New S13 owner on the East Coast

[Kng_Jn]

Hi all, my name is John. I'm from Long Island, Ny, and I just bought my first 240sx!

Unfortunately finding a clean one out here has been a chore, but I did find one.

The bad is that it was already swapped to a ka24de, and it leaks oil like a sieve.

The oil is coming from pretty much anywhere oil can come from near the pan, the gasket is non-existent, and rather was replaced with gasket sealer -_- the oil pressure sensor, and the filter leak too. I'm taking it apart as soon as I finish writing this up.

I'm looking forward to learning more about these cars, and meeting you guys!

[Hijacker]

Here's the first two things I can teach you.

91s already came with a KA-DE, so it wasn't swapped to that motor. Probably had a different DE swapped in.

And, there is no gasket for the oil pans. Nissan uses gasket maker for the oil pans.

[Kng_Jn]

I appreciate the response, The oil pan is leaking terribly though, and the P.O. Put a ton of gasket maker on there, so I'm now a little unsure of the issue here :/

[Kng_Jn]

I looked into it, I guess he put way too much, and the sending unit leaks as well, so hopefully I can get the sending unit, and hopefully my pan isn't bent. :/ Also pulled a smooth move and learned the oil pan removal strategy the hard way...

[Kng_Jn]

After fixing the oil pan gasket, the oil sending unit, (obvious oil change), and the crank seal, she still leaks oil. Mechanically everything is working, just not the way it should. I don't know where oil is coming from now. The back of the pan looks like it may be leaking, which is alright for now, but now there's oil coming out of the driver side of the motor, and on the front on the same side, whats there and what leaks?

Also there's a plethora of electrical issues, and the lack of an interior at least the body is in good shape, anyway, heres the progress so far:

This was the day I brought her home:



The oil pan gasket nightmare:




After:



And luckily the pan wasn't bent, by some miracle.

So now basically I need advice on what to do next to tune her up, what generally goes bad, and how to just tighten the car up overall.

Also, sorry for bumping my own thread, I just don't really know where else to post this yet :/

[PapaSmurf2k3]

What did you use for gasket maker?

I highly suggest either OEM nissan s***, or "The Right Stuff".

Your timing covers, valve cover, and/or head gasket could also be leaking externally.

[Kng_Jn]

I used "The Right Stuff" and my crank seal is leaking again, so timing cover might be getting done tomorrow as well, what symptoms does the head gasket have? Obviously the leaking, but there's no smoke or anything.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Yeah head gaskets can leak internally or externally. Obviously if you had to choose one or the other, you're better off with externally haha.

Did you coat the crank seal in grease or sealant or anything when you installed it?

[Kng_Jn]

Just the right stuff, I'm toying with the idea of trying the cork gasket + "TRS"

On a different note, here's my new problems:

Whenever I put the 15a fuse in for my running lights, and turn the lights on, the fuse blows
The dash lights don't work
When the "room lights" fuse is out, the radio doesn't work (although I'm not sure if this is normal)

Also most of the interior is gone, the parts that are present, are in god awful shape. I found a guy locally that has a white hatch that he's parting out, I'm gonna pickup pretty much the entire interior for the car and while I'm at it, possibly all the wiring for the interior of the car, strip it clean, and start new.

I'm hopefully gonna be able to take off of work this Monday, and make it 1 big project day. I'll do the oil pan gasket first thing in the morning, and the crank seal. Then do the interior all day, and hopefully...hopefully, be able to get some body work done.

[CCurate]

Congrats on the car Kng. i was the previous owner of that car. i just sold it and you must have bought it from the guy i sold it to. i owned the car for 10 years. if you want any info on the car dont hesitate to ask. also on of the things i forgot to give to the guy who sold it was all the service history i had on the car before i bought it. if you would like it pm me. heres what i can tell you the car was like when i sold it. there was a rod knock in the original engine and the trans grinded in second. i did remove everything in the trunk because it was all ruined when i bought it. the test pipe ISNT an isis one. its custom made because the isis ones were on back order. the exhaust is BRM 2.5 stainless with stainless resonator. if he kept the intake, that is a weapon r secret weapon intake. there were NO electrical issue with the dash lights when i sold it. i would check for a pinched wire in the engine bay, some where on the main harness. Also the wipers only worked on high. i tracked it down an open on the harness after the fuse box. the harness that runs under the driver fender. Like i said if there is anything you want to know just pm me or i can give you my number and you can text me. I actually saw you driving down motor pkwy on sunday and did a double take. Really funny.

[Kng_Jn]

Thanks for being so helpful with this, so here's the deal now, the guy you sold it to...butchered this car. I mean terribly. The wiring was such a mess, I actually just cut the wire harness going to back of the car out right at the seat and wired in an entire new piece of harness.

I don't know who caused what problems so I'm just gonna list them here

1. Cut the rear bench in half to mount a giant sub box w/ a 10" sub in it (this I'm just curious about, not really a problem, I replaced the missing interior anyway)

2. Almost all of the wiring in the car has been tampered with, and none of it was hooked up properly

3. The tachometer or dash lights had a switch under the steering wheel going to them, since I've removed it in my effort to remove the wire mess, neither work anymore.

4. Since changing the wire harness, my EGI relay buzzes only when the car isn't running. Also I removed the relay and the car drives fine.

5. The motor swap...

I'm sure there's more but if you know about any of this it'd be a big help, and I'm sure I'll have a ton of questions for you haha

Thanks again

Some progress:

The parts I bought:



The new wiring:





Where I cut:


Wired in:



And of course I cleaned it all up, and zip-tied it back, closed up the car, and forgot to take a picture.

[Kng_Jn]

I'm just using this to log whats being done, and to help anyone who has similar issues:

So I had a typical case of a blown TCU and no dash lights:





This did not work:



To be honest, my clock light worked after I soldered it, which lead me to believe that something else was wrong, so I went ahead and got a new TCU anyway, and now I have dash lights!

[waxdnuggz]

Keep up the good work. My last s13 was all butchered when I got it. You feel way more accomplished. When you added the new portion of the harness I hope you saudered the connections or you will be going back later tracing a wiring gremlin.

Looks good tho non the less. Keep the pictures coming!

[Kng_Jn]

Thanks alot man, the red dash, floor, and heater control lights are going in tomorrow, I will definitely include pictures

[Kng_Jn]

So here's a quick sneak peak on whats going on now, new dash lights mmmm...yes...


Before:



After:

[Kng_Jn]

Its been a long year but I haven't forgotten about you all so I want to give an update on whats been going on in my corner of the universe.

First of all, Hijacker, you are the man, I did alot of searching on this forum for alot of things I did, and you show up in just about every thread. A big thanks to you and the countless others who posted their knowledge and write ups, you guys made it possible for me to do the work properly, and clean.

Now moving onto all the updates

(December 2014)

For those of you who don't live in snow, Long Island is a sh!tsh*w in winter. As such my 240 came off the road and I started driving a 2001 Cherokee that I picked up for $1500. The truck was a steal and also for those who don't know, I used to be really big into the whole "Jeep" thing. I know the Cherokee's well and its a great little work truck.



Anyway that's not what were here for. My pinion seal let go and blew up my welded rear. So I was back on a viscous (in my case, an overly complicated open rear)





Now after this the car came off the road until May.

In May of 2015 my sister totaled her Nissan Sentra. Luckily she was not injured and neither was anyone else, but her car was toast.

Jeep to the rescue.

So now my S13 is my DD. GREAT.

First off I picked up a boneyard high pressure power steering line



This lasted one entire day before exploding in the same spot my old line did (-_-)

The power steering was moved to the back burner.

(May 2015)

I got my hands on a quality stainless exhaust, so that went in.



Now I started to mess with the lights, here's a comparison of white vs factory floor lights. Dome is also white.



The red LED's for the interior arrived as I'm writing this so I will grab some pictures of that tonight.

Now for the motor...

(July 2015)

I ran a scan on the motor to find any codes present, and ended up with a knock sensor, O2, and coolant temp sensor all bad.

Also this...



And this...


I welded the cracks, sorry no pictures there, it was 1am and I was tired.

Went Through a full tune up, and I'm happy to say it runs so damn well, I may just turbo this motor.

Now onto the pop ups. They would not move, up down, nothing.

Apparently this was a common problem area









Clean contacts!



Unfortunately this didn't fix anything.

I bought new switches like a dingus. (DIAGNOSIS > PARTS)

This fuse ended up being the issue.



Now for anyone interested, you can remove these pins with a pair of needle nose pliers:



And then a regular Mini ATF fuse fits in the box, and you're on your way. Now replacement is just a trip to the parts store.



Eureka!



And now the latest project.

(August 2015)

This disgusting, ghetto tint. I'm sure at some point it did not look this bad, and someone loved it dearly, but now it looks like total a$$ and I can't see anything out of the rear window.



I used a clothing steamer, and the patience of Mother Theresa.



Some, Goof Off, Windex, and elbow grease revealed:



A CLEAN WINDOW!

Also did the side window on the passenger side. Driver side I assume broke because there was a lot of glass in the car at one point and it was not tinted when I bought the car.

Red LED's on the way along with a braided power steering line. I'll keep posting for anyone who is interested!

[waxdnuggz]

Usually I will laugh at revivals from the dead but good work man keep it up I like seeing this stuff and I'm glad you didn't give up. It's the little things that count little touches and stuff like that like removing your s*** window tint it looks good keep it coming!!

[Kng_Jn]

Thanks Waxdnuggz! I think I can make this a clean drift-worthy 240. I am seriously getting ready to start on the body work and paint. Or wheels first. Decisions...

Anyway, final update before bed.

Here's the amount of tint I tossed:



The window in the daylight:



inb4 "iz crookeid"



And finally my red LED's came so here's them:





White dome:



And here's the 177 lumen "cool white" map light. Unfortunately I apparently ordered the wrong ones, so I soldered one in just to see how I like it. I'll order the 2 right ones and switch it soon.





My debate now is stay all red or go all white. I'm gonna try all white and post pictures. Also debating on running a switch to change them all from red to white on the fly.

[Hijacker]

Welcome back from the dead! Glad to see you're still around.

You put a fast acting fuse in a slow blow position. I'm guessing it's the retract motor fuse since you were trying to clean the contacts on your lighting switch. A slow blow fuse is used in that circuit because motors tend to draw a lot more current on start up than they do during operation. To add proper protection from fault current during operation, the fuse is sized to protect the motor while running. This will usually bring the fuse close to a blow out (and will likely lead to a blow out of the fuse if it's a fast acting fuse) during start up. The slow blow fuse gives circuit protection, but it won't pop in that first second while the motor gets up to speed. Call up Nissan and order a new one. Also, check your harness for shorts to make sure the fuse died from age and not from an actual electrical issue that is likely to kill another fuse.

[Kng_Jn]

Awesome info Hijacker, I actually did blow the 25a fuse today and was gonna start going through my wiring, I didn't know that, but I will be ordering the new one now that I do.

[Kng_Jn]

Okay, I know its been a while but I don't want everyone thinking I forgot about you guys!

So here's the long winded update:

My motor had a pretty apparent valve tick, thing was getting so loud you could mistake it for a knock.
To top that off, 3rd gear grinded...always.

So I sourced out a motor, turns out a good group of guys at a shop in Brooklyn had what I needed.

$500 got me the motor and transmission. There was a catch though...Unknown Mileage.


So because I'm not Rockafeller, and I've never actually driven on a track, going into some stupid 300hp build seemed excessive. Why not make it work the way its supposed to? I need learn how to drive the stupid thing first. I can worry about power later.

I'm not a total loser though, so we did some additions. An Exedy 9lb flywheel was the first one. (Clutch, master and slave, throw out bearing, etc)


Also picked up some "SUPERSICKOMGCOOLHEADERS" that DEFINITELY ARE NOT CHEAPLY MADE IN CHINA.

The rest of my exhaust was replaced last year so I used that again.

My short shifter also had to be replaced, as the retainers, and springs broke inside. Probably from banging 3rd and grinding it to dust till it went into gear, or it caused the grinding...or...IT DOESN'T MATTER ANYWAY

I picked up the ISR short shift kit, no pics tho, sorry I'm a bum.

As far as maintenance goes...

I'll make another confession... A rebuild was not in the budget. So I had to make sure that I got the best bang for my buck.

Timing chain kit, and valve seals seemed like a fairly strong way to go.




Now because I'm no master tech, mistakes were made, mainly, I didn't replace the valve shims (I know, I can be as dumb as they come at times)

The other bonehead move, selling my old cams. See, I had an exhaust cam on my intake side originally.

This motor was stock, so keeping inline with my "I DONT NEED A TON OF POWER" I used the same cams, also figured, they're worn in with these caps and shims, best leave them where they are.

I also realized my wire harness was rubbed to s*** from DD'ing her last year, so we did a repair and tucked the harness up into the fender.


Motor went in with almost no issue, spent about an hour tinkering and she was good to go.

This was a few months back so up to the most recent:

I got a deal on a set of Enkei RS6's so I scooped those. I can finally retire my stock SE wheels as drift spares.

I got an awesome howling sound and worn-to-f**k front pads and rotors, so that's the weekend project. Just maintenance s**t. Gonna do my tie rods and ball joints while its apart, cause, why not?

Hijacker, I still have not figured out the fuse issue. I used the correct fuse, blew anyway, out of f**ks to give, I used a copper 4 gauge wire to branch the connections. I definitely fried something else now. I never do dumb things like that, and I'll admit, I'm ashamed of it, but for now, they're up, and they work, so I've resigned myself to leave it be.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Welcome back!
That solder your using looks like its for plumbing... might want to pick up some smaller stuff for normal wiring.

[Kng_Jn]

Thanks Smurf, it was, it was all I had, I did however pick up the correct solder and before shrinking it, did it the right way, the old stuff was still chillin' on my hood.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Good deal!
I tried doing the same thing back in my younger days. The damn soldering iron had a hard time actually melting the stuff hah. I don't think it has flux in it either.

Looks like you're forging ahead and doing well though!

[Kng_Jn]

Thanks, I am! I got some 25mm hubcentric spacers, and skinny lugs for my RS6's, and hopefully some of those JDM rivet flares. Gonna try to fit it up and get some stance this weekend!

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Also, cams and shims don't really wear into themselves... there's just a clearance that is supposed to be maintained. Wear is what you don't want ha. You can measure the clearance between the backside of the lobe and the shim and swap them around/order more until you achieve in-tolerance clearance.