OK here's the scoop, I bought a motor from a salvage yard last thursday. A buddy of mine picked it up, I was not present. Over the phone the sales guy said they come with a 90 day warranty. I just said "ok good to know" and didn't question it any more. When my friend picked it up they only gave him a little credit card reciept carbon copy, and an invoice carbon copy. Neither of which have any mention of warranty whatsoever. So I have no warranty info in writing (mistake on my part, I know.)

I got it fired up and running today, difficult start but my car always is with the engine management i've got going on, and i just put a new motor in it so i didn't expect it to start up like a new car. Anyways it's running, not leaking anything but a drip of power steering fluid, idle vacuum is a little low on my digital boost gauge (usually at -.65hKpa and it's reading -.54 hkpa at idle). Idle RPM seems normal ~700, seems to be a bit more vibration than normal but I DID just install polyurethane motor mounts as opposed to the soft stock rubber ones, so that probably explains the increased vibration (it's probably nothing anyone would notice besides the owner of the car).

Here's the thing. I didn't notice this at first, but I noticed it after the car had idled for 10 minutes or so (but that doesn't mean the noise wasn't there). There is a slight clicking noise that changes with engine RPM. It seems to be coming from lower rather than higher on the motor, doesn't sound like lifters clicking to me. Besides the location appearing to be wrong, it sounds more "solid" like its a little more harsh than the light lifter tapping noise, and a little lower pitch. My friend who has built numerous motors said it could be a rod knocking which has me worried. The noise is RPM dependent, speeds up when the engine speeds up, and is present BOTH when I have the clutch pressed in, and when i have it let out, which leads me to believe it is not trans mission related.

So anyways, I have not called them yet because I have a procedural question, do you guys think that the place will require that I had a "professional" mechanic install the motor for the warranty to be valid? Or should the motor warranty be valid no matter who installed it? Or does it just vary from place to place? I don't want to tell them I installed it myself and have them say "oh well you are ****ed because it has to have been installed by a certified mechanic for the warranty to be valid" but at the same time I definately don't want to lie to them and tell them I had a professional tech install it, since I didn't. Nothing happened to the motor while it was in our possession to that could have caused a rod to knock or anything like that.

 

If I were you, I would call up as a person looking at an engine, and not someone that had already purchased from them and ask them the peramaters of their 90 day warentee and what they require to replace something, or give your money back.

If there is an inner knock in the engine, joe shmo can install the engine, and it will still knock...you can say you had a macanic do it, and get a fake recipt from someone you know that owns a shop.

-matt

 

Guess what. I'm the most retarded human being ever. I figured out what the weird noise was and why my vacuum was reading low. I feel like a moron, but at least it's something I can laugh about and didnt hurt the motor.




























I forgot to connect the front 3 coilpacks so it was only running on the rear bank of cylinders... connected those and my idle and vacuum went to exactly where it always has been, and the vibration and noise vanished immediately. Wow I'm retarded. But if that's the biggest screwup im going to have on my first ever engine swap, I'll take it. knock on wood!

 

Lol, don't feel bad man. At least you didn't have to park your max for almost 4 days because you forgot to hook up the ground after you installed an alternator.

 

I kinda did the same thing after I swapped vavle covers from the 00, for the 00vi swap. I connectors were on the coilpack but car ran like **** and I got all scared. Gay thing was that there were no CEL's So I thought I fcked somthing up but I just had to push hte coilpacks in so that the connector "clicked" in.

 

Neal,
Glad every thing worked out great for you, now go out there and race Briguymax, did he get his twins put on yet?

 

No his twins aren't installed yet. the shop we were going to do it at is not able to give us the lift space yet, so we don't know when/where it's going to happen.

 

Yeah well I did almost catch mine on fire though on my first attempt to start it... I didn't hook up the big thick ground cable from the frame to the engine, all I had was some little *** like 16 gauge wire... while i was cranking it over the first time the insulation melted and started smoking bad. BTW this car sat since April 2nd so only 4 days would have been lovely hehe.

 

Does anyone know if there is a special way to check to make sure you don't have air pockets in your cooling system? Since all the coolant was drained out of the motor/system I want to be sure it's circulating properly. I checked the haynes but it doesn't mention anything more than flushing of the system with a hose, no air check/removal.

 

i had some air pockets in my system when i installed the new motor. i would get some steam coming out of the radiator cap i guess when an air bubble would reach the top. i just let it steam for a while...let it cool, fill the radiator to the top and continue until i didnt get any more steam. not sure if that is the 'proper' way of going about it....but it works and now the coolant system is good to go.

 

I can't leave you alone for one day with that thing before you go and try to break it again...

 

Neal, don't know if this applies to the Maxima but my brothers M3 had a bleeder screw. Once it stopped bubbling, the coolant was purged of all the air.

There is some sort of tool that you can buy too, but I don't know what its called.

 

New problem, check my other thread for info on the turbo problem (not spinning at idle, somtimes).

 

Yes....I understand that M3 and Maxima start with the same letter..but bleeding the cooling system on a Nissan is nothing like a BMW. Futhermore he has an aftermarket radiator.

 

Here is how we do Nissan cooling systems,

Get a ANTI spill funnel that attaches to the radiator filler neck with a special apapter that looks like a radiator cap. The funnel comes with a few diff adapters for diff kinds of radiators. Attach it, fill it as high as you can with fluid, jack up the front end of the car bout foot off the ground- tires foot off the ground. The car will look like its trying to launch into the air, start the car up and turn on your HEATER on MAX heat but with fan speed on 1. Let the car idle for bout 10 min like that, all the air will go to the HIGHEST point in the cooling system- which is now your anti spill funnel. Then rev the engine at bout 2-3K RPM varying the RPMs till the fans come on 2 times. If you don't turn on the heat, then there could be air pockets in your heater core and you might experience some overheating. I never had issues with Nissans not getting the air out of the cooling system doing it this way.

VQs do not have bleeder screws on them like VGs, SRs and older Nissan motors.

 

Where do you get this anti spill funnel with special adapter? Would Autozone or O'Reilly's have it? Dealership?

 

AutoZone should have this, its called a Anti spill funnel and it attaches to the radiator filler neck. I got mine through one of the tool vendors- Matco in my case. I dont think it costs more than 25 bux and it will come handy with alot of Asian cars.

 

raise the front of the car so that the radiator cap is the highest part of the cooling system, start the car turn the defrost on as high as it will go, leave the radiator cap of and just let the car run for a little while after it has reached operating temp, the tool that they were talking about earlier doesnt really work all that well it just puts a vacuum on the cooling system and "replaces" the vacuum with coolant. ive had problems using it before ive found the best way to do it is the way i described above.