Trans is back together, should be back in on Monday.
An electrical path in the valve body was broken, which I expected. A bronze sprag bushing thing for the front drum was seized onto its bearing surface, which I did not expect. I don't know if they are going to put in a new converter or not, I'll find out when I pay the bill I guess; I forgot to ask.
No idea what the bill is going to be; when you don't have a whole lot of choice, you just do what you gotta do.
It's back home. Golly I missed that car. I really really really like it.
Trans rebuild, new converter, some extra labour to deal with disassembly and that bronze bushing.
The old clutches looked mostly ok. One band had a dark stripe down the center. Probably good that we limped it to the shop right when we noticed an issue, vs. driving it until the shavings machined everything oversize.
Total bill? $3600 CDN. Doesn't feel all THAT bad.
Car is back at the transmission shop. Same P1757, same noises and stuff. Likely the solder repair on the valve body didn't hold (I suspect they just blobbed over the crack, no wire "bridge" giving it strength).
They are saying it needs a valvebody. I can understand their hesitance in "fixing" it again; no shop wants comebacks or warranty work. It's already come back. We gambled and lost, so they are recommending a new valvebody. That's $2000 and 3 weeks out of Japan, and then to the dealer for programming. Yay.
I'm starting to love this car less. No longer the screaming deal it once was, or the reasonable deal it became. I'm hoping the rest of it will last long enough to last as long as it needs to, to become the $1000/yr I need a car to be.
rustybugkiller said:Yeah, I’d take that over a Century every day! Sorry Buick lovers.
There are people that like Centuries? I mean...ive known a few Century owners but none that were jumping up and down with glee from driving one
I couldn't jump much at all after driving one.
In reply to Antihero :
When I was in HS, late 80's, my future FIL got an 86 Century from a Dentist that had the 3800 in it. While that car road like a typical Buick it was surprisingly quick. We had some good times in that car.
New valvebody arrived from Japan on Friday. Should have the car back in a day or two.
Been borrowing the in-law's '02 Chevy HD2500 Duramax, and then their '17 Chevy Equinox, and now my father's '02 Honda Odyssey. The whole family doesn't fit in my '77 Silverado, my '87 Firefly, my '06 Locost, or my '61 Apache.
If you own more than four cars and still have to bum a ride to work, you might be a redneck.
Car is back home. Just sitting in it feels like "home" again. I love this car.
$2900 valvebody replacement I am less in love with, but what can you do....
No. No... wait. It's acting up......
Fingers crossed for you. Cars are so much fun sometimes.
That sucks. I followed the Maxima’s for a bit as my mom bought a new one in 02 and its still in the family with over 200k miles on it. And still kicking butt. Anyways from watching the forums, people would have some very nice, well kept maximas. Once the tranny’s started to go, they parted the car out or tried swapping a manual in. Always seemed silly scrapping a nice car over a transmission but after seeing your experience and expenses with it, i can see why.
Jesus. Time to start buying junkyard transmissions and running them til they die at a few hundred bucks a pop.
A junkyard trans is a gamble, but if you're willing to gamble.....
I probably -should- have taken the trans on myself, but I really didn't think I had time. School was starting, I had a new subject to teach as well, and Mrs. Skinny needs a chariot to cart the kiddies around. I looked at my options, and in the interest of time and less gambling, I chose to "pay the man."
IF the shop had only repaired the broken trace on the valvebody and called it done, it would have been a whole lot cheaper.
BUT there was some shrapnel in the bottom of the pan, which they told me is unusual for this trans. I trust they know what they are doing, I mean they -are- a trans shop after all, and I'm not. I made the call to rebuild the trans. I could see keeping it for a while, and I had this gut feeling the trans was on its way out anyway.
AND there were, indeed, some issues with the trans once they got it apart. The clutches et al didn't look all that bad to me, but I'm not a trans guy; I really don't have that much experience.
IF the shop had put some wire under the solder to properly bridge the valvebody trace repair, it probably would have held, but it didn't look like there was any under there when I stopped by during the rebuild. Again, I'm not a trans guy, I don't do transmissions for a living. But it broke. I can see where a shop is coming from in that they don't want to gamble for a customer again to save money. Order the part, no more comeback. If I went in there myself to re-fix the solder joint, they likely wouldn't warranty the trans.
LAST NIGHT'S ISSUE was a result of low oil in the trans. Right after picking it up with the new valvebody and dealer-programming. Isn't that just awesome? There is "And I paid money for that" but there also is "we all make mistakes."
Should I have just fixed the break, and left the trans alone? Probably. I don't know. It may have lasted a good long time. It may have popped anyway. I made a choice that made sense at the time. I'm not sure, at this point, that that was the wisest choice. But I don't want my wife driving around in junk I cobbled together and hopefully doesn't fail.
Are these vehicles all that bad? No. But my epitaph is going to be "Wow, I didn't expect it to go wrong that way!"
What does scare me is that I know Nissan electrical is a bit quirky..... I'm not sure the future is going to be trouble free.
Having said all that, as soon as I sat in the Infiniti after three weeks without it, it totally feels like "home" and really did miss it. I love the car, and the first moment of sitting back in it it all seemed worth it ("Because I'm stupid" - my other Epitaph).
Glad it was only low fluid 
I can't vouch for these but friend sent me this link RE his Civic needing a new trans. Seems like a screaming good deal if true
Suspecting the front had an un-equal level of caster up front, so I checked it.
LF: +6°
RF: +4.25°
And joy upon joys, not at all adjustable in any way or even by slotting anything.
I cannot see anything bent, but that doesn't mean it's not bent.
Aftermarket upper arms are available for $800US. *cough* Yeah.
More research....
Haven't done anything about the caster yet, but I'm going to measure a bunch and see where exactly the problem is. I suspect a bent arm, as I cannot find any defect in the chassis metal.
Back in March I bought new tires for summer, some General Tire - G-MAX RS in 245/45R18. I really like the tire, BUT, it does seem to flat spot from sitting overnight. It goes away in a few kilometers of driving, but kind of annyoing.
New Problem: Crankshaft Position Sensor is going south. I had two "engine quit for a second, tach reading zero" moments, the second time triggered a code P0353. I will be picking one up in the morning.
Other than that, it's going well. Uses about a liter and a half between oil changes, but apparently these engines are notorious for burning oil. The first oil change I did I ran synthetic, and it reeked of burning oil the whole time the oil was in it. Back to dino oil ever since. I also changed the PCV valve while going dino, so... coincidence?
Oh man I feel bad for you. Expensive trans issues, now oil consumption and other woes. As the Denim Danger himself would say, "Send it!"
Yeah, well, it was initially an inexpensively used luxury car, and with that comes gamble. I did not win in this gamble, but I still LOVE the car. Absolutely love it. I just have to keep it quite a bit longer to make my "$1000/year philosophy" with cars.
The VQ35DE is apparently notorious for burning oil. But, the most expensive problem I could have with the vehicle is the transmission popping. With THAT out of the way, this engine can burn a LOT of oil for a VERY long time before a rebuild is cost-effective.
A liter-and-a-half (1.5 quarts) in 6000km (4500miles) isn't really the end of the world. I had an early Honda civic that burned a liter of oil in 25 miles, bellowing enough blue smoke to have birds fall out of the sky. This is disappointing, but livable.
I may get creative in resolving the caster issue.
As an upside, the new Crank Position Sensor is working like a charm.
And we made just under 12L/100km (20mpg) on our trip to the island.
The old Buick Century would get us well into the 30's for mileage, which saved money for physio afterwards....
And still better than the 10mpg my '77 SIlverado gets.
If it failed in the parking lot, at least it was only a block-and-a-half walk to Lordco to get a new one.
Except I had the whole family with me and "needs-refrigerating" goods in the trunk. SkinnyKid#2 was done drum lessons and had to be picked up, and Mrs.Skinny had to leave for work in an hour. I wasn't sure how much work the swap was going to be, so I took care of the family first.
Phoned the grandparents who picked us all up; I came back in the '77 Silverado with tools and a pump (Yes, that LordCo; Hitachi pump $500) and had the pump changed in about 20minutes. Philips and Flat and you're good, VERY easy change-out.
Switched the Infiniti for grandparent's truck at wife's work, picked up gramps in his own truck, and went and got the Silverado. Followed by a hearty "thank you for the picking us up and lending us your truck" at Timmy's (across the street from Save-On).
Not how I envisioned spending my weekend, but there it is.
In 13 years:
'06 Lethal Locost Super 7: three fuel pumps
'77 Silverado: three fuel pumps
'95 Sentra: one fuel pump
'02 Century: one fuel pump
'99 Sunfire: one fuel pump
'06 Infiniti: one fuel pump
$500 and a time crunch? That really sucks. As for the weird caster issue, it can be quite hard to tell if anything's bent thanks to Infiniti's use of aluminum knuckles and arms. It's definitely LF as RF is within spec. Mevotech sells a rebranded SPC upper arm for around $261 CAD on Rock Auto that should bump the LF caster down a degree or so. Not ideal, but 3/4 of a degree of cross-caster is way better than 1.75 deg.
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