My truck:
1995 Nissan hardbody XE vg30E 4x4 kingcab.

STORY:
The other day I went wheelin' in some mud, and ended up getting stuck in a small pond with just the front end of the truck. I was almost up to the headlights on the front end and the rear was out of the water. the engine continued to run fine, so I continued to reverse myself out of the situation, which I did finally get out of with help from my buddy and his toyota.

While I was rippin on the truck to get it out, the temperature gauge was getting pretty hot, like 3/4 of the way up to H. So, when i finally got out, and just took off all i could smell was gas, and the truck was sputtering quite a bit. I let it idle for a little bit and the gas went away and it was fine, and i drove myself through the rest of the woods and then back to my house.

The next day I start the truck and im driving around for a while, and its getting worse and worse... smelling of gas, mis-firing badly, loss of power,and a rainbow on the ground next to the tailpipe from gas dripping from it.

Before pulling the heads i just checked all main things...
replaced cap and rotor and plug wires, checked all the plugs, replaced the one that seemed to be really making the truck act up (middle cylinder on passenger side head). That particular plug was fowling out and covered in gas. So after cleaning it numerous times and lowering the gap in the plug, i think i got it to fire, but now the truck is running almost worse... and its shooting white smoke.

Maybe it wasnt firing because i blew the headgasket, and there was coolant in the Combustion chamber... now maybe its white smoking, because i got it to ignite the gas, and burn the coolant as well???

After pulling the heads on both sides i noticed...

drivers side head is perfect...
passenger side not as consistant, as the middle cylinder had whitish color in the combustion chamber, wereas all the others were blackish from carbon. So my guess is that i must of just blown a little bit of the head gasket, for just enough coolant to leak into the combustion chamber and screw with things.

I checked my oil and its not "milky" as if water got into it.
and I also drained my Coolant from the radiator, and there wasnt any oil in it.

I have a new set of gaskets that im going to install with indian head gasket compound to seal it better, but due to my low cash during the holidays and such i cannot afford to get the head checked for cracks or warping, I may be able to spring for the head bolts if nissan can get them for cheap(cant find them online).

I think i covered everything, If anyone has any info or opinions or experiences they would like to share. Please help.

Sounds like you got a good amount of water in the cylinder.. Since its not compressible, water will either blow the headgasket or bend the connecting rods in the engine. You got off easy if it just blew the gasket. If the headgasket went in a location where there isn't an oil passage, you wont have oil in the water, but you could still be burning coolant, which is what yours sounds like its doing.

If you didnt overheat the engine badly, I'd just clean up the block and head surfaces real well and throw some new headgaskets in there. If the engine DID overheat badly, you'll need to have the head machined to get it to seal again... the aluminum heads will warp badly if they get too hot. If the gauge only got up to 3/4, it'll be fine. Mine runs warmer than that in the summer here in Phoenix.

Also, make sure to replace your air filter and check the intake plumbing (especially the funky resonators if you havent removed them yet) to see if there is water trapped in there.

Then, build a snorkel to keep the water out of the engine.

I actually do have an extra pathfinder laying around that I use for parts, and I think I decided today im going to use the heads and headbolts off of that, since it worked fine when It was taken off the road. I called Nissan today and they want 200$ for head bolts... ARP probably has a cheaper set if they even make em, but I need this truck running by the end of the week.

Honestly though, I noticed that the coolant passages on the block are pretty close to the cylinder walls. My guess is, one of those pushed its way past the gasket and into the combustion chamber.

My Throttle body had some mucky lookin water dryed up on it when i removed everything... probably not a good thing, but i'll be sure to brakleen everything before it gets put back together.

Thanks for the input.

check your fuel pressure regulator too. A friend of mine swamped his pathy a little and soaked the ecu. No water got in the engine, but i think something went wrong with the f.p.r. because it flooded his engine with gas (only he wasn't able to drive the truck off the trail) and locked up the engine. We pulled the plugs on the trail and cranked the motor over to get rid of the extra fuel. It sounds like the same may have happened to you, only you didn;t drench your ecu so the truck could still run. Same story with the gas from the tailpipe with me. I noticed it was forming a slick on the water when i was trying to hook a shackle up to the truck to pull it out of the water.

I'm not sure how you test a f.p.r. but there is also a little vacuum hose at the side of it which is prone to getting knocked off when you change your #6 plug. (between the firewall and rear of engine. the f.p.r. is mounted on the firewall)

Ya, that vacumm line on the FPR has come off before, but when I dismantled everything last week, the line was still on it. It sounds like the same problem as far as symptoms, but I think i narrowed it down to just the three cylinders on the passenger side, because the headers on that side stink of gas. If it was the fuel pressure regulator, i would imagine all the cylinders would run rich.

One thing i did while the truck was still assembled was... i removed random plug wires while the engine ran to see if it changed the way it ran, and only the left side middle and rear cylinders made no difference wether they were plugged in or not.

like i said, im hoping that its just a coolant leak in the chamber, causing the gas NOT to ignite due to coolant in the mixture... then the gas just gets tossed out the exhaust. It sounds most reasonable to me, but unfortunatly no one else has had the same problem.

I'll find out tomorrow when i replace the head and new gaskets. Hopefully itll be running Good by tomorrow evening.

that's some sound reasoning there. Good luck getting her running again

hilarious...
truck still isnt running correctly. Just redid the timing about 4 times and double checked everything. It still seems like its misfiring on the 3rd cylinder and possibly others. Im thinking maybe since water got inside the truck and a little on the ecu, maybe it screwed something on the ecu. I have an extra ecu off my parts pathfinder, but the pathfinder is automatic, i think it should still work though. One thing i kinda noticed is that I dont have any check engine light. Even before the incident i had one for not having an 02 sensor, now nothing?

im real close to giving up

Im thinking that im gunna buy an engine from a local junkyard. They have a 1997 pathfinder with vg33e. They want 700 for it, and im pretty sure it will swap on with just swapping my accessories like altenator+brackets, and powersteering brackets and such, possibly sensors or intake manifold. Otherwise i think the engine block and head is basically the same other than the displacement difference. Can anyone confirm this.

Check out the VG30 to VG33 swap thread. The crank on the VG33 will need to be modified.
Click Here

Thanks for the link, but after reading it... im completely confused why someone would machine or swap a crankshaft rather then just leaving the original vg33e accessories and swap/lengthen the few plugs that may need to be swapped. Come to think about it... what plug would need to be swapped other than the altenator. I dont run AC, and powersteering is just a couple of hoses. Am I mental? or am I missing something?

If you havent already done so, I would have a look at the timing belt. With all the water and mud around the cover and in the engin, you may have skipped a tooth or two on ether cam or crank, that would cause one side to run bad even after timing is on. Worth a look anyway.
Edit, just realized you had the heads off, what was I thinking. What about all the covers crank sprocket and idler pulley, and chips in the belt? Mud tends to gather (Pack) in the bottom of the cover

Did the water get in around you feet at all? Get anywhere near the computer, I know it was mentioned, but just making sure that you didnt kill it and its running on backup mode or something. I would check the codes and see if its pulling a bad sensor some where.

Actually just yesterday I did a compression test and got about 150-160psi on all cylinders, except number 3 had 0psi. I put oil in the combustion chamber to check to see if its rings, and i still got 0psi. Thats after i had already replaced the heads/gaskets. So im guessing the cylinder or wall is cracked or broken. When i had everything off i didnt see anything, but i guess i could of missed it because i didnt think the problem was the bottom end in the first place.

Anyways Im gunna be buying a vg33e from a 97 pathfinder for 500$ right after christmas, so I guess that will solve my problem. Im not planning to do the crankswap/crank machine on the vg33, as stated in chevyman's How to, so im just getting the entire motor with all accessories, and I'll make all the vg33 accessories work, not that there should any trouble making everything work. I'll be sure to post my results when everythings done. Thanks for everyones help.

quote:

Originally posted by Jake Schontag:
except number 3 had 0psi. I put oil in the combustion chamber to check to see if its rings, and i still got 0psi.

Well theres your problem!
I wouldnt have thought that would or could happen, weird.