Installing new valve stem seals is not fun

[C-Kwik]

Spent the afternoon replacing my valve stem seals. All 16 of them. Went pretty smoothly. Got to cylinder #4 when a valve keeper decided to fly off towards the intake. I'm usually good at figuring out where parts fly off to, but the compressor kicked in while I was trying to put it on and so I couldn't hear where it fell to. All the seals are replaced and all I need is one keeper. Hopefully one of the dealers around here stocks these.

I did notice it looks like Nissan changed the valve stem seal material. Hopefully to something better. The old ones use black rubber. The new ones are brown. And I don't think it's from having been on the car. I had replaced 2 of the seals before and those two are in great shape and are the same color as the new ones. The old black ones are quite brittle.

I found a great site on valve stem seals (http://www.automotiverebuilder.com/ar/ar79842.htm). There is a section on testing for materials by burning it. I may try it out what materials they are tomorrow. I saw my friend had a propane torch at his shop. But it seems likely the newer seals may be viton as they are brown and this site only associates brown seals with viton, which has good flexibility and ability to handle high heat. Black can be any of the seals.

[C-Kwik]

Well, I tried to burn the old valve seals. Both produced white smoke with a smell like burning rubber. The brown one was harder to burn and produced less smoke than the black ones. Neither matched the description on that site very well. Oh well.

[silkk]

hope you find that keeper or get a cheap one from your dealers

[C-Kwik]

I ended up finding one at a dealer here. Actually with all the dealers in the socal area, none seemed to stock them. One dealer said they had some kind of part locator and all the dealers were tied into it except 2. He said the closest to stock it was in Arizona. One of the 2 I had already called. The 2nd was my next call and they had it. Interestingly, this dealership had another part that noone else had 2 years ago. It's not a close dealership to me, but I think I will definitely be calling them should I run into any other non-stocked parts before I actually order them from now on.

The car is done. But it seems I had more than one oil seal problem. I think my turbo is done. The car tarted smoking when I got home, but it wasn't similar to the valve stem symptoms. I checked the shaft play and it's excessive but serviceable. After playing with the turbo for about an hour today though, it seems I may heve loosened up some grime that may have built up around the seals. It smokes more constantly now. Especially under no load revs where oil pressure will get much higher than manifold pressure. Dammit.