B747-400 flight crew reported on the maintenance practices of an international contracted maintenance provider; trying to get them to accept a Maintenance Release; prior to completing the nose strut servicing and the gear doors being closed.

Narrative

Maintenance was servicing the nosewheel strut. In an attempt to get the flight out on time; or at least not take the hit for the delay; they issued a Maintenance Release prior to the service being completed. In other words; they cleared a maintenance item while they were still working on it. They requested that we push back with an invalid Maintenance Release. We did not push back until a new legal Maintenance Release was issued. Supplemental information from ACN 820395: While performing the walkaround; I observed that the nose strut appeared to be under serviced due to the fact that no silver was showing on the inner strut cylinder. I found a Mechanic who told me he would check the limits. I asked him to let me know what he found out; and completed my walkaround. I got back to the cockpit and made the necessary Maintenance Release report on ACARS to alert Maintenance. Meanwhile; the #3 Hydraulic System Fault light needed to be re-lamped; but when the Mechanic came up to fix the indicator; he found that the contacts were broken and the repair was then deferred. The Mechanic who I spoke with about the strut also appeared and reported that a nitrogen service bottle had been requested from 'somewhere on the airfield;' and it would be here soon to service the strut. I inquired as to how long; and he did not know. We noticed the gear door EICAS message come on but we never heard when the servicing was begun or completed. We received our Maintenance Release over the printer with the time stamp. The gear door EICAS was still illuminated and we had not been told that the service was complete; and we did not have a deferred sticker on the #3 Hydraulic System Fault light indicator. In fact; the indicator lamp had been completely removed from the space and placed in one of the compartments above the First Officer's table. Captain was very uncomfortable with this situation saying that the dispatch was not legal with the discrepancies noted above incomplete. He initiated several calls to Dispatch and we also requested that Operations have Maintenance send a Maintenance Release with the correct time stamp for when the work was complete in order to make the release legal. We finally got everything resolved and pushed back; over 30 minutes later than scheduled. The illegal dispatch with Maintenance signed off as complete and not actually completed was the main complaint; not to mention the safety aspect of essentially saying the aircraft was ready for 'push' when gear doors were not closed and the potential for personnel still in the wheel well was possible. Supplemental information from ACN 820400: I was acting as the First Relief Pilot. The doors were closed prior to departure and the Mechanic still had not put the deferred sticker near the fault light for the deferral. We ended up putting the deferred sticker on the overhead panel to make us legal.