There are better ones out there to be sure, but I was in a hurry and this one is more than adequate:




I also used one of these to mount it to:

 

Well done!!! Great job finding an/the issue before the warranty expired! Just let Infiniti eat it. This issue is nothing less than a design/build flaw anyway, and should've been the subject of a recall. I'll never forgive Infiniti (which is supposed to be a premium marque) for that (nor forget!)

Yea, I had the P0021 code set only once. I cleared it, & it never came back, I never got a low oil press warning light & car ran great. After another 2K miles, I got nervous & bought a $25 oil press test gauge from Harbor Freight to check it. Found 9 psi at idle, and 19 at 2000 rpm. So I knew she was on borrowed time.

That's pure company or dealership BS on the gallery cover screws! Mine were NOT attached very tightly when I removed them, and they had absolutely no thread locker on them. I snugged em up real good on re-install, & used Locktite Red 271. They ain't ever coming off again.

Please report back the shop's diagnosis.

 

I would say:

It could be both, as it's removable or you can leave it.

No

Yes, with a change would be better.

 

I started out with the intention of just slapping a gauge on there ASAP and figured I could always de-install it later if necessary. Nothing I've done is irreversible by any means. It doesn't look pretty, but I may keep it just for the peace of mind. We'll see.

The oil pressure sensor already on the motor is dedicated to the ECU for its purposes, so you can't just eliminate it or replace it with one simply dedicated to your gauge. So, the additional gauge is purely external to the functions of the OEM sensor. That includes idiot light functioning, although some gauges will provide that functionality, such as one of these: http://www.veisystems.com/ws/7-v1-series-single-gauges or these nifty dual function oil pressure and temp gauges: http://www.veisystems.com/ws/8-d1-se...unction-gauges


I just looked for a way to add an additional pressure sensor in a location that is as close as possible to where the ECU gets its reading, and where the FSM says to read it, which is of course right at the OEM sensor location. At first, I considered simply adding a T fitting into the port in the engine block and attaching the OEM and gauge sensors in parallel; which would require something like this fitting: https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/pr...sp?RecID=11217
(*FYI: note that the thread specs are correct on that fitting: 1/8" BSP on either end for extending the oem sensor out, and 1/8" NPT on the side for an additional sensor)

Seemed like a simple enough plan, but in application (ask me how I know ), there simply isn't room to squeeze it all in between the block and sway bar. Plus, it's a lot of weight to have two sensors hanging out there on that one little thread. Vibration over time could cause a catastrophe. Needless to say, I chose another alternative, which was to add the oil filter sandwich plate. It is but an inch or two from the factory location and you actually get 3 available ports so you can hook up an oil temp gauge there too if you wanted. The primary benefits though, are that there's tons of room there, and the physical support for the (relatively heavy) gauge's oil pressure sender unit it much better, while still allowing generous room for the oil filter.

In theory, I guess you could come up with a gauge that would just interface with the ECU (diag port) and read the realtime info from that, which would yield the easiest interface/install, with no plumbing required. I still wanted to have a secondary pressure reading though, as I do not know the accuracy/resolution of the OEM sensor. Most digital gauges are accurate to within a couple percent.

Of course, the installation of the sandwich plate is most easily done during an oil change, but since I had just done one (with synthetic) within the last 2k miles, I didn't want to waste the oil. What I did was to just raise the car up severely on the passenger side, so all the oil went the other way. When I unscrewed the filter, I lost no more than the contents of the filter itself; just about a cup or so. No biggie.

 

A thought just occurred to me, could this be the ACTUAL CAUSE of the oil consumption problems some VQs have been having and not caused buy rings? i.e. the low oil pressure is causing premature wear.

 

No, I doubt the loss of oil pressure wouldn't cause failure of the oil rings before it would spin a bearing or, as we see, the inability to hold cam timing.

 

OK, so here's the first update on my oil pressure claim.

The tech apparently verified I do indeed have low oil pressure (ya think? ), however, as soon as they called corporate tech assistance to see how to proceed, they were told I'd need to remove all related aftermarket parts from the car, which basically means the oil filter sandwich plate and oil pressure gauge sensor.

Ehh . .. Ok, I can see that, but then when the service rep came back with a comment that I'd need to also remove the WIX oil filter and replace the engine oil with ester oil. This was when I unconsciously, and rather loudly, emitted the words B U L L S H % T !!, upon which she informed me SHE could no longer talk to me and I was promptly forwarded to the service manager.

After apologizing for my outburst, I told him I flat out reject the notion that I need to run ester oil and that any attempt by corporate to "cherry pick" some oil which might raise the oil pressure to higher (acceptable) readings was NOT OK, but as for the other items, I am more than willing to comply with their request. He said they have to follow the stipulations from corporate (or they won't get paid for tearing apart a motor), and that they just wanted to be sure I was using the recommended oil for the car. I told him I understood, and then informed him (the service manager no less!) that the V36 G35 with the HR motor has NEVER had any such recommendation for ester oil, it is only the G37 with a VHR motor which had the recommendation. He said he'd have to look into it.

So, we agreed that I'd go pick up the car first thing tomorrow morning and yank off all the related parts where the aftermarket gauge plumbs into the engine. I plan to do it right in their parking lot

Then I plan to hand them some fresh bottles of Mobil1 5w-30 synthetic and show them how it meets or exceeds every stipulation for oil noted in both the owner and service manuals (I've printed copies of relevant pages to hand them also) and let them do an oil/filter change (wth, who doesn't change their fresh synthetic oil after just 2k miles ) before they proceed further.

Corporate can KMA on that whole ester oil BS.

In spite of all this, I remain hopeful, as I'm sure after all this initial verification is done, they will still see low oil pressure and have no recourse but to open her up and find what's leaking. Anything less would be flagrant bad faith on their part.

Stay tuned ...

 

When I brought my car in for the first oil change, guess what they used. Mobil 1

 

Update for today:

Picked up car 8:30 am, drove 2 blocks to an empty parking lot, removed all plumbing from the gauge and installed a Nissan filter, returned car to dealership at 9:00 am along with a case of M1 5W-30 synthetic oil.

Went home, waited 3 hours for them to call back and say that the car still had low oil pressure after an oil change (and my filter change). No surprise to me, but I was thrilled!

So basically, they have confirmed the car definitely an oil pressure problem.

Here's the ugly part though: their next step is to tear off the timing covers and have a look inside. They estimated 5.5 hours labor and a whole bunch more for parts costs (since they don't have those 3 oil rings mentioned in post #154 and shown below, they therefore must replace those entire cam cover assemblies when they reassemble it.):



On a side note, those corresponding seals are available separately on the V37 models (Q50), so maybe there's hope they are a match for size /cross-compatibility.

For me, the scary part is that I had to personally authorize that time and material cost before they could proceed with any further repair work. Only after they actually find a covered part that has failed will I be off the hook as far as expense goes. They said they probably won't get around to opening it up until Monday though. Needless to say, things are looking up, but fingers still very crossed.

 

FYI

I've attached a few notes based on my experience replacing the rear chain case oil gallery gaskets that might be of some use to anyone thinking about doing this job themselves the first time. I mostly drafted this up to remind me of issues I tackled & resolved, in case I have to do it again.

The attachment contains no pics, but I did take nearly 100 pics so if anyone needs a pic of something dismantled related to this repair, let me know. I might or might not have it.

 

GOOD JOB! This was very helpful.

I had just a few comments to add to it:

I'm not sure that all cars will have their TPMS require reprogramming after pulling the battery; mine didn't when I replaced my battery and had it disconnected for a day or two.

The factory torque spec for the crank bolt shows as being just 33ft.lbs. in the book, which seems quite low actually, but they may have had loctite on it causing you all the difficulty in removal. Regardless, I think I would caution against using a chain wrench as you did around the crank pulley though, as it is definitely possible to damage the internal damper (rubber suspension) within the pulley by applying torque across is as you did. Instead, if I couldn't come up with a positive crank holding tool, I think I would have just pulled the radiator to gain access for an impact wrench, and/or the old starter-bump method.

Lastly, those three seal rings on the cam covers that you mentioned being unavailable before, are actually quite readily available; just not necessarily from Infiniti (at least for their HR motor). The Nissan 350Z from the '07 era had the exact same VQHR motor. Their service manual shows replacing them separately (ironically, so does the Infiniti service manual too, see EM-62), and upon further research, I found them to be readily available at most any Nissan dealership. They are the same part number as the ones shown for all the VQVHR (370Z and G37)motors too: Nissan # 13042-3HD0A. As you suspected previously, they are definitely NOT an O-ring. It is a rectangular cross-section, but is actually split on a 45* taper at one point so that you can open it up and slip it over the shaft and into the groove. It is also obvious that they are some sort of harder, reinforced, rubberized material that is not too flexible; definitely, not just some typical gooey/stretchy neoprene O-ring.



Here's a generic version showing the tapered opening:



And here's the actual Nissan part:






Just to confirm they exist, I went down to the local Nissan dealer and had them pull one from stock. They confirmed that they are indeed the correct seals listed for the '07 350Z with the HR motor. They look exactly like that pic above. When I asked my local Infiniti dealership, they said that since the part was not listed as an Infiniti part, they could not use it and therefore had to refer to the next higher part number which includes the seals: aka. the cam covers, at a list price of around $600 a piece. These go for around 5-7 bucks each, so instead of $30 - $40 for new seals you're looking at around $1200+ from Infiniti.

 

Interesting. I actually pulled the battery twice, and both times, the TPMS lost programming & had to be re-programmed (which is a total pain). I wonder why some '07's require that and some not? My wheel sensors are the original which means they are 7+ yrs old. I wonder if that has anything to do with it since 7 yrs is supposed to be about the life of the built-in transmitter batteries? But I was able to re-program them successfully - twice.

Also, on the crank bolt, I think if you look closely at the procedure, it requires initial torque to 33 ft/lbs, but then a further turn of 90 degrees to some unknown final torque. A 90 degree turn of that bolt after 33 leaves it at an extremely high torque! I can say for sure there was no thread-locker on the crank bolt. Mine was perfectly clean when removed, and re-installed. You're right about the danger to the pulley damper, no question. But I just never felt comfortable bumping the starter with a wrench on that bolt, and that still leaves you with the problem of re-install. The other idea I considered was having a friend lock the flex plate against the tranny case with a crowbar. I decided to chance the chain wrench approach. I figgered the worst that could happen would be I'd destroy the pulley. But if it damaged anything, I haven't been able to tell it. Also, while I love the impact wrench approach and would've preferred it, the sedan has a $1000 unitary radiator/condenser assembly, which means the AC system would've had to be discharged completely then recharged afterwards. That, plus the pia factor of dismantling/removing that assembly & possibly damaging it, just made me say to myself "Nah, F-that!" and the chain wrench approach looked better & better. I'm NOT recommending it, mind you, just relaying what I did which (by some miracle) worked.

Good info on the valve timing cover sealing rings!!! Wish I'd known that before I put it back together! But she's done now & running fine on the original rings. Guess I'll just go with it till I get cam timing codes, or reduced op, then pull em & replace.

 

Ok, so F I N A L L Y, after a whole week in the shop, the dealership has found the leak in the oil galley gasket on the inner timing cover. They confirmed it is indeed a covered repair under my (now expired) Elite warranty, since they started the job before the warranty ran out. This dealership's policy is to replace the entire assemblies involved, so rather than just replacing the gaskets and cam seals, they are installing entirely new inner timing cover and cam cover assemblies. The list price on just those parts alone is over $1500, and after they bill out the 18 hours or so for the full-ride repair (at $173/hr.), the labor will exceed $3k alone, making this perhaps the most expensive repair order for one of these jobs I've ever seen. I'm sure that corporate will not cough up that much internally to repay the dealership, but if it were you or I and we were out of warranty . . . just shoot me now!

Basically, for me, the news is all good, but I would STRONGLY urge anyone who is nearing the end of their warranty, or contemplating the purchase of a used second gen car (i.e. HR or VHR motor), to have your oil pressure tested! It is not hard to do and the savings could be astronomical.

Without further adieu, here's the juicy pics of that leaking gasket from my car:





Closing thoughts:

Remember, my car had never shown any symptoms; no CEL, no poor idling, no power loss, no roughness whatsoever. If it weren't for the fact that my warranty was ending, I would never even have checked it! It had 5 psi at idle and 41 psi at 2k rpm. We can also infer from this that our car's low oil pressure warning/indicators are worthless.

Even though this will all be covered by my warranty, I have to be honest that this has seriously shaken my estimation of Infiniti as a brand. I do love my car, but I'm pretty sure this will be my last Infiniti purchase. If my own experience is anything close to typical, I would bet there are literally thousands of people driving around blithely unaware that their car is slowly bleeding out internally. Once the symptoms become external, the car is typically out of warranty coverage so repairs will predominantly fall upon the consumer. I do believe Infiniti knows this full well too. For me, that's unforgivable.

 

Holy frijole, that's outstanding news that they are fixing it under warranty! Only fair! Well done, well done indeed!!!!

I have to agree with your final assessment 100%. Clearly, Infiniti knew this was a problem at least as early as 2008. And just danced around it. See the attached TSB where they carefully parsed the wording to advise techs to look for it, without admitting this was a recognized SERIOUS design flaw. That is proof of a clear lack of integrity IMHO!

I'm with you. My G35 was my first Infiniti (purchased new); and it will most definately be my last.

 

I know exactly what you mean treach, but I am actually hopeful that after this eradication of this "known evil" with our cars, that I will be left with a car that is in good shape to go the distance from here on out. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. After that, I will definitely look onto another brand. (Maybe by then they'll have a Cadillac ATS "V" version or something )

Now, if I were one of the misfortune ones who either had to pay to have the work done or, heaven help you, did the work themselves, I could see being SO pissed that I'd probably need to get another car right away, just to escape the memory of the "butt-rape".