Hello All,

I have a 2000 Altima with 180K miles. It started making quite a bit of racket, and upon dropping the oil pan, I discovered quite a few pieces of the lower chain guideplastic and 2 small pieces of the metal as well. Needless to say, I will be putting in a chain kit soon.

Is it possible to remove the lower chain and sprockets without having to remove the head? As you know, the head gasket extends to seal between the top and bottom chain covers on this engine.

Tearing that gasket while removing the covers is my biggest fear with this job.

That being said, if the gasket does tear, do you think it can be sealed well enough without having to be replaced? I know that there are alot more things I should do while I have it opened up, but situation and money do not allow this right now.

Sorry if these questions have aleady been asked/answered. If so, please point me to the appropriate posts.

Thanks very much in advance,

Ed

You should not have to remove the head to do your timing. Just be careful with the gasket, however with how the head sits on the block you should not be able to damage the gasket to the point you will have to replace it unless you are really sloppy.

sohc-ka24e-timing-chain-replacement-t220814.html

Thanks, I'll try to be careful with this. Fortunately, this was found while the car still runs, thank God.

This engine is the DOHC one, and it has single-row chains. Are there any good writeups on this one? I need all the help I can get.

I will have some help with this, so that is good. And I will be taking as many pictures as I can along the way, too.

Thanks.

It is a second gen ka24de '01-04. I will be doing the timing on one in a week or two, just did the head gasket. A friend and I are doing it to the wife's old 98 Altima. You can pick up a haynes manual and it will have a good write-up for your car. Setting the timing on any ka24de write-up will be fine there are tons out there. Marks appear to be all in the same place for 1st gen and 2nd gen ka24de engines (I would look for nissan confirmation on that though).

Document it well I would be interested in following your progress. It looks a lot more simple than my friend's 98 Audi a4 when we did that.

Thanks again,

From that pic, it looks like the gasket is pretty beefy. You never really know what someone else has done though. The car had 120K on it when bought, so I am somewhat hopeful it is the original chain. The only other things I have done to it are the radiator, water pump, and thermostat about 8 months ago. The radiator had been rigged with some JB weld, it had several good cracks in it.

Do you have a preference on a particular brand of chain kit? I found prices ranging from $172 at advance to $360 at Nissan (alll parts separately, of course). I put a new chain kit in a chevy cavalier many years ago and after about 4 months, it broke at 70 mph, shattered the crank sprocket and pretty much toasted the engine. Makes me a little nervous going with the cheapest one.

I will take as many pics as I can, because this job will probably be done over a few days span. Hopefully, I can start this weekend on it.

Just a few lines to advise of my progress. Spent the better part of last weekend taking her apart, What a PITA!

Still have not gotten the timing covers off yet, found out that all 3 mounts were shot in the process and the replacement for the transmission mount physically did not fit, so delays due to running back and forth, etc. Not to mention stopping due to having to repair my Saturn. When it rains, it pours.

Have been taking some pics as i go and hope to have the chains replaced by tomorrow eve, so hopefully I can put her back together the first part of next week.

It really sucks to have to do this with the engine in the car, but it is what it is.

Hope it is coming along ok for you. I am about to take the timing covers off tomorrow on mine.

Yeah it's coming along, but slow. I am having trouble removing the intake cam bolt. using a impact driver for 10 seconds at 120 psi still will not budge it. Not sure if it is just due to age or from someone else working on it previously.

There is alot of stuff that has to be removed to do this job. Even harder doing it by myself. Get up, get down, get up to grab a different tool, can't reac that from the bottom, get up again, etc....... I would love to choke the engineers who designed this engine. But then again, they are designed for ease of build, not repair. It is what it is.

I did find out that I had to drop the crossmember about 1/2 inch or so to get enough room to remove the lower cover.

All the timing components other than that intake cam sprocket have been removed. When the lower guide broke, the slackened chain dug into the projections inside the lower cover near the crankshaft seal, and broke 1 off. I don't think it did anything else, so I should be ok there. I will give it a closer look before I reinstall the covers. The only other thing I am concerned about is getting both covers on the engine and together before the silicone starts to skin over. I don't want to have to redo this anytime soon. Or ever, for that matter.

Sorry to have rambled on. good luck with your repairs, may they go smoothly.

I feel for you. I have a friend working with me on this, we are working on it one day a week and just got the timing set, did several turns on the crank and all seems good. I would hate to be doing it alone unless I had pulled the engine and put it on the stand. Some of these bolts miserable to get at on the Altima where the KA is mounted side-ways.

Thanks,

Well, got the problem camshaft bolt out (took a more powerful impact gun), replaced the gears and chains, got the lower cover back on and tightened the cam bolts, then hit a snag. I had installed the upper tensioner, but had not removed the pin, and after tightening the cam bolts, noticed that it was no longer there.

So, after a good deal of searching and not finding it, I removed the lower cover just to make sure it wasn't in amongst the timing components. Spent a couple hours looking and feeling around, but did not find it. Ran a small acid brush around the gears, guides, and chain and did not find it. I really don't think it fell in there, but I had to check.

Even looked and felt all around the exterior of the engine, and still no dice. I don't remember pulling it out, but I could have. I had a few distractions. I was trying to be extra careful. I am praying that it is not in the way of anything, but I will run the crankshaft through a couple revs to be sure. Oiled the lower chains and guides, still have to do the upper yet. Then it will be reinstalling the oil pan and p/s pump, ac comp, etc.

I will be glad if this works out, I have been at this almost daily after work and on the weekends over the last 3 weeks, and to top it off, lost my cell phone and had to buy another. One thing after another at my house. The reassembly is going faster than the disassembly. Had 3 bad motor mounts also, still need a replacement for the top passenger side, but can use the old one for the short term to get her put together.

The hardest part is getting up and down, a lift would have made life alot easier. I definately would not want to do another job like this again.

I hope that your job goes much smoother than mine.

Well, finally finished the car. When I fired her up, she made quite a racket, but that was only the p/s pump needing bled. The car is amazingly quieter than it was. In fact, probably the quietest it has ever been.

I recently purchased a 1993 D21 pickup with 123,000 miles on it. I love the truck and look forward to a long future with it. I noticed the engine stumbling upon acceleration and then saw the temp gage was pegged at HOT so I immediately shut it down and let it cool off. After what I thought was sufficient time I poured water over the outside of the radiator the filled the cooling system. The truck ran fine for a short time. It stalled several times on my way home and upon removing the air cleaner,there was water coming out of the PCV hose and into the air cleaner.

My first thought was cracked head but why did it overheat? Did the water pump fail or the thermostat stick? I towed it home and started looking for a spare engine just in case. I found a used 1993 engine out of a 4 wheel drive truck and I bought it. So much for assuming it would fit. The oil pan is much deeper and set to the rear to clear the 4 wheel drive differential and will not clear the 2 wheel drive crossmember. When I pulled both oil pans to swap there was a hanfull of plastic chunks in each pan...timing chain guides!

Back to the original engine..pulled the head and could not find anything that would have caused water in the oil, head gasket was intact, cylinders still had crosshatch marks from honing. When I pulled the water pump I saw what looked like a crack in the water jacket...aha cracked casting! I pulled the front cover and discovered it was not a crack but a slot the timing chain had worn through causing the water to enter the oil and suck the radiator dry. The engine did not have any telltale sounds before failure that would have identified the timing chain was hitting the housing.

Was the timing chain issue a major problem with this engine? The replacement guide is of a different design and made out of steel instead of plastic. Since both engines had broken guides in the oil pans, I can only guess it was corrected for following years. The repair manual suggested changing the timing chain @ 30,000 miles!!!??? Is that a misprint?

Ideally it would be nice to change the Timing chain every 30,000, but it all depends on how you drive it. Its not a hard process. Search youtube for 'upper timing ka24de explained' and 'lower timing ka24de explained' ...my vids.

Might as well have a belt instead of a chain if the interval is only 30,000 miles. JMO

I have a 2000 nissan altima and I am having a timing chain problem.

I have already been through one mechanic and he replaced the tensioner but it did not fix the problem. You could still hear the timing chain rattle.

So now I have taken it to another mechanic and he is claiming that on a these cars use have to use only factory parts to replace the timing chain components and before, the first mechanic, I bought aftermarket parts.

I just want to know if this statement is true I have already invested quite a bit of money in this.

The car has 224k miles on it and since I have had it I have had to replace oil leaks, cv joints, and now this. HELP!

It sounds as if the mechanic might only have replaced the upper tensioner.

When i did mine, I used an aftermarket kit, and had no problems. I wasn't very fond of the lower guide that was in that kit because it was all plastic, but I had limited funds to do this job. The car has 20K miles on it since then with no issues. So far, so good. One mechanic I spoke with did say that he prefers OE parts on a job like this though.

With mine, it was pretty obvious that the lower guides and such were the issue. When I dropped the oil pan and baffle, there were about 25 pieces of the lower chain guides in there.

I wish you the best on your repairs.

Hi Ed,

Thanks for the posts. I too am having a lower timing chain guide issue with my 94 Altima.

About 5 years ago I personally rebuilt the engine due to a blown/warped head, all with aftermarket parts. Once complete, the car ran fine for about 40K miles. During that time however, there was a constant "chatter" noise coming from the valve cover. I assumed it was the upper chain tensioner/guide, and inspected it on a few occasions, but never could quite resolve it.

Anyways about a month ago I left work one day and noticed a huge oil leak under the car. I left and was able to get it home by dumping several quarts in it along the way. Once I got under the hood and a few parts out of the way I discovered the problem, and, the answer to this 5 year long chatter: The lower timing chain had (gradually) busted a small hole out of the lower timing cover, right behind where the lower timing chain guide is mounted. I continued removing parts and discovered, after removing the oil pan, about a dozen or so pieces of the plastic chain guide.

So, my first thought is, did I do something wrong when installing this guide? Maybe put it on backwards? Or was the problem due to the quality of the replacements parts? I need to know why in the world this chain beat through the guide and finally through the aluminum timing cover.

Thanks for the feedback in advance,
Ryan

Not really sure if the guides can be put in backwards. If the rattle was happening after the rebuild with new timing components, then something was not right. I am not sure. but I believe that oil pressure keeps the tensioners and guides tight against the chain, removing the slack.

When I got mine apart, I saw the guide on the right no longer had any plastic liner left, it was all on the baffle or in the oil pan (in pieces). The left guide was worn through the plastic liner and into the metal. The slackened chain actually broke off one of the projections on the back of the oil pump because it was vibrating so bad.

The replacement kit I used was the cheapest one ($172 at Advanced Auto Parts, I forget what brand it was), and I was very nervous seeing that the right hand guide was all plastic, but no problems so far, and the car is very quiet compared to what it was before the replacement. I did speak to a couple mechanics about the preferred replacement parts, and they both said OEM, but a very limited budget forced me to go with what I could afford at the time.

Sorry I can't be of more help with this, I hope everything works out for you.