I'm in the process of removing the lower plenum to fix a boost leak. I've removed the upper plenum and the cam covers. I know I can lock two nuts together to remove the idler pulley bolt. BUT How do I go about loosening the timing belt enough to slide the pulley and bolt out?? I can't get to the timing belt tensioner as it sits behind the lower cover. Then there is the problem of putting the pulley back in. Do I have to removed the harmonic balancer and cover behind it??
The correct way is to remove all the belt covers, lock off the tensioner and remove the belt, cam gears and rear covers. There is another way to do it, zip ties on the belt and gears to hold it all in place then double nut the idler stud, heat up the surrounding area and undo it but unless you are very confident doing it this way, don't even try it.
Just pull the timing belt right off. No real point mucking around if you are digging that deep. I managed to unscrew that stud everytime i pulled a lower plenum. The thread locker that nissan put on it isnt very tough.
Ok, got everything off, but having trouble removing the lower plenum. The vac / pcv lines that join the two heads run over the rear part of the plenum making it impossible to get out. Any advice?
yes, bastard isnt it. I had to remove and delete my EGR to get the plenum off. Fortunately I already had the cooling lines removed. Keep stripping the layers off the onion.
I removed the EGR last time I had the engine out. Was hoping there is some trick to it that I'm not seeing.
All good, managed to finally remove it! Had to remove the fuel rail, then cut the metal joiners between the upper and lower metal vac lines and a LOT of bending to finally get it off.
Yoiu may want to replace those PCV steel pipes with Silicon while you have the plenum out. This makes it way easier to get to all this crap later on,
How much are they and where can I get them from? Planning to get the car back on the road this weekend.
If Ross can't source silicon hose of the right diameter in a hurry then wouldn't rubber hose be OK? Big enough internal diameter to shove the restrictors in plus tolerant of engine oil of course. In Castlemaine / Bendigo our choices are limited for "performance" parts in a hurry but industrial grade stuff is plentiful. Any recommendations on a type ~ grade of rubber hose?
I imagine rubber would be fine. Mine was done by UAS before I got the car. There are no restrictors etc in the pipes and I havent noticed any ill effects by NOT having them. It means you can easily pull all that crap behind the engine out of the way fairly easily with all those hard pipes gone. The silicon is still pliable years after it was put in. Hope the rubber lasts that long. I even have lost those little steel vacuum joiner pipes behind there as well. You dont need a lot of them. The PCV pipe I have is quite big diameter. In fact the same as the outlets of the PCV's. Seems to nemd around the back of the engine OK. I actually out a r/t angle on the drivers side to help it around the back of the head.
Thanks for the advice. Will have a bit of a play with it tonight. The restrictors were going to be my next question but you answered that.
Great i don't need the restrictors. I'm in the process of putting the lifters back in after a clean as was thinking of using hose between my new p.v.c's around the back as you describe. Gota love the dollar at the moment ( i bet coz do ). Cheers Dave
