OK
A few months ago, (January), I cooked my head and my Navara died.
This is an 07 D40, I have owned it for 3 years and done about 110 000km. It has now done a total of 28000km.
The engine death occurred 14km into a 500km road trip. In preparation for the trip, I had checked the dipstick, coolant.
After the engine died, the temp guage then started going up.
Coolant was sprayed under the bonnet, the radiator was empty. When I turned the key, the engine turned over about double the usual starter motor crank speed, I could hear the air hissing out of the side of the head on each stroke.
About 5 minutes after I gave up trying the restart, I plugged in my OBD reader. Engine temperature was 132C.
I could did not notice anything leading up to this. Neither did the local mechanic.
Every few weeks I would put about a cup of coolant in to top up the radiator, I just assumed the coolant was getting out of the cruddy and cracked plastic overflow tank.
Every oil change, I would drain less that a quarter a cup of oil from my catch can. Ive been told this is pretty good. I never had to top up the oil between changes.
Every body who has been for a drive, has commented about how well it ran.
I've been looking for why the engine died/overheated, and why so suddenly.
I've slowly been pulling the engine apart and then rebuilding it. I'm not a mechanic. I've been reading the manual, have taken 100's of photos, and lablelled everything that has come out of the engine bay.
I think I have found the reason why my Navara died.
I have a new head and everything above the block. I got away with having the injectors reconditioned.
This has been a 3 month project of a couple of hours per day after work. I now have a respectable tool kit. I originally loaned a torque wrench off a friend of a friend. It had obviously been thrown about too much, so I bought a new one.
Tools included, this project has cost me about $3000.
My determination:
By rights the engine should not have run before I got it. But it did!
The over tightened and uneven head was a heart attack waiting to happen.
When the plastic connector let go, it normally wouldn't be instantly disastrous. With a healthy engine, the coolant would leak out and the temperature guage would rise. I would have noticed and dealt with it.
When a sick engine with severe internal issues lost a bit of pressure in the coolant system, the little hole in the gasket completely let go. The pressure inside the engine literally pumped all the coolant out. There was sufficient pressure to force the coolant out through the radiator cap on top of the crappy plastic bottle. No coolant equals no cooling and nothing to tell the temp guage to move up. The heat caused the pre-damaged head to expand unevenly and all cylinders lost pressure.
I'm looking for a radiator fan without the clutch, does anybody know where I can get one. Nissan want to sell it with the clutch for a lot more than I have left.
All I need to do now is double check all the hose connections on the inlet side, prime the fuel, put the battery back in, cross my fingers and turn the key.
This won't happen until next week, cos I'm a shift worker.
Could everybody who reads this please cross your fingers for me.
A few months ago, (January), I cooked my head and my Navara died.
This is an 07 D40, I have owned it for 3 years and done about 110 000km. It has now done a total of 28000km.
The engine death occurred 14km into a 500km road trip. In preparation for the trip, I had checked the dipstick, coolant.
After the engine died, the temp guage then started going up.
Coolant was sprayed under the bonnet, the radiator was empty. When I turned the key, the engine turned over about double the usual starter motor crank speed, I could hear the air hissing out of the side of the head on each stroke.
About 5 minutes after I gave up trying the restart, I plugged in my OBD reader. Engine temperature was 132C.
I could did not notice anything leading up to this. Neither did the local mechanic.
Every few weeks I would put about a cup of coolant in to top up the radiator, I just assumed the coolant was getting out of the cruddy and cracked plastic overflow tank.
Every oil change, I would drain less that a quarter a cup of oil from my catch can. Ive been told this is pretty good. I never had to top up the oil between changes.
Every body who has been for a drive, has commented about how well it ran.
I've been looking for why the engine died/overheated, and why so suddenly.
I've slowly been pulling the engine apart and then rebuilding it. I'm not a mechanic. I've been reading the manual, have taken 100's of photos, and lablelled everything that has come out of the engine bay.
I think I have found the reason why my Navara died.
- The plasic 'T' piece that goes between the Heater core pipe and the firewall. That 75c piece of ABS plastic garden hose connector that Nissan reckon is worth $130. Well, mine was rotten and held together by the hose. I now have a $25 brass 'T' piece.
- The head had been removed before and not put back on correctly. The head bolt tensions were all different, by a lot. One of the bolts had been stripped, another was snapped off. I believe a rattle gun had been used to crack it down. I had to cut the old head to get to the stripped bolt to grind a square shape on it to bash it out with a breaker bar. The headless head bolt came out of the block with vice grips after the head had been removed. The rear head bolt dowel was jammed into the triangle shaped oil passage next to cylinder 4. The gasket covered about 5mm of the rear cylinder and 2mm of number 3.
There was a big green stain between cylinders 3 and 4, that was probably my monthly cup of coolant. The back half of the block was covered in crap.
After I scraped/ground the gunk off the top of the block and retapped the bolt holes, the block was as good as new, according the the nissan book which explains how to check for deformation. There is no scoring in the cylinders and the pistons appear to be OK.
I believe the previous owner had blown the head gasket between the 3rd and 4th cylinders. The mechanic managed to lift the head about 2 inches, pull out a layer of the de-laminated gasket and slide in a new one. Copious amounts of rattling then got the head down tight enough to fire. The mechanic then probably said something like, " it'll run enough to get you to the car yard".
As I pulled the engine apart, I noticed lots of other bits missing. I noticed there was a nut missing from the exhaust manifold, and 2 more missing from the connection between the turbo and the cat converter, this is under the heat shield and impossible for my mechanic to notice without removing stuff.
- The radiator fan has fins missing. This probably broke more recently. Our neighbour's cat disappeared early December, I don't know if this is a coincidence. In hindsight, the engine did run a bit rougher at idle in the weeks before it overheated.
- The previous owner had spent lots of money on their pride and joy. The engine had a YD25 double row timing chain installed.
I have a new head and everything above the block. I got away with having the injectors reconditioned.
This has been a 3 month project of a couple of hours per day after work. I now have a respectable tool kit. I originally loaned a torque wrench off a friend of a friend. It had obviously been thrown about too much, so I bought a new one.
Tools included, this project has cost me about $3000.
My determination:
By rights the engine should not have run before I got it. But it did!
The over tightened and uneven head was a heart attack waiting to happen.
When the plastic connector let go, it normally wouldn't be instantly disastrous. With a healthy engine, the coolant would leak out and the temperature guage would rise. I would have noticed and dealt with it.
When a sick engine with severe internal issues lost a bit of pressure in the coolant system, the little hole in the gasket completely let go. The pressure inside the engine literally pumped all the coolant out. There was sufficient pressure to force the coolant out through the radiator cap on top of the crappy plastic bottle. No coolant equals no cooling and nothing to tell the temp guage to move up. The heat caused the pre-damaged head to expand unevenly and all cylinders lost pressure.
I'm looking for a radiator fan without the clutch, does anybody know where I can get one. Nissan want to sell it with the clutch for a lot more than I have left.
All I need to do now is double check all the hose connections on the inlet side, prime the fuel, put the battery back in, cross my fingers and turn the key.
This won't happen until next week, cos I'm a shift worker.
Could everybody who reads this please cross your fingers for me.
