Car just cranks ?

[Jairo2000]

Hi guys, I'm new at the forum. I was wondering if any of you guys can help me out, well recently my pathfinder 95 has been dieing out after 5-10 mins of idle. Then when I try to start it, all it does is just cranks after waiting for like a minute or so, it starts up fine. Can this possibly be the fuel pump? Or fuel pump relay? I did a self-diagnostic & got a 55. How does the fuel pump sound like when starting up? I really don't know what the problem is. Any help is much greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance

[Cuong Nguyen]

check to make sure none of your vacuum hoses are not rotted and leaking. There's one in the back of the upper intake manifold that connects to the fuel pressure regulator. The hose is near the firewall.

There's also the possibility that your fuel filter is clogged. when you turn the key on, you should hear your fuel pump prime.

[SpecialWarr]

Depending on the condition of the pump, it could be a quiet whirring sound with the rear seats up and stuff in the back. It gets quite noticeable with the seats all the way down with the carpet pulled up and the cover off. Grab the key, lock the driver's side seatbelt and turn the ignition to ON (second detent) and you should hear only the pump run for two seconds or so. Obviously have the radio off before you start this very precise procedure, since it can never be replicated! LOL!

[Slartibartfast]

Does sound like the fuel system.

 

If you can have someone else turn the ignition on, and listen from under the tank, you should be able to hear the pump from under there. If you want you can also check the pump connections through that cover under the rear carpet. Bad/loose wiring could be heating up as the pump runs and breaking contact.

 

When it is running, does it choke/die under load? If so then yeah, do the fuel filter. If not, well, wouldn't hurt to do the filter, but I doubt it's that.

 

Vac lines, similar story, worth checking but probably not the cause. The pressure regulator vac line was unhooked on my '93 when I got it and it didn't stall randomly at idle. It didn't run very well, either, but that was because the MAF was mostly blocked off by a rat's nest.

I've heard of a bad coolant temp sensor making the engine stall out once it warms up, and then start fine again when it's cooled down. I would expect that to take more than a minute or so to cool down before it'll restart though. You might check the temp sensor and its connector if you run out of other ideas. It's the one with two wires on the coolant neck that goes to the top tank on the radiator.

 

[SpecialWarr]

 

I've heard of a bad coolant temp sensor making the engine stall out once it warms up, and then start fine again when it's cooled down. I would expect that to take more than a minute or so to cool down before it'll restart though. You might check the temp sensor and its connector if you run out of other ideas. It's the one with two wires on the coolant neck that goes to the top tank on the radiator.

 

 

 

Mine had a broken connector and I'd had an odd problem like this, I just bought a new one and swapped it in ten minutes, touched up the slide pins inside the connector and it hasn't moved in 2 years.