Two Power Vavles and six screws missing from intake!! May be too late for my QX4

[QX42002gold]

Hello everyone, first post here and unfortunately it comes at a very bad time. My wife's 2002 QX4 has developed a bad clatter which souded like it was coming from a #1 cylinder valve. I proceed to remove stuff from the top of the engine to gain access to the valve cover and when I got the top half of the intake off I discover three of the six power valves are off their respective mounts on the shaft. Two valves are completely gone , the third was laying on top of an ajacent valve and all six screws are missing as well. I'm thinking this can't be good!I got to the point where I could remove the suspect valve cover and don't see any visible sign of problems so now I'm looking at the proceedures for getting the cams out. This is where stuff appears to get REALLY ugly. To get the cams out I need to remove the timing chain, to get the timing chain cover off I need to remove the aluminum oil pan. To remove the pan I need to remove pretty much all accessories, radiator, front DS, motor mounts, lift engine slightly, remove front final drive. The maunal also states if I want to remove the cylinder head(which is also a possibility since I'm pretty sure the engine has eaten several screws and a few power valves)...step 1 is REMOVE Engine. One of the first steps in the engine removal proceedure is REMOVE Transmission! This freakin car is like a house of cards!

Bottom line is, I could use some expert advise here on where to go with this, my first time pulling this particular vehicle apart and nearly all my mechanical experience is with good ole' American Muscle platforms, this all aluminum V6 power plant that seems to be put together almost entirely with 10mm bolts is new to me.

Any advice to surely be apperciated...should I just bite the bullit and pull the engine? Do I REALLY have to pull the transmission first to get the engine out?Do I REALLY have to remove the final drive to get the pan out? Has anyone have experience with these engines sucking down a few power valves?

PLEASE HELP!!! Oh and thanks in advance for any/all insights.

[fueler]

No experience with it personally but there's been a few account of this... http://npora.ipbhost.com//inde...art=0 and a little bit of trivia on auto vs manual http://npora.ipbhost.com//inde...03320

[QX42002gold]

Thanks for the reference thread, unfortunately it appears most replies indicate the engine was toast. When I shut mine down and started ripping into it, it was still running just fine and hitting on all six, just sounded like a sewing machine. I've now spent most the day tearing stuff off the engine and now I'm kinda stuck until I can get the stupid crank bolt loose. It's beginning to sound like I need to unpack my engine hoist and assume the worst....new/rebuilt engine.

This is not fun, but I still welcome any posts with insight.

Thanks again.