Small overheating problem

General information about the first-generation Nissan Maxima in the US. What was the Datsun 810 became the luxury leader Maxima in the US in 1981.

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kassim503
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Location: Stony Brook, NY

#166

Post by kassim503 »

No, and I need this car quite a bit every day, and my P/U is off the road and I really dont feel like insuring it.

Even though doing a top end teardown and a timing chain replacement would be ideal, I dont have another car and I dont see much time in the near future for putting that day or 2's worth of work into the car.

Fortunatley, I did find a temporary solution, just to cover up most of the hot air pumping out of the manifold, just some exhaust sealant putty, it breaks off eaisily and im just gonna keep it on until I find the time. It even went thru a good 10-15 heating and cooling cycles, and I gave her a good whooping once or twice to see if itll hold up under the highest temps, cant believe it but it really seems to be ok. (for today)

Also drilling a steel bolt out of a alum cyl head is not fun, id sweat over having the bit slide off center or blowing thru into a coolant chamber or something

Id say if I had another N47 head laying around id just rebuild the spare and replace it for good. Im not too sure about other heads and changing compression ratios and whatnot, I like running 87 octane.
'83 maxima sedan, l24e, a/t, black

227K SOLD 6/7/2012
83_maxima
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Location: Denver

#167

Post by 83_maxima »

My broken studs backed right out...but I don't live back there either.
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kassim503
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#168

Post by kassim503 »

I guess ill try to put a extractor on there, mabye itll give, never know. See if I could do it without yanking the dist. If I cant ill wait till I do my timing chain sometime during the month of January.
'83 maxima sedan, l24e, a/t, black

227K SOLD 6/7/2012
83_maxima
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Joined: 18 years ago
Location: Denver

#169

Post by 83_maxima »

I fixed mine several years ago. The intake must come off, but that's easy - especially if you label your connectors. Soak your exhaust nuts in PBB for a day or so and remove the manifold, or heat the nuts to get them off NOW. As I mentioned, you've got to surface it, because it is most likely a little warped because of the broken stud. New gaskets on both manifolds and you are good to go.

You could probably do it in a day or less if you were able to get the exhaust nuts off fairly easily and had the gaskets on hand.
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kassim503
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Location: Stony Brook, NY

#170

Post by kassim503 »

I got some tennico accousti-seal, its like tar in a tube. It cured half of the noise from my other exhaust leak in the back. In the next few days im gonna pull the exhaust manifold and lay a small bead on the the head to manifold connections, and replace the gasket at the 2-1 downpipe connector, apparantly thats been leaking too.

Hopefully id have time to replace the thermostat and gasket and pressure test the whole system to check for leaks. Im not really consuming coolant but ive stopped the car and heard water boiling and some steam out of the general area. The thermostat looks like its getting a little lazy and starting to stick. Hopefully thatll quell the problems related to running warmer and hot running after warm up.

I should start a log somewhere to see what I need to do to keep up with reg maintaince. Starting to forget what I changed and when I did it.
'83 maxima sedan, l24e, a/t, black

227K SOLD 6/7/2012
83_maxima
Posts: 423
Joined: 18 years ago
Location: Denver

#171

Post by 83_maxima »

If you're removing the manifold, why aren't you fixing the actual problem?

Why get that far in there and band-aid? :?

Sounds like you have several problems compunding into one big one. You need to knock them out one by one (cheapest first) until you can get to the real problem. Ban-aiding is making it worse. This is just my opinion but...you're killing me! :)
Carimbo
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#172

Post by Carimbo »

kassim503 wrote:I should start a log somewhere to see what I need to do to keep up with reg maintenance. Starting to forget what I changed and when I did it.
I got a hip-pocket size small spiral notebook; it just fits in the center console box. It's right there-- anytime I do anything to the car (oil/filter changes, brake pads, rotate tires, coolant flush, fuel fillups, adjust idle, etc.) I enter the date, mileage, action performed, MPG (for fuel fillups) sometimes the $$$. Over time, this has helped me spot trends.

BTW one of the reasons I bought the car was because the prev. owners had done this in the back of the owners manual (on the blank lined notes pages there) (and even stapled additional sheets there as it filled up) and I could easily see the car was reasonably maintained and what had already been done to it and what the trends were. Fairly frequent valvecover gaskets-- wondering if that was valve adjustments.
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kassim503
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#173

Post by kassim503 »

83_maxima wrote:If you're removing the manifold, why aren't you fixing the actual problem?

Why get that far in there and band-aid? :?
Good point, I could just replace the gasket and drill the stud and call it a day, my plans today are to replace the t-stat, re- align the front tires, check the rest of the exhaust carefully, and fix the speedo gear. Gotta do eaiser first, try to get back into turning a wrench, laziness is my Achilles heel.

Im gonna try a spiral notebook in the center console, I am curious to see how much gas im blowing through in a week, and keep doing a log of maintaience, like your car, I have maintainence records all the way to '92 or something stapled to a portfolio with all the orig paperwork.
'83 maxima sedan, l24e, a/t, black

227K SOLD 6/7/2012
83_maxima
Posts: 423
Joined: 18 years ago
Location: Denver

#174

Post by 83_maxima »

You must realize that your laziness is costing you much more time than just fixing the problem. It sounds like you're dedicated to fixing the problem though. I like to hear that!
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philip
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#175

Post by philip »

83_maxima wrote:You must realize that your laziness is costing you much more time than just fixing the problem. It sounds like you're dedicated to fixing the problem though. I like to hear that!
I don't think it's just "laziness". :wink:

Overheat Coolant - SD25 D21 Nissan
-Philip
Passed 08May2008
My friend, you are missed . . .

1982 Datsun 720KC SD-22

"Im slow and I'm ahead of you"
rlaggren
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#176

Post by rlaggren »

I don't think it's just "laziness". Wink

Ohh yes! Pile On? Can we? Can we! <GG>
82 Maxima wagon
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kassim503
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#177

Post by kassim503 »

Finally replaced the t-stat, hot running problems solved, all is well. One thing that left me dumbfounded is that the last time I put the t-stat in, I put it on top of the gasket, when it should be on the bottom of the gasket.

How I did that is beyond me, so I guess its not laziness, its also clumsiness, too bad, im usually not clumsy, guess I am now. Oh and throw in stubbornness, like earlier in this thread, I was too stubborn to realize that the fan clutch was broke, which resulted me in pouring on the money to fix something so simple, all of those together makes one hell of a dangerous combination. :lol:
'83 maxima sedan, l24e, a/t, black

227K SOLD 6/7/2012
83_maxima
Posts: 423
Joined: 18 years ago
Location: Denver

#178

Post by 83_maxima »

But you're learning...

Good job on getting the overheating fixed! 8)
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kassim503
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#179

Post by kassim503 »

Yea, ive gotta get back into it, im sure if I ignored it any longer it would be game over for a head gasket, and that is no fun.

Next battle would be the cv axle boots, then windsheild, then manifold. Gotta do the stuff in order of the importance, especially with my cv axles, they seem to be NLA around me
'83 maxima sedan, l24e, a/t, black

227K SOLD 6/7/2012
User avatar
kassim503
Posts: 1027
Joined: 18 years ago
Location: Stony Brook, NY

#180

Post by kassim503 »

Well, I got the cv axles and windsheild partially fixed, and looked at the manifold and found a good 1/8th inch worth of a gap between the #1 connection, and you can see flames if you get small exhaust backfires, and it heats up the thermostat housing at highway speeds, so im probbaly gonna try to find a JY manifold, resurface it, and swap them, I think its time to retire this manifold to the parts bin.

On a different note, but probably pertains to this thread, because it seems to cover all of my problems with this car, I had a very poor idle towards the end of the trip, which sounded like a bad misfire, and one bout of gassing it to keep it running right after I started it. But it was fine at highway speeds, and when I got to buffalo and let it sit for 30 minutes or so she started, idled and ran like a dream. Any guesses? Im gonna do a ignition overhaul soon, cause I know the cap and wires are worn out.

Another thought is the heat from the exhaust was heating up the sender that tells the ecu the coolant temp and it started leaning the burn ratio out, just a hunch, im not sure where the ecu's coolant temp sender is located.
'83 maxima sedan, l24e, a/t, black

227K SOLD 6/7/2012
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