Z-Powered

Ok, I got an oil change and installed my cat back on Saturday. While driving the car, I noticed some white smoke coming from the exhaust. I thought it was either the new exhaust, oil change, or a combination of both.

Monday morning comes around, and I turn on the heat, and ice cold air blows out. I thought it was odd, but didn't give it a second thought.

Tuesday morning, I turn on the heat, and ice cold air is still blowing out. But now, I notice that whenever the engine is under about 30% load or more, really hot air blows out of the vents. I turn off the heat, but hot air is still slowly coming out of the vents.

Finally, this afternoon, I notice the temp gauge is about 3 lines from the "H" after about a mile of driving. I turned the heat on to get it to cool down a little, and it worked. For a while... Now, the car overheats just driving around the block, even with the heat on full blast. I know white exhaust smoke is usually indicative of a blown head gasket, but I don't hear about that happening on Maximas too often. Is there any way to confirm whether it's the head gaskets or not without taking off the cylinder heads? Thanks.

Mr. Brett

iTrader: (7)

First and easiest way to check is to drain your oil and look for coolant in the pan...

Z-Powered

^ Man, I just got an oil change a few days ago. If that's the easiest way, I guess I'll have to do it.

Mr. Brett

iTrader: (7)

All you have to do is pull the dipstick and look to see if the oil is a chocolate milk color. If it's hard to tell, drain the oil. It's probably safe to drain it anyway...coolant in the oil will foul up the crank case.

Z-Powered

^ Oh, ok. I always make it a habit to check my oil right after every oil change, but I'll check again tomorrow and look specifically for the chocolate milk color.

Feldman

iTrader: (1)

Coolant also burns white and smells sweet. From the description of your problems i would say its a head gasket problem allowing coolant into a cylinder and the low coolant level and air in the system which is causing your water pump to be ineffective resulting in over heating and lack of inside heat.

Head gasket issues are pretty rare on maximas but all signs are pointing that direction unfortunately

BlackMacks

iTrader: (3)

Not all BHG's mix coolant with oil, y'all. The old 7m in my supra was notorious for b'ing its hg, even in the Cressida of similar years, but none of them ever "chocolate milk'd" the oil.

Tangent: a looooong time ago, I had a Subaru that I popped the HG in, and yeah, nestle quik on the dipstick, but again, that's not an "across the board" assertion.

Now that I think about it, the engine I pulled out of my max had a popped hg, and it had the same milky oil on the dipstick, so maybe y'all are onto something, but anyway......

OP, yeah, sounds like somehowerother you've managed to blow your headgasket, but ****** up a "block tester" kit from napa/advance/etc., and slap it on your radiator neck, to be sure.



If the fluid changes color, bing, bad hg....

DIVINCI

same issue, these are pics of the milk chocolate, been letting it drain for 24hrs now, got a warm day going so getting better drainage, but when i began to drain it nothing but ***** wonka. Good luck i'll keep posted on my progress got a engine on order but gonna see if i can get this one gonna with a lil sealant and a couple oil changes.....Was not able to load pics to my quote (something about scripts running) but you can see them on my profile under the album blown headgasket

Z-Powered

I think I'm gonna sell the car. So many things broke in the past week. The power steering pump (due to a catastrophically fast leak), the tranny (slips on all shifts), the wiper motor, alternator, and now a head gasket most likely. Any car suggestions?

Eirik

iTrader: (2)

Cripes, man! What happened to your car to make it start falling apart like that? Does it have 250K miles?

I'll add my useless +1 to blown head gasket without coolant mixing in the oil. My '01 Taurus with the 3L iron block chewed the gaskets all to pieces, ruining two heater cores. Coolant was slowly disappearing, power was dropping like mad (went from 1950 rpm @ 60 mph to 2400 rpm @ 60 mph), but white smoke was essentially non-existent and the oil was never fouled.

Really sucks to hear you blew a VQ35 head gasket, but this gives you the perfect chance to brush up on mechanical skills by changing it yourself! A new head gasket is muuuuuuuuch cheaper than a new car. =/

MoncefA33

iTrader: (6)

Buy a fresh low mileage motor and put it in.

BlackMacks

iTrader: (3)

I suggest keeping the car, personally. I mean, think about how little you'd be able to get for it needing both an engine and a trans. Maybe a grand? Whereas you can probably get both an engine and trans off car-parts.com for a grand, and you'll be back in the game.

The only thing I have against that approach is that with the coolant mixing with the oil, your rings and rod/crank bearings could easily be scored due to lack of "clean" oil, so you might go through all the work of slapping a hg on there only to find out your bottom end's trashed.....

Yeah, this. I gave $1200 for my car, needin an engine due to a BHG, and put a $400 VQ35 in myself. Easy decisions to make, and the actual work wasn't that difficult.

And that other stuff? PS pumps and alternators are easy to change when your engine's out

Z-Powered

^ I'd love to fix it, but I don't have the tools or knowledge necessary to swap in an engine or tranny. And I need a working car by Monday. A nice pearl white 6MT Maxima just popped up for sale a couple miles from me too...

vinco

iTrader: (3)

Question: How did you physically attach a sling or chain to the engine to actually lift it out. I have an '00 with a bad HG (bought it that way), and I have a fresh complete engine to swap in, but there just doesn't seem to be any good place to hook on to the engine to lift it up.

BlackMacks

iTrader: (3)

The engine doesn't lift out, you drop it, with trans attached, right out of the bottom of the car. True story.....

But to actually answer your question, yeah, I asked myself the same thing, once I had dropped it out: how do I pick it up? I ended up using a binding strap, like you see those 18 wheelers use to secure their loads, but without the ratching side. I tied one end off around the intake manny out by the throttle body and tied the other end off around the coolant pipes above the alternator. The engine's not that heavy, and I had no issues at all using that approach. After that, just use an everyday roll-around engine hoist, hook the sling through the hook of the hoist, and take it wherever you wanna go.

Eirik

iTrader: (2)

Pfft. The problem with you, BlackMacks, is that you're a pimp and you don't even realize it! Normal people can't just waltz out, pick up a junked minivan motor, and then plunk it into a car like you did.

That being said, when my motor finally finishes dying due to the piston ring leak, I'm definitely dropping in a >20K mile Quest motor.

BlackMacks

iTrader: (3)

LOL!! Thanks, E, but there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for my "pimp-tastic" appearance: poverty

They say "necessity is the mother of all invention", well, poverty must be the father.....

I started out working on the family lawnmower or car/truck/van, long before I was legal to drive, and now have been doing it on the side for a few decades. Once you get a feel for the basics of mechanics, most of the stuff crosses over from vehicle to vehicle. It really wasn't that difficult to swap my engine, I'm fairly certain anyone can do it. Now, if you had to disassemble and rebuild, yeah, that takes a bit more knowledge/experience/tools, but a straight-forward "drop and re-install", rather simple.

Look at my other threads for more detail, there are a few things to note, about my particular install and engine, but I'm okay with how everything worked out.

pdpaiste

I hope this isn't the case for you but I've had the hot engine and cold air effect due to a down water pump. If it is, get it replaced right away because it could seize and really give you a bad day.

mcguiver7

Might want to try changing the thermostat first. Compression testers are also fairly cheap and do not require compressed air. If you can get your hands on a leakdown tester and decent compressor then go that route. It will pin point exactly where the issue is. If you see excessive coolant consumption then odds are the head has blown somewhere.

Z-Powered

I took the car to Meineke today and they found out the problem was a leaking radiator and a faulty thermostat. The car isn't overheating anymore, but it misfires at idle and sometimes above 4,000 RPM. What could cause that?

mcguiver7

check your plugs first, most likely it's a coil pack.

Amave

glad you got it resolved, i hate to read about Maximas blowing head gaskets


and +2 on checking coil pack 1st

Z-Powered

I posted too soon. My Max is consuming coolant at a rate of about 2 quarts a day. There are no leaks either, so my mechanic and I are stumped. I almost sure it's the head gasket. A nice pearl white 6MT Maxima just popped up in my area, so I may just trade this Max in and buy that one.

BlackMacks

iTrader: (3)

I almost replied to your first post with something along the lines of: "leaking rads and stuck tstats don't put white smoke out the exhaust", but I didn't want to be negative......

It's entirely possible that your leaking rad and/or stuck tstat contributed to the HG failure, "hot spots" in the cooling system that won't show up on the gauge, but do the damage nonetheless.

mcguiver7

Very good point. Not sure how that didn't register in my mind. Misfire is starting to seem like the result of water in the cylinder. Your mechanic should have a leak down tester if at least a compression tester.

Amave

ffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuu



yeah white smoke through the tail pipe is a strong indication of a blown HG ....that sux man i'd just get a low mileage engine and drop it in, then sell off parts fro mthe old engine ( is no damage was done )

Z-Powered

^ I'd do that, but I really want a 6MT.

Z-Powered

A little off topic for this thread, but oh well. I've confirmed the blown head gasket, because my oil is starting to look like a Nestle product. I've narrowed what I want down to two cars, a 2002 Audi S4 6MT, and a 2002 Maxima 6MT. Which would you go with and why?

kbohip

An 8 year old Audi with a twin-turbo engine and 150k miles? Yea, I'd steer WAY clear of that one! If you thought a blown head gasket in a Maxima was expensive to fix you haven't priced Audi parts. As for the Max, it's worth a look.

Z-Powered

^ Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Some people on AudiForums said that the higher mileage S4s are the most reliable, because everything broke and has been replaced already. In all seriousness, they said that if the crappy stock K03 turbos have been replaced with the larger and more reliable K04 units, the car should be fairly inexpensive to maintain after that. The K03s have a tendency to crack and fail prematurely. Most likely I'm going with the Max though.