onespiritbrain

Bypassing the radiator is a good thing. You should definitely move forward with doing that. What’s this thermostat bypass you speak of? My suggestion is to leave well enough alone in regard to rebuilding the trans. If you have a solid 4R01 and it’s being kept cool then you are golden. These transmissions get some flak, and some of it is rightful, but they are beefy and the good ones often go the distance. I believe Nissans weak radiator cooler kills most of them. And honestly the cooler isn’t sized incorrectly or anything but as the radiator scales and becomes less and less efficient then the trans suffers foremost and is only rivaled by the cylinder heads.

Passenger strut threaded end stripped when I hit a speed bump! No carnage, just a repair.

The 3.3 can barely tow heavy on flat ground. I can’t remember exactly how much weight it was but I think it was about 4000# including the trailer and it was nearly unable. 0-60 was seriously like 30 seconds or more and I had to drop down into 1st gear for steep-ish grades and 2nd for anything else. Lighter towing isn’t as hateful but I still end up dropping into 2nd for steeper grades, which on highways means I’m doing like 35-40mph. Empty trailer isn’t too bad. I can make my way pulling empty by choosing to wait for good opportunity when pulling out into traffic and the likes. Overall the 3.3 just isn’t able to handle its own when towing and it really shines a light on how underpowered the motor is for the weight of the vehicle. Lastly I have an automatic trans and I noticed the thing doesn’t shift the same after towing heavy. Soft shifts are softer and it’s since cleared up but it did have a bump midway thru 1st gear every morning directly after towing heavy.

I found this one at the junkyard for I think like $5-10. I have the integrated radiator trans cooler bypassed.

I don’t think anyone is interested in the story and you’ll do well to retain it.. they want to see actual irrefutable proof.

Oh come on let him be. He didn’t bring it on this forum, did he?

10w30 might not be a bad idea. I think what’s happening is that the viscosity improvers in the oil are breaking down from heat shearing and also fuel is probably entering the oil causing even further viscosity loss. So when you hit it with a product like Lucas your replenishing a lot more of the viscosity improvers than if you had just added another quart of oil. So if we start out with 10w30 then maybe we can skip the added cost of an “Oil Stabilizer” in hopes that by the time the oil change interval is up we’ll be inside the viscosity range where the lifters aren’t making noise. And even if we start getting a little noise maybe we could use half a bottle of the “Oil Stabilizer”. Interesting. So are you gonna try 10w30?

As far as I know they last a long time making noise. I read somewhere Nissan changed the lifter design for 02 and up but for the rest of us it’s just part of owning a VG or early VQ Nissan engine. I have found that my lifter noise closely follows oil health and oil level. 3000 miles into an oil change and mine become quite noisy. Very recently, since I can actually tell where my oil level is, I’ve started adding a thing of Lucas Oil Stabilizer at 2500-3000 miles (or two weeks into an oil change interval since I loose about half a quart in that time) and it greatly reduces the noise until it’s time to change the oil. Oh and I use the Supertech Walmart equivalent to Lucas Oil Stabilizer

It’s your lifters. Only way to fix it is replace them.

Describe everything you notice about how your transmission shifts and performs. For example, it shifts from 1st to 2nd with a quick bump and a quick bump down in RPM but 2nd to 3rd is slower and the RPMs float down, also it sometimes doesnt want to shift out of 4th gear on the interstate especially after a long incline, and most of the time it takes an abnormally long time to shift into reverse.

Yes someone has relocated it. Its proper place is under the upper intake plenum but its a huge pain in the arse to get to so folks, myself included, will relocate it to an easier to get to location instead of putting back underneath the plenum. Looks like yours is broken and missing the clip that snaps in to hold the connector on. Id just cable tie it on there..

Paint

Tip top

Shaman

I’m not sure but isn’t the hallmark symptom of distributor failure that it only does the no start thing after warming up but usually starts fine from cold?