After 195k miles, I decided to check the PCV valve in my 97 Nissan Pick Up. The FSM was of little value and in retrospect, almost humorous. It doesn’t show where it is located and the only thing it does say about the valve is to remove the valve and put your finger over the end to see if there is a vacuum, impossible to do in this vehicle.
I finally found it behind the alternator and just forward of the oil filter. You can’t see it or even touch it with the oil filter in place. In broad daylight with the hood open, the tires off and the flap in the wheel well removed, light still doesn’t get into this place. Once you do find it, you can’t put a socket on it with a ratchet because of the oil filter adapter and a regular 19 mm combo wrench is useless.
I got it to move just a tiny bit to break free using a long handle combo wrench, but it only has a few degrees of movement. I finished getting it out with a gear wrench with a fine tooth ratcheting head.
BTW, you can’t come up from the bottom as there is a bracket on the side of the frame rails at that location. The only reason I can think that it is there is to block access to the PCV valve, nothing is attached to it that I noticed.
I remember years ago working with my dad. We had been struggling with the bolts on the underside of the intake manifold, that only a double jointed person with small arms could ever reach.
He finally exclaimed that the Japanese that designed this were shaking their fist in the air and screaming “We get you back for Nagasaki you Yankee dogs”. We both laughed so hard it was at least ten minutes before we could even get back to work.
That’s an utterly ridiculous place to locate the PCV. I see no reason in the world this couldn’t have been located up top and serviceable with no tools whatsoever.
I’ve got to replace a seal for the drivers side rear wheel bearing next, thats another Rube Goldburg affair. I don’t know why they had to complicate everything on this truck.
I think on all the cars I’ve experience with … and that isn’t many I fully admit … the pcv valve just sort of pushes in. It’s a friction fit in other words. It looks like on your Nissan it screws in instead. If you have to remove the oil filter to access it, I don’t think feeling for suction while the engine is running is going to help much … lol …
Maybe the way you are supposed to access it is by removing that bracket.
Looks like that filter isn’t the easiest either. I actually don’t think my G6 has one. Its not listed in the parts lists and I’ve never been able to find it.
How do you know you even need to mess with the PCV? Is it clogged and exhibiting other symptoms of a clogged PCV? If it isnt causing issues…I’d leave it alone…just like every other owner of this vehicle is doing…
It turned out that the PCV was still good, but is was a bit sticky inside. I don’t know how long it will last so since it was so hard to get out, I bought a new one. Only had to go to five different parts stores to find one.
George, that bracket is welded to the frame rails.
“Only had to go to five different parts stores to find one”
I always look at a particular store’s online inventory, before heading over there. That works with O’Reilly, autozone and NAPA, anyways
Sometimes, even when it says it’s there, I call and ask them to physically verify it’s there
Most of the time, it is there
And their online inventory updates very quickly. Oftentimes when I get back from the store and check again, it shows not in stock. Presumably because I bought the last one
I always look at a particular store’s online inventory, before heading over there. That works with O’Reilly, autozone and NAPA, anyways
@db4690 Since you work at a shop can’t you have one of those places deliver parts to you on a “cash+tax” ticket? All my vendors that take cash payments will do that for anyone that works here.
I’ve tried to show my Son how to work on our own vehicles and maybe spark an interest in things automotive. He just finished his 2nd year of school as an engineering student and got a Summer job in his field during break. Wow the stories he tells me almost every night . . “how could someone have ever designed something like this?” he says. Or how he now questions why something was designed one way vs another. I believe that everyone who designs anything in the automotive field should have to work in the field during their training. Rocketman
Rocketman just said something similar to what I’ve carped about for decades. After 5 years on the job as a full fledged engineer, stop their paychecks and send them out to dealers to work on the stuff they just inflicted upon the public and mechanics over the past 5 years.
Make them work on the same crappy flat rate system with butchered warranty labor times, all of those freebies associated with it, listening to customer complaints over issues that neither the customer nor the mechanic had anything to do with and so on.