1999 Terrano 2.7TDi SE Touring Oil use

[Lazy-Ferret]

Hi, I am a new person to the Nissan Marque, having recently spread my wings from Volvo.

This is the first Turbo or Diesel I have personally owned and will need to work on, only ever having had a brand new Turbo Diesel Grand Vitara in the past, but having never needed to work on that, as it was a company car. This means that this is a bit of a learning curve for me.

Anyway, We have had this for just 2 weeks, and have put 1000 miles on it, 300 with a Caravan on the back. When I got it, I did all the checks, including the oil, which was nice and full although quite dirty.

I checked it all over yesterday, and discovered that the Oil was not even on the dip stick. 3 odd litres later and it is back to the top. The Oil light never came on once, although it is working correctly when you start and stop the car.

I went over the car, and can not see any trace of a leak, in fact it has to be one of the cleanest 13 year old engines and gearboxes I have ever seen when it comes to oil/crud build up. There are no marks on the driveway at all. As far as I know, it is running nicely, and it had no problems pulling our caravan, so I guess the Turbo is at least doing something.

It does not seem to be burning any oil, no obvious puffs of smoke, and the only thing we did notice was that when travelling at motorway speeds, if you open just the sun roof, you get a faint hot oil smell in the car. I would have thought that to use 3 litres of oil in 1000 miles, I would see tonnes of blue smoke.

Having done a bit of searching, the only thing that seems to come to light, is oil leaking into the exhaust side of the turbo, and being blown out the back, but again, I would have expected to see oil marks in the exhaust, and on the front of the caravan. The exhaust is a little sooty, and the caravan is clean.

Can anyone give me some ideas of how and what to look for, along with some clues/pictures of what I should look out for / expect to see, if I look at the Turbo Charger.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[makeitfit]

How many miles has your truck done ? It could be the wrong oil in it and being burnt in the cylinders. Odd though there's no muck on the tin tent ? :augie

 

[Lazy-Ferret]

How many miles has your truck done ? It could be the wrong oil in it and being burnt in the cylinders. Odd though there's no muck on the tin tent ? :augie

97K.

I did not receive a Handbook with it, and obviously had no idea what oil was in it. Currently it now has what ever was left, plus 3 litres of Castrol Magnatec part synthetic 10w40.

As I say, there is not even a greasy film.

 

[(RIP) PLANK]

put a decent 15/40 mineral oil in in it!

 

[supergnome]

Change the oil and filter and see if it does it again. 97K is no mileage for these. You wern't pushing it much if there was no soot on the van. Check the filter when you change it, is its contents black oil or black treacle as mine was when I first go it. It may not have been changed for some time. Don't look for complicated answers as these engines are solid and will take a bit of stick. Enjoy. David.

 

[Lazy-Ferret]

Thanks, that sounds a bit more optimistic.

Just purchased 10 litres of 15w40 oil, and a filter. Now having read the lovely posts on here about what a pig the filter is to get to, I am waiting for the rain to stop and will go and do an oil change.

Fingers crossed she sticks to drinking diesel oil rather than engine oil after this.

 

[(RIP) PLANK]

Thanks, that sounds a bit more optimistic.

Just purchased 10 litres of 15w40 oil, and a filter. Now having read the lovely posts on here about what a pig the filter is to get to, I am waiting for the rain to stop and will go and do an oil change.

Fingers crossed she sticks to drinking diesel oil rather than engine oil after this.

and in my experience they really do prefer mineral oil rather than synthetic or semi synthetic. There is a whole thread somwhere on my experiences of using the wrong oil :thumb2

 

[christof30]

97K.

I did not receive a Handbook with it, and obviously had no idea what oil was in it. Currently it now has what ever was left, plus 3 litres of Castrol Magnatec part synthetic 10w40.

As I say, there is not even a greasy film.

Have you checked out the workshop downloads in the quick links at the top right of the forum page, lots of useful info.

Also if you do a forum search for manual you should be able to find a downloadable manual which has almost everything in.

 

[Lazy-Ferret]

Thanks guys, I will have more of a look around.

I did the oil change tonight, eventually... had to dodge Thunder storms

I did make one very big mistake.... I had one of those days where if it could go wrong....

I crawled under the front, and found a drain plug that was so easy to get to, I could not believe my luck, so undid it and drained all this nice clean oil out!!!

Went back in to the house and re-read the manual, sure I must have just drained the front diff, but the drain plug was in the wrong place to be the front diff according to the manual... Still it was the front diff.

I then re-filled the front diff, glad I used a clean bowl to collect the oil. I will now have to replace the oil in there properly when I have popped out to get some new stuff...

I must admit I am going off that service manual, as so far, several of the things I have used it for, it has lied and said they are in a different place, or not there at all. It's not really for the Terrano II from what I have seen so far.

Anyway, having sorted out my mistake, cussed at my stupidity and vowed to think more carefully in the future, I undid the proper drain plug and drained a whole bowlful of black yuck. Took Air filter to turbo pipe off, so I could get to oil filter easier and noticed lots of oil in turbo. The oil was coming through the small breather hose that joins into the large hose that runs from air filter to turbo. Cleaned it all out, and the turbo is nice and clean, spins easily, and I can not feel any play, so hopefully it is all ok.

Does anyone else have a problem reading the dip stick, as it seems to run up one side further than the other

 

[Kamsin]

That black yuck will also go in the fuel tank and run the truck, as will almost any cookng oil (SVO, New cooking oil) so dont through it away.

You can remove the brether hose to the turbo if you put a small K&N filter in its place.

 

[makeitfit]

You can remove the brether hose to the turbo if you put a small K&N filter in its place.

Now I dont believe you want to do that Better to blank it off or else you'll suck in water when you least want it :augie

 

[Lazy-Ferret]

That black yuck will also go in the fuel tank and run the truck, as will almost any cookng oil (SVO, New cooking oil) so dont through it away.

You can remove the brether hose to the turbo if you put a small K&N filter in its place.

Would synthetic/part synthetic oil still be OK to use. Do you filter it first?

Not sure what I would gain from taking the breather hose off, I just need to find out why she feels the need to suck oil through there and sure that.

I know this sounds Silly, but could someone measure their dip stick from the point that sits against the tube, to the High oil mark, as I am beginning to think that the dipstick might not be the correct one.

 

[Kamsin]

Now I dont believe you want to do that Better to blank it off or else you'll suck in water when you least want it :augie

Am i thinking of the wrong pipe then Pete, as i have seen this done on a few trucks

 

[Kamsin]

I know this sounds Silly, but could someone measure their dip stick from the point that sits against the tube, to the High oil mark, as I am beginning to think that the dipstick might not be the correct one.

Mine is 55cm to the full mark and 58 tip to top.

 

[Lazy-Ferret]

Mine is 55cm to the full mark and 58 tip to top.

Thanks for that, mine is pretty much the same, so I guess it is not that...

I took her out for a nice run today, belted her down the A21 just to makes sure she got a good blow through, but we are still smelling oil.

When I got home I checked the turbo air input side again and it was full of oil.

Not being used to diesels, what sort of pressure should the crank case build up?

I disconnected the breather pipe where it leaves the, what I guess is the flame trap (front passenger corner of intercooler), and then put my finger over the output from the flame trap. effectively stopping any gasses escaping from the engine sump and rocker/cam cover. The pressure built up so high that it drove oil right up the dip stick. Surely the Crank case should not build up those sorts of pressures?

 

[Kamsin]

This is a Makeitfit problem, he will know more than me about that

 

[Lazy-Ferret]

This is a Makeitfit problem, he will know more than me about that

Cheers,

I discovered that the black thing was not a flame trap, but the oil separator... Well, that's what it says it is, but it lies, since it is not doing that...

Anyway, I took it off, checked it was clean, and then checked to make sure the pipes to and from it were clear. They were, so it has ho excuses for not separating the oil. Worried now that the rings are worn and pressuring the sump.

 

[makeitfit]

ooph, certainly should n't be blowing out your dipstick
So worn valve guides or simply tappets need adjusting :nenau
Can you explain again which pipes you disconnected and put your thumb over, just incase we're missing the obvious Pics please :thumbs

 

[Lazy-Ferret]

ooph, certainly should n't be blowing out your dipstick
So worn valve guides or simply tappets need adjusting :nenau
Can you explain again which pipes you disconnected and put your thumb over, just incase we're missing the obvious Pics please :thumbs

Good idea...

Red is the oil separator. A pipe from the top of the engine comes under the intercooler and into the mounting for the Oil Separator.

There is another pipe out the bottom in Green, that goes back to the Sump.

Blue pipe runs down to large flexible pipe that runs from Air filter to turbo.

Side view as well

I removed the Blue pipe at the top where it joins the Oil Separator. and put my thumb over the exit from the separator. A pressure built up, and when I released it you could see a haze, and a few drops of oil spattered out. I did this a few times.

When I checked the dip stick, it had oil right up it to the top, and some had splattered out onto the break servo.

 

[makeitfit]

Well that's bad news , sump is pressurising big time , so could it be rings , valves or guides?
Did you try putting your thumb over the pipe from the rocker cover btw ?