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After the car sits overnight or through a work day it cranks fine but stumbles a lot and dies. It also makes a strange creaking noise after it cranks which you can hear when the rpms fall after the start, not belts, and seems to be coming from the drivers side of the engine compartment. Thoughts? The vid is of a cold start no gas pedal this AM.
Check the cold idle plunger and linkage. Make sure the plunger is working, and the linkage is opening the throttle plate slightly when the coolant temperature is cool.
I've had this similar problem and found that oil and dirt on the Crankshaft Position Sensor (REF) creates this problem. Try cleaning the top of the sensor and checking that the teeth on the crankshaft pulley are also clean and able to be read by the sensor.
If you remove the sensor to clean it, double check the resistance (470-570 ohms).
See pages EC-336 thru 340 in the 1998 Maxima Service Manual for extra help.
Good luck.
Wanted to revive this I am having more issues see vids. Does not happen 100% of the time usually when cold after sitting over night, then if I drove 4 miles or so and run into the store or gym it will do it again. Sits 3 min or 1.5 hrs dosnt matter. Sometimes it will pop like small backfires then sometimes it wont. Recent maintenance has been valve cover seals, spark plug tube seals, OEM NGK plugs, fuel pressure regulator, cleaned throttle body, cleaned and regreased starter. I have not checked fuel economy but I think it has been worse for maybe the last two tank fulls. I will check it when I fill up next. Mileage is about 98400. I did clean the Crank Position Sensor back in 2014. It has been doing this ever since with slight changes for the worse.
Now that looks like a nice clean low miles 98 model. Would you like to sell it?
I could sure use a nice 98 model like that one. Ok- just kidding.
If I had your car, here are a few things I would do to try to find the problem.
1) I would clean and inspect the front and rear crank position sensors. I see you did this in 2014. However, if you are having a starting problem, the rear can pickup metal fragments from starter wear. I found metal shavings on my 99 models rear CKPS after a long starting battle caused by leaking injectors and a failing EGR valve.
2) I would run a fuel pressure leak down test to verify you are not losing fuel (and pressure) through a leaking injector o-ring or broken pintle cap. I noticed your fuel economy has dropped. Are you seeing any white smoke from the exhaust or excessive gas fumes after starting? As our cars age, the o-rings and injector pintle caps begin to deteriorate.
Sending the injectors out for service is a great way to extend the life of your vehicle and avoid having excessive flooding and catalytic converter problems in the future. There are threads from "The Wizard", "Turbobink", and "CS_AR" (me) on broken injector pintle cap replacement. If you own your 4th gen long enough, you'll be getting your injectors serviced someday.
2) Has the EGR valve and tube been cleaned? Though EGR valves tend to through codes, I had a failing EGR valve that would not close that caused a vacuum leak that made the car unpredictably hard to start.
If you live near a Harbor Freight, I purchased a $20 fuel pressure testing kit from them several years ago that has been worth its weight in gold for diagnosing fuel pressure issues.
Note is a section in the Field Service Manual (FSM) for running a fuel pressure test. I would start by searching on fuel pressure test.
That sounds like a bad fuel pressure regulator that is no longer holding the fuel pressure like it should. Also it could a Pintle cap that has broken off the injector and is causing fuel pressure to leak into the piston while the car is off because the Pintle cap holds the o-ring together to seal the injector from leaking fuel pressure. But then again if that was the case you would also have a misfire and fouled spark plug. That definitely sounds like a bad fuel pressure regulator because that's what happened to me when mine was bad. Overnight it would not hold pressure like it should and during the day I would have problems starting too after only an hour or two of sitting. Last and most importantly have you opened your fuel injectors if so then you did not properly seat them and which is also causing the pressure to leak past the upper o-ring of the injector. This also was one of my problems when a mechanic had installed my injectors and didn't properly seat them and just screwed them in and I had replaced every sensor and fuel pump and regulator but it was the injectors not being seated properly in the fuel rail causing them to leak fuel from the top of the injector and if you put your ear real close to the injector you could hear the fuel pressure leaking from past the o-ring. Last if none of these things solve your issues then try the fuel pump. As for the sensors go, the crank sensor has never caused me any starting issues when it failed and I know that it failed because one it causes your engine to misfire badly while driving on the highway as it tells which cylinders to fire in order and second your check engine light flashes as well. But the car will still start. As long is it has fuel pressure it will start. To me it looks like fuel pressure issues and not sensors. Your car only has 90,000 miles and still didn't touch none of my sensors and I had 300,000 miles and I just replaced my crank, Engine coolant temperature because it was rusted and falling apart due to coolant, my knock sensor twice.
update
This AM was about the longest it has taken to start, cranked for about five seconds with a backfire/pop, craned another four-five seconds with two small backfires/pops, cranked about three seconds and it fired up. No check engine light.
Today I took off the IAC and EGR tube cleaned and reinstalled. So tomorrow I will see how it starts. EGR was not blocked.
Fuel economy seems a little low compared to what I remember, 20mpg as of today with mostly outer suburbia driving. Four mile trips three stop signs mostly. usually shifting about 3k rpm.
To date:
OEM fuel pressure regulator
New OEM NGK plugs
Cleaned throttle body, IAC, EGR tube, and starter.
If it was a pump wouldnt it happen all the time? After the engine fires I smell raw gas and the only time I have any kind of strange issues is at WOT about 4500 rmp it will hicup.
Did you check the fuel injectors to see if the Pintle caps were still on or broken. If there broken that's where you smell the raw gas coming from because the fuel injectors Pintle cap has broke off which is supposed to keep the fuel pressure from leaking down into the cylinder and on to the spark plug when the car is off. But now that it's broken, raw fuel leaks down into the cylinder causing the car to backfire and cause hard starts and possible misfire. Check your spark plugs to get an indication which injector is leaking by seeing if the plug is black with carbon.
Well... driving home 40mph 2k check engine throws 0302 EGR System High/Low Flow and 0304 Knock Sensor codes. Not sure if these correspond to my starting issues or how but there ya go. Going to pull the plugs tonight and give them a look.
Reading all this I'd have to believe you have a fuel delivery problem. Fuel pump, fuel pressure regulator or injector(s). To me the symptoms of the smell of gas, deteriorated economy, back firing, and trouble starting indicate a rich fuel scenario caused by a failure of one or more of those components. A quick look at the spark plugs could tell the tale. Clean whip BTW. CS AR might have competition there. J/K. That guy's Max is friggin' immaculate, dayum. NAS keep us updated.
I just saw in the pics that your car is a manual. Did you ever have the clutch replaced or tranny dropped? If you did, I remember there's was thread that said that he had a starting problem and it turned out to be a bad ground connection from the transmission bell housing where there are some ground wires. It said that the bell housing needed to be sanded or cleaned to get a better connection.
FC9002335
Symptom: Long crank before starting.
Description: Vehicle would crank for long time before starting and would occasionally sound as if the timing was too far advanced.
Root Cause: Poor engine ground between tranny and engine.
Service Procedure: Fabricate a 10 gauge wire jumper between 1 of upper bell housing bolts and 1 of lower engine oil pan bolts.
Source: Nissan NA"
COMMENT: My car has this jumper installed already.
"FC9002906
Symptom: Engine is hard to start sometimes.
Description: Engine is hard to start and a popping sound, like engine is out of time, can be heard.
Root Cause: Possible electrical noise caused by different electrical ground voltage levels in engine block, oil pan and tranmission castings.
Service Procedure: Check all tranny-to-engine mounting bolts and installed and torqued to specs. If problem remains, remove tranny, clean mounting faces on engine and tranny. Reassemble and torque to specs.
Source: Tim Brunet, Nissan NA"
Never done anything with the tranny, also have a home made grounding kit installed. Dont really have any corrosion issues but ill check grounds anyway.
Agreed, plugs look good. And that thing amazingly clean for its age, still running the original upper rad hose clamps woot. Looks like a remaned MAF. If so is the continuity good at the connector.
I had such a similar problem for years. I only had trouble with cold starts, and always had to smash the accelerator in order to keep it from stalling/dying. I even had the gas smell so I was suspecting a fuel pump problem. Changed the ignition switch and had the same problem. Before I went and bought anymore parts i put a wrench on my starter and battery ground connections, twisted a few times and have been starting beautifully ever since.
I thought I would revisit this thread in hopes someone has an idea, I am still having issues.
Recap to date, recently replaced items:
OEM fuel pressure regulator
New OEM NGK plugs
Cleaned throttle body, IAC, EGR tube, and starter.
Last strange thing was that I was trying to recreate the hesitation at over 4k rpm and it threw a Crank pos sensor with knock sensor codes. I took out the CPS cleaned both of them put them back in resent the CEL. Car still has the hesitation but no codes since.
Lately when starting first thing it will crank a little ling and fire up sometimes with a tiny pop from exhaust. After driving where I need to go I would stop. If I did whatever I need to do and get back in the car cranks and pops cranks pop pop. Today I didn't think it was going to start at all just cranks with random pops after trying five or six times with the same results it cranked pop and started thank GOD! Drive it back home and waited a couple minutes cranked and loud pop but it started, repeated this a couple times same result.
Now I still have hesitation issues over 4k rpms but now it seems to be anytime I go full throttle it has hesitation not real bad but noticeable. I had another use OEM MAF and swapped that in. Still have long starts with intermittent pops.
Went back out today and it started up normally, went for a drive to see if the hesitation was still there and it is but I cant seem to consistently replicate it. I dont know at this point if the different MAF will solve the starting issue but it seems to as of two starts but not the hesitation around 4300rpm.
02-28-2014, 06:06 PM
