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Judder - Died - No start, Help


TroyButler
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Was leaving work, was about to pull out and while waiting it started juddering a ton for a couple seconds then died. She cranks, has spark, and i just filled up the other day and shows over half a tank but no start. tried unplugging the MAF but also no luck and no codes.

 

help

 

1997 VG33E QX4

Edited by TroyButler
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You need 3 things for the engine to run, fuel/air, spark, and compression. You say you have fuel and spark, does the engine crank normally it does it seem to spin easier than normal? Are the fuel injectors firing?  Is the spark firing at the right time? Can you smell fuel? It is harder to flood our fuel injected engines than the carbureted ones that the old guys wearing their rose colored glasses say are so wonderful, but can and does still happen. If you are flooded, holding the throttle to the floor while cranking the engine puts the ECU into flood clearing mode where it will shut off the injectors until you release the throttle. 

Finally, check all your fuses, you might have one that popped preventing something that is needed from working. 

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19 hours ago, Mr_Reverse said:

You need 3 things for the engine to run, fuel/air, spark, and compression. You say you have fuel and spark, does the engine crank normally it does it seem to spin easier than normal? Are the fuel injectors firing?  Is the spark firing at the right time? Can you smell fuel? It is harder to flood our fuel injected engines than the carbureted ones that the old guys wearing their rose colored glasses say are so wonderful, but can and does still happen. If you are flooded, holding the throttle to the floor while cranking the engine puts the ECU into flood clearing mode where it will shut off the injectors until you release the throttle. 

Finally, check all your fuses, you might have one that popped preventing something that is needed from working. 

We're assuming I have fuel as i took of the high pressure feed line and primed it for a second and it pissed out. Used a noid light injectors are getting a signal so i assume firing. The spark plugs do look a bit dry though. We pulled out a plug and grounded it and tried starting and it did spark. The engine does seem to crank normally. I do smell fuel., i tried pumping the pedal to start and flooring it. Not sure of any fuses that may effect it? A guy i work with even though he had spark, he says he still needed a new distributor so maybe ill have to go buy a new one?

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Pull the distributor cap and rotor off. Then remove the metal plate on the bottom of the distributor. It is a dust shield to protect the crank sensor. Look under the disc into the bottom of the distributor. If you see what looks like dust in there, the bearings have failed and the distributor needs replacing. It is a problem I have seen in the 3.3 Pathfinders. Don't know why I haven't seen it in the Frontiers and Xterras with the same engine though. 

 

If the noid light is showing signals for the injectors, then I doubt there is a problem with them and the fuse and relay for them is ok. 

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On 11/12/2019 at 10:35 PM, Mr_Reverse said:

Pull the distributor cap and rotor off. Then remove the metal plate on the bottom of the distributor. It is a dust shield to protect the crank sensor. Look under the disc into the bottom of the distributor. If you see what looks like dust in there, the bearings have failed and the distributor needs replacing. It is a problem I have seen in the 3.3 Pathfinders. Don't know why I haven't seen it in the Frontiers and Xterras with the same engine though. 

 

If the noid light is showing signals for the injectors, then I doubt there is a problem with them and the fuse and relay for them is ok. 

i havent got to fully rip it apart but i remember it looking pretty good a couple months ago. I also just checked my receipts from the previous owner. The distributor  and spark plug wires was replaced only 2 years and 30k km ago, so i would doubt its that?

Edited by TroyButler
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3 hours ago, onespiritbrain said:

 Take the distributor cap off and have someone try to crank it. Is the rotor turning?

Yes the rotor is turning.

 

And i took the cap off, the rotor off, then the black shield piece held in by 2 screws and it all looked clean to me under it

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Hmmm.. with no code I think its leaning toward a fuel issue. I honestly dont know how to troubleshoot a fuel issue. Without googling it I'd say figure out a way to see if the fuel pump is actually sending fuel up front or not. May take the supply line off the fuel rail on the passenger side and hold a rag against it while someone turns the key to the on position. Or maybe you can rent some kind of fuel system test kit from Autozone. 

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4 hours ago, onespiritbrain said:

Hmmm.. with no code I think its leaning toward a fuel issue. I honestly dont know how to troubleshoot a fuel issue. Without googling it I'd say figure out a way to see if the fuel pump is actually sending fuel up front or not. May take the supply line off the fuel rail on the passenger side and hold a rag against it while someone turns the key to the on position. Or maybe you can rent some kind of fuel system test kit from Autozone. 

Yeah i know its getting some fuel as i can smell it and i did take off the fuel line up at the motor and as i primed it pissed some out but again just cause some fuel doesnt mean enough pressure..

 

oddly enough we got it to start once, run for 10 minutes, turned it off and it wouldnt restart.

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Possible that there is just not enough pressure. Try clamping off the return hose an see if it will start and run. If it does, then it is likely a fuel pressure problem. That could be a failed regulator and or a weak pump. Getting a pressure test will at least narrow down or eliminate that as part of the problem. 

 

Diagnosis on cars is simply a process of elimination. Made a lot harder when the bloody thing refuses to act up when they bring them to me. Have 2 that refused to act up for me today. 

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16 hours ago, Mr_Reverse said:

Possible that there is just not enough pressure. Try clamping off the return hose an see if it will start and run. If it does, then it is likely a fuel pressure problem. That could be a failed regulator and or a weak pump. Getting a pressure test will at least narrow down or eliminate that as part of the problem. 

 

Diagnosis on cars is simply a process of elimination. Made a lot harder when the bloody thing refuses to act up when they bring them to me. Have 2 that refused to act up for me today. 

Well good news we got it to start and checked fuel pressure it was all good. We got it to start by messing a bunch with the timing at the distributor so were gonna try replacing it and hope for the best. It idled fine but once you start driving it runs pretty poor. Anything below 20km/h and it probably would die unless i went to neutral and revved it. The spark plugs looked a bit bad when we first looked at it all, but from the constant trying to start and flooding i now have a missfire code so they're prob junk and will be replacing those aswell.

 

I hope most distributors last longer than 2 years, but i really hope this fixes it.

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If the engine was running fine, then suddenly wasn't, and adjusting the distributor got it to start again, that suggests that the engine quit running because the timing changed suddenly. If the dizzy was failing, I'd expect inconsistent spark or no spark, not a sudden change in timing. I suspect your timing belt jumped a tooth or two on the crank sprocket, causing the cam sprockets (and the distributor, which is driven off one of the cams) to lag behind the crank. The retarded ignition timing would explain why it died and refused to restart until you adjusted the distributor (correcting its relationship with the crank). The retarded cam timing would explain why it runs like crap under load.

I would set the engine to TDC and check the timing belt (should be 40 teeth between cam sprocket dimples, 43 from driver's cam sprocket to crank sprocket) before running the engine again.

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15 hours ago, Slartibartfast said:

If the engine was running fine, then suddenly wasn't, and adjusting the distributor got it to start again, that suggests that the engine quit running because the timing changed suddenly. If the dizzy was failing, I'd expect inconsistent spark or no spark, not a sudden change in timing. I suspect your timing belt jumped a tooth or two on the crank sprocket, causing the cam sprockets (and the distributor, which is driven off one of the cams) to lag behind the crank. The retarded ignition timing would explain why it died and refused to restart until you adjusted the distributor (correcting its relationship with the crank). The retarded cam timing would explain why it runs like crap under load.

I would set the engine to TDC and check the timing belt (should be 40 teeth between cam sprocket dimples, 43 from driver's cam sprocket to crank sprocket) before running the engine again.

I appreciate the input and i have some questions - for learning purposes not to be offensive in anyway.

The timing belt was changed 30k km ago and 2 years ago, what are the odds of it randomly jumping timing while idling?

I believe - not 100% sure but we got it to start by advancing timing as i remember him saying it hated being fully advanced but was good with a bit.

I think as the spark plugs looked like crap and the constant cranking over the couple days and constant engine flooding would ruin the spark plugs even more thus also explaining why it missfired? I know the basics of timing and timing charts but never have had an problems with it and only set timing a handful of times. Would you think it could be fatal for the engine if i just tried replacing the distributor and sparkplugs and took it around the block to see if that solved it, before pulling it further apart to reset the timing?

 

Ideally I would have a timing gun or pull it apart to check but unfortunately our shop doesnt have one and i only have like half an hour a day to mess with it occasionally with a techs help. 

As with the age of these engines very few people i work with a good with them, and thats why i really appreciate the feed back here.

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I can understand wanting to replace what's easy to see if that clears it up without a major teardown. If it wasn't an interference engine, I'd say go for it. But it is, which means there's a chance of crashing the valves if I'm right and it jumps again.


The recent timing belt replacement means the belt itself shouldn't be worn out, but it still could've skipped time if the tensioner wasn't done up properly or if a foreign object ended up in between the belt and one of the sprockets. Devonianwalk's engine jumped time after some mud got into the timing cover. Advancing the timing got his to start again, just like yours, though it turned out he was two teeth off on one cam and three on the other. I doubt your timing cover is full of mud like his was, but maybe a fastener backed out and fell into the belt?
 

The only other ways I can think of for the timing to have suddenly changed would be a loose hold-down for the distributor (which you probably would've noticed when you adjusted the timing), the dizzy trying to seize up and slipping its drive gear (check that the pin that holds the gear on is intact and the distributor spins freely), or the woodruff key that holds the crank sprocket in position on the crankshaft has sheared (though AFAIK that only happens on the VG30, which has a smaller crank snout).

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