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Maintenance after long term storage


awyisss
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Gamellot, you're overthinking this.

 

You're not going to damage a valve moving the cams by hand with the belt off, not unless you go full gorilla and try to turn them way too far. To get the belt on, I had to turn the cams a little with the tool I made. That didn't damage anything. Neither did when I tried to undo the sprocket bolt with no good way of holding the sprocket (dumb idea) and the whole thing jumped--the 20° Citron said sounds about like what it did. I was worried I had screwed something up at that point. But that didn't damage anything either.

 

Trying to do the belt with the engine in a weird position would be a whole lot more difficult, and much easier to screw up. First off, remember the bit about how cams can jump? Stop the engine in the wrong place and they may jump as soon as the belt comes off. This is not likely to damage anything, but it will mean that you'll have to turn that sprocket back and hold it against the force of the valve springs to get the belt lined up--and having done a timing belt on a DOHC Hyundai where two of the four cams would jump whether it was at TDC or not, trust me, you don't want none of that. Then there's the fact that the timing marks on the sprockets may not be up against the belt if stopped somewhere else, meaning that you'll have to guess on tooth count. Get the tooth count wrong and you bend your valves when you start it up. This deal is getting worse all the time!

TL;DR just do it from TDC. You'd have to try pretty hard to screw up the valves. Just make sure the tooth count and tension is correct before you button it up.

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The easiest way, no messing with the distributor, taking out plugs and using sticks to measure, is to take the upper cover off, leave the balancer on. Rotate it till the top marks line up, and the first mark on the balancer lines up with the pointer arrow. Take it all off from there. Then you'll see that the crank gear mark is in the correct spot. Remove old belt, take new belt with marks, throw on making sure marks on belt line up with marks on cam/crank gears. Count 40 teeth between cams and 43 between drivers side cam and crank if you're unsure. Tighten, and put back together. Drive truck without worry.

 

If the seals are not leaking. Don't touch them.

Edited by adamzan
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Slartibartfast,

 

As I stated at the end. Just more info and making the comment that you CAN move stuff around :P You're absolutely silly if you think I'm going to put it all back together in a wonky position aside from TDC :ph33r: My eyeballs are not as good as they used to be and I'm not counting past 10 in order to line up a timing belt :friday:

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The easiest way, no messing with the distributor, taking out plugs and using sticks to measure, is to take the upper cover off, leave the balancer on. Rotate it till the top marks line up, and the first mark on the balancer lines up with the pointer arrow. Take it all off from there. Then you'll see that the crank gear mark is in the correct spot. Remove old belt, take new belt with marks, throw on making sure marks on belt line up with marks on cam/crank gears. Count 40 teeth between cams and 43 between drivers side cam and crank if you're unsure. Tighten, and put back together. Drive truck without worry.

 

If the seals are not leaking. Don't touch them.

I would not do this. The marks on the cam sprockets were not close to lining up with the marks on the back plate on my engine with 1 at tdc. IMO the best bet is pull #1 plug and find tdc. Not a big deal, adds maybe 30 seconds to the job to pull 1 plug.

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I would not do this. The marks on the cam sprockets were not close to lining up with the marks on the back plate on my engine with 1 at tdc. IMO the best bet is pull #1 plug and find tdc. Not a big deal, adds maybe 30 seconds to the job to pull 1 plug.

 

When you find TDC (either with the mark on the pulley or by putting something down the plug hole), you know where the piston is, but not necessarily where the cams are. To tell if you're on top dead compression or top dead exhaust, you can look at the sprockets (like Adam did) or at the ignition rotor (like I did). The cam or rotor position will not find TDC; that's still the job of the balancer, or the rod down the plug hole if you don't trust your balancer. It just tells you if you've found TDC compression (what you want) or TDC exhaust (which will have your cams 180° from where you want them). If that doesn't make sense, think of it this way: the crank's like a 12-hour clock. It says it's exactly 12. Checking the dimples, or the rotor, is like looking outside to see if it's 12 noon or 12 midnight.

 

And let's say you do it wrong, and open the cover and find out it's not where you want it. No sweat. Leave the belt on, thread the crank bolt back into the crank (you might need some washers to prevent it from bottoming out), and roll the engine over by hand with a ratchet or breaker bar until it is where you want it. Then continue as though nothing happened.

 

If the seals are not leaking. Don't touch them.

 

I was not so lucky with my crank seal!

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I see what he was saying. I thought he was suggesting finding tdc with the marks on the cam. Both of mine were about 5 degrees off, opposite directions, from the marks on the back plate. Not close enough for me. But, that is plenty close enough for determining if it is tdc compression or exhaust.

 

My mistake.

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alright lots of info to absorb here. thx for all of it, i don't feel like i'll damage anything by removing the cams if i take my time and have the right tools for the job. i'll probably use a strap wrench and something going through the cam sprocket holes to keep the sprocket still while i remove the bolts. a friend says he has a crank pulley/balancer removal tool I could use, hopefully that works out.

 

I ordered a gates timing belt + tensioner + waterpump kit and a thermostat from rockauto, should be here in less than 2 weeks. Seals are cheap enough to buy locally.

 

if i have enough time this weekend i'll probably get the old gas out of the gas tank/fuel lines and crank it a bunch to get oil on to the cylinder walls as suggested by adam, then see if it'll fire up.

 

 

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I'm sure it will fire up. My engine that sat in a warehouse fired up after about 12 revolutions. It ticked for a few minutes while the lifters primed but now it is silent.

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UPDATE: Tried to start the car today.

 

Stuck a hose and siphon pump into the gas tank...nothing came out. Uh-oh. Filled 20L of gas, topped up the rad with water, pulled the ignition coil plug and fuel pump relay then cranked it a bunch to get some oil on the cylder walls. Starter sounded great.

 

reattached the ignition coil plug and fuel pump relay then debated whether i should run out and get a new fuel filter before starting....i opted out on the extra errand lol. went to start the car...doesnt turn over. ok maybe i didnt get that relay back in all the way. i get a friend to turn the key while my finger is on the relay, i can hear and feel the contact close. so now im wondering if the engine is getting fuel.. so i pull the hose on the top of the fuel filter and turn the key... nothing coming out the filter. ok so maybe the filters clogged so i pull the filter off the hose, and a little bit of fuel dribbles down from the filter and a bit from the hose. thought i figured it out at this point just need a new filter, but then i turned the key, and no fuel comes out the hose. Another uh-oh. lets take a look at the fuel pump.

 

once i get the carpet in the trunk pulled back, pull off the gas tank cover and what do i see...fuel sender cover was rusted as hell. started taking off the hoses, and the one on the right, i think thats the one that sends fuel, just broke off with the metal tube rusted to the inside of the hose. fuel started coming down from that hose, seemed to stop once i pulled off the gas tank fill cover, definitely relieved some pressure. I continued to get the fuel pump out of the tank, and the whole sender unit/pump was covered in rust. ill be posting pictures of that and the broken fitting.

 

i guess i'll be getting a new sending unit/pump. couldnt find a sender unit online (rockauto or ebay), just pumps. anyone know somewhere i can get one for a reasonable price? also, do you know what size fuel lines i'll need?

 

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Ooh. That's not what you want to see.

 

Wrecking yard or part-out is probably your best bet. You could try a dealership, factorynissanparts, courtesy parts, but I'd expect them to be awfully proud of the unit if they have it.

 

If the inside of the tank looks like that sender, I'd consider picking up a whole tank at the wreckers, if you can find a clean one. You could also just pick up a new tank, but if you do that, don't get the cheapest you can find--I did that on my '95 when one of the seams started leaking and had an awful lot of screwing around to do to get the blighter in because the manufacturer cut the mounting holes wrong and even managed to kink the ring the fuel pump's supposed to sit on so it wouldn't seal right.

 

I don't remember offhand what the fuel line size is, but it looks like you could bust off that other nipple pretty easily and take that to the parts store with you. Make sure it's rated for fuel injection.

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The fuel lines are 5/16".

 

Not sure if you can get the sending unit from nissan anymore. They weren't too expensive on their own, like 70 dollars or something. Best bet would be a junkyard. I'm sure there are still ton's of wd21s around in BC, at least I saw a lot when I was there last year haha.

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thanks for the tips guys, i'll be looking to get one from a wrecker or someone parting out a vehicle. probably replace the gas tank at some point too. my local dealership wanted $400 to order the sending unit! if i buy online i'm looking at around $350 after shipping/currency exchange. didn't think the sending unit would be such a costly part.

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