Nissan Juke : Juke Forums banner

Anyone with catch cans in cold climate?

9K views 36 replies 21 participants last post by  johnnyrocket 
#1 ·
So started my car up yesterday and with in a few minutes it started to smell like burning oil. Took a look around and there is oil under the high pressure pump near the valve cover. Can't tell exactly where it's comeing from, but it looked like it sprayed under pressure cause the entire area, even the bottom of the oil fill neck has oil on it. Poked around a bit. Took the oil cap off and white gunk under.. so water in the oil. I look at my catch cans, breather side is empty, pcv side is about half full with a oil/water mix. Poke some more.. PCV valve was frozen. I removed the cans, put in a new valve. But it looks like it blew oil from too much crank case pressure.

First off, why would my pcv line be collecting that much water? and is anyone else having trouble in the cold climates with water accumulation in catch cans? I've put maybe 500 miles tops on the car since installing the cans. The car just mostly sits around for weeks at a time.
 
#2 ·
Yes, I recently had a lot of white gunk on my cap also. My Pcv catch can needs to be emptied at least once a month. Is this a bad thing?
 
#3 · (Edited)
Cold climates take the engine longer to burn off the water vapor in the engine. Over time it accumulates enough to freeze. I have been doing alot of short trip city driving lately in the RS lately and its been rainy and cold alot. Drained the dual OCC and a large amount of water mix came out of both.
If you have oil leaking out likely the valve cover gasket blew out.
 
#4 ·
NissanEgg,

so is there a fairly easy solution for this?
 
#5 ·
Failed Spark Plug, Internally.

I have a 2011 Juke SV AWD CVT, 44,169 miles, Fully Modded. I run premium fuel and us Mobile One Synthetic which I change between 3500 to 4500.

It was 1 degree F per my Juke Thursday morning. It started right up just like any other day. I had drove 3 miles to the main highway. I go to pull out and nothing. It was like I was in neutral. I switched to manual but was still difficult pulling out and getting up to speed. I stop at the first light that caught me and the same, no power had to switch to manual and no power taking off. I pull up to order at the local Hardee’s for breakfast before I could get to the drive thru I had to roll down my windows because of the horrible toxic oil/gas smell, thinking it was from another vehicle since there was this huge work truck in front of me. I order, pull up, then I realize it is the juke and I can’t see anything around me. By the time I pull up to the drive thru window the entire parking lot is so thick with smoke every vehicle behind me and was pulling in had left or tuned around and left. I get my breakfast and the guy at the window asked, “So do you know your car is smoking really bad?” Really? So I head home. There was so much smoke in the car I drove with my windows down for 5 miles freezing. My rpms were fine but my idle was a little off.

I get home and go in and warm up and wait for the sun to come up. I go back out and open my door and smoke bellows out. Crazy! I’m thinking that it is my oil catch cans, Saikou Michi, and they had over filled and the Juke was burning mass amounts of that blow by gunk since that was what everything including me smelled like. I installed them during my oil change before last. I go to empty them during my last oil change. The Intake Manifold side was full and the Turbo side was about over half full. So I go to empty them, frozen. I ended up taking them off and running hot water over them. This was after trying a blow dryer. Not as full as I thought they’d be. I re-install the OCC and the Juke seems fine. I leave for work again.

I get about 2 miles from the house and the “Check Engine Soon” indicator comes on and my idle is mad crazy. It reminded me of an old biplane and felt like a garden tiller. The indicator would go off while drifting but would come back on when I pressed on the throttle. I am thinking the worse and headed back home.

I call my local Nissan Dealer ship and they told me to bring it on in. I drop it off, get a ride to work. I get a call 5hrs later. The guy from Nissan said it was an internally failed spark plug on cylinder 1 and it looked fine, but their testing equipment told them that it had failed. The smoke was coming from oil that had sprayed out from the pressure built up by the plug not firing. No gaskets were blown. They replaced the spark plug and it now runs fine.

I have had many spark plugs failures over the years in other vehicles, but never had the effects and problems I had this time. The spark plugs are 100k mile plugs. I was charged $154. I’m thinking this should be a warranty issue.

I am taking the Juke back in today for the Timing Chain recall and to have my CVT fluid changed. If anyone knows if the failed spark plug should be under warranty please let me know.
 
#6 ·
������
 
#7 ·
I removed my cans and left them off for now until i figure out a solution. I can't be draining water out of these things every week. Especially in this damn cold. I've put dye in my oil and so far nothing is visible. The oil spot ( I throughly cleaned with full strength simple green) is still spotless. I haven't looked at parts break downs, but I"m guessing there is a rubber gasket in the plastic valve cover. Bolts are pretty few and far between on the VC, so i'm guessing the pressure lifted the VC just enough to blow out the pressure and spray oil. It appears to be sealing right now, and I check it after every drive. Now that I think about it, i'm worried about it blowing oil into the spark plug hole, but i dont' dare try to disassemble that mess of plastic in these freezing temperatures. To easy to break things.
 
#9 ·
I researched this very issue for several days before concluding that I will not be installing the dual OCC's sitting in my garage until the spring. They will remain installed until late fall, but every winter I will switch back to stock lines and no OCC's.

Once we buy our next house and I have a quad garage, then the juke can live indoors all year and make it a non-issue, until then this is the plan.
 
#10 ·

^^ this and my Seibon GT-R style cf hood won't see snow.
 
#11 ·
I don't know about the rest of you, but the thermometers out here only go down to 30°. This 0° weather you guys are talking about is non sense. Shoot its supposed to be 60° out today with no sun! Time for you to move, then no OCC problems...
 
#15 ·
Yeah unfortunately you can't do anything to your car here in Cali without it being "smog legal" but ! If you have a friend thats another story... Plus you have I think 4 years without having to worry about smog so mod away... Who likes sun in the winter
 
#20 ·
Pretty soon California will issue notices that say "Having Sexual Intercourse May Be Harmful to Your Health" and "Having Sex is Shown to Produce Cancer" :vs_clouds:
 
#19 ·
65 going home today in San Diego time to start the fireplace.
 
#21 ·
I have big trouble with PCV OCC:
at night it was cold -20C/-4F, in the morning I went on highway about 600 km, during the trip the temperature was a little warmer than the night, at the end of travel smelled strongly of burnt oil, and in the end lighted oil can, about half of the oil squeezed out through the plastic cover over the engine, the all engine has been oil, I add near 3 liters oil.
At the service washed engine bottom, disconnect the OCC, changed the oil.
Now all OK.

PS/we have cold in winter -30C/-22F to -40C/-40F sometime.
 
#22 ·
Yup. Disconnect/bypass them in the winter.
 
#23 ·
The very reason I sold mine without ever installing. That's 7 months of the year here, pointless for use in Canada IMO.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#24 ·
That's 7 months of the year here
I have same climate:)
We put a piece of cardboard in front of the radiator and put a nonflammable blanket on engine.
I made a sound insulation on all sides, it was quieter and warmer.
 
#26 ·
Ohh man now this is something that I got to watch...thanks for the heads up.
Also Why is it that the PCV side always has more oil than that of the one where the battery is at. Every time I drain them out one is like full (PCV Side) the other has maybe a drip of oil (bat Side OCC) Makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong.
 
#28 · (Edited)
Why is it that the PCV side always has more oil than that of the one where the battery is at. Every time I drain them out one is like full (PCV Side) the other has maybe a drip of oil (bat Side OCC) Makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong.
I assure you, you're not doing anything wrong. Think of it this way.

The catch can on the "PCV side" is where those heinous oily fumes that accumulate in the valve cover area are drawn into the intake manifold when vacuum is present (as apposed to boost, which is why there is a check valve in this line) and on into the cylinders to be burned.

The catch can "where the battery is at" is on the Breather side of the PCV (Positive Crankcase Ventilation) system where fresh air is drawn into the crank case from the intake after the air filter and prior to the compressor side of the turbo. By it's nature and function it sees far less oily vapor during normal engine operation than the other side.

Here's a diagram from Saikou Michi Co. USA

Text Font Parallel Diagram
 

Attachments

#27 ·
Normal. Some members have only installed the one side due to this.
 
#29 ·
Water Plastic bottle Bottle Water bottle Bottled water

This is what comes out of my battery side OCC. It's more than usual since we've had more snow/moisture lately. I last emptied the can probably 2-2.5 weeks ago.
 
#32 · (Edited)

This is what comes out of my battery side OCC. It's more than usual since we've had more snow/moisture lately. I last emptied the can probably 2-2.5 weeks ago.
As Martha would say, this is a good thing. All that moisture in the crank case breather side (battery side) catch can didn't get circulated through your engine.

This is the stuff that can cause that tell tail milky residue on the inside of the oil filer cap, Don't freak out due to a small amount of this. However, if you see a lot of accumulation of the milky sludge on the inside of the oil cap best check coolant level. You may have coolant leaking into the crank case due to a bad head gasket or problem with the equine oil warmer/cooler thingy (yes, thingy is a widely recognized technical term).

Now then, we're all checking fluid levels on a regular basis, right? There's a reason dash board warning lights are often referred to as idiot lights.
 
#30 ·
^^^

Just drained both of mine today and I had about 1.5 times that in my intake OCC and only 1/4 that in the PCV side. However, 3-4 weeks ago when I drained them it was the other way around.

Haven't had any issues with it freezing in the catch cans yet despite having a couple days near -5F to -10F.
 
#31 ·
I had an oil leak from the front cover replaced under warranty a couple of weeks ago (21000km). The dealer said they saw the CAI, the oil catch cans, and said that was fine. They just asked if I opened the cover for anything internal, which I hadn't. Any chance the OCC's could have caused this leak? I drained them before I brought it in, maybe had half a small water bottle filled between the two catch cans.
 
#34 ·
I think I mentioned, I had the same repair done (no OCC's here) and they said it was reasonably common. Poorly sealed at the factory. Probably part of the reason they didn't hassle you at all.

21000km a couple weeks back?!? I'm at 38000 in 17 months lol.
 
#33 ·
I need some help, I taking my catch can off and can't remember how the stock PCV hoses were routed, need a picture or something that shows routing please.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top