1988 Sentra help...

[dave68]

Hi Folks,

My wife and I have a 1988 Nissan Sentra, 1.6 FI with a 4 speed manual transmission. We just put 85k on it last week. For years, it would sit, only being driven once or twice a week.

Now that it's a daily driver, we are running into peculiar stalling problem.

In May, 2003, it started to stall as I came to slow stop at every stop sign. No chugging, no sputtering, it would just stall as I stopped, and all the dash lights would come on.

We had it looked at and a local Japanese mechanic tried to diagnose and fix the problem, though he admitted he was not sure what caused it.

Problem was fixed, temporarily. From May until October, it would stall only once a week. We had it looked at again, changed the fuel filter and cleaned the injectors. It stalled at the first light as I pulled away from a new shop. They too were not sure what it could be.

Finally, this last weekend, as I drove down the freeway, the fuel cut out entirely, at 55mph! I tried to pump my gas peddle and there was no reaction. It was bucking hard too. I pulled over, waited 15 minutes and was able to chug to a gas station. (I had just filled up that morning too). It ran well for 3 more days, not even hinting at a stall, until last night. Driving at 50mph, it chugged, and started to lose power again. As I pumped the gas peddle, it would react to about every over pump. We limped home and took it to another shop.

Heard back from the mechanic. After running it for hours, driving and testing it as much as they could ... they could not reproduce the stalling. Doh! Our fear is that we are going to get stranded on the freeway sometime soon if this is not fixed.

Would anyone in the Nissan world have an idea of what might be occurring or what I should have looked at or fixed next? The mechanic, did throw out a wild guess, saying he wondered if it might be "the distributor, a common problem with sentras" I appreciated his thought, but wondered, could a bad distributor really cause the stalling like I have been experiencing?

Any comments, idea or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks much,
Cheers,
dave

[B12er]

Hey Dave,

I am having the exact same problem as you are, annoying isn't it.
I am friends with several nissan mechanics and they are stumped too. There are several things that i tried and most were just temporary fixes, the problem still haunts me.
The best thing i did was to maintain my coolent at all times. These B12 sentra's do not run well if your fuel sending unit is not recieving coolent. Make sure that your coolent is not leaking.

If you find the cure for this problem please let me know.

[nacho_nissan]

sell them and get B13's

[Jared592]

Could be a bad PCV

[Joey_77]

Take the oxygen sensor off. My car is carburated and I removed the oxygen sensor and plugged the vacuum hose and no more problems.