Money pit much? It never seems to end

[gawdzilla]

a
Modified by gawdzilla at 6:49 PM 1/25/2010

[Darius]

Wow man that is a lot of crap to go at once! Sounds like you got most of it sorted though. About the oil pan leaking, are you sure it is the pan gasket and not your front or rear main seals? I have used Permatex black a few times (yes a few when I was pulling the motor every other month <shivers>) and I never had a leak. I just applied it in a 5mm strip all the way around continuously and followed the instructions to a "T". Tightened the nuts up until the silicone squished out after about a half hour of letting it set up. Then, I took my finger and wiped off the excess so it made a smooth looking seal.

One good thing to come out of this is that we all know the DIY ceramic coating isnt' worth it. A real ceramic coater will only charge about $155 to coat the manifold anyways so there's not a huuuuge savings or anything.

As far as a brake booster goes, I've got an R33 brake booster and it is the same size as the stock 240. If you want it, you can have it as long as you pay for shipping. I'm tired of looking at the damn thing sit on my garage floor for the past 3 yrs. E-mail me if you're interested. Excellent shape BTW, not a scratch on it.

[gawdzilla]

Wow man that is a lot of crap to go at once! Sounds like you got most of it sorted though. About the oil pan leaking, are you sure it is the pan gasket and not your front or rear main seals? I have used Permatex black a few times (yes a few when I was pulling the motor every other month <shivers>) and I never had a leak. I just applied it in a 5mm strip all the way around continuously and followed the instructions to a "T". Tightened the nuts up until the silicone squished out after about a half hour of letting it set up. Then, I took my finger and wiped off the excess so it made a smooth looking seal.

One good thing to come out of this is that we all know the DIY ceramic coating isnt' worth it. A real ceramic coater will only charge about $155 to coat the manifold anyways so there's not a huuuuge savings or anything.

As far as a brake booster goes, I've got an R33 brake booster and it is the same size as the stock 240. If you want it, you can have it as long as you pay for shipping. I'm tired of looking at the damn thing sit on my garage floor for the past 3 yrs. E-mail me if you're interested. Excellent shape BTW, not a scratch on it.

I'm positive its the pan to block seal. I can see the oil seeping right where the pan meets the block. The problem is .. for the 25 to 26 combo, the pan sits recessed in on the 26 block. There isn't really an "edge". its hard to explain. Also, it doesn't help that my pan needs to be banged out by where the pickup flange is to clear, nor does it help that some of the bolting holes need to be widened around where the pan is banged out. All of those introduce potential leak spots and potential pan warping situations. When i did my pan the first time, it sealed fine with some black rtv. I guess it was a one time deal I'm gonna follow the directions EXACTLY this time. Before i was using my finger to spread the rtv, and probably was torquing the bolts more than ~6 ft-lbs.

If you do a coating, I'd go with swaintech or jet-hot. Those guys lay down some thick stuff, and it obviously works. They're also probably way more than $150. With shipping back and forth, coating everything in my case(I did my manifold, turbine housing, downpipe, wastegate, wastegate dump tube) would be well over $300. The reason i went with techline is cuz a lot of shops offer their stuff as a service, so I figured it would be dope. Apparently its too thin, and their instructions say not to lay it on thick. It doesn't do NOTHING, it just doesn't do nearly as much as i thought it would.

Thanks for the offer with the r33 brake booster. I already ordered one off ebay (auto 240sx one). I might hit you up later for the booster if the one I got doesn't work or something.

[240z4u]

I just got a quote from jet-hot for coating and its only 160. The real pain in the *** is waiting so I got an extra manifold.

I used nissan pan gasket shiz, that stuff so sticky that after curing I don't think the bolts are needed honestly.

Sorry to hear it was such a hassle. Be thankful that this stuff happened while in the shop. It could have been MUCH worse.

My car is a bit of a money pit too, but its paid for so whatever. No car payment = funds to keep my car in good shape.

Evan

My list of excitement involves a front main seal, new T-stat, change the exhaust manifold for the ceramic coated one, new downpipe. Blah blah blah. It never really ends. I have accepted this.

I think I have a warped rear rotor and bad front wheel bearings too!

[FAST-DATSUN]

If oil pan is still leaking it must be bent in the pan rail area and or all the bolt hole must need to be re flattened to get a seal.. Call me Mack

[Shocker]

I use standard nissan orange sealant, has always worked fine for me when my car was running... I'd be VERY careful on torquing those oil pan bolts down, they are extremely small, and will snap very easily.... stock torque should be fine..

Remove the whole pan, make sure you clean out ALL of the old gasket off of the pans mounting face. Run a straight edge over it and insure its flush. Just drag the bottle of sealant down the sides of the pan, no need to use finger.. Make sure its thick. Also make sure you let it set up over night before adding oil. Should fix you up.

good luck.

[Darius]

Thanks for the heads up on the ceramic coating. I did get a quote from jet-hot since I'm going to have that 6boost manifold coming in December and it was $160 or so plus shipping both directions for a total of around $210. I'll call the coating shop I was going to go to and see what they use for material.

[mello88]

**** that sucks to hear about your TurboX coating!!! I've got the small pint of that stuff sitting in the garage waiting for me to blast the manifold and turbine housing . Did you bake it after you sprayed it, or just cook it with the engine heat?

[gawdzilla]

**** that sucks to hear about your TurboX coating!!! I've got the small pint of that stuff sitting in the garage waiting for me to blast the manifold and turbine housing . Did you bake it after you sprayed it, or just cook it with the engine heat?

let it air dry for a weekend, then cooked with engine heat. they say you can do it that way, so i did. it's not flaking or anything, so i'm pretty sure i did it right. i think the main problem is the coating isn't physically thick enough. its like .001" to .0015" as opposed to swain or jethot's which is probably .015"+? oh well, i'm wrapping the downpipe and covering the turbine with a blanket now.

[s14 2510's]

When I put steel oil pans on I do one of two things. First clean the snot out of everything. Second/ One thing I've noticed over the years when working on cars. When you take trans or oil pans off and you set them on the bench. The bolts holes are stretched from the bolt head. There is a dimple by each bolt hole. I set the lip of the pan on the edge of my bench. Take a smaller ball peen hammer and set the rounded end on each hole. Give it a small hit by another hammer. This should make the mating of the pan way better. When putting it back together make shure its 100% clean of all oil and cleaner were the Rtv is going to seal. i use acetone and a rag to do one final wipe before i apply the Rtv. I have fell in love with the ford gray Rtv. I have real good luck with it. Imagine that im recommending a ford product lol. I be some oil got on your mating area on the way putting it back together. Rtv is worthless when in contact with oil when not cured.

[mello88]

Wow that's disappointing news, I was looking forward to using that TurboX coating. Local shop everyone goes to wants like $300ish to coat the mani and turbine housing though; $50 for the TurboX plus a detail gun sounded like a deal! Guess I'll start looking into alternatives... Thanks for this posting this thread!

[gawdzilla]

Wow that's disappointing news, I was looking forward to using that TurboX coating. Local shop everyone goes to wants like $300ish to coat the mani and turbine housing though; $50 for the TurboX plus a detail gun sounded like a deal! Guess I'll start looking into alternatives... Thanks for this posting this thread!

yup, so was i when i got it. i'm not going to say it does NOTHING. it definitely is doing something because my downpipe (coated) cools down a lot faster than my compressor housing (bare aluminum). I can touch the downpipe about 5 minutes after shutting the car off? The compressor housing also isnt seeing direct exhaust gas.

Just remember its not going to work any miracles. Being that the coating is meant to be applied so thin (.001" to .0015").. it just isn't physically possible for the coating to do much more. radiant heat (although better than bare stainless) is still pretty serious. I think the bigger companies that use the thicker stuff work a lot better just cuz its thicker.