VQ40 Engine Teardown And Unraveling The Mystery Of Our New Xterra (VK Swap Episode 5)

hey there rather car guy here and today let's tear down a vq40 now this here engine came out of my black Xterra and it's going to be getting a VK this one we're actually not going to use at all so I decided that today I'm just going to do a video on well tearing it down and I got some parts that I'm going to sell off they're usable and some folks in the Nissan Community could use them and the rest I'm probably going to either save or just recycle not a whole lot of intro to that let's just start tearing into it now if you're following along with the vka series then um then you know that this still had antifreeze in it I went ahead and just drained it I pulled one of the plugs on one side the other one was too tough to get to we'll just kind of deal with it as it comes but I did get enough out that I feel pretty confident tearing this all down without making a giant mess but we're going to start with the easy stuff I'm grabbing my tensioner pulling that out pulling the belt off this thing is of course trash you wouldn't want to reuse this anyways and then I'm going to start pulling off accessories idler pulley fan pulley AC tensioner power steering and alternator the alternator we actually have to pull off and use as part of our VK Swap this is going to go back in the Xterra on the side of the VK so why don't we just get that taken care of first this has what I assume are 14s yep 14 one and then that's probably a 12 actually yep 14 and 12. I think that's it we'll keep that I don't know if we're going to need it these are usually like pinched in here too so just going to pull it and kind of rock it off there we go we're going to set that aside with this little bolt here and this little bolt so that way we don't lose them now let's just hope it works power steering is a 12 and I think that's a 10 up top 11 is too small but 12's too big what oh that's because it's a 14 and I'm stupid I put it in the wrong spot huh very tight in here it must be oh oh that's because it's still got a Giant Bolt in it it's inside here there we go wow look how tiny that thing is it's a little guy now if you need something off of this don't hesitate to reach out to me my information is in the description down below now what's fun is this engine is kind of a mystery uh Duncan said it has a sort of a weird history and the guy he bought it from was a bit of a character I've already found a couple strange things but I'm pretty excited to see what sort of story that this thing tells for instance I know that the front timing cover's been off which is usually a good sign of the vq40 and some of the Dead giveaways are things like this so around this bolt here is a ton of our TV and you can see it kind of gooped up top as well all the way around the timing chain cover so this has for sure been off I'm assuming that just means they did secondary timing chain covers or um and you know new chains and whatnot so just yesterday I broke my Milwaukee ratchet and had to send it out for service so I don't think I did anything wrong but I'm gonna start using this stuff with uh kid gloves all right there's our fan pulley that feels that feels great actually Jesus how many bolts are there so it looks like there's four total now yep there it goes and before I let this go there is a oops well never mind there's a little electrical connector we want to pull off ah there it goes all right it might still work it's just really ugly this thing's coming apart fast I love it I'm grabbing my oil drain pan so I can ditch of course the filter and I'm going to drop these lines whoa that oil is pretty dang thick wow that looks like molasses not my problem whoops got a little coolant in the oil my bad what's interesting about this engine is just how much stuff has been replaced so you see stuff like this like this non-standard hose clamp down here and like over here there's a hose that's that's taped up up here there's all kinds of stuff I think there's Loom up there that's been redone with electrical tape so it's kind of interesting but I'd venture to Guess that whoever worked on this was certainly uh certainly not a professional but I'm going to drop this but I'm just going to grab the two coolant lines that run down to the oil cooler pop those off just throwing bolts back in like I always do now I'm tearing a part one vq40 from one Xterra but you know who has access to a ton of different Nissan OEM Parts Nissan parts polar if you need OEM parts for Nissan trucks or SUVs definitely check them out uh their information is down in the description below these two hoses up front wrap around to two hard lines on the left side of the engine here so I'm gonna pop those off as well just get them off the front because we're gonna end up taking the timing cover off here pretty soon these are particularly stubborn little bags here clamp it's like the clamp is too small for it or something there we go awesome now these should just be little clamps that if you pull back like that yep they should come up very nice this is another one where it's just completely non-standard someone replaced this clamp here so it looks like cooling was touched for sure and of course like we said the front timing cover as well all right it's looking pretty bare up front let's start uh taking some stuff off the top because it's a hot mess up there so right off the bat here let's get the junk that I just literally threw on it when we were pulling it pull These Chains out of the way pull this electrical my God look at this what a mess it is electrical okay not too bad I'm gonna attack the fuel rail uh mostly because somebody already contacted me and called dibs on this one if you will I'd like to get this removed and sent out today pull off your bypass there oh nice and split so crankcase ventilation uh leaks for sure and pulling this off should be pretty simple at this point everything's removed I just have to pull the injector connectors off and then looks like four bolts and then we just pull it up with the injectors in it now here's what I was talking about earlier take a look at this look at the connectors for the injectors over here and then the connectors over here they are completely different and they are like manually wired and then someone just took electrical tape and then wrapped it around each one so uh interesting to say the least but regardless if we just grab our little connectors there you can pull them up really easily and uh that uh that's worth nothing I'm just going to throw that out this side same story but just with the OEM connectors and then hopefully what's stopping us here oh yeah it's all the coil packs I'll just wait on that then these are four 12s it looks like I assume and that's another completely non-standard bolt something they found at True Value all right now this uh is more uh more intimidating than it is difficult a lot of people get worried about pulling these out you literally just pull up you just want to pull up as straight up as you can so you have a connector like a hard line connector but it'll give a little bit oh God there's a ratness in there so yeah there you go you just pull straight up that's it done nothing crazy about that and that along with all of the injectors is going out to Chad so thanks Chad for picking that up looks like you have a lot of cleaning to do buddy I'm actually going to take a second throw on an n95 and clean this all out um there's a lot of like uh nesting stuff in here and I really don't want to be agitating that too much thank you all right I'm finding all kinds of stuff down there nuts and bolts like little pieces of Hose what's that it's another bolt right here that's the intake manifold for sure they weren't shy about letting stuff drop down there looks like another series of 12 millimeter bolts two four six eight I'm particularly interested to get to the cylinders because Duncan said that I think he said it smoked when he drove it so that'll be interesting to see what's going on I doubt anyone would need this but I'm sure it could be cleaned up well all right so just uh more piles of stuff sorry I'm leaving my mask on for now so it's probably annoying to listen to me but yeah oh yeah definitely a large nest in here let's yank the coil packs and pull the valve covers another couple bolts that people just found lying around that's not the original someone was real prone to losing bolts I'm gonna assume these coil packs are good Duncan didn't mention any misfire when he drove it so hopefully these are all sparking just fine then I'm just going to pull them out and then pull the electrical connector off and set these aside take a look at this what is that is that like a plug or something that's like an Audi belly button or something what is going on there if you push it back in yeah maybe it was flipped inside out strange all right other side with all that we can pull most of the electrical there's a little valve up here what else is up here the line that went to the AC is down here as well so I'm going to remove a couple clips and hopefully we can pull that away just a little like not Christmas tree style but they're the cone-shaped ones that have a little clamps that come out pull all that back there's a ground two grounds weird okay with those away yay this will peel right off this side's free all right we're unraveling a little more of a story here if you look right here you'll see a knock sensor that has been completely ripped off the wires are just gone and previously it looks like this has been glued together so I'll pull that off and show you look at that beauty so there's not even a connector on it someone ripped out the cables wired them into the knock sensor and then basically just uh rtv'd them in and this way it's just been seven it looked like it has maybe some really old electrical tape on it or something melted down on it yikes probably vinyl electrical tape we're gonna have to clean up the right side of the engine before we pull our valve covers still a lot over here more uh like breather hoses and whatnot and then here what do we got here we have our coolant what is that coolant uh coolant temperature sensor probably yes that's what that is pull that out good old Chad actually has dibs on that as well I'm gonna pull that off for them in fact I'll do that before I break it that actually looks pretty great here looks like we have our uh cam position sensor most convenient location possible there it goes God that was a pain even having access to it stupid thing underneath we have a connector for the knock sensors that's kind of nice you can pull that away and leave the knock sensors in place or what's left of them and then pull this out all right other than fighting with this chain we have this sucker out let me uh okay could it be a little longer I can do pigtails off of this if you guys want anything I'm probably going to cut some of stuff off of it but uh as far as it being a single unit usable unit it's not possible we are making excellent progress here and my body is absolutely not paying for doing this on the floor as opposed to on an engine stand all right let's get to this part I'm excited for this one I want to see how good and or bad the valve train is all right there is no way anyone should reuse these so I'm not exactly going to be gentle on them there we go awesome let's take a lookie Lou all right there we go I gotta say these look a lot better than I expected them to they look pretty darn good looking at the cam lobes they don't look like they're you know like excessively worn or anything there doesn't seem to be any scraping or anything weird like that no marks we'll know a little bit more when we take the Caps off but we have a little bit of time before that so let's flip to the front and we will uh take off what's required on the front to get these cams out and then probably pop the heads off as well but before that I'm just going to pull off the variable valve timing solenoid the vbt solenoid and the cam position sensor on this side just set those aside all right it's possible I've been avoiding pulling this off I don't like doing it I have a puller so I guess I don't know what my complaint is but uh pop off the bolt in the center that's going to be actually someone asked this online I could probably answer it now 19. all right the problem with this is that it's going to spin freely right at least we hope oh yeah oh we got compression so I guess we have to hit it with this guy I have a lot of like a flywheel Locker that we can put on the signal plate and stop it from rotating so let me slap that in there whoops this is one of those times where it's like super great to have friends if you're ever curious this is how uh this is how I end up hurt yes there we go oh it actually worked I'll be all right I'll show you the back I just grabbed my flywheel Locker obviously put it in the teeth of the signal plate and then uh just sort of jammed it between a part of the head and a bolt I think on the head as well so now this should come right out we're going to leave it part of the way in so we can go get our little pulley puller and yank this sucker it's kind of nice they leave a little divot for you in the center right that's for that to sit in so it sits like that there and then you just got to get your teeth in there which in this one I think is two yeah that's way too big we can try a small one I don't think it's gonna really hurt that much there we go so I have all three in place now I'm just gonna drive this guy in and I'll just back it out as like a a hole assembly here there you have it there's some BS bracketry up here that I gotta take off [Music] a little evap valve or solenoid or whatever up here feeds into a hard line up top all right we should be free to go so it's a combination it looks like of 10 and 12 and 14. so I'm just going to go around and just pop everything off there's just so much like super excessive amount of RTV on everything someone just slopped this on it's crazy this bracket here for I think the alternator or power steering is held on by two 14 millimeter bolts in the back that's obstructing this bolt here so I'm just popping that off setting that aside I'm gonna pull this off just in case yeah looks like it does hold it in okay good I'm glad I did that and I think we're ready to rock all right let's see if we can bust through this absolutely comical amount of our TV here what's nice about this is that I'm not really worried about hurting anything right and honestly this is this is probably some of the most fun I've had working on an engine in a very long time I'm not tracking bolts I'm not organizing anything I'm just ripping it off and going it's so much fun anyways moving on there's a couple spots up here where you can sort of pry it away so I'm going to start up top and work my way down oh looks like we have to take this bolt off too this upper radiator line is screwed into the side of the front cover in fact with that out it should slide up there's another bolt behind and that should come out gotta pop that O-ring here there we go excellent if we can get this going here until it's already been pried this is all mangled up a little bit here obviously if you're doing this on your motor you want to be far more gentle than I am currently being but I'm just using this little pry Point here sticking it in and pulling away and as you can see I'm creating a gap ah it's getting it in there to kind of break it free once you use these points to break it open you want to go real easy using the uh mating surface right obviously for me I'm not that worried you don't want to go in and pry too much on it I'm sure there's a bolt somewhere that I'm forgetting it's getting pretty tight down there let's go uh stick something here go down look at it doesn't look like it's catching anything I know that this is a oh you know what there's top there's bottom up ones aren't there yeah I remember that now there's always one that I forget well sometimes five we probably weren't applying much pressure to this one considering we're still pulling this way but uh it's good that we remembered this one is looks like a 12. definitely bent it with my raw strength but now I think everything should be out so let's pull it now oh yeah there you go that's easy all right oh my God I don't think I've ever seen anybody use more RTV than I have on this particular job here I mean it is nuts I would guess four I don't know three to four times as much as you needed I gotta say I'm surprised at how black it is in here too it is like really really dark I remember taking mine off and it had like a almost like a golden type Hue to it more like that I don't know if it's like running really long oil change intervals or something but man this thing is like dark it's darker than I remember I can't tell you though these timing chain guides are new for sure and the secondary timing chain guides are also new so yeah it was definitely uh that would be the job right that's why they were in here it was new guides looking at him or rtb on the inside uh new guides and I assume new chains so let's rip it all out I don't remember there being only one tensioner in here maybe I'm thinking of the Titan but that actually looks great it's in great shape at this point we should do that there we go pull that tension off perfect all right we're officially out of time grab the chain off we should be able to pull that off there we go gently set that aside that also looks really good honestly and then I'll pull off uh these two guys I think that's an h10 and those are going to be I believe 12s yeah look at that one as well that looks almost new turns out that's an h8 not an h10 also looking Super Fresh and almost new next up let's get these uh phasers little cam gears here big pliers small nail I'm just gonna put a little paper towel on here to protect the Chain Grab the bottom of the tensioner top of the chain push it down probably can't see that pushing it down there more more more more and now it's bottomed out grab my little nail shove it in there we go let go and now it's locked in place and now lift that chain up over that edge these should pop right off and don't make a liar out of me there we go all right now let's uh pull these cams out all right now with the cam caps this up here is technically number one and then it goes back so should be all 10 millimeter I'm gonna take these this one off first this is going to be sort of adhered I believe it's in the front too yeah it goes around the front pull those off here and then the four back here and this top cam cap should come off before long I'm gonna have to start switching the plastic tools here because I'm either going to want to keep or sell these cams and uh you don't really want to be messing these up so much RTV in here all right starting to break free from the front timing cover there it goes hell yeah there's your uh cam cap number one technically fun little oil channels in there and now I'm just gonna bust through and take these out I'm gonna take them out I'm gonna take this one out or this set this set and then the middle I'm also going to take a picture I don't plan on reassembling this like I said but all these are labeled and they might not be where they originally were obviously your manual is going to tell you all the positions of these but certainly doesn't hurt to take a picture I have to say it smells like very fried in here everything smells burnt it's a very unattractive smell Kim caps if they give you any trouble just leave the bolt just the slightest bit in uh just the top of the cap and then pull it in One Direction it should pop off like these here just put the first couple threads in and then pull there you go it's pretty simple all right this one's free to pull let's lift up straight up yank that sucker out pull this cam out and then just repeat the process on the other side and we're done with that well with all those off it looks really good the lifters look surprisingly healthy I'm pretty happy about that mostly because I feel like I might need them one day for a vk56 and I hope that they're the same exact ones anyways fact the matter is front timing cover we're going to do next or excuse me the rear timing cover we're going to do next and it looks like it's just two big bolts at the bottom and then a bunch of like 10 millimeters so I'm just gonna attack that and also oh looks like the water pump also goes through the timing comfort so those are three 10 millimeters let's pull that off in fact let's do that now as an oem water pump so it's either original or they actually bought the OEM replacement doubtful now there is a process for taking these off you can get a bigger bolt and put it in there and it actually presses against the other set of threads I don't remember which one it is though this one yeah I think it is yeah so it's I use one of the bolts from the front timing cover hopefully there's two that will fit and then you just take turns on these you know drilling them in here we go just like that and we'll let that pour into the oil pan because I don't care all right get it over with cry it out oh this is interesting I'm basically bathing in this now take a look at that yikes a lot of grime looks like they ran like actual water in this at some point but on the bright side look how shiny it is in there that's pretty cool well I got antifreeze everywhere I try to get as much as I could um into the oil pan but it's pretty serendipitous that today my package from super clean came in so I'm gonna use some floor absorbent get this on here and uh soak it up I like this stuff a lot more than the powder stuff it's the powder stuff although you did see a little dust here this stuff creates a lot less dust a lot less grit everywhere so we'll let that sit and I'll be able to sweep it up later if you like this stuff you can get it pretty much anywhere I think Walmart even sells it but also there'll be information in the description below all right with that out let's just crank through all these 10 millimeters take out our two either 12 or 14s down here and then hopefully this cover will come off gonna go around and check one more time I don't even think I see one more like one more bolt at all to take off I don't I doubt these oil Galley covers go straight through right they must they're probably in here I'm gonna look in the back as well I don't know if there's anything you know going from the back into the front of it doesn't appear to be so far all right it all looks good let's give this a try I think if I just whack it with the Mallet it'll work hey hey that wasn't too bad now was it here's the back of that well all right at this point Let's uh let's pull the heads all right on our cylinder head on this side the left side we have to remove our oil dipstick tube and the water hose in the rear and I think everything else will come off with it so in the back back here there's just four bolts on this little water hose there we go awesome and then this one I believe might be a 10. now these I believe are the h10s so let me grab that yes they are okay the problem is is that using a giant breaker bar might be a little difficult with the engine just sitting on the floor but one way to find out let's see if I can slip a disc oh yeah there's no way try the old foot method seems to be working lately no way no way hey was that progress kind of sounded like it yes all right I just had to get in front of it basically the opposite direction that it's leaning so we have all that extra force and then just Jam my foot on the front so do that one two three four five six seven eight do that seven more times and this thing will be ready to pull off there's always this very distinct smell I'll never forget this smell when you break these bolts open it's the weirdest thing now I left the exhaust header on to give myself a little handle shouldn't be bad at all right make sure you lift with your back no I'm just kidding oh that's actually way lighter than the Titan one awesome now I've been waiting for this it's kind of exciting because I want to see the condition of these cylinders my God it stinks hell is that oh my gosh the top of this piston is completely broken off that's wild where is it all right Duncan I think I found the smoke there buddy uh look at that the top of that piston face is just just sheared off there's a huge chunk of it missing and you can see the top piston ring that is insane I've never seen anything like that and it's not even it's not in here look it's somewhere else so odd the craziest part of all of that to me is the fact that the cylinder wall does not appear to be damaged so how in the world did this thing lose a giant chunk of the piston and to have it not absolutely destroy the cylinder wall that is bizarre to me look at this wild well this is exciting let's go get the other one off well it's a heck of a lot smaller I think we're nearing the finish line here I am interested to see what the crank looks like so what we'll probably do is uh find a way to flip this over I guess right um I'll just take my I guess take my lift and flip it over but and then just take the upper oil pan off and then uh see what's going on as far as the right bank there's not anything exciting going on so I think we found our excitement on the other side [Music] that it went that well that was like the first thing I tried all right let's get going here I'm it's actually my birthday today and uh I have a birthday dinner to get to so we're gonna blast through this I have uh two four six eight nine bolts for the lower oil pan I could probably skip the lower oil pan but uh when I disassembled the Titan I found some fun stuff in there so hopefully this one won't disappoint and no there's nothing but there is like I mean absolute sludge I can't believe this oil is like I would say it's like uh honey maybe maybe a little thicker than honey if you watch me separate the engine from the transmission then you know that there was a little metal panel here and normally you would sit you know under the car and you would pull that out then you would have access to the four bolts that hold on the torque converter so I'm going to again put my flywheel Locker on here and we're gonna have to go that way there we go and luckily this is just going to spin freely so we'll just spin it and then get the next one and then do that another two times and this thing should be off there we go that should pop off now damn that thing's heavy I think that thing was heavier than the cylinder head all right here it looks like we have about uh one two three four maybe 10 and 11 in here bolts holding up the upper oil pan and I'm just going to go around pop all those off and we should be able to pull this off oh there is one under the uh oil pressure sensor so let's pull that off so that's really in there all right looks like there's a couple pry spots one right here specifically get a screwdriver in there go to town there it goes ah there's our crate all right we're gonna pop off these Pistons but I want to take this rear plate off first a little signal or starter plate that's just going to be eight uh what is that 14 millimeter bolts and I believe there's a sequence for this you'll want to follow um but I'm not following it [Music] there's our rear main seal in the back of our crank next we're pulling off the rod bearing caps here for this you need a 10 millimeter but you need the 12 side not the sixth side and I guess in well I guess in retrospect I probably should have left that plate on so I could just spin it like this but you want to get what they call bottom dead center for these so basically that means the bottom of the rod is as far down as it goes and then we're just going to go through and pull each one of these off I'll show you one now just like with your cam caps make sure your bolts are actually out but then you should be able to rock them back and forth a little bit to loosen them and then push with your thumb on either side of this and it should come out there you have it this actually looks good that looks really good actually it's not a whole lot of damage not a lot of striping so we'll set that aside and then for the actual piston just push down and then it goes out of course in this case the top of the engine right but I'm just going to push it and then what I'll do is I'll do all of these and then I'll just lift the engine up a little bit and actually push them out the top so repeat that five more times and we'll flip it up and get our Pistons out that is all of them there we go that one actually came right out so far these look pretty darn good I'm keeping them organized and I'm going to put them back with their Originals I doubt anyone's going to want these Pistons or rods but you know why why destroy them I'm going to lift this side up and pistons are probably just gonna like fall straight out actually foreign pop them out just like that five more times the last piece we're going to remove here is our main bearing caps it looks like it comes off all in one piece I can't see a seam here yeah there isn't one so it looks like there's a bunch of 12 millimeters four on that side four on that side and then these are e-torques right external torques so those are going to be e14s I had to buy that kit specifically for the Titan rebuild that I did the vk-56 rebuild and if you need those bits I'll put them down in the description down below all right those are out and I am going to run an impact on these hopefully uh I mean these should probably down real tight but hopefully my impact will pop them right off oh it just occurred to me these are the e14 is 3 8 so I'm not going to run that on the impact I'm tired of breaking like little downsizers I'm not going to run it on an impact but I am going to downsize it on my breaker bar and just uh really hope I don't break the downsizer okay okay good I think I'll be all right just gotta do it 15 more times the Block's getting light enough that it's just all over the place now all right now just run them out with the drill just occurred to me that we should probably take the oil pump off there is three bolts on that uh all 10 millimeter so grab those looks like the front of the crank got a Nick on it so this thing wouldn't slide off had to really Wallop it so there you go I'm really hoping they gave me an area to pry it doesn't really look like it right here maybe that looks pretty kind of risky I'll break that I suppose it doesn't matter uh oh never mind very cool it looks like they put in these threaded holes with a plate on the back to drive against pull it off oh that's smart I'll show you a picture of that it looks like there's three of them in three spots around the edge let's grab like a random bolt off the ground yeah there we go of course it's the ones that were that held the pan in the first place right so I'm gonna put those in place and then we can start driving down on it that's a great design of course I say that before I actually use them right oh yeah that is nothing is there one over here oh yeah there is one over here but uh I'm not gonna use it yes there we go it's free pull it off oh God the stink and with that this should come right out and that's the crank of a vq40 well what an adventure this was and what an unbelievable mess this is Far and Away the dirtiest my garage has ever been um any of my garages but it was absolutely worth it I really wanted to see what was going on with this thing and there was definitely some weirdness especially that piston being that there was no material in the actual cylinder the only thing I could possibly imagine is that someone like broke it while it was being installed and then just decided to leave it that way I genuinely cannot think of any other way that the cylinder wall wouldn't be damaged and that it's just sealed up in there and it and the actual piece of the Piston is just missing other than that we had some wonky connections with hoses some really wonky wiring and that about does it the bearings were surprisingly good on the top side and the bottom side of the crank not to mention the crank itself looks absolutely amazing this thing supposedly has more than 200 000 miles on it and honestly you could convince me that crank has a hundred on it Duncan mentioned that there was a a slight knocking that it was potentially a wrist pin I very quickly you know played with the Pistons and I couldn't find anything right off the bat I'm sure there could be something going on there but that's a little out of my league I don't have any idea how to actually dig into that stuff but that was it this is probably going to be at least a 30 minute video so I apologize if you're still here wow thank you so much be sure to subscribe to the channel for more content well sort of like this but how-to content on the Xterra and the Titan and that's it I have an absolute ton of cleanup to do so we'll see in the next one [Music] oh [Music]

Channel: Ry the car guy

Views: 16,319

Keywords: Nissan, Xterra, Frontier, Pathfinder, VQ40, navara

Id: FjH5cEp02Jk

Length: 33min 57sec (2037 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 10 2023