# 89 Sentra No START



## Sentradood (Oct 27, 2011)

1989 nissan sentra 1.6 GA16i A/T
141k original miles. been driving fine ever since i got it at 96k miles.
The car was in a hurricane but was not flooded, i did drive through a monster puddle but after all that the car still ran fine for 2-3 weeks. One day going to leave from work my car would not start, Cranks very strong but no combustion.

New tune up, new distributor, new fuel pump, new ecu,
took it to a mechanic buddy and he told me there was no injector pulse, i looked as far as i could on ALLDATA/OnDemand5 and seems the only thing that controls the injector is the ECU. Could it just be a bad injector?


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## Sentra_Classic (Nov 3, 2011)

I had a ECU go bad on an '89 one time. Pull it, and have it diagnosed.


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## jdg (Aug 27, 2009)

> I had a ECU go bad on an '89 one time. Pull it, and have it diagnosed.


Where?
Exactly which company/business did you have in mind that would readily be able to troubleshoot, diagnose, much less possibly repair an ECU from a 22 year old vehicle?


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## jdg (Aug 27, 2009)

Sentradood said:


> 1989 nissan sentra 1.6 GA16i A/T 141k original miles. been driving fine ever since i got it at 96k miles. The car was in a hurricane but was not flooded, i did drive through a monster puddle but after all that the car still ran fine for 2-3 weeks. One day going to leave from work my car would not start, Cranks very strong but no combustion.
> 
> New tune up, new distributor, new fuel pump, new ecu, took it to a mechanic buddy and he told me there was no injector pulse, i looked as far as i could on ALLDATA/OnDemand5 and seems the only thing that controls the injector is the ECU. Could it just be a bad injector?


If you're not getting a good signal from the distributor itself, the ECU won't know when to fire the injector.
Fuel, air, spark.------
We'll assume you're getting air.
Pull the distributor cap off, crank the engine, make sure the rotor is actually turning. No turny...no sparky.
Pull out a spark plug, put it back on the plug wire, crank the engine, make sure you're getting spark.

You said new tune up...exactly what did you replace during that 'new tune up' and how long ago was this 'new tune up'.


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## Sentra_Classic (Nov 3, 2011)

jdg said:


> Where?
> Exactly which company/business did you have in mind that would readily be able to troubleshoot, diagnose, much less possibly repair an ECU from a 22 year old vehicle?


This was about 8 or 9 years ago. From what I remember, mine was a, power going in, no power coming out problem. It was pretty obvious. Find a mechanic that's been around for awhile, not necessarily a name brand garage, they might not have ever worked on something like that.


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## Sentradood (Oct 27, 2011)

Its getting spark and compression. I can smell fuel in the carb, and it will run a bit if i squirt gas down the TB. it seems the problem is within the TB but im not sure what. Changed the fuel pump relay as well.
tune up consisted of New wires, plugs, fuel filter, rotor, dist cap all done after my car wouldn't start.
I work at a body shop. we do some light mechanical stuff here and there. I have ALLDATA/Ondemand5 at my disposal


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## smj999smj (Jan 1, 2006)

THis shouldn't be hard to diagnose. There's only one fuel injector. First thing I like to do is install a noid light in the injector harness connector and see if it flashes when you crank the engine. If it does, replace the injector. If not, continue as follows: Find the fuel injector connector on the side of the throttle body. Unplug it and check the resistance with an ohmmeter between the two pins of the fuel injector connector (not harness connector). The injector's resistance should be between 1 ohm and 2 ohms. If not, replace it. Check for battery power to the fuel injector. If there is no power, check the fusible links at the battery, the circuit between the fusible link and the dropping resistor mounted on the firewall of the engine compartment near the fuel filter, the circuit between the dropping resistor and the fuel injector. If all those are good, replace the dropping resistor. If you have power to the fuel injector, disconnect the ECM connectors and injector connector (if not already disconnected) and check the ground circuit between the injector and ECM connector. If that's good, check your ECM grounds. If those are good, replace your ECM. You can get them from Rockauto.com for around $250.


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