Timing Belt/Distributor Problems

[mmtilton]

About a month ago the water pump went out on my wife's Pathfinder. I put it in the shop to have it AND the timing belt replaced. When I got it out of the shop it seemed to be fine. However, by approx. 2 wks. out, there began to be a noise coming from the area of the timing belt. This noise became louder very quickly and got to the point that it sounded like there was something loose and a metallic grinding noise coming from what seemed to be inside the timing belt cover. I took it back to the shop, thinking that the mechanic had left something loose in there. The shop called me to tell me that it was not the timing belt, but the distributor that was making the grinding noise and now needs to be replaced. Is it possible that this is a coincidence, or is it more likely that when the timing belt was replaced, something was done wrong that created this problem? I realize that these two mechanisms are inter-related and it seems a stretch that the distributor just happened to go out right after having the timing belt replaced. Please offer your professional opinions. Thank You!

[Slumpert]

Not a professinal, but in replacing my timing belt I did remove the cap to make sure the engine was at tdc. While the cap is off, and someone set some bolts there, the symtoms you described would not happen.. ( It would be a instant blender chopping sound).

Now the next part is where it gets tricky.. Just because you don't have to remove the distributer to do the timing belt does not mean thier grease monkey didn't take it off because he didn't know better. Also it is possible they did put bolts on the open distributor, screwed down the cap, tried to start it and then realized something was horribly wrong and simply found thier error and corrected it without ever mentioning it to you. Take the cap off the distibutor ( two screws, you can leave all the wires on) and look inside, the plastic should not be broken, chewed up looking.

There are bearing in it and it certainly is possible that they started to fail on thier own accord. Consider the lucky part that it didn't stop working the common way and left you stranded somewhere.

My first thoughts would have been they used the wrong bolt at the very bottom and it was grinding on the harmonic balancer.. Second thought was the waterpump was a cheap piece that already failed. But if it is the distributor so be it.

[blkqx4]

Is a common problem for the 3.3l engines distributor is known to fail that was the answer i got from the retired nissan tech that fixed my qx4.