DCTperformance

Anyone that knows me around this here forum, knows that I've had quite a bit of a heating problem with my 240. Anyhow, on the 24th of Feb. My 240 went into the shop for what I would call, a half engine overhaul. The head was send to a machine shop for restoration, head gasket was renewed, we'll everything expect the engine block on my 240 was worked on. I then purchased NGK one step colder spark plug's and 8mm Taylor wires for $72.00. The cost of the machine shop work was $130.00. The entire head gasket set came out to $115.00. And the labor my mechanic charged was $300.00. "A steal, or so I thought." A total of $618.00. It took my mechanic 5 days, and on Friday, Feb, 28 my 240 was ready to roll. It felt fine for the first half hour, a bit stiff, but hey, the car had been sitting for 5 days. so i didn't worry much. 2 hours after getting the car back, i began to hear a knocking comming from the engine. barely noticeable, i payed no mind to it and countinued to test driving my car at normal speeds of no more than 70miles, for a total of 16miles that day. March, 1 Sat. night, I decided to give my 240 another test drive, i took her to my sisters house, approximately 13miles distance. Little did I know, this would be the last time I would drive my 240. It was around 11:45pm, I'm on I75, doing about 70 when the knocking that never went away, gets extremely loud, I'm 7miles away from my house, i now have a pretty good feeling that something is seriously wrong with my 240. I get off the high way and decide to take the streets, most of all the lights are now flashing, so traffic is preety much dead. The knocking gets really scary, and every time i do catch a red light and have to stop, the car turns off on me. By the grace of God, I'm 2 blocks away from my house, "by the way, ever since getting off the high way, I've been driving in second gear, covering a total of 7miles, at around 15miles an hour." 2 blocks from my house, the knocking gets deffenning. Then in a moment of what i can only describe as terror, smoke shoots from the back of my car and engine, and the knocking stops all together, only to be followed by the loudest explosion I have ever bare witness to, after the explosion a number of metallic bearings and rods shoot from the bottom of my engine block with blinding speed. These peices were later found to be the piston rod, part of the crank shaft, and part of a piston, or pistons. after the explosion, the car died on me but was miraculously able to make it to the very front of my house, on it's own momentum. We'll. I guess thats about it. I'll be taking my car back to this a$$h0le mechanic, and he better slap in a new engine in there for free. Or his a$$ is tost. Sorry for making this story so long, but I had to let you guys know what went down. Thanx for reading, and feel free to post. by the way, the moral of the story is. Don't trust mechanics, always do all work on your car, yourself.

rudeboy

damn... i know you and i dont get along very well but...
damn man. why didnt you stop the car and shut it off before i got so bad.
when the shocks were blown in my honda the instant i started to feel the vibration fome the road in that car i immediatly pulled over and investagated the situation.


sorry to hear you got the raw deal messin with that mechanic . i hope you can make it right with him. a court action will take forever

Justin.b

Was there any oil in the motor at all?

Sorry to hear of the explosion, but you have a cool story if nothing else.

-Justin

Tahlequah 5.0

tuck your skirt in, and swap in a 5.0 sbf

DCTperformance

I passed by this fu(king mechanic's shop Monday the 3rd of march. I asked him what he planned on doing to fix my situation, his fu(king answer was. " You can get an engine from a junk yard, it'll be around $400.00, and I'll charge you another $400.00 on labor." A total of $800.00. He must think he's dealing with a fu(king chic, he must have forgotten to take his medicing, or he's just plain fu(king crazy. I told him exactly what i told you guys, he say's he won't take responsibility. Say's that as long as the car drove in good condition from his shop, he holds no responsibility. Responsibility my nuts. I demanded my money back, making sure i covered all my options, the b1tch refused to give it back. I'm taking his b1tch a$$ to small claims court. Not only do I have pics of all the work he did on my car, but i got eye witnesess that can testify that he worked on it. I wish i could say i had a receipt, but I don't. since i felt he was somewhat giving me a break on the labor, i never asked for one. But better than a reciept, I have a $hit load of pictures of this m0ther fu(ker working on my engine, taking it apart, leaving what seems like washers, dirt, griem, and coolant all over the pistons. The reciepts I do have, are the ones of the parts. they are under his name, meaning that they bare evidence that he worked on my engine. With that and the pictures, this bastard is gonna go down hard. by the way, the reasons why this might have happed besides the fact that he did not have a 240sx or KA24DE engine manual that details torque specifications, the reasons why my engine blew are: He over torqued the head, under torqued it, fu(ked up with the timing of the chain, left a rivot, washer or bolt on the block, or did not add a proper level of oil, along with what should have been some sort of a thick additive to compensate for the obivious loss of compresion due to the cleaned heads. and in the worst case cenerio, when you do an engine over haul, you gotta work on the block, regardless. The fact that he didn't even bother to touch the block, immidiately makes him resposible for any damage to the block, head or any engine related component. His a$$ is tost. I never specifically said i wanted only the heads worked on, i had a heating problem, he came to the conclusion that it was the head gasket. This is where he fu(ked up, any mechanic will tell you, whenever you do work on the head, remove, look, touch, whatever the hell you do to it. You must, you have to, it is defenite that you work on the block. And being that there isn't a reciept saying he only worked on the head, the pictures will cover me, and will show that he removed the head, but never touched the block. sorry for making this so long once again, but I'm furious, and happy at the same time. on the 4th of march, tommorow, I'm going to the most expensive shop to get an estimate on the needed work to get my car rolling. I'm going to Nissan headquarters. I'll go to court with they're estimate, and if I win, wich i should. This mother fu(ker will have to pay every cent, needless say return me the already $618.00 i wasted. Pray for me guys, I'm serious. This could have happened to any of you, and more than that, I'll need all the support, and best wishes I can get. Nobody spits on the face of a 240sx/ (R) ps13/ s13 owner, and gets away with it. Thanx for reading reading.

Justin.b

I wouldn't guarantee success on this one.

You can remove, fondle and abuse a head without removing the block from the car. Pulling the motor to work on the head is entirely excessive.

Before replacing the head you need to scrape any gasket from the top of the block and check to make sure it's still flat - but that's all.

You brought it to a mechanic to fix your heating problem - leaving it to him to find the source of that problem and fix it. He determined it to be the head gasket and replaced it. I don't understand how not working on the block makes him liable for any damage to it.

You can win, but you're getting completely off track. What you need to do is find out why the motor failed. If you find that, as I suspect, there was no oil in the motor then that's all you really need. Jifflylube has replaced many an engine because of that.

You want to focus on the fact that you drove it a ridiculously short distance and it blew up. You also want to have someone diagnose the failure as oiling - related.

-Justin