While having the clutch and RMS replaced, I noticed oil leak from this part (white arrow). Anyone could tell me what they are?

You can see part of the engine block on the left, this is looking at straight up from driver side.




What is that part pointed by white arrow?

 

That is an egr pipe. has no connection to oil system. Either oil is dripping down on it. Or the Intake manifold is filling with oil. Which happens a lot with a bad PCV and i have never seen i high mileage maxima not have oil and sludge in the IM.

 

Probably leaking down from the rear valve cover.

 

Thanks guys.

Found out also that my power steering pump or hose is leaking also (slowly, probably a pump seal). This things leaks every where.

 

High pressure hose always leaks after 150k.

Welcome to any old car. ****ty rubber dries out. They won't use silicone. That might cost a few extra bucks and will last forever.

 

If any of PS fluid leaks onto suspension bushings, it will eat through them and destroy. Repair the leak ASAP if you want to keep the car.

 

this is the leak on the ps pump..





this is what 199K rear main seal leak looks like...






Wait till you see the leak from the upper oil pan....

 

^^This X 1,000 ^^

Fix that ASAP. Any oil dripping on rubber parts will kill them pretty quickly.

 

That's a big job. I've done it on both my cars. It's strange for the Upper oil pan to leak though. Nissan uses a really good RTV. I wonder if it's been apart before.

A few things.

Make sure the mechanic knows the throw out bearing can easily be put in backwards. It'll go together easily either way but it wont work right if it's in backwards.

Find out what RTV they're using. The upper and lower oil pans don't use a gasket so it's all up to the RTV. They send a few small tubes with the seal kit but I wouldn't trust it. Personally, I would bring them a tube of Hondabond.

 

They already had it back together, I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow.

Turned out that the leak was mainly from the RMS and the half moon seals. I guess to do the half moon seals, you need to drop the upper oil pan.

Also, I'm paying $1600 with new clutch, resurfaced fly wheels, new seals, fresh engine and tranny oils. Is this reasonable? I wanted to do it myself, but not possible due to snow and garage full of junk!

 

The RMS comes mounted to a plate that fits between the block and upper pan. It all has to come apart. Kind of a dumb design that shouldn't be so much work to change.

Sounds like a good price. It's a lot of work and the clutch isn't cheap. Dropping the upper pan means removing the Y-pipe, cooling lines and other parts that don't have to be touched just to drop the tranny. It's a whole new job once the tranny comes out.

Find out what tranny fluid they used. These trannys NEED gl-4 fluid. It CAN'T be GL-5 or GL-4/GL-5. It's somewhat uncommon and if they don't already know whey probably used the wrong fluid. I'd ask them before mentioning the GL. I would swap it anyway and use Redline MT90.

 

The thing that makes me mad is that it took them since last Thursday and they are done yet.


The reason for me to do in the shop is that they can do it faster than I do in the garage without a lift, apparently that's not the case.


They did use GL4 75/90 for it but I probably flushed it with MT90 which what I have always used.

 

That does seem to be a bit long. Both times I've done it it took two full days but they were both running the second day.

 

That is an egr pipe.

 

Ok, finally go the car back in running. The leak that was on the PS pump above isn't from the pump nor the high pressure hose. It comes from rear valve cover. It leaked pretty bad along the seam and dripped on the PS pump and line, exhaust manifold, and the EGR tube. I'm going to leave the PS components for now.

Time to do:
Valve cover gasket kit (complete with plug and bolt boots) - Felpro
PCV + boot. Felpro
Intake manifold gasket kit - Felpro.
NGK V Power Plugs.

I do have coolant leak that looks like coming from the water pump area. It only happened on the started up on a cold day, Its very small (few drops). Looking for low miles OEM pumps for now.

I gotta break in the clutch now but it sure is nice to be able to drive normal again.

 

So, spent Friday to do the Rear Valve Cover gasket. 80% of my time was spent cleaning that removing that intake manifold. Man...there were 4 bolts that ties the intake manifold to brackets attached to the engine block. That took me solid 1 hour to remove them all. had to take the coolant heater core hose to access the bolts.




2 on the left and 2 on the middle. You can see I removed the coolant hose and bent the high pressure power steering bracket to access the bolts. Thanks Nissan!!

 

Throttle Body all gunked up....



EGR tube clogged. Surprised never threw any codes..



Old plugs. Gap is a mile long.

 

The spark plug seal/boot looked different than the ones I ordered from Nissan, not sure why. I'm pretty sure the old ones were never replaced since new.



I didn't really clean the sludge. Tried to mess with it for few minutes and decided it was taking too much time. New plug boots, new gasket, new PCV, new PCV boot.

 

Cleaned Throttle body and new gasket too.



Cleaned Intake Manifold and new gasket installed.

Put it back together and started right up after few hiccup. The front valve cover is not leaking or weaping but it looks like it should be way easier to do than the rear ones.