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Thanks for the replies guys.
Couple of things:
1. The bolt sadly has no marking on its head. This was one of the first things I wanted to check for but it instead has a huge Phillips screw cross in the head (but it is also a hex head).
2. I pulled the other one suspecting I may have damaged that one but I don’t think it was damaged because the one that I really overtightened like an idiot was the one that broke because it was the most convenient one to access. The other one was far back and needed weird extension combinations to reach it but the one in front was easy to reach so I just kept experimenting on that one with the torque wrench. I tried two different torque wrenches and neither of them clicked. Both torque wrenches were of different lengths too. In retrospect I think the reason this happened was because the distributor cap got into the way and I was unable to firmly plant the torque wrench on it. It was sort of slanted.
3. The other one did not appear stretched when I pulled it out. Do you guys think it’s fine? Could it be damaged without stretching? The one that broke, if I put the two pieces together to try to match it up you can clearly see where the thread pitch increased near the point of fracture since the metal stretched. This did not happen to the other bolt and the thread pitch is uniform.
4. I too think split ring washers are useless (I read that article on BoltScience a while back) but I thought there was some magical Nissan reason they put it there. The torque spec is indeed 12-14 ftlbs (which is where I got 13 from, in the middle). Keep in mind though I could not find an official Nissan source to verify this, I found a PDF on Google that had other torque specs that matched what Nissan did officially say so I assumed it was correct.13ftlbs is fairly low much lower than the average oil drain plug which is what, 22-30? When re-installing the new one I think I’m just going to tighten as far as I can by hand and Loctite it also and assume the Loctite and split ring will keep it in.
Nope, checked everywhere. Nobody sells it as part of the cap nor as just the gasket. It’s as if it doesn’t exist.
Even the Nissan part diagram specifically marks it as “NOT FOR SALE”, god why they did this I don’t know.
I second the dielectric grease. I had always heard about it but never really bothered doing it. This past weekend I did the spark plugs on an Altima and the wires would not pop on to the plugs like they did on the old plugs and the wires required Hercules strength to remove from the plugs. Also when I put the wires on the new plugs they wouldn’t seat all the way no matter how hard I pushed down.
Over night I suspected the rubber was chaffing on the porcelain (it was a tight fit) so the next morning I went out and put a thin coating of dielectric grease on the rubber of the wire that slides over the porcelain and then the plug wire did seat all the way down and since it was now seating it gave off a good audible pop when it seated, totally sold on that grease now.
Bump?
Damn! Sorry it was in there before, probably removed it when I edited out some of my long whining text.
It’s a 2001 Altima.
You probably won’t be able to buff out scratches from the windshield. Glass is too hard of a material compared to something like clear coat.
If you do try make sure you keep it cool to avoid cracking or distorting it. Be cognizant of the fact that you could create optical artifacts if you mess with it and that there’s a layer of plastic sandwiched in there. Have a spray bottle of water handy. The problem is in order to do any scratch removal you need to cut the glass as in physically remove the surrounding material in order to level it with the lowest point of the scratch. Cutting the glass is going to require a lot of friction since it’s so hard and that’s going to generate heat which will crack it if you don’t handle that.
Probably get some glass polishing compound and use something with bite to it like terry towel and not something soft like foam or microfiber. It’s probably going to kill your arms though unless you do machine polishing. For machine polishing a dual action is probably not going to work because the main advantage of it (it’s safe, forgiving, doesn’t heat up the surface) means it’s not going to make any progress against harder glass as opposed to softer clear coat and paint. A rotary has more cutting power but the trade off is obviously it’s less forgiving so watch it, it will generate a lot more heat fast.
Have you ever checked whether the exhaust system is leaking? I have an Altima around the same age (2001) and it’s had a lot of exhaust leaks that sounded similar to what you hear in the first video. In our case the joint between the last pipe and the catalytic converter under the middle of the car was totally rusted out. We’ve had the muffler and the pipe between the cat and muffler go also.
If it’s an exhaust leak you would probably be able to smell it too.
As for the parts you can check places like RockAuto. Sometimes they’ll tell you whether a part is the same part that Nissan sources but without the Nissan name. I did my shocks for another car, I went with OEM on the front but on the rears I didn’t want to pay 100 a piece so I went with KYB since they’re a Japanese company, made in Japan shocks seemed to be a better fit for a Japanese car (the original shocks were made in Japan by Showa also). They’ve held up great since day one, never had a single issue. Easy installation too.
I don’t get it though, aren’t all engines producing metallic debris? I did an oil analysis on the oil change before that and it was reporting that I had slightly higher iron in my oil than other people with the same engine. That filter wasn’t torn in that case so the only iron I am aware of is on Civics the blocks are aluminum but the cylinders are sleeved in iron. Then this must have been the engine producing metallic debris from the piston rings scraping the walls of the cylinder (even with any oil film left on the cylinders).
So if the last oil was being filtered properly and it still had iron debris floating in it, then I would have to assume that in the case of a failed filter that oil with iron in it would damage critical parts that would generate more wear metals which would do further damage. The longer the unfiltered oil circulates the damage would grow worse and worse faster since more wear metals are being loaded in it since the filtration is none (or compromised). I just don’t know enough about the flow characteristics of the oil to know how it would flow through the filter when one of the folded pleats is detached from its bottom base and top base and folded over. It’s as if the filter was in bypass for 7000 miles I guess? The gap caused by the pleat separating on the top and bottom are not as big as the bypass valve opening but the bypass valve only opens for seconds while this was there for at worst 7000 miles. I also don’t know if the oil is pressurized how much it would push on the pleat making the gap at the top and bottom wider. This is a pretty small engine so the pump is probably small.
I’m pretty much dreading this and expecting the engine to fail now. Pissed because I feel like I did everything right. I babied this car inside and out, did fluid changes and all maintenance (oil changes religiously) like I was supposed to and an oil filter that was supposed to be reliable failed and all of my effort was for nothing. Feel totally betrayed for trusting this company to make a damn oil filter properly. It’s a lesson learned for my next car, never buy aftermarket oil filters.
So when I drained the oil it was clear brown on the dipstick. It wasn’t anywhere close to opaque or black. It looked to me like every other oil change I had done.
I had done two oil changes and a transmission fluid change between two Civics that day. On one of the fluid drains I remember seeing shimmering metal but I don’t remember which because I wasn’t counting on this to tear. I think it may have been from the transmission fluid change since it was the first time the trans fluid was changed for that car and I feel like if I saw it for engine oil I would have registered more alarm but I can’t be sure.
I am kicking myself because I usually save a sample for oil analysis and I forgot to do it that time when I needed one most.
As for whether I could have caused it, this filter is of a brand known for tearing (I only found out too late when it was already on my car for thousands of miles). If I had known beforehand I would have not used it at all. The filter is known to be defective and the tears happened at the same points most everyone else who uses them tears at and it was torn in a way that was impossible for me to have caused it. I used a chain exhaust cutter which is a fairly gentle way of opening it. There’s no way I could have tore it near the bottom of the filter since I opened it near the top. Also if I had tore it using the chain cutter, it would have cut through more than one pleat equally around the circumference of the filter but in this case it tore only one pleat deeply. You’d need to stab a knife in there for that kind of effect.
Do you notice this sound happening at a certain speed range? Like 50-60mph? Is that why they couldn’t reproduce it (did they maybe just take it for a slow stroll around an empty lot)? “Wheel about to fall off” sound that happens at a certain speed range is probably the wheel bearing.
Did you pull the wheel off yet? That would be the first step I would take. Maybe jack it up and depending on the diff rotate the rotor with my hands to see if I can’t reproduce the noise.
Most cars have a splash shield behind the rotor. Sometimes those bend and contact the rotor making this type of noise (though this doesn’t happen on its own). Or maybe something is caught between the splash shield and the rotor?
EDIT: cap269 beat me to it.
Yeah I agree with DaFirnz that looks like the chamfered edge. You should have it on the other edge too but I think you’re missing it because the pad wore unevenly. You said it wore evenly but you also said the side was stuck (which I believe would cause uneven wear). Check the wear again. If the chamfered edge is small even a tiny amount of slope from uneven wear could mean the chamfered edge disappears on the other side.
Here’s a new set of OEM pads with chamfered edges:
The partial answer to your question is that some engine blocks have a block drain plug.
An example is the R18’s on 8th Civics. The service manual even tells you to remove it when changing coolant. When I changed my coolant though I didn’t mess with it because I didn’t have HondaBond on hand and they want you to put some on before you re-install the plug, I just accepted that I was mixing old coolant with new.
Useless information: On the R18 that hole for the block drain is also used for the optional OEM block warmer that Honda sells (it threads in place of the drain plug), pretty convenient.
So when I say “overstroke” I mean I didn’t want to push the pedal down so deep that the master cylinder piston seals go where they’ve never gone before and wear out from built up debris inside the bore.
I tried pumping up the pedal and noticed no difference. I’m beginning to think this might just be normal. The brake pedal goes down to the depth of the gas pedal. I can push it maybe half an inch deeper not even. Once I hit that point I can’t push any further no matter how hard I try.
As for the bleeding order I didn’t follow that order, I followed the order given in the service manual for my car specifically which said front left, front right, rear right, rear left.
So I figured I’d post an update on this because I’m still having the issue (sigh).
So the day after I made the original post I ended up re-doing the bleeding the next morning with a low-tech clear tubing in water bottle submerged in the old brake fluid from the previous day (the last bottle of fluid I changed which was the cleanest but probably doesn’t matter).
The pedal still feels the same, kind of soft. At this point I have no idea if it’s normal or not. I watched the master cylinder reservoir like a hawk so I’m sure I did not suck air into the master cylinder. The MC on my car is kind of weird, on other cars there is a single reservoir connected to the MC but on my car the MC is sort of hidden out of view and it has a tiny reservoir on it that has a rubber hose clamped on it to a larger visible reservoir. I never let the larger reservoir ever empty completely. Since the hose and larger reservoir are slanted diagonally from the MC and smaller reservoir on top of it, I would assume that even if I got to the smaller/lower reservoir filling would still displace air bubbles diagonally up and out of the top of the larger reservoir (but moot since this never happened).
When I did the low-tech one person water bottle fluid change the fluid stream was consistent and I saw no air bubbles during the pumping. I made short strokes because I was afraid of overstroking but I did go deep on some strokes (never to floor or anywhere close). I finished this quickly in maybe 45 minutes I had all four bleeders done. There are no leaks at any bleeder (I triple checked), no leaks at reservoir, no external leaks anywhere. Fluid level remains consistent.
The only thing I can think of is there is still somehow air in the system, the MC is fried because I did a brake fluid change or this is all normal. The car still does stop and is strong at it. I can be driving 40mph and jam on the brakes and stop on a dime. I just feel like the travel distance for the pedal is slightly longer and if I’m idling and I have my foot on the brakes I feel like I can keep putting pressure and the pedal keeps going down as I increase pressure until it bottoms out but it does not bottom out near the floor. I’m just thinking it should never do this. It should be firm and stop at a much higher point. I will also say that even though I feel like it’s travelling farther when idle while driving the brakes do engage and stop the car at about half of the distance the pedal can actually travel if I put lots of pressure on it when idle. When the engine is off and I lose vacuum brake assist I do get an extremely firm immovable brake pedal after about two to three pumps which is normal to me and consistent with previous brake pedal behavior.
I plan on rebleeding but this time severely packing grease around the threads but I’m getting depressed at thinking I messed all of this up. Also if I’ve been driving with a longer pedal travel distance than normal even by a slight amount I feel like I’ve already exposed the MC piston seals to overstroke.
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