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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

A Brief Digression -- A Bad Crankshaft Position Sensor on my 2006 Nissan Spec V 2.5


Location of sensor taken from an engine out of the car. I am loathe to sell this vehicle right now, only because I recently bought new tires and a new battery for it. Never again will I own a Japanese car!

OK folks -- for about a week now the check engine soon light has been on and off on my 2006 Nissan Spec V 2.5 liter. I did an OBD-II scan and the instrument indicated a fault code for a crank position sensor fault. So I changed a sensor on the cam, close to the top of the engine, and thought that was it. But No! There is a second sensor, just like the first, in a near uinaccessible place at the bottom of the engine near the transmission. So this is what I am about to work on during our two day "Spring break", starting tomorrow morning. Pray for me, as I will need God's help to fix this.
John

2 comments:

  1. John,

    Seeing as this is your blog and others may read it, I'll provide some background before we get to the good news (nope, no bad news, you already have that in your failed sensor).

    Just a brief explanation of what the two are, the cam position sensor (in a electronic distributorless ignition system (EDIS) system, or those ignition systems that generally use coils) verifies cam position as it relates to the crankshaft position. Both sensors work within the same system, however, the crankshaft sensor is the main sensor for reading the wheel (in your case a 32 toothed one, in Fords it is 35) that determines crankshaft, and therefore piston position. That said, apparently the QR25DE (your engine code) used almost the same sensor for both, so they look very similar.

    You have 2 options that I see at this point, we'll go with the easiest, but possibly most annoying for the 1st.

    1. Recall notice i.e. make Nissan fix it: http://www.autobytel.com/nissan/sentra/2006/car-recalls/

    2. Replace it yourself, sensor is $16.43 + shipping from Rock Auto and looks like it will take 20-30 minutes to replace.

    From some quick reading, make sure you get the "metal shielded" replacement as they are higher quality. All in all, from the same readings, it should be a 20-30 minute fix, the sensor is not internal, and only has 1 bolt holding it on.

    This document, (same engine, just the recall used for earlier models), has great instructions with diagrams for replacing the sensor:

    http://maxima.theowensfamily.com/tsb/NTB03-124.pdf

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