Slartibartfast

Well that sucks! You might get away with a little exacto knife action on that adapter plug. Splicing means you've got one less connector to give you problems, though.

Sucks about the surprise baptism, but better for it to happen in the shop than on the road!

I'm honestly not sure when ABS started in these, and whether it was a trim thing or a federal thing. The part numbers for the ABS valve block go back to '90, but it's not in the '90 manual. If yours has it, the valve block is under the truck, on the inside of the passenger's side frame rail, sorta under the passenger's seat area IIRC. Should be an aluminum casting with a bleeder, an electrical plug, and two brake lines going into it. The control computer for mine was under the driver's seat, but IIRC '92 (and earlier?) had it under the stereo. The sensor reads from the pinion flange on the rear axle. If yours doesn't have it, you're not missing much. All it does is release the rear brakes if it sees them lock up. There's no pulse action, no pump, no improved stopping distance. It's just trying to stop the rear end from stepping out and potentially rolling the truck. I guess if road conditions are bad enough to allow the rear brakes to lock, and the driver doesn't know to pump the pedal to regain control, then it's safer to nerf the rears, keep it straight, and take the hit in the crumple zone.

I haven't heard much good about aftermarket distributors, so if they'll sell it separate from the engine, that would be a good thing to have on the shelf. If the fuel tank doesn't smell like something died in it, consider the fuel pump/level sender assembly as well. There's an access plate in the floor above it, so you don't have to drop the tank. Round-dash headlight and wiper stalks will not work on a square-dash column without extensive screwing around. (I looked into this for mine, because I've got two sets of round dash switches in my stash, and decided it would require more butchery than I wanted to get into.) A square-dash cruise control headlight stalk should fit a square-dash non-cruise truck just fine. It'll just have a second plug that doesn't go to anything. It's possible to add intermittent wipers if yours doesn't have them. IIRC the amp is the brown box on top of the wiper motor. There's probably a writeup for the swap on Infamous Nissan that'll tell you what all you need. Are you missing any clips? Fasteners? I grab any hardware I take off, plus whatever is left around loose. The metal clips for the plugs in the engine bay are easy to lose, might as well grab a few of those with the injectors. Might be worth grabbing some spare relays, too. I paid $2 each (about ten years ago!) for a pair of factory blue relays, which have been running my headlights since. Tail lights are surprisingly expensive for these. One of mine has a small crack in it, so I'd be on the lookout for those. And yeah, if you find a front door arm rest that isn't cracked like a dry lake bed, grab that SOB. Make sure you know how the yard operates (and charges!) before you start pulling things apart. Some yards may not want you to break up what they consider an assembly. (Might not want to sell a door handle, if they think they can sell the whole door.) One yard I went to wanted to charge me for a whole steering column, when all I needed was the headlight switch. Hopefully yours is less uptight.

Sure, but generally it's easier if you tell us what's wrong with it!

That's a weird one. Having to start it with carb cleaner makes me think it's not getting much fuel. Do you hear the fuel pump prime when you turn the key? Did you replace the crank sensor (on the back) or the cam sensor (in the distributor)? If it was the cam sensor, you'll need to set the ignition timing. The crank sensor is only there for misfire detection, so that shouldn't be able to make it run weird. Check that no wiring got pinched between the engine and trans when you bolted them back together. Any OBD codes?

LOL yeah, that could be it. Five easy ones to really make the tricky one stand out. My beef with #6 comes mostly from trying to get a compression tester into that hole.

The fuel smell is interesting. Might just be because there's fuel in the intake manifold. Just for grins, pull that vac line back off, and cycle the key a few times (to the run position, wait for the fuel pump to stop, then turn it back off). That should remove any doubt about whether the reg is leaking. I could swear I'd found an injector leak test in the manual before, but I'm not seeing it now. Unfortunately there's no test port for a fuel pressure gauge, so you'll have to tee one in. Release the fuel pressure first (fuel pump fuse out, run the engine until it stalls, crank a couple times to be sure) so you don't spray gas from hell to breakfast when you open the system. Fuel pressure should be around 34 psi at idle with the vac line to the reg connected, 43 with it disconnected. Then shut it off and see how fast the needle falls. I've seen a couple of sources quote 10 PSI in ten seconds as the cutoff, but I'm not sure where they got that number. With that said, if one injector was leaking, I would expect one black plug. I would not expect six bad injectors, unless the last guy replaced all six with the cheap crap ones. Six black plugs has me thinking the computer is injecting that much fuel based on bad info, which brings me back to ground you've already covered. I know you've already done the coolant temp sensor, but I would go through the troubleshooting in the manual for that sensor/circuit anyway. Make sure the sensor is in spec, and make sure there isn't a wiring issue between it and the computer. Rule it out right proper. I'm not quite following here. Hard starting, extended cranking? Does it start more easily when it's warm? Might be worth throwing a new connector at it, on the off chance. Mine had a loose MAF connector, and surged/stalled at warm idle, especially stopped with the transmission in gear. I couldn't make it act up by jiggling the connector, but when it was acting up, jiggling it usually cleared it up. It's been fine since I replaced the connector (Rockauto had a replacement pigtail for it). Your symptoms don't sound like what mine was doing, though it sounds like it can manifest differently in some cases (see Precise1's second post in the thread linked below). There was a plug-in harness with a ground lug to fix this issue. My donor car had one. I swapped it into mine, and to my surprise it ran like absolute crap until I took it back out. I still have no idea why. Possibly the loose connector fit worse in the repair harness than it did on the sensor itself? I decided I didn't need to poke that bear.

Good to see I'm not the only one exploring random rabbit holes. Your conclusion sounds reasonable to me. And yeah, I don't see why ATF wouldn't work. That's what the Tremec T-5 in my dad's hot rod takes.

I've heard of people jacking up one side/parking on a slope so the fill hole is higher. Might be worth a shot.

I would check the inhibitor relay (the one on the fender). Sounds like it's clicking, but make sure it's got continuity across the contacts when the coil is powered.

1. The Hardbody pickup used sealed beams, and you can get conversion housings/LEDs/whatever for sealed beams. You need the grille, side markers, and buckets from a Hardbody to make it work. I remember seeing conversion housings in the Pathfinder sad-eye shape a while back--pre-Covid, probably, now I'm thinking about it--but I haven't seen those around in a while. Also look into relaying the headlights. The factory setup puts a lot of stress on the headlight switch, and probably loses a little voltage to the bulbs while it's at it. 2. Mine's got the slushbox, so no firsthand experience here, but I generally see MT-90 called out. 3. If the EGR is stuck open, and it doesn't have California emissions (California trucks have a sensor that'll notice it's gone and throw a code), then sure, delete it. Otherwise, leave it alone. It's supposed to improve the fuel economy a little. There is no benefit to getting rid of the evap can, unless you want the truck to smell like gas. This isn't a malaise era clunker (or a modern diesel) where the smog gear is holding it back and/or trying to kill it. 4. I think the fan from a Ford Taurus was popular for a while. Should be some old threads about that around here somewhere. Sounds like the clutch fan does better under heavy load, though. You may want to upgrade your alt if you put an e-fan on it, the stock alt's only 70A. I've got a 90A alt for a '93 Maxima (SOHC) on mine, bolted right up. I'm still running the clutch fan on mine. 5. I think I got the platinum NGK plugs for mine. Don't remember the numbers, whatever Rockauto said it took. Don't buy them on Amazon, sounds like they have a problem with people selling counterfeit spark plugs, because of course that's a thing. 6. They do use ATF. The early service manuals say to run the same oil that's in the transmission, but the later ones say to run ATF either way. 7. IIRC the 300ZX exhaust studs are supposed to be tougher. I have a set of those that I bought for mine years ago. Never got excited about putting them in. While you're messing with the exhaust, check for an exhaust leak from the Y pipe, blowing up at the floor. They tend to leak there, rust out the floor, and then set the carpet on fire. 8. These trucks aren't quick at the best of times, but the noise is worth tracking down. Could be a lot of things, tough to say without hearing it. Could be rattling heat shields on the exhaust, could be accessory or idler bearings going out. Your tuneup plans may help with the power. Check the timing while you're in there. I took an auto hub all to bits once, in hopes that a good clean and some fresh grease would bring it around. Turned out the clutch inside was worn way past spec, and the old grease was the only thing making it work as much as it did. The truck it was on had about half the mileage of yours. If you plan to use the four wheel drive, huck the auto hubs in the bin and get manual hubs! The autos were a neat idea, but there's a reason nobody makes them anymore. Oh, and download a service manual! The '90 manual from cardiagn.com is the closest to your year that I'm aware of.

Sounds like it's choking on fuel. The temp sensor would've been my first thought, too. I don't think the knock sensor code is causing the problem. Mine had that code and seemed like it ran just fine. I think it got a little power back with the new sensor, but I wouldn't swear to that. Are any plugs darker than the others? Does the oil smell like fuel? I'm wondering if you might have an injector leak. I would also check that the vacuum line from the pressure regulator to the intake isn't full of fuel. Any idea what the previous owner did/had done to it? Hopefully it doesn't have the same junk injectors @peejay is working with.

Yep, early (pre 4/'96) fill level was too low, which starves the countershaft bearings. There's a TSB for replacing the whole trans case with one that's got the fill hole about an inch higher up, but in the real world, you can just dump another 1.5L into it by removing the shifter. The original spec was 3.6L. New spec is 5.1L. Info/instructions here. Note the oil spec! Do not use a GL-5 rated oil.

The interlock prevents you from starting the truck with the clutch engaged (so you don't crank it in gear and lurch into the garage door). There's an interlock relay between the switch and the starter, and it won't connect the two wires together unless the clutch switch is closed. The interlock switch on the dash bypasses the clutch switch, allowing you to start it in gear (which I'm told can be useful in some off-road situations). I suggested trying that switch in case the clutch switch was bad. The black/yellow wire from the ignition switch runs to one contact in the relay. The other runs through black/pink to the starter motor. To connect the two, the relay's coil needs power from black/yellow (it just tees off from the other black/yellow, from the ignition switch) and ground from light green. Light green goes to the clutch switch, and the other side of the clutch switch is wired to a body ground. When you press the clutch, the switch grounds the relay. Then when you turn the key, the relay gets power, closes, and connects the key switch to the starter. Here's what I'd do. Locate the interlock relay. Oddly I don't see a relay by that name in the "location of electrical units" section, but I'm guessing it's the inhibitor relay (grey), second from the front of the line of relays behind the power steering reservoir. Should have two black/yellow wires, one black/pink wire, and one light green wire going into it. Figure out which connections go to which wires. Remove that relay and rig a test light or voltmeter between the pin wired to black/yellow (either one will do) and ground. Turn the key, and you should see power. If not, the circuit is broken between the key switch and the interlock, which is where the alarm system would be. If you do get power, rig a jumper from black/yellow to black/pink (across the contacts, bypassing the relay--do not jump to the relay coil pins!), and turn the key. If the starter still doesn't turn, that suggests black/pink is broken between the relay and the starter. There are two plugs, the one at the starter and one before that somewhere, so see if you can follow that wire. Look for loose connectors, corrosion, loose wires burned through against the exhaust, that kind of thing. If the starter does turn with the interlock relay bypassed, then either the relay is junk (sounds like you may have just replaced it?), or it's not getting ground on the light green wire. Light green at the relay runs to light green at the clutch switch. Black from the clutch switch goes to ground. The clutch switch should have continuity when the clutch is pressed. You could test that whole side of the circuit at once by rigging a test light between battery + and light green at the interlock relay. The light should come on when you press the clutch down. (Light green is one of the coil wires--the one that doesn't get +12v when you turn the key to start.) Worth noting, the clutch and brake switches (and the cruise control cancel switches, if equipped) have stupid little rubber bungs that they hit. The bung dries out, falls out, leaves a hole where it used to be, and then the switch doesn't work right. Tends to cause the brake lights to stay on. I haven't messed with a clutch switch in one of these (mine's automatic), but I wouldn't be surprised to find a similar failure. You might even find the bung on the carpet. Replacements are cheap. I doubt this is the problem, given it still didn't start with the interlock emergency switch on the dash flipped, but it's worth a look if your fault-finding ends up pointing at the clutch switch. Hell, given its age, it's probably worth checking them anyway.

HA-14 of the '99 manual says this is normal. The compressor varies its output internally (swash plate design) to keep the system at the required pressure, so it doesn't have to cycle. Looks like it only disengages if the HVAC is turned off, if it's too cold outside, or if there's a gas pressure issue.

Is that 12.7 on the fat wire from the battery, or the signal wire?

I removed it! The alarm was added after the truck was built, so it's pretty easy to take out, though you will have to pull some trim (and the driver's seat) to get it all. Most of it is just plugged in between things, so with it gone, the truck's harness plugs back into itself like the alarm was never there. The brain is under the driver's seat (square, white sticker on top, or a round hole with a button underneath if the sticker is gone), and its harness runs along the edge of the driver's side carpet to the A pillar, where it intercepts the power door lock wiring. Then it goes up into the column, where it intercepts the ignition switch. There are additional wires scotchlock'd into the park lights and dome light circuits, another plugged into the horn wiring, and a few wires through the firewall for the siren and the hood pin switch. These can all be cut, but if yours has fog lights, those wires are run through the firewall along with the siren wiring, so don't just chop that whole bundle. If you just want to bypass the alarm's control of the starter motor, you could just bypass it at the ignition switch (unplug ignition switch from alarm harness, unplug alarm harness from main harness, plug ignition switch into main harness) and be done with it. That would also take out the alarm's power source, so it would be effectively abandoned in place. Should work just as well. I was just done with mine and wanted it all gone. (I had previously bypassed the starter kill at the alarm end of the harness, and I was still having issues, so I knew the problem had to be in the harness or its plugs.) That's how it was on the four-doors I've been into. May or may not be accurate for your two-door. The service manual doesn't even mention this system, and the only service bulletin I've found that covers it (NTB93-036) only mentions '93. If it's got an aftermarket system, it's probably wired into the same things, but less delicately. If in doubt, follow black/yellow from the starter, and look for butt connectors, electrical tape, and Scotchlocks. I've got a paper copy of the '87 service manual, so let me know if you need a wiring diagram to put it right.

Accessories coming on means you have power to the ignition switch, and the accessory contact in the switch is working. The starter contact in the switch could still be messed up. Remove the steering column clamshell (carefully, they're brittle) and find the switch. It's on the ignition cylinder, opposite end from the key. It's got big exposed solder joints, so it's easy to test. Using a test light or voltmeter, check between where the black/yellow stripe wire connects to the switch and ground. You should have power there when the key is in the start position. If not, the switch is bad. Cheap part, easy to replace. If that's not it, there are some other things between the switch and the starter that could be acting up. Sounds like you tried the inhibitor relay already. Is yours auto or manual? If it's manual and 4x4, there should be a rocker switch on the dash that says "interlock." This bypasses the clutch safety switch, so if that's what's failed, flipping the switch should let you start it. If it's auto, try starting it in neutral instead of park on the off chance the inhibitor switch is playing up. I don't know if '87 had a car alarm or not, but that's what made the starter circuit act up on my '93.

I'm impressed it ran at all at 60* out!

At least it's not a telenovela. I don't remember enough Spanish to deal with that. I'd be surprised if an actual repair shop had one! A speed shop might. Seems like it would be easy enough to build one, but that's probably overkill just to laugh at an $11.67 injector pissing gas like the Sprite nozzle on a soda fountain. You might be able to redneck it, similar to one of the tests you suggested above--turning the distributor to make the injectors fire--but with the fuel rail propped up, out of the intake, with cups under it to catch the fuel. You wouldn't be able to check that the flow rate was correct, but you would be able to see if it's the same on all six, and check the spray pattern. Make damn sure the coil is unplugged from the harness if you attempt this test! IIRC the injectors fire in batch rather than sequential during startup, so don't be surprised if all six spray at once. Speaking of redneck, I saw a Hoonigan video a while back where they cleaned an injector with carb cleaner, a tire valve stem, and a 9v battery. Something to keep in your back pocket in case you find a stuck one or a bad flow pattern. Any fuel that was down the cylinders has probably either evaporated or run past the rings into the crankcase by now. Doesn't hurt to make sure, though. And yes, proper JIS drivers are a thing of beauty and a joy to behold.

There's a special tool for testing injectors. It's basically a fuel rail to feed the injectors, a circuit to drive the injectors, and a row of graduated cylinders for the injectors to spray into. The machine pulses the injectors, and the cylinders collect the fuel. While they're pulsing, you can confirm that the spray pattern looks good (nothing obviously clogged or dripping). When they stop, you look at how much fuel has collected in the cylinders. If you know what the injectors' flow rate should be, and you know how long they were open during the test, then you have your spec to check them against. Without that special tool, you could still check the flow rates against each other, but this would only tell you if they're consistent, not if they're correct. I guess you could swap one known good factory injector in place of one of the new ones and run the test again. Have you checked the spark plugs? Are all six spark plugs black or gas-soaked? If they all look rich, then either all of the injectors are wrong (which would make sense if the flow rate on your new set is incorrect), or a bad sensor reading is making the computer inject that much fuel on purpose (likely coolant temp). If only some of the plugs are rich, that suggests you've got bad injectors on those particular cylinders. The OE injectors have colored dots on them. I do not know what changed between the various colors, but it sounds like some of them may have different flow rates. I think blue dot and black dot are just different spray patterns, because some previous mechanic replaced one of mine with the wrong color, and it doesn't seem to care. But, yeah, ideally you want a matched set. My VG33 (which was previously swapped into another WD21, so it has the VG30 intake) has VG33 injectors in it. Different electrical connectors, but the same flow rate AFAIK. Not sure if that's the same thing you're looking at with the Z car injectors. But if you've got the injectors that the VG33 came with, I'd give those a shot. I haven't had to source an injector yet, so I'm no help there. I think @gamellott replaced one recently.

Painting a car properly is expensive and time consuming, and then you wince every time a bird craps on it. Unless the old paint has a message from your ex scratched in the side, or you know a guy at the body shop, I'd leave it alone. What about a wrap? I haven't priced it, but I'm guessing it's cheaper than paint, or people wouldn't do it. Chrome wrap is a thing too, if you want to do the bumpers. And if you don't like it, you can peel it off afterwards. But yeah, probably better to focus on the clapped internals before the clapped externals. Chrome vinyl wrap won't get you home.

So it sat, an injector failed, you replaced the injectors, and it hasn't been right since. I'm suspicious of the new injectors. If one or more are dumping fuel, that would explain the diluted oil (runs past the rings), the rough idle (because the flooded cylinders aren't contributing much), and the smoke. I'm also remembering the issues Cuong had with a set of cheap injectors a while ago. And how old is the gas it's trying to run on? If it's the same gas that's been in there since '21 (or before?), pull a fuel sample. Don't worry about the cam jump. Mine did that too. No harm done, apart from making me nervous. If you'd kept spinning it around, found a hard spot, and forced it past that hard spot with a breaker bar, then yeah, that would be a problem. But if it just jumped, and you rolled it back the way it came, then no, that shouldn't have hurt anything. I had a similar head scratcher with the distributor when I put mine back in. There were two spots that were close, but both seemed like they were half a tooth off. In the end I just picked one. I had enough room from there to adjust the timing to the spec'd 15 degrees. If that hadn't worked, I would've restabbed it to the other position and tried again.

Good, there's that ruled out then. Might still be worth checking cam to crank on the off chance. Looks like you're right about the bolts too. Been a minute since I did mine! If the hole lines up, and it looks like it does, I'd say you used the right gaskets. I don't see anything else weird in the pictures. Cam sprockets are on the right way around. I don't remember exactly where my rotor was pointing, but I remember trying it a tooth one way and then moving it back before I was happy with it. If it's pointing to where #1 is supposed to be on the cap, it should be good. I'm assuming you've checked ignition timing. How weird is it running? And what all has happened since it ran right?