[Aus Richard]

Hi Pboglio,
Thank you so much for your reply, it is much appreciated.
We live in a country area in QLD, Australia & were quoted $8,500 - $14,500 AUD to repair and that is without transport costs to get it to a repair shop. Unfortunately our X-Trail is only worth about that which is why I am rebuilding myself.
We purchased a rebuild kit, new oil pump, new bosch belt, new pistons, refurbished pulleys and a Posilock TJ-1 which took 4 months to arrive.
Whilst waiting for the TJ-1 I sent our pulleys over to a Transmission place to get them apart as no one was able to do it locally. The guy there said the primary pulley shaft had collapsed so I asked for them to return it. When I got it back the seals were all gone, they sent us bearings that were rusty and double ups of the same ones. Our secondary pulley ( if it is our original) was returned with rust and looked different to the pictures I took before we sent it. Never trusting that shop again and not really sure what went on.
We got the reman pulleys, I wanted to put pins in that's when I discovered that all the bearing grooves had been chipped out, there was also alot of chipping on the edge and top bearing was bad.

We decided our old one looked better so had it polished, unsure if this is an original part as it looks like our trans has been changed before we got it at 4 yrs old.

I will get on to it with some 320 grit and the metal lathe at a local place.
Again Thank you for your reply, it has been very daunting, stressful and rewarding but it makes it much easier to be able to chat/get advice from more experienced people such as yourself.

 

[pboglio]

That's some good background info, that helps.

The parts sourcing takes forever. Over the course of my upgrade build thread I found most of the places for the hard to get stuff but ironically my local Nissan dealership 10 miles away has almost every internal CVT component brand new. Lessons learned but you took the right path putting in as much new components as you could. I would HIGHLY recommend purchasing a brand new forward clutch drum assembly (31579-1XF0A) from Nissan. They've made some critical design improvements and it's worth the $120 U.S. for a brand new clutch assembly. Nissan have them available new for the 2007-2012 Nissan Altima 2.5L. The Raybestos JF011E High Energy forward & rear clutches are also worth getting and cost maybe $50-$80 U.S. and they are an upgrade over stock and will help prevent a burnt out clutch pack in the future and also hold more torque reliably. Other than that it sounds like you have a nice rebuild going on there and seems like you've done some research.

The new oil pump was a good move. I would also purchase the Sonnax oil pump flow relief valve (33510N-02) which is a drop-in 10 minute upgrade for a new oil pump. This'll help prevent future pushbelt failures and keep the CVT alive much longer.

Re-using an original pulley & sheave assembly is OK if the groove didn't chip/break & if the piston ring was cleaned up/fipped over or a new one installed and air-checked. I'd highly recommend air-checking it using an air-compressor with a rubber tipped gun and just use 90 psi and stick it into the shaft opening and pressurize it. This'll prove out whether it was rebuilt correctly and avoid a teardown if it leaks. The use of the roller pins vs. the ball bearings is kind of debated. As long as they installed new stainless or cobalt ball bearings then it'll be more than good enough if the ball grooves are in excellent shape. For myself the roller pins are needed for the higher torque my engine is putting down but some say it can produce more pushbelt wear vs. the ball bearings. Generally it sounds like you are going to be in great shape from what you explained but I would recommend the new forward clutch drum and the upgraded clutches if you can afford it. That would make a bullet proof transmission rebuild and the cost is very reasonable.

Yeah, transmission rebuild prices are total insanity. For most folks the reman units are the way to go over in the states it's like $1800 for a factory reman unit with the core trade-in. The machine shop should have no problem spinning it on the lathe and knocking that little bit down with some sandpaper for a reasonable cost. It's probably not needed but it's good insurance.

 

[Aus Richard]

Thanks for your reply Pboglio, I will go and see what might be available here. I have replaced all the internal parts of forward clutch drum. I only have a 10 tonne press which is not strong enough to press together. The guy that does have the correct press is away for another few weeks but have hopefully found an alternative place with the right size press.
Thanks again for your help.

 

[Aus Richard]

Had a quick look and found the clutch packs but they wouldn't be here for a month and did not find a new clutch drum only preowned. We also replaced the valve body first to see if that would have fixed it. Over here Nissan want $2,500 just for a new valve body.
Honestly I don't even know whether our pulley shaft had collapsed or they used ours for spare parts & charged us $100 for the pleasure.
I do know our original pulley was leaking just not the cause. There was no pulley ring returned and I'm not sure if you can even buy them separately here. So I think I'll get it back together, air check and go from there.

 

[Aus Richard]

Actually just remembered I did get a piston ring with the new piston cover I brought in rebuild kit. Although these don't have the best reputation vs the original parts. Nissan seem to want an arm & a leg for parts over here. Sorry for the long posts and Thanks for your help. Have a great night.

 

[pboglio]

Sounds like you have it covered. Parts here are cheap so we have it a bit easier in the States. Keep me posted on your progress.

 

[Aus Richard]

Thanks, will do.

 

[pboglio]

Actually just remembered I did get a piston ring with the new piston cover I brought in rebuild kit. Although these don't have the best reputation vs the original parts. Nissan seem to want an arm & a leg for parts over here. Sorry for the long posts and Thanks for your help. Have a great night.

In that rebuild kit I also got piston gap rings. I initially tried to use that replacement piston ring and it leaked terribly. This required that I had to tear down and rebuild the entire pulley assembly. What sucks is that no rebuild manuals or anything online warned me about it but being an engineer I saw the difference between the replacement and the OEM piston ring and knew it was going to be trouble. The newer kits "may" have the OEM style "double" lapp joint type. Cobra Transmission have the correct JF011E piston rings sold individually and they are the "double" lapp type same as the OEM factory and I would supplement any rebuild kit with these. There are a lot of areas on the build that will trip people up and this one is the worst.

 

[Aus Richard]

Thank you so much for the Information Pboglio. This part has also been concerning me as I've noticed when researching alot of people end up reusing the OEM one's. I know cobra do worldwide shipping so will go check it out.

 

[pboglio]

There are reasons why many people have poor results with CVT rebuilds. I believe this piston ring issue is primarily why many fail to operate properly. WIT transmission recommended just flipping & reusing the OEM piston ring and I found out why, cause the kit piston rings suck and are not the correct design.

You want these from Cobra Transmission below, see how they are double butted. These are a knock-off of the Freudenburg-Nok teflon OEM style pitson gap rings but I think they would work well. These are the only style that will seal correctly. The newer kits may or may not have them but for an extra $25-$27 it's worth the piece of mind. I did a lot of purchasing parts outside of the master rebuild kits when I didn't like what I saw, this is definitely one of those situations. Anyhow, the air-check prior to the belt being installed will confirm. Also try & pay attention to the orientation of the pushbelt when it's installed, it has to spin in the correct direction and the manuals/guides cover this. If you have doubts I can pull-up a guide to show that.

JF011E Automatic Transmission CVT Drive Pulley Sealing Ring 0.102

Welcome to Cobra Transmission, based in Sebring, Florida! We are Mercedes Benz and BMW Transfer Case Specialists, and your best source for transmission parts, both automatic and manual, transfer case parts, transmission tools and differential parts. Get the transmission parts you need for any...

cobratransmission.com

JF011E Driven Pulley Sealing Ring 0.102

Welcome to Cobra Transmission, based in Sebring, Florida! We are Mercedes Benz and BMW Transfer Case Specialists, and your best source for transmission parts, both automatic and manual, transfer case parts, transmission tools and differential parts. Get the transmission parts you need for any...

cobratransmission.com

 

[Aus Richard]

Thanks Again, it's awesome to have someone with so much knowledge to chat to. I measured out our sealing rings against our pulleys and with calipers. I think we need the .102" ones. Ours is 2010 model and I noticed these said 2012 - 2014.
I had a look at the primary pulley we got back from trans place. It has what looks like an O ring in there that prevents sealing ring going on properly?

 

[pboglio]

Sure, glad to help.

It's my belief your transmission shop has seriously screwed up. That o-ring actually looks like the RE0F10B reverse clutch apply piston seal from the JF011E master rebuild kit. That isn't even for your vehicle let alone the pulley pistons.

The teflon piston rings go by the Primary or Secondary pulley sizes (5.86 OD vs. 5.16 OD). They are roughly .105" and .103" respectively, I fixed the Cobra link(s) as I wrongly listed the .088" thk versions from the JF016E.

Having said that, those are the single lapp joint type and will come in the rebuild kit already. Mine measured around 2.18mm and are actually similar to the JF016E piston rings in size/width/joint type. Can't explain it other than I have the later JF011E (RE0F10B) transmission from 2010-2014 and it's possible Jatco switched to the thinner double lapp type that was later used on the JF016E. This could have been done for better efficiency/less friction and also better sealing capability. All very confusing. I had originally fitted the wider .103" wide gap rings from the JF011E rebuild kit meant for the older RE0F10A models. These absolutely did not seal well and leaked air massively compared to the thinner .088" double lapp type (i.e. JF016E) and I switched back to these thinner original/stock gap rings. Maybe with thick oil they would have been fine but Jatco switched to the newer style gap rings on the JF016E for a reason and it's most likely for the reasons I stated. The groove can accomodate both thicknesses .088" and .103".

I'd highly advise purchasing the ATSG JF011E rebuild handbook as this gives a step-step procedure with color photos of all the required parts. AMCO also has a nice online download service manual for the JF011E and another good resource.

Not sure if you are going to be assembling these pistons but I can walk you thru it as there are a couple of tricks and some aspects to doing it safely.

 

[Aus Richard]

Yes that transmission place definitely screwed us over. I didn't have the TJ-1 and the ETA was getting further away every time I rang the tool shop. Honestly I didn't know if/when I was going to get it. We live out of town and really needed to be back on the road so rang the transmission place and asked if they could separate for me. They have good reviews so thought I'd be right. I never bothered saying anything to them as they are several hours away from me so I have never met them in person. At the end of the day they would probably deny any wrong doing so I have left it. I put what happened mainly to warn people who may end up going to them.

I actually already have & use both the manuals you have suggested. I also use the WIT manual and watch every video I can find about JF011E's.
I looked at the sealing rings on Cobra and started the checkout process to discover they want $108 just for postage.
I have got both thick & thin seals in the kit I have. I should have pulley back tomorrow & hopefully pressed back together. So my plan is aircheck and hope the seals I have will hold. If not I'll get the cobra order underway.

Your offer to walk me through the piston assembly is much appreciated, I will gladly accept all the help I can get.

 

[pboglio]

Ok, glad the kit has them as mine only had the thick rings and I ended up not using those. You don’t need to purchase the rings if the kit has everything which it sounds like does. I used the Transgel grease and that’ll help along with the trans fluid and use that liberally where needed.

Yeah with the manuals you should be fine. There are lots of little tricks and areas that aren’t covered in the book. If you review pg 8 and later of this thread you see where I run into issues and how I resolve it.

The TJ-1 is nice and having the pulley spreader helps too. Generally these transmissions are actually simple to rebuild compared to an auto transmission.

 

[Aus Richard]

Thanks Pboglio, that's good news that hopefully we won't have to buy any more sealing rings. I will go reread pg 8 onwards, looking forward to just getting it done & back on the road. Have a great day.

 

[pboglio]

The CVT has been sitting now for 3 years since I rebuilt/upgraded it now that I look back. I'll blame the prolonged engine build and vehicle build for that. Now getting some time to start wrapping up the CVT build and finish the project hopefully over the winter.

Well I got the CVT valvebody and converter case back off the transmission after a lot of procrastination. If I ever do more transmissions I'll buy an electric impact driver to speed things up. The Loctite 518 case seal compound makes it easy to teardown the CVT with minimal cleanup. The reactor/oil pump cover still needs to come off then I can gain access to the forward & reverse clutch drums, that is maybe another a 15 minute job. Purpose of this is to reinstall a brand new oil pump w/sonnax flow valve upgrade, custom reinforced new clutch drum, & upgraded forward & rear clutches. These parts are improved/superior over what I originally had inside the transmission from the 1st rebuild.

In addition I'll also be replacing the original: oil pump chain, sprocket, planetary carrier assembly, & ring gear with brand new parts from Nissan/Jatco. Shouldn't take more than 7-10 days to get those in from the Nissan dealership once ordered up. Aside from the refurbished/upgraded pulleys, differential gear, transfer gear, & cases the CVT transmission will essentially brand new. Over time I started realizing that on a performance build it really makes no sense reusing any high mileage parts unless they are low stressed components. At this point I've struck a good balance and the extra money spent now will save me headaches in the future.

Been doing some calculations and requirements for the CVT oil cooler and settled on the Setrab FP625M22I with the fanpack. Rated for 16,000-27,000 Btu/hr (0.75-1.5 gpm oil flow) this should be plenty of cooling for street/highway driving. An additional 16,000 Btu/hr is good for about + 6.h.p. worth of transmission cooling and during cruise on the expressway that would greatly help prevent heat-soak on those long expressway drives. For track driving I'd need a different solution utilizing an external pump & cooler but for what I'm doing this should be a nice upgrade from stock. The size of the Setrab core is around 11.5" tall x 7.6" wide and will sit where the stock sidemount intercooler used to sit with hopefully enough room to clear the charge I.C. pipes coming off the 2J FMIC. I'll have to do a trial fitment with a template to make sure as the A/C condensor core and lines will need some adjusting to clearance. This'll combine with the Rogue 4-port CVT beehive cooler. For a daily driver this should be a nice clean setup.

FP625M22I Setrab ProLine Fanpack | Setrab USA | susa, llc.

 

[Macgyver]

Go big or go home.

My track use idea.

Use the fuel tank as a trans fluid reservoir. Yes 11 gallons of CVT fluid. Put a "Warmer" in it so you can get it up to a low operational temp while sitting. Then a pump as you stated. Add a big cooler up front. 12 gallons of CVT fluid, Cooler, lines etc. How long before she gets Hot ? LOL

 

[pboglio]

Go big or go home.

My track use idea.

Use the fuel tank as a trans fluid reservoir. Yes 11 gallons of CVT fluid. Put a "Warmer" in it so you can get it up to a low operational temp while sitting. Then a pump as you stated. Add a big cooler up front. 12 gallons of CVT fluid, Cooler, lines etc. How long before she gets Hot ? LOL

Good thinking. It would take a lot longer.....lol. I'd like to carry maybe 1-2 quarts more CVT oil in an accumator up front like a dry sump setup which actually would be easier. So yeah the physical oil volume does help which is why guys carry more oil in extended pans but it only delays the overheating but I'd think 11 gallons would pretty much solve the problem...lol. I've been looking at the RE0F09A/9B Nissan Maxima transmission and they had a nice cast aluminum CVT oil sump pan with external cooling fins which would have helped. I did some FEA thermal analysis on a finned pan design and it would definitely improve CVT cooling (~5,000-6,000 Btu/hr). I'm toying with the idea of a CNC machined pan but that is way down the line and my money is best spent elsewhere.

For example, max oil heat dissipation would be the following for 0.75 gpm flowrate and an ITD = 130*F (temp delta). Btu/hr = (oil flowrate)(250)(delta F). Using these numbers I get Btu/hr = (0.75 gpm)(250)(130F) = 24,357. That is a maximum heat dissipation of 24,357 Btu/hr with a 100% efficient oil cooler heat exchanger core. My proposed Setrab oil cooler can only pull 16,000 Btu/hr under similar conditions and the biggest core Setrab sell (14" x 15") is around 20,000 Btu/hr.

The Rogue cooler is 4-port and has water cooling + oil/air cooling externally. As long as my oil target temperatures are above 183*F the water cooling is going to be beneficial. The engine coolant flow is say as a guess ~2.5 gpm thru the beehive, with a 183*F input temp and say 210*F outlet temp, and say a heat exchanger efficiency of ~50%. That is a heat dissipation capacity of Btu/hr = (2.5)500(210-183)*(.50) = 16,875. So the Beehive is definitely capable of doing some work. Now with a Beehive and external oil cooler (i.e. Rogue 4-port cooler) it's possible to get closer to that 24,357 theoretical limit but not exceed it with a stock oil pump.

The CVT oil pump at WOT bypasses quite a bit of flow to prevent cavitation in the suction port as most times it isn't needed. This is the infamous oil pump flow control valve that always tends to fail on the JF011E transmissions. The Sonnax oil pump flow valve upgrade solves that problem. The vane oil pump flow is rpm based and has about 10.5 cc/rev max capacity with a system demand of about 5.15 gpm max, the rest is bypassed. The CVT oil pump is driven directly off the converter so above lockup speeds it's 1:1 to the engine rpm. Thus 10.5 cc is about .00277 gallons. At 5,000 rpms that is an oil pump capacity of about 13.85 gpm and most is bypassed. This means there are huge reserves available to actually dedicate to increased internal cooling & lubrication but it has to be sent to the right place to make use of it. Keep in mind a Tilton diaphragm pump is limited to 1-2 gpm @ 6.6 amps. While the stock CVT oil pump probably has 10 gpm in reserve even under peak conditions another 1-2 gpm could be taken from the oil pump especially at higher rpms. Now what I would do is probably drill/branch off after the TCC pressure regulator that feeds the cooling/lubrication circuit and simply add a 2nd aux cooling/lube circuit. This could then be fed into an external oil cooler with a metering orifice in the feedline. The CVT pushbelt is using an oil injector and there are copper lines everywhere in the transmission so it's one way to add an aux circuit. The pushbelt does get oil sump splash cooling but up high it's using the injector as well. It might be possible to also ramp the cooling/lube circuit pressure up from 60 psi to about 120 psi and achieve a +41% increase in oil flow and cooling. Finally, there is also a metering orifice in the valvebody sealing plate that limits the oil cooling/lube flow to 0.77 gpm which could be increased in size so there are a few tricks/options to try.

For an external pump setup, the stock CVT has an un-used hex plug above the oil pan and the return drain plug could be used as connections for an external Tilton pump without having to modify the stock oil pan. For the highest efficiency I'd switch to the Laminova ECD54-250 oil/water cooler. If I used this with a high volume electric water pump and moderate sized front mounted water/air heat exchanger it would very efficient. Somewhat like a water/air I.C. This eliminates the issue of the 83*C thermostat setting and allows the oil to run cooler than using the engine coolant would allow. The Rogue 4-port beehive oil flow could be sent thru the Laminova cooler as well and returned back thru the lube circuit. Lot's of ways to do this.

So there is a lot that can be done to improve cooling and it requires a bit of engineering to analyze where the gains/benefits can be had.

 

[Macgyver]

The only reason I mentioned the absurd tank idea is having a big reservoir is about the only thing that has not been done. In the end. It is still the same CVT and is prone to what we know.

But if you could make a, " in the cooling radiator circuit reservoir tank ", that doubles the Juke capacity. It would need a warmer tho ? Extra capacity takes longer to get up to operating temp.

But yeah a spare tank would act as a cooler too especially if it had a lot of surface area and ribbed . Sort of like this. Pre-Intercooler Cooling Pipe but not piping.

I forget what FR did with the Insane Juke. I know that was cooled and such to the max.

 

[pboglio]

An 11 gallon oil tank. A CVT car with 300 h.p. (crank) would lose about 85 h.p. thru the transmission or 200,000 Btu/hr heat dissipation at max power. Using a temp rise of 130*F and 11 gallons of stored oil you would have 1.5 min before the temp rise would exceed 130*F. It would work....for 1.5 minutes. Realworld you might get more but it'd quickly get saturated. An ice bucket might work better as the phase change can absorb huge amounts of energy, but I'd use the oil running thru a cold plate with the ice on top and some way to control oil temps so it's not too cold. I think this is typically how guys tracking do things using ice tanks. That might work, maybe that is actually the better way instead of huge pumps/coolers.

It's the combination of all the elements and that I haven't seen on a Juke. It would take (2) Tilton pumps and the stock oil pump to even have a chance on a Track. I still argue you want extra coolant running thru the oil lube/coolant circuit as that is the optimal way to cool a transmission. I'd use the Laminova cooler and the main radiator and that could move 200,000 Btu/hr but just barely with bumper & hood vent mods, maybe with another big external oil cooler. If mine was a track car this is how I'd do it quick and dirty but (2) external pumps isn't elegant. The math is kind of a reality check, this is why track cars are track cars and street cars aren't.