Good luck, a Gregory's or a Max Ellery would suffice a mechanically minded person. When you pull it down I would be interested in what you find and also what year it is. Take particular care with the head, don't short change yourself on that as it can bring you undone later.

When mine was rebuilt, about 5-6 years ago, it was done with a "Nissan Kit" a later model block and pistons, mine was a 2000 and a post 2003 block was the replacement, you can tell by a small flange covering an oil gallery just under the oil filter, there are some minor differences although I am not sure of the total difference. My crank, rods, etc were all fine.

Once again good luck and keep us informed of how you are going.

 

Where abouts are you, I might be able to point you towards some cheap parts. I just rebuilt mine, 4 pistonts with rings, vrs kit, head gasket and new head for under 2.5k and thats with having the new valves set up with the cams.

 

Hi Fogazi

I rebuild mine this year, one piston was cracked and so also the head. The head wasn't cracked that bad but i decided to replace it.

I bought the pistons and the connecting rod bearings over ebay from a engine rebuilder in Germany (i am from Austria so no tax), it's this one: Kolben Nissan Terrano II, Patrol GR 3,0 ltr.TD - NEU - Motor: ZD 30 DDTI | eBay
He also sell over mass pistons, my block gets bored so i needed over mass.

The head i also got over ebay from england, i bought one that was not fully assembled so if you need one, pick one that is fully assembled, it has a manual valve clearance adjustment and you need to get new valve plates and they are horrible expensive and you only get it from your nissan dealer. This was the seller: Nissan ZD30 Y61 3.0 Assembled Cylinder Head Cabstar Patrol Renault Maxity Master | eBay

I also picked a full gasket set because this engine has plenty of gaskets in it, and you will be glad to have them.


I bought me the original nissan repair manual on CD and was glad to have it because this engine is very complex (my opinion). I started to take apart the engine in the bay, but if i had to did it again i would remove the engine first, no space for anything.

I didn't needet any special tools anyway, only normal car workshop tools.


So i wish you good luck and maybe i could helped you a bit. If you have any question, feel free to ask

yours Marc

 

So, I did a bit of fault diagnosis by topping up the radiator and running the engine to see if any air bubbles came out of the radiator. There were none. Am I right to assume that the head is not cracked and that it is probably a piston?

I have booked the car in to Nissan any way just to check if they can do it under warranty before I go pulling it apart...

 

What yr is it???

It dosesnt mean you havnt done the head, gasket or have a crack.
Mine was all fine and running fine it was just using a heap of coolant as the head gasket
was blown through the water galleries and going straight into the exhaust.
When it was hot it made some bubble in the over flow bottle.

Be carefull with Nissan as they might tell you lies........... Id also get a 2nd opinion

 

06 ZD30DDTI, its only going to Nissan to check if its a warranty job. If they say no, ill pull it down and assess the damage my self.

 

hello fogazi,

look i havn't read over all your thread here,but my opinion would be to SOURCE a good used motor for it,there are a lot of companies now who offer a decent exchange service whre they take your engine and replace it with a brand newly rebuilt one,this would be the complete engine overhauled. second thing if this wasn't the answer,you should try and locate a good used motor in the scrapyards (breakers) generally the ones you buy would come with a warrenty depending on milage etc,you can tell a decent engine,80percent of the time they are still even in the veichles and can be started and run.3rd thing is these engines can be sourced direct from japan,again you will find companies who would import one for you.

i would NOT do the rebuild myself,ok like you i had one before that blew up and it was only the head,i was going to undertake the job myself,same as you,i have all the tools i need and i am fairly craftey with engines,that and i have a lot of help with two good friends been qualified mecanics also,still taken all this in to consideration and after having a good long think about it replacing a head and gasket with pistons still may not be enough,i feel these engines need a complete overhaul if you need to replace a cracked head,once an engine this big cracks a head there can be any reason as to why it happened in the first place.

these things also have a lot of anchillaries too that also would need attention,such as pumps and radiators and what ever else,it could turn out very costly.


just my opinion,i doubt you would save doing it yourself,that's why nissan garages charge so much cause remember they need to guarantee it once built also!!


if you do a cheap rebuilt it could be ok but it could also be a waste of 3k when it blows again (


hope you get it sorted,and sorry if my post discourages,it is also nice to do a build yourself,as i say just be carefull with the cost,they are big machines.



dan

 

What are the symptoms mate? Of the few later model Di motors that have expired, I don't think they've all been the classic cooked pistons. It's still running from what you're saying, so curious to know what it's doing. You might get a few suggestions from the brains trust (and plenty of useful suggestions from the usual suspects).

 

What are the symptoms mate? Of the few later model Di motors that have expired, I don't think they've all been the classic cooked pistons. It's still running from what you're saying, so curious to know what it's doing. You might get a few suggestions from the brains trust (and plenty of useful suggestions from the usual suspects).

I am a bit confused myself now, we have gone from a "grenaded" engine to a "we are not sure what is wrong" situation, I for one am very interested in the diagnosis and outcome of this. Especially when it goes back to Nissan to hear what they say.

06 ZD30DDTI, its only going to Nissan to check if its a warranty job. If they say no, ill pull it down and assess the damage my self.

When is it going to Nissan? please let us know what they diagnose.

 

Its is booked in to Nissan on the 19th July.

I am only using "grenaded" as a figure of speech. I don't know what is wrong with it.

Symptoms: The engine starts OK-ish and idles very roughly with no smoke from the exhaust. When throttle is applied large amounts of white smoke come out of the exhaust. Not steam. It also makes a sort of knocking sound when throttle is applied. At first when it happened I checked the radiator and it was low. Although it didn't take much to fill it.

What lead to this? I was towing my boat to the boat ramp at about 90-100kms/h when all of a sudden I heard the "knocking" sound I spoke of earlier. I immediately pulled over. I got a mate to tow the boat home while I limped the car home 15kms. It got there fine but had very low power and white plumes of smoke were pouring out the back. Once up to about 60kms/h in 4th and cruising, the smoke stopped and it felt smooth-ish.

Cheers by the way for the advice.

 

+1 to what geeyoutoo said,it was hard to offer advice based on your post,i didn't know either as to the extent of the damage or how it was running as you didn't say it on top.

however,i'm no expert but i think you are right about the cracked cylinder head,YES my old patrol done the same thing,except it sounds like you have a bad crack in the head,did you let it go low on engine oil at the time of the incident???

you got a bad cylinder head crack or badly blown head gasket,if it was a cracked piston you would be burning oil as the oil from the engine can get passed the crack and be burned too so the smoke would be blue!!


BUT... you could be lucky,did yu check/change your diesel filter lately,maybe you could have a blocked injector,this would cause lots of smoke too as there would be some diesel unburned in the system,the knocking sounds worrying though to be honest,i think nissan is best to give a diagnosis.i would lay my money on the cracked head.

 

Its not using any oil. Levels are still fine.

I had recently as 2 months before the incident changed the filter. Are injectors easy to check if blocked? I have access to an ultrasonic bath too id they were to need cleaning.

 

Now re reading the whole thing again as more info comes, white smoke can be vapourised unburnt fuel, all the clattering could be the IP, you need to get it checked by the Nissan people or someone who knows exactly what they are doing.

I certainly hope it is the more simple of the spoken failures.

 

Well out of curiosity I went and started her up. Starts fine and still idles easily but rough(vibrations not stalling) I revved it up to 3500 and there is no knocking sound at all(i think? - Would a video recording on youtube help you guys?). White smoke is still billowing out and it seems like it is only running on 3 cylinders.

My question is how would a blocked injector cause smoke still? Not a smart arse question but a genuine query. Wouldn't whatever fuel does get past the blockage still combust? No Idea how it works...

Cheers

 

Well out of curiosity I went and started her up. Starts fine and still idles easily but rough(vibrations not stalling) I revved it up to 3500 and there is no knocking sound at all(i think? - Would a video recording on youtube help you guys?). White smoke is still billowing out and it seems like it is only running on 3 cylinders.

My question is how would a blocked injector cause smoke still? Not a smart arse question but a genuine query. Wouldn't whatever fuel does get the bloackage past still combust? No Idea how it works...

Cheers

Not necessarily if the spray pattern is defective unburnt fuel may get through.

 

So straight off this has been referred to as a Grenaded engine , but may not be, we all hope may be something simple for you, just wish people would not always refer to a issue as grenade. 06 is pretty late in the Di range, good luck keep us up to date.

 

So, just went to check the fault codes and came up with these two:

0407 Crankshaft Position Sensor
Circuit, Sensor or ECM failure

0905 Turbo Pressure
Circuit malfunction, Charge Air Pressure Sensor failure



Not sure if these have anything to do with anything...

 

My friend had similar problem due to work he had done to the engine him self (front crank seal, lost harmonic balancer key didnt notice it drop out, balance was moving on the crank) showed very similar symptoms.
crank angle sensors controls injection timing so a failed sensor could definately give this problem
and be cheaper

 

when you start it the veichle is cold obvioulsy,so the glow plugs are 'on', if you have a blocked injector or partially blocked the cylinder not getting enough fuel will have more air and less fuel in it so hence the white smoke when cold...

get a bottle of injector cleaner and put it in 10euros worth of diesel in the tank,or just throw in two bottles in to your diesel tank,the stuff is that good that it could unclog it straight away,ok the reason why i say this is cause i had a similar problem the other day actually,i changed my diesel filter but something must have made it's way in to the injectors when i put the new filter on,maybe a little greese or something that i use for the seals on the filter (greese is harmless for IP) so anyway,it was running on 3 cylinders on and off until i used a bottle of combustion cleaner & injector cleaner,this stuff can be got in litterly any motor shop, my patrol was perfect before i changed the diesel filter,and it's now perfect again,it got badly airlocked and i knew some small piece of greese made it's way in along the line.when i tried to drive it after changing my fuel filter it was blowing out lots of white smoke,i couldn't understand it cause i had done nothing only changed the fuel filter,it took it 10 miles of driving after i put the injector cleaner in the fuel tank to work,and it did the job wonderful.

look it's worth a try,when the injector gets blocked A FAULT code will appear anyway this is normal because the engine is not running properly on 3 cylinders.mine did the same.(again it won't damage the engine running it on 3 cylinders aslong as you don't abuse it,baby it) some lads overthink certain issues and go very technical about them when sometimes the problems can be very simple, (i hope in this case)

try it first,let it run with it,even drive it for a while but monitor it,if it is not liking the driving just take it home and dig deaper, if this stuff will work it should be within 10 miles of driving.


my patrol is fine now,i reset the battery once i was done and no fault codes anymore,the patrol drives like i first got it,that injector cleaner is amazing stuff.....

BUT..maybe i had a differnt issue to you,your coolant loss is the worrying part,i never had any loss of that.

 

White smoke is a sign of not enough heat to complete the combustion process, ie low compression, glow plugs not working when cold. If an injector had 3 of the six holes blocked it may miss or run roughly but you won't see white smoke. It sounds like you have an engine compression issue.

How long have the fault codes been in the vehicle, they may be old ones that are not relevant.

Andy

 

The battery had been disconnected for a month prior to starting it yesterday. So the codes are new. I might get some injector cleaner today and maybe see if I can get hold of a crank any sensor.

 

The injectors are two staged and we found with my mates one that no one could test them correctly
( straight from the deisel joint he was dealing with ) because they could only check the higher pressure stage not lower pressure
Please correct me if im wrong or if this was just isolated to the deisel guy we delt with.

 

Get a compression test Fogazi. That will tell you whether you have an injector problem or a motor problem.

 

Disconnecting the battery doesn't clear fault codes. The boost code generally means its boost spiked. The crank sensor code may be a bad sensor or the relationship with the cam/or pump position sensor is out.

If you were to disconnect the plug from the injector pump at the inlet manifold and crank it over, is the cadence even or does it sound different in one spot.

Any blowby from the breather hose when running or revved up?

The injectors are 2 stage units, generally if tested and the pressure is low, then the 2nd stage will be also These are non serviceable, so if bad they are an ornament.

Andy

 

Sorry, you will have to be more specific in what you want me to check.

I have organised to take it to a Diesel Injection workshop here in Darwin and get them to have a quick looksee..

 

With the engine running,
disconnect one injector at a time.
If the engine changes note that
should be the dud one.

Cheers Ian

 

I'd have thought it is other way, if the engine note doesn't change than that is the dud one, you'd also take the fuel away so white smoke should go too if it is failed injector or lack of compression for example.
Cheers

 

Disconnect as in the fuel line to the injector?

 

any updates??

if you listen to anyone maybe it should be diesel-tec here that posted on the thread,maybe he might have a better idea than most of us as he works on them a lot.

anyway,i would be leaning towards what he said if what i said isn't the issue.


keep us posted..