Car went to shit - leaking, broken radiator fan, & vibrating/rattling

[AnonymousCoward]

Car info: base model '96 S14, KA24DE, stock w/ open diff

At a stoplight yesterday I shifted into 2nd gear @ 5k rpm and suddenly there was a loud noise (not really a bang, more of a clunking noise). My car started vibrating pretty bad. It made it about another 5-10mi. to the house.

So here's the damage: radiator fan broke off about half its fins and destroyed the housing, there's a clear fluid leaking from the engine area (it's dripping from behind the oil pan, but the bottom front pulley on the engine also looks wet), and now when the engine revs above 2k rpm the shifter will rattle violently. The car vibrates a little bit more, but not nearly as bad as when whatever went wrong happened (it felt like it was hooked up to a giant vibrator).

I think it's the transmission, since the shifter has been loose & rattled at high rpms since I bought the car 2 months ago. It just seems like things are much worse now.

I've also been told that the diff or driveshaft could've caused it too. I have driven the car a little stupidly at some times where the rear wheels will slide/skip due to the open diff. Not sure if that'd have caused this.

I'm going to try taking it to the shop today if possible, but I'd like to be able to pinpoint the problem and fix everything at once so that there's no lingering problems.

Any help would be appreciated.

[chetos13]

its time for a sr swap

[AnonymousCoward]

Yeah, if it had died 3 wks later I'd have the money too :/

labor & new transmission is only going to cost $400 though so I think I'll have to go with that for now.

[future]

It's stuns for a ls swap

[Chaluska]

its time for a sr swap

wow definately the worst suggestion ever.

get a used KA for a couple hundred bucks,

[AnonymousCoward]

Well last night the car suddenly stopped shaking & vibrating and drove fine. It actually feels better than when I bought it 2 months ago. I can't hear the shifter rattling anymore either, even at 4k rpm or so. There's still a small rattle coming from the engine (maybe loose stuff after the fan went to shit) but it seems much better now.

On the other hand, my power steering went out at the same time and I stopped smelling the sweet-smelling leaking fluid, so I guess that's what the clear fluid was. Car is also overheating so there's probably an issue with the radiator as well. Going to get it fixed tomorrow morning so hopefully that's all there is to this.

[jdm213]

dont tell me u have clear power sterring fluid cz that not for your car ur suppose to gave at fluid the red cherry color in their mate

[Edwin562]

what got me stump is that you state the fan broke.... like WTF did you do to cause the damn fan to break. lol

[AnonymousCoward]

Ah, not sure what type of power steering fluid was put in there. I just bought the car and haven't changed that out yet.

Likewise I have no idea what could've caused the radiator fan to explode like that. The car was involved in an accident 10 years ago and it looks like some of the intake / plastic bits were replaced in a crappy way. The air intake, for example (just before the filter) was loose because no one had bothered to screw it back down. So I ziptied that. But maybe something else was loose that I didn't see and happened to touch the fans. But it does seem strange that that'd happen while starting normally at a traffic light.

Someone else brought up that maybe the motor/transmission mounts are bad/old and that could've caused the rattling/vibrations, but now that those have stopped I'm not sure what to think.

Oh well, should have some straight answers tomorrow afternoon hopefully.

[blueshark123]

did u fix the fan atleast im sure the fan breaking off whacked the ps line and radiator and thats why ur leaking, it also i probably vibrating cause ur fan is broke if u didnt fix it already.

[AnonymousCoward]

Not yet. Planning on fixing it tomorrow.

[DoobieS13]

If u shifted from 1st to 2nd at 5k.....ur Def not driving "normal" lol I hardly go over 3k in any gear

[AnonymousCoward]

haha, fair enough. But I didn't redline it either.

[xFix Kaos]

check your water pump, happened to me my water pumped seized and shatered my clutch fan, shit sucked. recommend replacing the water pump its like 70 bux at autozone and def worth it!...and my shifter did the rattling thing also wen i reved it in neutral, found out my flywheel wasnt put on perfectly, so had to redo that...

[thefro526]

Out of Curiosity, did you check the mounts?

Hard shift then Clunking, Random Stuff Contacting Stuff that it's not supposed to and transmission shaking makes me think broken mount...

[AnonymousCoward]

Well after the car drove perfectly for about a day (except without power steering & it overheated after awhile) it went to shit again. Found out that the fan belt came off, probably on the first day. It was still on two of the three pulleys so I hadn't noticed. So I took that off entirely and it drove around for about 50mi.

The car was out of coolant(even though I'd just refilled it about a week prior) so that's probably leaking too. I refilled that and put a little more motor oil in for good measure. Car made it to work fine and then died when I was parking (didn't realize at the time that it'd die if the revs went below about 1k). It felt very weak though, like only half the power was getting to the wheels. Drove about 40mph in a 55 because I didn't want to push it. Adding the coolant seemed to help with the overheating problem some.

It did get a check engine light unfortunately, so I'm hoping I didn't hurt the engine by driving it to work & the shop.

Had to give it gas to keep it from stalling when idle, but it made it to the mechanics and is now being worked on.

Update: Blown radiator hoses, seized water pump, bad clutch fan, radiator fan of course is destroyed, bad motor mounts, bottom alternator bolt is all fucked up, replacing distributor cap & spark plug cables & getting a tune up. Total of about $1k in repairs/parts/labor. fml

[C13AN240]

Well after the car drove perfectly for about a day (except without power steering & it overheated after awhile) it went to shit again. Found out that the fan belt came off, probably on the first day. It was still on two of the three pulleys so I hadn't noticed. So I took that off entirely and it drove around for about 50mi.

The car was out of coolant(even though I'd just refilled it about a week prior) so that's probably leaking too. I refilled that and put a little more motor oil in for good measure. Car made it to work fine and then died when I was parking (didn't realize at the time that it'd die if the revs went below about 1k). It felt very weak though, like only half the power was getting to the wheels. Drove about 40mph in a 55 because I didn't want to push it. Adding the coolant seemed to help with the overheating problem some.

It did get a check engine light unfortunately, so I'm hoping I didn't hurt the engine by driving it to work & the shop.

Had to give it gas to keep it from stalling when idle, but it made it to the mechanics and is now being worked on.

Update: Blown radiator hoses, seized water pump, bad clutch fan, radiator fan of course is destroyed, bad motor mounts, bottom alternator bolt is all fucked up, replacing distributor cap & spark plug cables & getting a tune up. Total of about $1k in repairs/parts/labor. fml

Okay so All those repairs are basic except for the motor mounts why didn't you just do them yourself or invite a friend to come help you? You could have saved so much... You probably have a good reason though

[93nismo]

thats all shit you could have done on a saturday in your garage. when it got all weird you should have just stoped and investigated it on the side of the road instead of driving it home. i just had the studs on my waterpump that hold my clutch fan on break a few weeks ago, i thought it was my bumper dragging on the center of the road, but then i pulled off to check it out because my power steering stoped working and found that disaster. i got it towed to my house and fixed it the next day. probaby saved myself a good chunk of change.

[AnonymousCoward]

I suck at mechanical stuff and have no friends in the area that are good at it. I probably should've gotten a rental and towed the car home.

The low compression on the engine pisses me off, but I expected it. It makes all these repairs seem like a waste if I'll just be pulling out everything for an engine replacement later on down the road.

[AnonymousCoward]

Well, car is fixed and feels great. Apparently the car has a short shifter too, but the shifter bearing was worn out and it just felt like a regular sloppy shifter.

I wish I'd bought some used stuff off the forums before so that I could've avoided paying the mechanic for all the parts. Oh well.

[KiLLeR2001]

On my first 240sx I took off from a stop light, soon as the revs hit 3k and I was ready to shift into 2nd, the radiator clutch fan came flying off underneath the engine bay. It was night time so I couldn't see anything. Car wouldn't start so I had to tow it home. Turns out the fan disconnected the distributor wire and messed up a couple other things... Pretty much from that day forward I vowed to only install electric fans on my car. 4 years later electric fans have done me well. :)