I've got a 1997 Nissan Sentra GXE, GA16DE engine, automatic transmission. The car just won't start.
It turns over fine. It's getting spark, and I can smell fuel. The car worked fine friday, but would not start on Sunday. It does appear to be burning oil, but I think I've tracked that down to a worn valve cover gasket.
I drained the oil and went ahead and put new oil in and a new oil filter. there was only a small amount of oil left, I'd say a just under quart including the oil filter. I've replaced the Disty cap, Disty rotor, spark plugs and starter (starter was spinning strong, but made a sound like the bearing was gettting ready to go, so I went ahead and scrapped it. Still nothing.
Do you have compression the GA is a chain engine and a cahain normally breaks when stress is removed ie when shutting off the engine or slowing down like on a off ramp. if the chain is bad it should crank real fast you can also check to see if the rotor is turning by removing the cap and cranking it. Also were the plugs real fouled out has it been running rich getting poor fuel economy if yes to these then look at the coolant temp sensor it is fairly cheap and can keep the engine from running. Also check the timming or atleadst that the rotor points at #1 sparck plug wie when it should and the chain has not jumpped.
There's obviously an oil leak -- which I did not find out untill thursday (it's my girlfriends car...). At least some oil is leaking from the valve cover gasket, which is being replaced once the car starts again. But where did THAT much go? I don't know.
Here's the thing -- I came here a two months ago to find the ammount of oil that needs to go into the engine. 1.5Q was what I found from multiple sources...so that's what I put in. A few weeks later, I kept thinking "that can't be right...", so I called Advance Auto and had them look it up for me -- they told me 3.5Q, so I changed it again.
First of all, ditch whatever sources said 1.5 quarts of engine oil. Secondly, you never thought to check the oil with the dipstick??? You drove around with less than half the oil and lost half of that?
Lets keep it simple. Assuming that you are correct in that you are getting spark and gas (which I'm not too inclined to believe) all that's still missing from the combustion equation is compression, which may be gone if you drove your car almost without oil.
Very rarely will I say this, but perhaps it's time to take your car to a mechanic?
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Would somethng like worn bearings stop the engine from starting up? In my dad's old nissan pickup, a bearing went out and scored part of the crankshaft...but his would barely turn over because of it.
I really think you need to take your car to a mechanic.
I don't mean to be hard on you for making a newb mistake (Lord knows I've made them myself) but not putting in half as much oil as you need and not pulling the damn dipstick to make sure you put enough oil in is just plain dumb. I don't know if it was out of ignorance or laziness, but either way you really shouldn't be touching your car at this point. Whatever's wrong is obviously way over your head and you need hands on help from someone who knows what they're doing.
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Whoa...first of, don't assume. The oil thing was a mistake -- I checked the dipstick but did not give the oil enough time to settle. As I said, I definantly would have put more checking into it if I wouldn't have read from multiple sources that 1.5Q was the ammount...if I can find them again I will link them. Was it a mistake -- yes. Do I feel stupid for doing it -- yes. Does that mean I don't know what the hell I'm doing -- no.
I own 3 cars which I work on a regular basis, including a 99 Z28, and a Protege which has recently gotten an engine swap and turbo charged. I've NEVER taken my cars to a mechanic unless I can't DIAGNOSE the problem. I'm fully capable of making the repairs and am not going to pay someing $60/hour to do something I'm capable of doing.
I'd appreciate answers to my questions over condecendance, otherwise I'll just have to look somewhere else for answers. So you're either helping me, or you're not...it's that simple.
Didn't mean to be condescending, but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, ya know? But hey, we've all done stupid stuff. I fried my ECU a couple years ago when I sparked 2 wires installing my tach. Haha my engine wouldn't stop running! Damn thing cost me 900 bucks...
On to gettin the problem solved.
So is your engine firing at all?
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Last edited by BikerFry : Oct 22nd, 2004 at 03:45 PM.
No problem...I don't mean to sound like an asshole,this hole thing is just frustrating. My camaro is supposed to be on jackstands for the winter, and I'm supposed to be saving up to get my Mazda on the road again as well as going back to school -- instead I'm putting money into a car that's not going to benefit me any. But enough ranting
Anyway... On my other cars, there's timing notches on the crank pulley to help you get the timing angle on the car. I found the notches on the crank pulley , but haven't found a notch marking TDC. I'm assuming it's behind the splashguard inside the passenger side wheel well. Is this true?
Yes, the engine will sound like it's going to fire for a breif second (I'd say 1 to 1 and a half revolutions) then not. I replaced the spark plugs, and hooked a timing light up to check for ignition voltage...the voltage is there.
I searched these forums for a similar problem with an oil leak -- found two people with worn bearings from their oil leaks.
Damn thing cost me 900 bucks...
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