WERNER1

Whew,... that seemed pretty difficult to get my first 15 post in and actually try and contribute some useful information in them

Warning: Long and Detailed post

Ok... here's the deal - I've got a 1990 GXE. Several years ago the timing belt slipped while I was going down the highway about 65mph and you all know what that does to the valve train on these motors .... SO,.. I ended up letting the vehicle sit for a few years and about 2 years ago I finally got around to having the heads gone through and all that good stuff (The lower end only had about 70k on it.. ) Once that was all put back together I ran into SEVERAL problems involving injectors and the wiring harness - Turns out that you can actually swap/switch around some of the connectors on these Maxima's .. ended up messing up my ECM and was only letting 3 of my injectors fire properly (Anybody else ever run into this problem???) .. That was a HARD one to track down and find that's for sure!

Well I finally got that all straightened out and things were working pretty good for the most part for about 2 years ... aside from having to totally go through the whole front end and axles and bearings...... ....

So now on to more current events.... Back in November I'm leaving for Church no less on a Sunday morning and about a block away from my house the car just up and dies,... now knowing the history of this car I knew that it wasn't going to be something "Simple" ... I push it back to my house and pop the hood,..look down at the crank pully,... well that looks odd,... the end of the crankshaft broke right off! (I'll post pics of that later...) ... Since I don't have a nice big garage anymore do to some downsizing I had to do because of the loss of my job .. .. well this project would have to be undertaken outside in the driveway - So, I waited till the winter months were over...

I was able to secure a good used motor through some contact of mine in the salvage industry around here,... I was assured that this motor came out of a running car that was wrecked in the rear. The motor had been sitting in the warehouse for a little over a year - No other info was available on it though (Milage and stuff like that...) The motor looked good and clean though. It also appeared that the timing belt and water pump had recently been changed as well as other signs of regular maintenance were there .... So I gave them my 400 bucks and took the motor..

Since time is a precious commodity for my I've only been able to dedicate small windows of time to this project over the past couple of months, but I did finally get the old motor out and the "new" one in .. I went to fire it up this past Sunday (in the rain no less ) and it wouldnt' start...

Now getting to the point of this whole thread ...

It's acting like it did the last time I did this whole motor thing,.... like only a few of the injectors are firing,.. I can sort of get it to start, but it's missing and bucking like a bronco. Unfortunately I haven't had the time to test the injectors and plugs to see if all that is in good working order, but I AM confident that the engine is in perfect time (Well 8 deg. BDTC) as I double and tripple checked all of that when I had it out on the stand.

It really seems like I've got that wiring harness backwards again,.. but I thought I was pretty careful about marking that stuff when I took it all apart ... but I was in a hurry,..so who knows..

Things I know I need to do first:

1. Measure the injectors and see if they spec out ok

2. Check the injector elec. plugs with a noid light and see if they are firing properly (This is how I figured out the wiring harness problem the last time..)

3. Check/change plugs to make sure they're all good - I had put some Marvel Mystery Oil in the cylinders and rotated the engine a BUNCH to try and lube the cylinders and prime the oil pump.. may have oil fouled the plugs (?)

That's about what I know for sure that needs to be done troubleshooting this problem,.. anybody got any other suggestions?

It'll probably be Sat. before I get back out on this thing as I'm super busy with work right now..

Thanks in advance,.. and sorry for the painfully long post

Rick

maximaman1313

what parts did you swap to the "new" motor and what parts did you keep on it?

Greeny

iTrader: (43)

8 degrees eh?

15 Degrees is stock timing on 3rd gens....

Definitely do your 1 through 3 list of things, you will most likely find your problem there, but before doing any of that set the timing to stock..

WERNER1

Parts Swapped over:

Distributer, cap, wires, plugs
Throttle body assembly and inlet tube
Exhaust manifolds

That's really about it

15 deg.?? .. that figures!.. them idiots at "Hanes" manuals should be shot!!.. I was looking up the firing order and dist. rotation in my manual by them,. .. and both of those were wrong!... they had the rotation backwards on the rotor, and the firing order (Must have been for earlier gen. cars I'm guessing,... but still if the book covers the 3 gen. cars,.. then show the info all ready!) ..

Ok,.. I'll set it at 15 BTDC

James92SE

iTrader: (31)

Wow, I'm surprised you could even "sort of" get it it to start with the timing at 8 degrees. I would bet that right there would be the brunt of your issues.

But anyways, Haynes sucks. IMO I'd go Chilton over Haynes. Of course, nothing beats the FSM - a wise investment indeed.

Greeny

iTrader: (43)

FSM on pdf..---> http://boredmder.com/FSM/Nissan/Maxima/1994/

WERNER1

Whoa!.. .thanks for the FSM!!! ... I'm guessing all that info is current for 89-94?

I did catch a glitch if you will,... it's on the firing order,.. in the FSM I read where it's like 1-2-3-4-5-6 (???)... but mine is :

1-6-2-4-3-5 its is a counter clockwise firing dist.

WHat up with dat?

GRNMAXDMON

iTrader: (1)

did you read that off the dist. cap? our firing order is 1,2,3,4,5,6. another thing is that if the motor has been sitting around for more than a year then one or more of the injectors will be stuck open or closed and then you would have to replace them.

recently i replaced wires and plugs on mine and the next day the car was misfiring. if i remember correctly i think i had NGK platinums in there but now i went with just the regular NGK's. don't know if that might have caused my misfire which then led to a busted injector in cylinder 2. i went ahead and took out the fuel rail and pulled the bad injector but can't seem to find the colored dot. so i went to Nissan and ordered one with either a green dot or yellow dot. can't remember now. none of my other injectors have the damn colored dot so im just biting the bullet right now and hope that the one i get from the dealer will work fine.

WERNER1

Firing Order - Yeah,.. off the cap and the web. ... ???

Injectors - That's my fear - That they may be "Stuck" either open or closed. At this point I'd say closed as a small shot of starting fluid into the air filter raises the idle a bit. I'm not super worried about it as I've got the ones off of the old motor just sitting there, but I really didn't want to get into all that again,... last time I messed with all that it took like three times to get it all straightened out (Another injector died about a week after I had just had it all apart and installed another new injector... .and then after I did the next injector I must have buggered up one of the orings and it was puking gas into the cylinder ... so I had to take is all apart each time AND get new gaskets each time )

GRNMAXDMON

iTrader: (1)

ok if you got it off the cap, that will not be your firing order. just go to the .pdf file thats on here for the FSM and it'll tell you. i know how it feels taking your intake apart each time an injector craps out. sucks that each time you do it you have to replace the damn gaskets.

CapedCadaver

iTrader: (8)

the cap "firing order" is not exactly what you think it is. see, the position of the posts is not the firing order on our caps, cuz the leads criss-cross underneath. so the firing order is 1-2-3-4-5-6 if you follow the leads out to their respective posts.

WERNER1

This whole firing order is messing with my head.....

The only thing I can figure is that each individual spark plug wire "tower" on the cap is some how routed to a different position on the interior of the cap,.. I seem to recall this with the #1 plug wire tower,.. if you line the rotor up with where the "tower" is,.. it will not be correct as the actual contact/pickup point is about an inch and a half away from there ...

I'll have to pop the cap off again and see what exactly is going on under there..

(The dealer confirmed 1-2-3-4-5-6 as well )

DanNY

iTrader: (14)

yes that is correct.
the 135 and 246 are opposite banks so the dist wires goes there but you have to look under to check.

if you swapped the actual distributor did you put the distributor in correctly?

IMO if you're doing a swap just put in the basics...timing belt and etc, wp, plugs, cap, rotor, wires, and then just fire it up. it should "run" if not then call the yard and tell them you got a busted motor regardless of injector fail or not.

WERNER1

Yeah,.. I got it now,.. You've got to admit that's a pretty goofy set up (yes/no?)

Distributor - Yes, it's in correctly ( #1 cylinder is coming up on the comp. stroke, rotor pickup is facing the #1 cap pickup inside the cap ) ..

Oh, and a little correction to something I posted in the original starting post for this thread: Ignition timing is set at 20 deg. BTDC,(It's an Automatic Tranny) not 8 deg. like I had mentioned earlier ... I must have been talking Chevy's with my Brother in Law or something

I picked up some new NGK plugs this morning,.. .but it's been raining here all day ,.. maybe tomorrow if it's nice, I'll trying and pull the old plugs and see what tails they tell ,... .maybe ohm out the injectors as well..

Thanks a bunch guys for all of your help on this project thus far

Rick

Oh - In regards to the warranty - .. well it only had a 30 day warranty,... it took me longer than that time frame to get old motor out due to lack of time to dedicate to this project .. ..

CMax03

iTrader: (3)

You're definitely talking something other than a Nissan V6...It's been 1,2,3,4,5,6 since 1984, Nissan introduction of thier first V-6....before most of you were alive!

WERNER1

Well to the average person who would look down at this cap,... what do you think they would say the firing order was?



You know your going to have a bad day when you open your hood and look down to see this:






Hmm... in 1984 I was racing Big Block Fords - Good Times!

Greeny

iTrader: (43)

Broken crank snouts happen from overtightened accessory belts. Be sure to not over tighten them on the next engine.

GRNMAXDMON

iTrader: (1)

tell me about it. i ended up swapping injectors, ECU, and all other junk that at the end of the day when i decided to pull the motor thats when i noticed that crank fell to the ground. luckily my '93 was getting a newer engine so i pulled the motor out of my '93 and swapped it into my old '89 SE and sold the car. but it was a fun and interesting experience.

WERNER1

Now who in the world would over tighten their accessories belts and pulleys!?!? ..



Yeah,... but that AC Compressor pulley sure quit squealing right up until the crank snapped

GRNMAXDMON

iTrader: (1)

the idiot who owned my '89 SE before me. his dumbass sold me the car because he thought he blew a head gasket??? when in turn it was actually a water heater hose that popped. i can't complain cuz i gave him $400 for the car. it was already lowered on 17" momo wheels with dtm dual exhaust. i fixed it and sold it for $1250.

WERNER1

Ok... did some testing today...

First thing I did was check the wiring harness and injector pulses to make sure I didn't have something wired backwards like the last time I did this ...

Using the Noid lights, all 6 injector connectors were getting the right signal and pulsing correctly.. .. now on to the injectors...

All of the contacts on the injectors were very corroded ... so much so that I was having a hard time getting a reading off of them.. I painstakingly cleaned each contact with a thinly cut strip of emery cloth folded over a small standard screwdriver blade... this proved to work very well and made the job pretty easy for the most part. Once I had all of the connections cleaned, I measured each one... here's the results:

1 = 0(open)
2 = 10.7
3 = 13.5
4 = 0
5 = 12
6 = 38.7 (???)

To me it looks like 2,3, & 5 seem to be ok as they fall into with in the factory 10-14ohm specs,.. but the other three... ???

Looks like I'll be pulling the upper end apart and taking some of the injectors off of my old motor and putting them in this one = Yet another set of gaskets and some o-rings

Anybody got some good hook ups on an intake gasket set and the O-rings? ...

My frustration level with this car has about come to it's boiling point,.. the wife's on me every day,.. and everyday another/new problem arises with the vehicle .... I think I might just roll it out into the street and torch it!

mrkanda

iTrader: (3)

I had good luck with a "JDM" set of injectors still in the fuel rail that I got with an intake manifold I purchased on eBay a few years ago. The injectors all tested good and installed perfectly and even ran well in the car after I figured out the timing issues. I didn't even have to use new O-rings... So, go test some at the JY for your cheapest solution or look for something on fleaBay Good luck! You're in the home stretch!

WERNER1

Well I'm finally getting around to changing out those three injectors that are bad in my "New" motor ... Since I'm taking them out of my old motor,.. well at least I know what I'm getting

At one point a few years back I had replaced two of the injectors on my Old motor and wasn't sure which ones they were,.. but after pulling the upper intake sections off, I can clearly see that the two new ones had a slightly different looking connector surface/shape (I'll take pics of those later...) ..

Hopefully by the end of the day today this thing will finally be up and running ... hopefully.

Rick

maximaman1313

just a tip, use dealership o-rings for the injectors. they are cheap and better quality than ones you'll get at parts store.

WERNER1

Too late for that,.. but thanks anyway ...

Well I found 3 injectors on my old motor that test good,.. got them pulled out and cleaned up..

Just got the upper end apart on the "new" motor,.... but I'm going to test all of those injectors again before I start ripping things apart,... I only want to do this job once

Rick

WERNER1

WTH!?!?!?!?...

Ok,.. my old motor ran PERFECT before the crank end snapped off,.. no problems what so ever,... that was a few months ago..

Now out 6 "good" injectors,.... only 3 "Test" good,... so I take them 3,.. clean them up, put new orings on,.. install them,... and right before I decided to put the upper end back together I decide to test all of them again,... low and behold now one of the ones that I just installed test bad!?!? ... so now only two injectors off of a perfectly good working/running motor test good!?!? .. that seems highly unlikely (??) but I'm not one to take chances and I sure as heck do not want to pull this stupid thing again apart yet one more time,... I want all six of them to test good BEFORE I put it together...

Isn't there some sort of bench test you can do by hooking up 12v's to each on and physically see if the cellinoid is actuating? ,.. .. what would the amperage requirements be for this so that you wouldn't damage one of them???

Rick

internetautomar

iTrader: (30)

a motor can run "fine" on "bad" injectors. the question is how long for, and if it is really running fine

WERNER1

Well I've been the owner of this car since 96, and I can tell in the seat of my pants when it's running "fine" or not,... I've changed out injectors in the past when they've went bad,.. but it seems very suspicious that 4 injectors would go bad just from sitting for 3 months (???) ..

Called around and found a re-man one for 95 bucks instock,.... I was like "Screw it, I want to get this thing done today!",... so I drive all the way across town to the store.... "Uh,..we don't have any, but we can order one for you" ... Dude's lucky I didn't have a gun on me right then or I would have ventilated him! ... Nobody else around here has one instock.... so I'll have to wait another week until I have time to work on it AND get some more parts..

I can get my Brother's shop's discount through his store,.. and I think he quoted me like 65 bucks for a New one,... I'll call over there tomorrow,.. ..

In the meantime, if someone has some info on some more extensive way's to test the injectors,.. well I'm all ears (Though about doing the Live Fuel Rail test,.. but I really didn't want to unseat all of them... )

Thanks,
Rick

WERNER1

My brother just called,.. his cost on the injector is 39.00 plus tax ...SWEeeeeT!

GRNMAXDMON

iTrader: (1)

sweet deal, now hope that injector is going to last longer cuz i have seen them take a crap in matter of days even though its new. i didn't take the chance when this happened to me 3 weeks ago so i just went to the dealer and order it and paid $130 with new o-rings. the only way i tested them before i installed everything again is what you stated in your earlier post about running 12v directly to them and you will hear the solenoid click. luckily the other 5 injectors are fine and i just had to replace one. now here is the thing i took a chance on this because i didn't know what color dot my originals were. Greeny and others on here said that the color dots are just spray patterns nothing else. so i ended getting a pink top with yellow dot. now my other ones are actually tan tops and no color dots. obviously the dots wore off over time. so i got lucky with the yellow top. and it has bee working fine for me now.

internetautomar

iTrader: (30)

Can you say PYTHON?
can you say 12 out of 12 defects?
have fun

WERNER1

I wouldn't think you could run a test right off of the Battery!?!?... that'd be WAY too many amps I'd think,..

My brother says he's got an Injector tool that they use that you hook up to the battery and you can individually "pulse" the injectors ,.. I'm going to borrow that from him before I button everything back up,... Like I said,. I don't want to be messing around with this again that's for sure (Second time already! ) .... Give me a highrise and a four barrel anyday!

Rick

Oh,.. and I just tested the "new" injector from my Brothers supplier,.. it ohm'd out at 11.9 - I is a "GB Remanufacturing Inc. " product (???)

GRNMAXDMON

iTrader: (1)

yeah, i know it isn't a good idea to supply direct 12V from the battery to the injector but i had no choice and no other way to test it. i need to buy that tool for the injectors.

CapedCadaver

iTrader: (8)

it's still nothing but a cleaned-up reboxed core. It's in spec now, but will it be in spec tomorrow?

Perspective: in october 2008, i had 6 injectors that all ohmed at exactly 12.4ohm (well within the 14ohm upper limit). 4 months later, 3 of them were dead (1 snapped coil, 2 others WAY out of spec).

internetautomar

iTrader: (30)

actually cleaning AKA Rebuilding/remanufacturing them typically causes much more rapid failure than leaving them alone.

WERNER1

Great!.. ....

Well I'll just have to take my chances I guess,... if all else fails I'll run down to the local salvage yard and grab a bucket full of ones that spec out ok,..

Rick

internetautomar

iTrader: (30)

you will have more good ones in that bucket than you will see out of reman ones.

WERNER1

Define Irony....

As it turns out,.. one of the "Good" ones from my old motor was one of the Two remans I had replaced about 3 years ago ... So I guess I got about a 50/50 chance of this new one working out huh? ..

WERNER1

IT'S ALIVE!

Man it's been a while,... but since the car is outside,,.. and it's been raining EVERY time I've had time to work on it,... well needless to say it's been a long and drawn out process

Anyway,,.. checked all the injectors before I buttoned everything back up... all's good,... go to fire it up.... and it fires up... It was smoking a bit due to the Marvels Mystery Oil I had poured into the cylinders to lube them up an crank the engine over by hand... Plus when I pulled the injectors there was a lot of gas from the fuel rail that ran down into those cylinders ..

I could tell that the engine had a miss,..so after some further examination (Pulling plug wires one at a time..) .. I found the culprit to be #3 cylinder.. ... Ok,... with all the oil and what not,.. might have just fouled a plug ... Yeah right... after replacing the plug,.. and checking the injector firing pulse,.. that #3 injector is not working,.. and it's one that "Tested" good ( 13.5 ohms) ... So I checked it with the meter and it's sitting at 15.5 now..

The good news is that the engine seems to be a "good one" .. no smoke after my Mystery oil cleared up,.. and no puff of smoke this morning when I fired it up again..

I think I'm going to run the thing for about a month and see if that injector comes back to life (I've had that happen several times in the past..) if not.... and the engine is still giving me that warm and gushy feeling inside,. I'll break down and buy another injector and swap it out..

It's just such a relief to know that the engine for the most part is a good one

Rick

WERNER1

Ok,.. final update ... I hope anyway..

I was going to just drive the car for a bit to see if the other bad injector "straightened up",.. I even tried to "shock" that injector by pulsing it with a high amperage 12V jolt(s) ,.. but neither worked,..

I finally bit the bullet and bought another re-man injector and another set of gaskets,..

got that all changed and swapped out yesterday .. all went well, and all 6 are firing now ... Man I'm SOOooooo glad to have this thing back up and running as it's been down since late Nov. .. and we've been down to one vehicle all this time.

I ran the car around town and out on the highway for a couple of hours yesterday,.. then changed the oil and got some fresh gas in it,.. the thing idles smooth as glass and has a good amount of pep to it (All though not as much as my old motor,. but I new heads on it that were milled down a bit too )

Looks like I'll end up keeping it for at least another year or more... so I guess I'll look to you guys for some support on some of the piddly things that I need to fix on it here in the near future..

Thanks again!
Rick