Recommendation is closer to 320 grit on the pulley surfaces. 220 grit is a little too rough and 400 grit is too slick for the belt to grab properly.

I'd confirm if those tracks are really "grooves" below the surface or "tracks" above the surface. If they are grooves you could try and cut the variator sheave down but it'd be a good amount of work, there might be enough heat treat in the part to allow it. Keep in mind also that the variator can account for a wearing push-belt but additional material removal could bottom out the pulley sheave so not much can be taken off beyond maybe a few thousandths to be safe. Ebay sell these variators fully rebuilt for not much used and some of the best salvage CVT parts I bought were from Ebay directly.

If you list out the exact parts you plan to use in the build that would help. There's parts I would use and parts I would not use.

 

Ok! Thank you. I'll get a list of parts together. In the meantime, I tried to get as close up a shot as I could have the sheave.

 

Those darker "tracks" are the spots where it's worn. I could just run it in the lathe until they clear up, but I thought I'd ask here.

 

Yes, I would turn it down until it's perfectly smooth but with the correct grit finish. Folks have good results refurbishing the pulley variators given how hefty they are designed, the rest not so much.

 

I regret buying this thing. It's for my wife's cousin who fell on some hard luck and needed some wheels. I got it cheap at Copart because it had some minor front end damage. I wish I'd have done about 30 seconds of googling before I bought it. I had no idea what a turd this trans was. The only issue it had was some stuttering / shuddering on acceleration. No codes, no other issues. The fluid was nasty, but the trans internals didn't look too bad. This sheave, and the sheave (piston?) seals were about the only things obviously wrong. The valve body passed vacuum tests too. Someone had been in the trans before, though. I assume the factory doesn't use orange RTV on the cases. I've never touched a CVT before, and it'll be a cold day in hell before I do again. Anyway enough of the pity party. I'll get it back on the lathe and try to get as much of those grooves out as possible.

 

Yes, the JF016E have known issues. The shudder problem is infamous on the Rogue forums and it's more of how they are designing for improved fuel economy and using lower pulley pressures. The Juke Gen1 CVT don't suffer from this as the pulley pressures during cruise are higher but the Gen2 suffer more from it. Nissan had a reflash for the Rogue that supposedly helped but it's a widespread problem.

Nissan use either 1217H Liquid Gasket (grey RTV) or for Loctite SI 5460 (pink RTV) specifically for the CVT. It's possible what you have was a reman unit OR a factory tech rebuilt the CVT under TSB-MC10154718-9999. You can inspect the transmission ID tag and it should have the vehicle VIN so you can backtrack what you actually have if you dig deeper.

The cheapest thing you could have done was buy a Nissan OEM reman unit and used this as a core exchange and maybe be in for about $2k. Probably you are the 10-15th person to ask for help and I only know maybe (1) person who was successful rebuilding a CVT who also happened to have owned a transmission shop so he had a massive advantage. Another forum member did what I told him and scrapped the rebuild entirely and bought an OEM Nissan reman unit for a Gen2 Juke and was super happy afterwards but initially tried to rebuild it with China junk and could not get it running properly. The remaining folks never got any resolution as they were buying cheap Chinese e-bay garbage parts against my recommendations, their mechanics were clueless, or whatever.

What I'm saying is, to rebuild one of these CVT properly requires almost half the transmission to be tossed and replaced with either very good salvage parts or brand new quality parts. Almost nobody is willing to do that which is why the rebuild ultimately could fail. The overhaul kits are a mixed bag and mine at least would have caused a transmission failure. You won't find that information anywhere in a book or even online. Ultimately I just sourced most of the kit parts from NIssan directly or the aftermarket and used very little of the actual overhaul kit parts as they are a mixed bag of acceptable parts and absolute total junk.

I would not even use the Exedy clutches/steels in those kits as that is part of your Rogue shudder problem. The problem has more to do with the variator pressure control which they had a reflash for but I don't believe it ever resolved the issue. The Raybestos High energy clutches would definitely help with the known Rogue shudder issues as the discs are higher friction I'd consider them a performance upgrade. If you switch to AMSOIL that would protect the pushbelt against slippage as again the factory run lower pulley pressure which causes issues and increasing friction is where that would help. The pushbelt has to be replaced with an OEM Bosch unit and they are not cheap either. It would have been cheaper to source the Nissan pulley case assembly if you can still find one on Ebay they are like $1k but come with new variators and pushbelt plus the end case fully assembled. The TSB document number lists out all the relevant replacement parts for your JF016E.

If you list exactly what you bought I might be able to give some guidance as best I can. I went thru this myself. The JATCO transmissions are simple but rebuilding one that has failed and using some of the lower quality kits or aftermarket parts can be a huge risk. Generally the variator(s) can be refurbished with good success but I tossed almost everything else and replaced the internals with brand new OEM Nissan parts since my CVT build is for a high performance application I could not take the risk.

 

My overhaul kit is from Precision International, an Australian company. The parts themselves, I'll have to wait and see who made em. That kit should be here today. They got the best reviews I could find. Since nobody's building these trannys, I didn't have alot to go by. There's not even a manual on ATSG. I can't get OEM Nissan parts for this trans, either. The valves are from Transgo, not Sonnax. I got a flow control valve kit, and a secondary pulley regulator kit. Those are coming from Ebay on Saturday. I spent more time with the sheaves on the lathe, and they look pretty good. I got em as good as I can.

The number stamped on the trans housing doesn't match the VIN, so I suppose that trans maybe came out of another car. Lovely.

Customer just called with a dead bobcat. I got to go pay the bills. I'll be back on this later.

 

Yep, sounds about right that the transmission is a replacement which is fairly common for a Rogue.

Yes, there is documentation to rebuild a JF016E. The Nissan TSB specifically for the Altima/Rogue CVT JF016E or RE0F10D overhaul is probably the most comprehensive I've seen which is 98 pages long.

Yes, the new parts are available from Nissan, see the Nissan TSB document below. They are not individually available for everything but sold in sub-assembly kits. There are also some shared parts with the JF011E which are available as seperate items.

The TransGo pump relief valve I would toss it in the garbage and get the Sonnax drop-in valve with a brand new oil pump from Nissan, otherwise you'll get pump whine/cavitation, judder, and pushbelt wear problems. The main variator roller bearings I would buy the Sonnax JF016E bearing kit (4) even though they are pricey they are high quality NSK and Koyo bearings. Obviously you bought a new OEM Bosch pushbelt since the variators were damaged. The input shaft snap ring should be replaced, you might see if #31506-1XF0A fits as the overhaul kits will likely not include it. That $0.20 part destroyed my CVT which is why I also upgraded it. The torque converter should be replaced especially if you had judder/shudder issues. CVC converters offer reman torque converters for all the different JATCO transmissions or WIT transmission can get them too.

That's why I asked about your specific parts list cause it's going to matter if you want it to last or even run at all without issues since you mentioned you aren't that familiar with the transmission.

JF016e 400-44N Pulley and Belt Assembly (30 tooth) - Berkeley Standard

berkeleystandard.com

Gears Magazine - Introducing the JF017E Jatco CVT

The Jatco JF017E transmission has been out for a while and many shops are already enjoying the extra profits that CVT rebuilds are bringing in. The Jatco identifier is JF017E; Nissan calls it the RE0F010E, RE0F010H, and RE0F010J. We’re going to keep it simple and use the Jatco identifier. The...

gearsmagazine.com

 

This is what you want to look for, this image is from the piston kit from Cobra Transmission. The piston gap rings for the entire transmission. Look closely at the original sealing rings and measure them carefully in the width to the kit items, they should match. The OEM ring design have double overlapping joints that will seal air/oil, some of the small ones do not use that feature so that is OK. My original high quality Master overhaul Toledo Trans-Kit did not have that double over-lapp feature on the variator piston rings and they leaked air in the variator air check. If you get gap rings that match identically to the stock rings then it will seal properly. Single overlapping joint rings will not work, has to be double overlapping. You don't want to be tearing the variator apart again as you'll have to order up new end bearings each time which would get really expensive. If they don't look like the picture below then what you can do is flip the original variator pistons over 180*, clean them up and reinstall them if they aren't worn down too much. That information is listed in the WIT CVT catalogue on their web page on how to rebuild the variators. The difference between a JF011E and JF016E variators isn't much but the rings are specific to your model.

Also, I assume you know the proper pushbelt rotation direction? If you install this pushbelt backwards the CVT will not function properly. TransGo have a good .pdf document illustrating how that looks. It's a good idea to mark the direction on the pulley end case so you don't screw that up on the reinstall. Again, the service manuals don't really stress that enough and it's an easy mistake to make. I'll postup the .pdf or scan the sheet I got when I bought the TransGo CVT puller tool they sent some really informative documents for rebuilding the CVT and tips/tricks that aren't really covered anywhere else.

 

Why those sneaky little bastards hiding the parts in SB kits! I certainly wouldn't have thought to look there. I looked at all their SBs having to do with "CVT" or "transmission" and didn't see the document you mentioned, about the rebuild. If you knew a number or a better search term, that would be very helpful.

After I ordered the flow control valve kit, I had considered just getting a new pump assembly, which would include a new valve, I assume. Given that the fluid was so gross, that is sounding like a good idea. The pump looked good, but all those tiny vanes might be worn and I'd never know it. I think the filter is really just a screen anyway, and doesn't do a lot of filtering. So now that I have the OEM number for the pump kit (thanks to you), I'm going for it.

I read some more of the threads you had out there regarding your build. You went quite lot further than I need to. I hope it's holding up well. How did you know to look in the service bulletins? Do you or a buddy work for Nissan, or are you a googling wizard?

 

Oh, nevermind about the bulletin. That was it. Got it thank you!

 

No problem. I don't work for Nissan....lol. Actually I'm not really a Nissan guy but I sorta got sucked into it with the Juke....hahaha. I'm actually an engineer so I dive a little deeper than most.

Yeah, the oil pump could be rebuilt but the pump relief valve bore is going to be destroyed so it requires a ream/hone with special tools. New pumps are like $145-$187 and the Sonnax valve ($30) is direct drop-in. The filter screen just takes out the big chunks while the beehive or cooler cartridge filter does most of the filtering.

All Google searches but that took time. I read everything there is available that I could find which was a LOT. Quite a bit of the JATCO and Bosch CVT/pushbelt design development, Nissan techs, vehicle owner complaints, shop owners, CVT service manuals, youtube videos, etc. It was enough to understand the issues and where to start fixing them as best I could. I know about the Nissan TSB thru the typical Google searches as I was looking for the CVT failure modes and how Nissan diagnoses them which that document I believe covers in detail. I know the JF016E had some major issues and in some ways the JF011E is more reliable in many respects but also share similar failure modes which makes sense since they are both RE0F10 type family. The air check procedure I got from the AAMCO CVT JF011E service manual so that came in pretty handy, it's available online.

There's a couple of websites that have consolidated all of the Nissan TSB in one place. You might also checkout the Nissan Service Tech-Info website if you are interested that I linked below. It goes into the ECM and TCM firmware update options and version build dates and much more for what Nissan Techs would need. You can join for free and download the firmware file for a reasonable cost and rent the software for (1) day and do your own reflashes if you have a J2534 device. A lot of shops actually do this versus purchasing the Consult III so if you are really into Nissan's and want to do the work yourself it is a really cost effective way to do firmware updates. I had my TCM reflashed at the dealership for $150 and it made a huge difference given I had an early model year Juke Nissan were still learning with the CVT and the later firmware updates corrected a lot of the drive-ability issues I was having.

You might consider a factory TCM reflash for the JF016E as Nissan were constantly trying to improve the judder issue thru firmware fixes though I'm not certain that completely resolved the issue. The TSB sort of goes into detail about that process when they do the CVT overhaul. You might also consider the Raybestos clutch friction kit since it's super cheap and they are designed to reduce judder issues, maybe $50 or so. I did my initial rebuild with the Exedy clutches from the overhaul kit, then tore down the CVT again to upgrade it multiple times until I got it where I felt it would be reliable enough for my goals. Those are probably some simple changes that might make a big difference for your transmission.

Anyway, post up some pics of the CVT parts when you get them all in and I'll follow along with your build.

Nissan Publications

 

I ordered the oil pump today. It's was about $230 including shipping from Nissan USA. It'll be here in a few days. Cheap insurance.

According to the SB, my belt is fine. I looked at both sides of each of those little p-shaped segments with a flashlight and magnifying glass, which took quite awhile. No damage, which seems odd given the state of my sheaves. All those hash marks are all there. I took out the bands too (one side at a time). I thought that was one ring of steel, but it's actually several thin rings nested tightly together. All rings present and none broken.

My CVT piston rings are the 2 - step end gap variety, just like the pics you showed. They're a couple thousandths of an inch fatter than the ones I pulled out, but they fit nicely in the piston. They move in the slot freely, and don't have any noticeable "slop".

None of the parts in my kit have any manufacturer marks on them. Not even the seals, which I find odd. Normally I can break down a kit and figure out who made every part, or at least most of them.
I'm going to dig into the pulleys tomorrow, so I'll take a closer look, but I didn't see anything on initial glance. I took the kit over to my shop this morning so I can't take a pic of it now, but I'll post a pic of it tomorrow.

That SB was, and will continue to be, immensely helpful. Thanks again for pointing me to it!

 

That's good. Those are all good signs that the belt is in decent shape. If p-shaped belt link edges should almost look rounded and not sharp, that means the wear is almost nil as that is how they are brand new. These were tumble deburred at the factory so they will look almost rounded when new. If it looks like that then the belt is likely good. But, a very high mileage belt fail differently and it's impossible to do visual inspection and know for sure. I think something like 150k miles is where a pushbelt even in good condition would be at risk though they've gone as high as 200k beyong that they are done.

The pushbelt will have a laser etched serial number, from that you can infer the date code of the pushbelt date of manufacture and if it's a newer date code it likely has lower miles and that might be worth knowing. As you already found the VIN tag is missing, it would have been riveted onto the transmission case and all OEM reman units use the pink Loctite RTV. The clutch drum and planetary assembly also have date codes on them if you look. When I was previously buying salvaged parts I looked for those date codes and tried to prioritize the newer parts especially if they were in great condition. Once I started sourcing new OEM parts this didn't matter anymore.

Yeah, glad that TSB helped you out. Looking forward to seeing your progress.

 

As promised... here's my kit. Not terribly exciting. Everything went ok today. I had to fight a little to get that gear set seated down to where it should be. My forward and reverse clutches showed absolutely no signs of wear. Maybe whoever was in there last just replaced them. Plates and steels looked brand new. So I put them back in. If they were worn at all, I'd have ordered the Raybestos set.

Here's a dumb question: I bought these bonded pistons and I can't figure out what they were for. I thought they were for the reverse clutch, but that piston is completely different. Are these supposed to replace the CVT pistons in the pulley assemblies?

I hope not because the pulleys are already back together, but I got a feeling I goofed.

 

Yeah, your kit looks good. They all have the no-name sub-kits like that.

The bonded pistons are for the forward clutch drum. The dished shaped one goes at the bottom while the 1st picture piston goes above it. You have to disassemble the clutch assembly to do that with a special tool to compress it. If the clutch friction discs looked new it's valid to reuse them. Are the bonded pistons in the kit needed? Not really as the stock ones are probably just fine and this is more of an upgrade if you had everything apart and the original pistons had high mileage.

So it seems like that transmission did not have many miles on it from your description.

 

Hah! Once again, you're right on. It turns out I had that piston housing out yesterday and didn't even know it. I took it out this morning, and sure enough, I missed it. The pistons in there were bonded also, and again, didn't look that old. I replaced them and put it back together using a janky rig on the floor press.

Maybe a couple flushes with clean fluid might have made the "jitters" go away. It's possible I didn't have to go this far, it obviously has been redone recently. But that fluid was so nasty, I figured the guts were trashed, so I dig in. Hindsight's always 20/20. No regrets (yet). I learned alot - like don't ever buy one of these again .

I'm just going to install a few more seals today, and then I'm in a waiting pattern until the pump gets here. I'm remodeling my basement, and I go pick up flooring today, so a break from the Nissan is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

Good thing you had the floor press. I use the special tool and it's helpful on the reverse clutch rebuild as well since that is tricky.

So, the jitters are common on the JF016E. The TSB is specifically for that problem. The CVT oil could make a difference changing it but it's also just the design of that transmission if that makes sense. The AMSOIL CVT fluid would probably completely eliminate the jitters or judder as I've tested it pretty extensively and the friction increase prevents the clutches or pushbelt from slipping. It's something to do with the TCM firmware and how it actuates the solenoids. The upgraded clutches would also help avoid this problem as the grip they have is tremendous, nothing like the stock Exedy tan clutches. They are designed specifically to deal with judder/shudder issues yet still allow smooth engagement. It could also be the existing valvebody which is why the TSB states that if the belt is good you just replace the valve-body otherwise a complete rebuild is required if the belt doesn't look good. But the TCM firmware update would have been my first move as Nissan/Jatco realized this and started revising the clutch and pulley pressures to help eliminate the judder issue that the JF016E seems to have a problem with.

Sounds like you have the build going pretty good so I think it'll drive fine but those are some things I would consider to avoid putting all that effort into the transmission and then have it do the same thing.

 

I decided to hold off on the valve body until I got the thing driving again. Logic there being, the valve body is relatively easy to replace. My VB passed all vacuum checks, but it still might be bad. The oil pump was looking bad too. Which, of course required trans removal. I got the new OEM pump today. I never did find what I would call a "smoking gun", and I hate that. Based on what you've told me, that jitter might still be there. If it is, I'll take it in for a firmware flash, if that's applicable. Otherwise, if the jitters remain, I'm going just run it like that. Maybe it just needed a few flushes of fresh fluid. Time will tell.

Amsoil should be delivered today. 5 quarts.

Repair is done (I hope), trans is ready to go in. My remaining concern, at this point is the air checks. I attached a page taken from a document I was using as a guide. It doesn't go very deep into detail, just shows you where to put the air. The only passage that did anything was the reverse clutch. It held air and I could see the clutch activate and release. All the others didn't really show much. Secondary Pulley was an odd shape and I couldn't get a good seal. Primary Pulley, it shows 2 ports for primary pulley. The one on the right kinda held air - the one on top didn't. Forward clutch, same deal - the one on the right kinda held air, the one on top didn't. Everything else just blew right through.

Trans going in tomorrow.

 

Lol....yeah 30 psi isn't going to do anything. I turn it up to 120 psi......and also lubricate the pushbelt generously and even add some oil in the passages to the Primary/Secondary. Then you would have seen the variators shift ratios. All good if it didn't actually leak then you are fine. The rest is fine if the rear clutch pack clamped the front is also probably good. Converter apply will leak because the converter isn't attached to seal onto the input shaft so an end cap would be needed to test it which that manual doesn't really get into either. That's what I meant by manuals not providing all the information.

Yeah, consider that the oil pump is just an insurance policy. I found the smoking gun, a jammed oil relief piston at 50% open and the piston was gouged but the transmission still functioned. Reflash will help if it judders you can try that. AMSOIL will most definitely help.

But based on your description you've covered all the bases and if the v-body needs to be swapped you'll know once the trans is assembled based on how it's running.

 

I'm tempted to pull it back out. I really wanted to see those pulleys move. I thought they needed much higher pressure than shop air to move. Maybe that's just to clamp em, not operate em. It's just hanging by a few bellhousing bolts, because that's as far as I got today. I think I'll at least pull the pan and the VB tomorrow and put 120 psi in those holes and see what it does.

 

Right. Shop air will move them, yes. The Primary pulley pressure will shift the pushbelt if the Secondary variator chamber is vented which it will be. You are only fighting the Secondary spring (see picture below) which is pretty strong but this method will force the Secondary variator to spread apart allowing the belt to move upwards on the Primary. The picture shows the belt at it's top position on the Primary "fully closed" and the Secondary fully "opened".

If you hit the Secondary with 120 air pressure you are only adding to the spring pressure which will still attempt to close the Secondary variator even harder, thus nothing will move during the Secondary air-check. Effectively you are "locking" the Secondary in the closed position but are only "clamping" the pushbelt on the Secondary while the Primary is free to spin. So Primary air-check will shift the pushbelt but hold air, Secondary air-check will NOT shift but should still hold air. The air test is not really a "function" test per say but more to show that the variators can hold air, the pushbelt can move to it's min & max positions, and the variators can move in-out, etc. This also tests a bunch of seals that carry pressure thru-out the entire transmission between the variators and the valve-body. Actual functional testing would require dynamic pressure control of both variators which only a transmission dyno or vehicle could do while an external load is applied.

This air test is good enough IMHO in addition to all the visual checks you did and the variator refurb. The v-body can really only be tested on the vehicle anyway short of the special test equipment that will test the solenoids.

But yeah, I would actually run the air-check before the v-body is installed.

 

Looks like I have to take it back out and all the way apart again. That PDF I attached showed 2 "primary pulley" ports to air check. The one on top just flowed air, didn't hold anything. I was hoping that was a return. The one on the side didn't do anything, but held air. Yesterday I was hoping that meant it was holding pressure, and the pulley was good. Based on another diagram I saw, and a closer look at the case, the one on the right just goes to the case, it's a pressure tap. The one on top is the right one, it seems. 140 psi in that hole should move the pulley, but it just flows air. So, out it comes. I was hoping to have this done today, but it doesn't look good for that, at this point.

 

Right, all ports on the side are case test pressure ports, they lead to the outside hex plugs so not worth checking though it doesn't hurt.

The Primary will move the pulley and hold air. The Secondary will not move the pulley but should also hold air. If you checked it and they leaked that isn't a good sign. If I were to guess it's the variator piston rings from the kit or they were damaged during the installation as it's easy to do. To hold those in place you have to use transmission gel everywhere to glue it down while re-assembling the variators. If you pull the pulley case off the center case you can test it without unbolting the variators and you'll know for sure before tearing it all down.

Sorry to hear about it but at least you caught it before re-assembling the rest of the car. Ideally you'd catch this on the bench before reinstalling the transmission which is what I would do when you fix the issue.

 

For the life of me, I cannot figure out what went wrong. That port was wide open this morning, just blowing air. I took it out, took the pulley housing back off, and didn't find anything. I thought it may have been a clutch spacing issue, or maybe that teflon seal around the secondary shaft... nothing. Eventually, I got it back together and now that port is working properly. No clue as to why it didn't work right this morning, or why it's working right now. So, I lost a day, but back at it tomorrow