Alright this is not on my Maxima but I know you guys know your stuff in here and it is a Nissan Motor too.

1992 Nissan Pick up truck, 4cyl

Ive owned it since 56,000 miles and went right to Mobil One Synthetic when I bought it. Right now there is 72,000 on it and I just did an oil change the other day with Mobil One Syn/ Nissan Oil filter.

Its clacking on cold start up now and clacks for about 6-7 seconds but not every time i start it cold. There was no change, but the filter. Same oil 10W-30 as Ive used the past two winters with no problem. I dont get it. It was really cold last winter and got NO clacking at all. Nothing.
Let me know what you guys think

-matt

 

It sounds like the motor oil is not getting to the moving parts of your engine as fast as in the past. This is one reason for using synthetic oil -- it leaves a thin protective coating on the engine parts. But lets consider what may be causing this delay.

- In other posts here in Fluids and Lubes, it was reported that Mobil recently reformulated Mobil 1 to use a cheaper base material. I don' t know if this is true or not, but if true, this new material may not pump as easily (when cold) as the previous formula.

- You may have ended up with partially plugged oil lines that slow down the initial delivery of oil to sensitive areas of your engine.

You say that the noise is not there on every start. Is it always there on the first start on a cold morning? There is cold and there is really cold (in the morning after a very cold overnight ). There may be other members here with different ideas about what is causing this problem.

 

Could be alot of things,

Lack of oil (do you have a gauge for oil PSI?)

Piston slap

Valves.


and a slew of others...

Id put castrol GTX in it next with a bottle of Auto-rx, and mabye start running a 40 weight too (assuming your running a 30 now)

 

If its got a chain then its the tensioner.

 

matt, i'm not sure how the 4cyl compares to a VQ, but I had a nasty cold start knock/clack on my 4th gen for a long while. after playing around with different filters and oils I finally concluded that my VQ just doesn't like some oils (namely GC). I now run Valvoline Maxlife Synthetic 5W30 and the engine is smooth and quiet even in 10F cold starts. I've never been a valvoline guy, but if it works it works.

fwiw - oil analyses on my car showed no adverse effects whatsoever from the cold start noise. whatever it was, it wasn't causing excess wear.

 

Matt,

You have more personal experience with the vehicle than I, and I can't explain the difference from last year, but from what I know of these engines the noise you describe is pretty common in 4-cyls from that era. One of my neighbors used to have one of the Hardbodies from that era, and his rattled like crazy each morning when he started it...and that vehicle has less than 10K on it at the time.

I agree with sky jumper...try a different oil and see what happens.

 

This is certainly a potential cause of the noise.

But if true, why does it only happen on some of the cold start-ups and not all of them? And why isn't it heard when the engine is idling after warming up? There may be logical answers to these questions, but I don't know them.

 

Ive been using Mobil 1 synthetic for over 2 1/2 years now on the truck. Last winter there were sub zero temps start ups and NO clack what-so-ever, and the year befroe, same exact thing. It only started clacking after I changed the filter to nissan.

I am starting to think its a possibly defective oil filter. I will switch that tomorrow and cross my fingers.

 

ah so you weren't using nissan filters before. I didn't catch that. that could very well be the issue, as many nissan filters now use nitrile ADBVs instead of silicon. do you recall if that filter had a black or orange ADBV? if a filter change doesn't help then just try to ignore it until your next oil change, and then go to a different oil. as silvermax said, there's reason to believe Mobil changed its formulation recently, so that could be the cause. in any case I wouldn't worry about it too much b/c I highly doubt it's causing any damage. send an oil sample to blackstone to confirm.

keep us posted.

 

I bought two filters from Nissan. I have the second one sitting on my desk and right after the metal peice with the circles, is orange...if that helps.

Another thing to keep in mind is that I didnt buy this Motor Oil New off the shelf This oil was purchsed about May or June in bulk from Autozone when they had there sale going. I have about 10 cases left.

-matt

 

orange = silicon, which is better than black (nitrile), so it's not likely the ADBV unless it is (as you suspect) defective. you can go ahead and try a filter swap. keep the old one so you can reuse it in case the swap doesn't cure the noise.

 

The one in the car might be black or might not even be there. I suspect a problem with the filter since I was never hearing this type of noise and nothing else changed.
The only noise on startup I was getting when cold was the starter not pulling back or a tentioner noise. This Clacking sounds horrible and is so not normal for this truck

-matt

 

Many many Cold mornings after switching to a Puralator filter and I would like to report NO clacking since the Nissan Filter was pulled out

-matt

 

Sound like ur truck is real pickie

 

I might need some of that equipment!

 

My email is Jeepman17@aol.com if you need a V1 Supercharger Starter Kit or any parts.

-matt

 

UPDATE !!

We have had some of the coldest mornings of the year and in the past 5 years here in the northeast. This morning was 3 degrees here. Since changing over to a Puralotor Filter in my truck, I have not gotten ANY type of engine noise from the motor. NO Clacking of any type.

Just wanted to give you guys an update

-matt