Postby smj999smj » Tue May 22, 2012 10:57 pm
UPDATE!: Well, I pulled my front cover and found out is wasn't the secondary chains that was the problem; they had already been replaced by a previous owner as I suspected when I bought the vehicle at 84000 mi. and noticed the Nissan red RTV at the timing cover seams. Turned out the bolt for the primary chain tensioner broke, causing the primary chain to slap around. My guess is whoever worked on the chain overtightened the bolts, but, I have noticed Nissan superceded the part numbers for the tensioner bolts, so who knows? I looked at the "updated" tensioner shoes for the secondary chains and I'm still not impressed. They still look a little flimsy, IMO, and they already showed a good deal of scoring on them. Since, I already had those parts and get a shop discount from the Nissan dealer, I went ahead and put the new tensioner shoes and chains on. The primary tensioner got damaged where it mates with the block, so I'm installing a new primary tensioner, slack guide and upper guide (it's scored, as well). New NGK plats spark plugs were installed with new valve cover gaskets. This made it a lot easier to remove and re-torque the cam bolts since I didn't have the special tools. To install the new tensioner shoes, I depressed the tensioners and locked them with a tensioner pin tool that I have. I couldn't get the shoes to press on by hand, but I did have a set of Channel locks with "soft" covers on the jaws (originally designed for the Sears Robo-grips) that made the job a piece of cake! Wish I had the $$$ and time to wait for an XTP plenum spacer, but that'll have to wait for another time! New radiator is ready to drop in (what a pain in the butt getting the old one out with those side brackets hanging up on the A/C lines!). I order new foam for the radiator. Two of them attach to the radiator, itself, while the other two attache to the side brackets. The ones on the side brackets were pretty beat up, so I'm glad I got them. I'm going to try leaving the driver's side radiator bracket off until I get the radiator in past the AC lines (and then install it) to see if it makes the job a little easier. New thermostat is installed. Biggest pain of the job, so far, is cleaning the old sealant off of the front cover, getting the P/S bracket off & trying to find the rear bolt for the A/C compressor and getting it off! New tensioner should arrive in a day...