no, i tested at 20psi, so i only had 10psi lost...














lol jfwy. yes at 100psi. i meant to put 10-11%. doh.

now i just need to find a writeup on how to do the valve seals. are you just going to the dealer to get them? i do not see them much on any other sites

 

I got mine off rockauto.com. I used a chiltons to guide me through dissambly/reassembly. The torque specs in my chiltons for tightening the cams was wayyyy off according to the local nissan dealership. Definately go to them to get the torque specs printed out for everything cam-related.

 

I have a Nissan shop manual, so I suppose the torque values should be ok.

 

^ same here. and the motor is pulled so this should be pretty easy to get to. luckily i found out i have all the seals i need already brand new from a full gasket kit

 

i have a question. what do i do about the excess oil in the chamber? i have brand new iridium plugs i hate to shove in there and have it burn off all the old oil

 

^ Not sure what you mean. It's not like there's a bunch of oil in the combustion chamber. It is slowly leaking into there and being burned each cycle. The thing is, it won't burn properly and will foul your plugs in the affected cylinders over time.

 

right, but i get oil on the leak down tester and im just thinking, if i put the new plug in there, its already going to have oil all over the end. just thinking that i hate to start off with oil on my new plugs

 

Ok, well doesn't that mean you ALSO have that valve cover gasket issue people are always talking about? The one where oil leaks into the "tube" area where the spark plugs live (on the coil pack side)?
If not, plugs aren't that expensive but they will get fouled until you fix the issue.

 

could be, but mainly im talking about on the cylinder chamber side. there is still some oil in there from when the car had oil flowing through it. will that just burn up and be gone after i fix the seals? or do i find a way to clean the excess out

 

easy- run it with your old plugs after you put it back together then throw the new ones in.

 

^ yeah i guess your right. i just want that first feeling when i get it put back together to be top notch. lol. not having fouled plugs

 

personally I think you'll be fine either way you want to do it. if it ran without a miss before you tore it down, your plugs were probably fine. If you throw the new plugs in, the leftover oil should be burned out of the cylinder well before they have a chance to foul.

 

Mini update.
I called a shop (non-dealer) in town that works on Nissan for a rough quote on a full valve seals job. As I expected, he said it's about 25 hours as they insist on removing the engine, etc, so it would be a lot of money.
Then he says that he virtually guarantees me that it is rings, not valve seals. Here we go again!! I insisted that it's an '03 and not a Rev Up and that the leak down test was fine. He says '03s were pretty well known for failing scraper rings and dealers even had something like a TSB about it.
Everything I've read says RevUps were the potential oil burners, so am I missing something?
I'm just so desperate to avoid doing this job only to find out AFTER that it was rings. I suppose it is possible that the compression rings are still fine while the scraper ring is pooched, but I wish I knew how to tell.
Any more advice?

 

I can only say this. I have finished mine and put the engine back in. Mine no longer smokes. runs A HELL OF A LOT BETTER. I have not pulled the plugs yet to see if there is oil because its only been a couple of days.

this was one hell of a job, and i had the engine out to do it. You definitely want to get the tool from JWT. made it go from damn near impossible to do, to spending about 5min on each spring (for me since my engine was sitting on the garage floor)

If you think you can do it yourself, its not that hard. just time consuming and you have to have patience. Personally, i think the the shop is just saying that about the rings, because to me, that seems to be the "easy" explanation. I heard it too from several different mechanics. But 25 hours seems a little much. You have to remove the plenum, rocker covers, front timing cover, chain, cam sprockets, and cams to even get to it. then put it all back. Its a long tiring job for sure.