knock code and dextron III leak

Here's my 1995 Altima story it's sad but true...

The car was in a front end accident by an aged driver and the engine replaced. The transmission had gone bad a year or two before for lack of fluid replacement. Another year passed, additional accidents, and the aged driver gave up driving and gave me the car.

The knock code was setting. I cleaned the port from the EGR pipe to the Back Pressure Transducer, which was plugged with carbon, and the EGR valve was now working properly. Still getting ping codes. Changed the O2 sensor in the exhaust manifold. Still getting knock code I noticed the code set more easily on a rainy day or when driving to a higher altitude. I reasoned it was the mass air flow sensor and managed to break it but found one in a local junkyard. Still knock codes. I bit the bullet and bought a catalytic converter. This was an after-market catalytic converter and no shield. The converter's new O2 sensor protrudes below the exposed the converter and one of these days will be hit by something thrown up from the road but for the time being it's okay. I had a small, very slow, Dextron III leak. I often change my own oil but had been bringing the car to a couple of places for the

3000 mile oil change. I get under the car to do an oil change and find that a steering gear boot was open all the way around as if cut. I got a used steering gear and installed it but still a slow leak. The car was burning about a quart of oil every 2500 miles. I was distracted and let an oil change go, the oil got low, I started hearing timing chain guides' noise. Now I knew this was bad because a brother-in-laws Altima had it and he had let his go without oil changes often. My gas mileage was good. I was getting 27 mpg sometimes better. This mileage wasn't all good news because I realized that there was probably oil getting by the valve seals, the burned oil showing up as poorly burned fuel in the exhaust, the computer reading the relative sensing elements registered it needed to lean up the mixture and continued to do so until the knock sensor was setting. The extra lean mixture while giving me good mileage was burning hotter due to a greater volume of fuel-air mixture needed for any given load or RPM requirement and the greater volume causing a higher temperature when compressed so the increased heat of compression plus the combustion heat was greater and probably softening the steel allowing faster wear. I decided to get the head reworked. I read in this group that one can safely removed an upper timing chain guide and eliminate that new noise and was planning on doing so. Shopping around I found a place near the machine shop who offered to take out the engine and give it to the machine shop for rework and put the engine back for $750 but to remove the head, leaving the block in the car then putting the reworked head back would run $1200. It was that much more work. A guy suggested another place maybe 50 miles away and they said they'd take off the head and put the reworked on for $700. I said okay. Before giving them the car I spruce it up with some new front tires. I then give the mechanics the car for the head removal. They seem to be dragging their feet. I'm called in maybe a week or 10 days later and was told they think I should just scrap the car. Actually I like this car and say no. He tells me the CVJ boot on the drivers side is ripped. We look and it's open all the way around as if cut neat and clean. I'm thinking it was the guy who put on the tires as we hadn't gotten on well. The shop owner shows me it needs all new engine mounts and will need a new axle on the drivers side for that open boot. I say okay go ahead and take off the head and also later when putting it back together would he check the lines to the steering as the Dextron III leak might be the steering. I buy the engine mounts and axle. He has his guy rip the engine down and calls me to pick up the head. He says the leak is the transmission but he can put in new seals. I said good but the head looks bad. It's obvious the engine had overheated. He says he can get a 60,000 mile engine for $675 and will put it in for the $700. (I'm thinking rebuilding the engine is more difficult than dropping in a used and that's why it isn't going to cost any more. It turns out that was a wrong assumption. He later indicates it's not what he meant.) I say no to the used engine. I bring the head to the machine shop and have it reworked. The machinist loses a family member and closes shop for a week or more. I decide to get a price on getting the block reworked too. The block is removed and I bring it to the machine shop for an estimate. Another week goes by and he finally give me an estimate of $1500 to do the block and rebuild the engine on top of the charge for reworking the head which I thought was reasonable at $145. I say no thanks and go with the rebuilt engine. I call but the shop owner had gone on vacation and his guys won't buy the used engine until he gets back. He gets back and buys the engine and it doesn't look that good. He says it isn't a 60,000 engine but a 80,000 engine and he later bills me $900 for the engine and an additional $700 for putting it in and a charge for transmission seals and another $300 for shop incidentals like fluids. I say no. I had already given him $700. He comes down and I end up giving him an additional $1060. I get the car home. The ping code sets on the way home. The next morning the car won't start and it was well below freezing when I got up. Mid-afternoon it's a little warmer and I adjust the shift cable taking up a few turns. Now the car starts. I clear the codes from the computer and drive a day or two but get the knock sensor code again as well as an EGR code. I put on the EGR from my old engine and clean the exhaust feed to the BPT and the codes stop. Thing is the car still has a Dextron III leak and it's worse than ever. I find fluid near the base of the banjo bolt and reason it's the power steering pump after all it has 170,000 miles on it. I get a rebuilt from an auto parts store and a local mechanic puts it in. Cold morning I get up to leave for work, step outside and start the car to warm it up 5 minutes, and the sound the power steering pump is making is criminal. Engine warms up and the bearing noise goes away. The store tells me bring it in anytime in the next year and they'll replace it but the original equipment pump as core is long gone. Dextron III is still leaking though less. The rate is about 2-4 drops on my employer's tarmac in the course of a work day. I'm thinking they didn't replace the seals when they replaced the engine but I'm not going to pursue the matter with the shop that did the engine replacement. I don't need an ulcer.

My questions are: a) could the Dextron III be a leak from the transaxle out the passenger side axle via the CVJ boot and getting slung up to the power steering pump? My thought, apparently wishful thinking, had been the power steering with a slow leak down onto the boot and from there slung out, b) if it is fluid out the passenger side boot, how difficult is it to change the seal, e.g. If I change the axle is the seal exposed and easily removed? The prospect of having the engine removed so the transaxle seals can be replaced is discouraging, and c) the Haynes manual says it could be a plugged transaxle vent. Where is the vent that I can check? Thanks.

Bill

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Bill
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