# Oil in Distributor Other Death Where to look...



## scottt (Jul 2, 2006)

OK i have searched this forum till it hurts please clear up this question on oil in dist prob.

1996 altima driving down road fine and just died, happend 2x then restarted fine
Idling last night and died will not restart. Idle had been a little rough for last couple of weeks tach bouncing 25 rpms or so.

Today replaced, fuel filter, plugs, plug wires, dist cap, rotor. Won't start, hear fuel pump pumping, is getting spark. will run for 1 second make a horrible sound and die.

There was NO oil in dist cap.

is the oil we are looking for to be seein in Cap or do you need to pull whole distributor to check for oil???

Any other thoughts on this sudden death of an otherwise reliable car.


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## Asleep (Jan 19, 2003)

the oil in the dis can be seen, if its there, by removing the rotor and checking under the black dust cap there... have you tried running your ecu for codes? you could also be having MAF issues.


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## scottt (Jul 2, 2006)

No i assume i need to goto shop / dealer to run ECU, going to do that monday. What is MAF? Thanks


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## Asleep (Jan 19, 2003)

MAF is Mass Air Flow sensor. theyre another common item with the altimas. 
the ECU you can do all by yourself. only takes a couple minutes.
http://www.troublecodes.net/Nissan/

the ecu is located right of the gas pedal behind the plastic cover on the center console. be very careful not to over turn the little screw. when the screw stops - thats it.


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## I'm3rd (Dec 24, 2003)

If your distributor is leaking oil it will be easy to spot. I just replaced the distributor on my '94 which was leaking oil. It had dripped oil all over the engine underneath the distributor and the bottom of the inside of the distributor housing was very oily. The car ran fine, but I was afraid it would quit on my wife out on the freeway somewhere if it wasn't replaced. Hope yours is OK, mine set me back $389 for the part plus $25 labor to install it. 

It seems to me that Nissan should take some respnsibilty for replacing these distributors even for older cars like mine by reducing the ridiculously high price on rebuilt units. They must have known that the distributors were leaking all over the place and yet they continued to build them that way for years after the leak problem appeared on the earlier models.


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## Asleep (Jan 19, 2003)

or, you can buy it at autozone for about 160 and replace it whenever you feel like it...


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