So 200 miles on my rebuilt ca and i found a problem tonight that is embarrassing. One of the oil pump bolts had come loose and fallen out causeing a MASSIVE leak. now i moved a bolt from another location and put some goop in the hole and the leak stopped. great.
Problem is that on the way home i started hearing a low whine noise, had a friend listen out his door as i drove by and he thoguht it sounded liek metal rubbing. it goes with rev.
I cranked the pump bolts in pretty hard, did i WAY overtighten them and possibly destroy my oil pump tonight?
I didnt have a torque wrench cause i wasn't thinking, i didnt have another bolt so i made sure the two i had were tight cause i was kind of freaking out.

There is a whole boat load of oil all over my belts and pulleys from the leak too, but this didn't sound directly like belt noise.
please, please someone tell me they have had something like this happen (over tighten?) and it came out ok later without a teardown to get to the oil pump.

Ok, let me say this with more thought.
When u look straight at the crank pulley and u see the 3 bolts to the left side of the time cover for the oil pump. the top most one had fallen out, that is right next to the time cover itself. I removed the furthest left/down one and put it in the top spot to stop the leak.
I used a small 1/4 drive ratchet on a long extension. it didn't allow for much, but if i over tightened it, could i wreck the pump is basically my all important question.

the bolts that secures the oil pmp to the engine block should be torqued to 11-14nm(8-10 ft/lbs) according to the fsm, I dont see how you could ruin your entire oil pump by overtightening them, you could however strip the threads in the engine block but that's about it , how is/was you oil pressure ? did you replace the oil pump when rebuilding ? Can you hear the noise when turning the engine by "hand" ?

Well the only time the low oil light came on (no gauge) was for a few seconds just as i was driving it into my work to put it up into the air. it came on due to low oil level far as i can tell and once i filled it with oil the light went out and hasn't returned.
There is oil literally all over all of my belts, pulleys, and possibley some in the timeing cover (i havent looked as of this posting). I drove my echo into work so the nissan is resting at home.
I plan to degrease/clean all the oil and inspect the Tbelt area this weekend, I also will prolly have to take a bolt from my other engine rusting away in the back yard. apparently nissan no longer carries oil pump bolts.

You're another person to doubt i damaged my oil pump, ca_nut. another guy i work with said i would be more likely to crack the houseing before i cause it damage from overtightening with a small ratchet.

As for the oil pump, you're okay. But if it still leaks, you may have a hairline crack, so pay attention to that area. As for the noise, one of my engines is currently doing that and I will investigate tomorrow amd let you guys know. But that whoooing noise doesn't effect performance, but I'll investigate in the a.m.

Oil pump is probably fine. I'd guess you got oil on something that didn't like it.

Well i degreased it today, and got another bolt in there checked all the oil pump bolts. nothing seemed bad tight, no leaks from it.
Drove it around and still got the noise, noticed some smoke was coming out of my pcv system. doesnt smell like anything horrible though. oil seems clean still too, could my time belt be soaked and making a whine like a super charger then?
Sigh.. i hate feeling clueless!

I have spent so much time on this car i just dont want anything to break, ya know?

Oil on the timing belt MIGHT be causing issues. Video?

It has been confirmed that if there is whirrrring noise coming from the timing cover area, prepare to remove the timing belt cover to replace the timing belt idler pulley. Though I've had engines come to me with bad ones, this is the first time in 15 years that I've actually had one fail on me. They are old and it is time to replace them, so don't be cheap in this area or you will be kicking yourself later.

mmmm, well i'll look into those pullies. strange how it would start being noisey after an oil leak...?
guess i should set soem time aside to really listen to it and try to find my issue. i already knew that one of my timeing pullies made a little noise, particularly on decel just under 2k revs.

Dee is right.
Oil in the timing area is bad news all the way around. DO NOT screw around with this. Make sure you replace those pullies AND your timing belt asap. (The tensioner went bad on my first CA due to a leak and it wrecked all kinds of havoc on that engine). Oil on the belt itself will cause it to degrade prematurely and fail (It could break or teeth could come off). (This happened on my DSM due to a leaky cam shaft seal, luckily the engine stopped at TDC and nothing in the head got smashed).

If you need something in a pinch i have a Gatorback timing belt sitting around in the box :-).
Rat

I am pretty sure i had replaced one or both of the timing belt pullies during my rebuild. Thats why im so surprised oil would screw them up so quickly.

I will be bring home my stethiscope this week and listening to everything. I will prolly hand spin as much stuff as i can too to determin where this damn noise is coming from. For all i know it could be my alt, it was in pretty rough shape before the motor failed before.... could be the bearing starting to go.

But without listening with my doctor ear piece i won't say anything for sure.
Thx for all the feedback from u all, i'm sure it'll be okay

Well I haven't torn it apart or anything but i figured i would add a little something.
The noise had been seeming like it was dying down, and with my ear piece the noisiest thing i could find is my alt bearings. So i was feeling better about it, then i had a small issue with power steering fluid getting DUMPED down over my belts (dont ask -.-) and the noise came back strong and obnoxious. With the splash shield down i can confirm that 99% of the noise sounded like it was old belts soaked in oil whineing and what have you around the crank pulley.

So other then an injector that seems to leak the car should be okay

nice

sounds like a tight timing belt.

Very old thread but now I feel the need to bring this one back.
I rebuilt my engine as well and had this noise immediately after the first startup.
We discovered that I had tightened the timing belt too much and loosened it abit. The noise however didnt go away and im certain that the timing belt is loose enough.
But could it be possible that one of the pulleys could have gotten damaged before i loosend the belt?
I did drive about 5kms before realizing my mistake :/

It's possible that you have damaged the bearings in one of the pulleys, yes. Are you sure the noise isn't from the alternator bearings? They're a common source of noise.

I've had a timing belt rub the lower timing cover on the flare around the opening for the crank. It made a kind of unnerving whine, but it was an oscillating sound.

Death to the idler pulley and possibly the timing belt tensioner as well.

When using the good old screwriver method it sounds as if the sound is coming from the top part of the timing cover but also from the middle sides...
This is why i sanded the top inner part of the cover. I should probably remove the whole thing and check for rubbing marks...
The pulleys&belt would be good to change anyhow right?
Alternator was also fine before the rebuild but since i didnt change anything over there or mess up anything it should be fine?

Wol_The_King wrote:When using the good old screwriver method it sounds as if the sound is coming from the top part of the timing cover but also from the middle sides...
This is why i sanded the top inner part of the cover. I should probably remove the whole thing and check for rubbing marks...
The pulleys&belt would be good to change anyhow right?
Alternator was also fine before the rebuild but since i didnt change anything over there or mess up anything it should be fine?

Remove both timing covers, remove the belt, remove the idler pulley and timing belt tensioner and spend them by hand. If you can hear them whine even by the slightest, just imagine what they will be goiong through when the timing belt is pressing down on them constantly. Order new components prior to removing old components to prevent down time. Good luck

Will do!
Its gona take some wrenching (again -.-) to get this baby on the road
Still having some major problems with idling/letting off the throtle + possible intake leak...
These ca's never seem to work properly -.-