Need some help with the Nissan.

Tien · Nov 28th, 2004, 05:56 AM

So I got the Sentra ('87, 5 door XE, 1.6, 5 speed) on Thursday (My father-in-law has been driving it for about a week to make sure everything was ok with it) and drove it to work Friday morning. The entire trip, about 100 miles, went fine and she drove fine on my way home from work.

Fastforward it to about 7pm friday night and everything went down hill.
I went out to get myself some Chinese and noticed that somehow my driverside low-beam had blown (I did a light check on the car that morning before I left for work so I know it was working then.)
Well on my way to the parts store I noticed the car started running funny. As I was sitting at a red light, the revs started to drop down to the point where the car would almost stall out, then she would bounce back up, then dip back down and so on. So I get the new lights put in (I replaced both for S&G's) and start the car to leave when she starts running funny again.
This time she starts revving higher than normal. Every time I would go to shift gears it seemes like the revs stay high when I pull her into nutural to go to the next gear. Because of the high revving I couldn't get her into first most of the time, which made for some really hard 2nd gead starts going up hill. So when I got home I pulled into my driveway pulled her into nutural and shut her down, but she didn't want to shut off. The motor ran for about another 20 seconds, then right before it shut off it started shaking violently.

So far I have checked everything I can think of. I checked all the vacume lines to see if any were loose or broken/leaking, I checked the grounding wire to see if it had come disconnected but as far as I can tell its still connected (I have only had a chance to look at night with a flashlight so I could be missing it but I doubt it), I disconnected the battery for about 10 minutes to try to reset the computer, I looked down into the carb to see if any of the butterflies were getting stuck but it didn't look like they were, I checked the throttle linkage to make sure it wasn't getting stuck and I even put the other headlight back in wondering if the ones I got were to high voltage and fucking with the computer. And no luck with anything.
Right now she is idling high enough to where I can put her in first and let off the clutch slowley and she will take off without having to give her any gas.

So if anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them. I will be working on the car today when I get out of work at 1400 so if anyone has some suggestions let me know.

Thanks.

Carol Vasko · Nov 28th, 2004, 10:46 AM

just had major work done on the timing belt/tension system ($$$$). Now ticking noise coming from what appears to be passenger side of car. Took it back to garage and told to change oil as there was gas in it. Ticking noise still prevails. Comments appreciated.
Vasko

recycled_toddler · Nov 29th, 2004, 02:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carol Vasko

just had major work done on the timing belt/tension system ($$$$). Now ticking noise coming from what appears to be passenger side of car. Took it back to garage and told to change oil as there was gas in it. Ticking noise still prevails. Comments appreciated.
Vasko

Carol: You could start a new topic instead of post here; Very few people would see your specific problem here.

Tien: Your Nissan sounds like it has a major electrical problem related to either frozen relays or something more catastrophic; I would go to the junkyard and get as many plastic relays as you could, if I was you: They're in different colours for different values, but the same size. Swap 'em all out, colour for colour. Look everywhere under the hood and under the dash.

Another two possibilities would be: Bad ignition switch and/or turn signal/headlight switch. They've either melted down or someone before y'all has done something to the wiring in the column. Get back to me if ya find anything, and good luck. --RT

Myetball · Nov 29th, 2004, 09:16 PM

If you have an E16s, it sounds alot like a vacuum leak. Check the connections on the Vacuum Cut Solenoid Valve. Take a look at the pic to find it. There should be four nipples on the two valves. The two inboard should be connected, the two outboard should be capped. If the two outboard are not capped, you will get a pretty high idle. Also check all the connections to/from the idle speed control valve.

EDIT: Sorry bout the monster pic....don't know why it does that

Tien · Nov 30th, 2004, 07:33 AM

Thanks for the help guys but I found the problem and you would never guess what it was.

I was out fucking with it again Sunday night and guess what I found.
Even though I checked to make sure all the plug wires were tight and on there right, I neglected to check the wires coming off the distributor.

The fucking coil wire is just a touch short and it looks like when I hit a bump it must have knocked it loose just a bit. I took it off and checked it to make sure it was ok and then pushed it on there all the way. So now I think I'm gona buy some plug wires that I can cut to the length I like to give it a little slack so this dosn't happen again.

I drove the car to work yesterday with out any incident and she seems do be just fine now.

For it to come down to something so easy to overlook, and me busting my balls on it all weekend long not knowing what it could be.

I feel like a damn dumbass.