Sound only happened when car was engaged in drive. While coasting on highway I put the car in neutral and revved engine and sound went away,put back in drive and sound came back. When I let off the gas while in drive it went away. Sound seems to be coming from drivers side front wheel. As I got off the highway and came to a stop the sound got louder until it sounded like something was grinding, a sound almost similar to extremely worn out pads. When I installed my coil overs in Dec I went ahead and did new rotors and pads front and back so I know my brakes are good. Sound started getting louder each day and this past weekend I parked the car. Yesterday I decided to take a look and went ahead and took coil overs off. Visually inspected everything and nothing seems to be rubbing against anything. No metal filings anywhere. I checked the rims and they are fine, checked pads and they are wearing at an even rate so it doesn't seem to be a caliper that's binding. I went ahead and bent the dust shield back and checked all suspension parts to make sure they are torqued on tight and they are. Only thing I did notice on the coll overs was the locking collar on top of the mount that bolts to spindle and locking cup that's below it were loose so the mount had some play to it. I went ahead and tightened these and reinstalled everything. Pulled out of the driveway and everything was fine for about a quarter mile then that sound came back again. WTF, I was heated. I stopped and checked the locking collars and they were fine. Drove for a bit and sound stays the same. I did notice however that under heavy acceleration the sound goes away and also if turn steering towards left it does away but gets louder if turning steering towards right. Could it be a wheel bearing that just went shot. Bearings don't have more than 3k on them but could those 2 yrs of the car just sitting have caused them to start failing. Today I'm going to swap my coil overs around and replace my drive shafts since they are under warranty. Right now I am really stumped as to what it could be. There isn't much to the suspension and if after swapping coil overs around and changing drive shaft the noise is still there I am leaning towards wheel bearing or maybe something inside tranny. Any help on this is much appreciated, thanks.

Leo_Koneval

iTrader: (4)

According to my amateur diagnoses it seems like for your problem:

#1 I don't remember which is which but leaky valve guides or leaking piston rings will let oil leak down into the cylinder while the car is not running and when you start her up, all that oil gets burned out the tail pipe, which is why the black smoke only comes out during start up. But if black smoke comes out whenever you accelerate then its also one of those two.

For #2, I honestly think if its a leaky gasket perhaps using a slightly thicker oil will help keep things in there.

For #3 it sounds like maybe its the CV joint, but since you replaced the drive shaft you should have noticed if there was something wrong there. The only easy thing left to do is check out the bearings haha. But a bad bearing should have a sort of growling sound not a high pitch worn pads sounds. But it is worth a shot.

Sorry I'm not much help haha

nutty dredd

Thanks for the reply Leo Koneval

The black smoke only happened when I had my starting issue, after I fixed it, it hasn't smoked during start up or under acceleration.

I had 10w40 oil laying around and that's what I used for my oil change. I might have to used a heavier oil and see if it continues to leak.

I haven't changed my driveshaft yet, just came from the parts store and the part has to come from their main hub so it won't be in til this afternoon. will probably tackle that tomorrow and see if i can notice a difference. IDK right now, just hope it's an easy fix.

njmaxseltd

iTrader: (19)

Black smoke was fuel.
Your rear main seal leak wasn't caused by excessive cranking.
Did you put grease on the outer axle seal in the hub assy when you put new bearings/axles in? Sitting for long periods of time will not make bearings wear out. Is there any play in the hub assy?

Can we get the cliff notes only next time?

Nozama

iTrader: (1)

Have you re-tightened the belts since the initial install to verify that it's not a belt slipping issue?

nutty dredd

Figured out problem 3 and fixed it. It was the wheel bearing . Picked drive shaft up this afternoon and got wheel bearing and seals just incase. Removed drive shaft and it looked fine removed hub assy and spindle had major play. popped inner seal and could see where it had failed. Pressed old 1 out and put new 1 in and drove car for over an hour and it is quiet as can be. beats me how it went bad. 2 problems fixed now just have to figure out the oil leak

sorry am detail oriented.