I’ve got a 1986 n/a 5 speed manual it has trouble starting on a cold start takes about five or six try’s sometimes I checked all the fuses seem to be good could it be the fuel pump? Also it’s rather slow in the lower gears sometimes it feels like I can walk faster would love to fix this my tranny sometime makes a loud noise after the shift is completed didn’t think much of it at first but now it’s begging to worry me

Hello, I have an 85 GL. I have cold start problems but not as bad as yours. 2-3 times and it's going.

I also have poor idling when first starting and poor engine throttle when starting in 1st gear. (It's a manual) Once the car is warm though it's fine. No starting problems or idle issues.

My car is currently in the shop with an experienced mechanic with mid 80's Nissans.

His first thought was the fuel pump. If the pump is not pushing enough fuel to start, it may roll back into the tank. His test was to turn the key to the furthest position without starting the engine, thus getting the fuel pump to push to the engine. He did this 3 times to allow enough fuel to fill the line and then started it. No luck. It still started hard.

He also thinks it could be the mass air flow sensor, he's going to test that.

Have you checked the fuel filter? What about the quality of fuel? I use ethanol free (damn corn!) and higher octane. It helps. If you have already changed the plugs try cleaning the injectors with a fuel treatment. Check the % of cleaning agent. A lot of the cheaper ones are only 15-20%. Make sure you find one with more than 75% and in a tank with about 20 gallons of fuel.

Plugs? Distributor? WIres? Any of these could cause some problems like poor starting.

I'm no mechanic but these are a few things I've learned from owning mine and speaking with my mine.

Out of curiosity, do you still have the cassette player in your car and does it work?

Hope this helps, and I'll keep you updated with any progress I have.

Thanks for all the advice I’ll changed everyone fuel filters on her. I’ll give the plug wires a try

No it when I bought it someone had already installed a CD player

Step one should be the check the ecu for codes. Often a loose or dirty electrical connector can cause all sorts of woes and not always throw the appropriate code.

You should hear the fuel pump come on when you rotate the key to the run position before tipping into start position. Could be a bad fpr allowing the fuel to drain back out of the fuel lines, requiring a lot of priming before it will start.

The lack of power could be any number of things, I'd start by looking at the plugs, wires, cap and rotor button, and injectors, make sure you are running on all 6 cylinders also check the timing. If everything checks out there then I'd take a good look at the electrical connectors on the CHTS, FTS, TPS, MAS, and O2. beyond taht, ave a look at the air inlet piping, including the pcv hoses, could be a vac leak.

Update!!

So, I had my fuel pump swapped out for new. Not cheap. My mech could not find one from the dealer or anywhere so we went with one from Bosch. It works well and I think it runs better, HOWEVER, the hard start remains. I now turn over the engine and keep doing it while slightly pumping the pedal and it will start better. The engine is still a little jerky and stutters a bit for the first 1 to 2 min. Then all is fine and it will re-start without a problem.

I was really hoping the new fuel pump would have resolved that problem.

My mech mentioned it could be the mass air flow sensor, which would be a PITA job to swap out.

Good luck. Please keep the thread going with updates.

Might want to find a new mechanic. Sounds like he's just throwing parts at the car without actually diagnosing anything. There are any number of aftermarket fuel pumps that bolt right in and work fine. Has he or you or anyone checked the ecu for codes yet? how about monitoring the fuel pressure in the rail? if the fpr goes bad it can let all the fuel drain out fo the rail so starting the car after sitting a bit could be more difficult than a restart as it takes time to pressurize the fuel rails. also slight pumps of the pedal do nothing, or at least should do nothing, the tps on these cars is basically an on off switch, the air needed to start the car should come through the iacv. iacv might need cleaned and adjusted after all it is 33 years old.

My mech is good. Been working on cars and Nissans, from the 80's, for a while. The pump was going to fail soon. He did an AMP test on it and it was only showing 2300-3000 revs.

I'll mention the iacv. What does that stand for?

My bigger concern is the jerky acceleration I get for the first 2-3 minutes of driving. The engine bucks a little and feels like something is causing a high rev. After 2-3 min it's gone and the car drives like a dream.

IACV= Idle air control valve. when cold it should allow less air for a richer mixture, like a choke for fuel injection. The fact that it clears up when warm means it's something that changes or stops when warm. the O2, chts would make for a rich condition when warm but no issue when cold. Could also be the distributor or ignitor. The distributor uses an optical sensor and has two pick ups, one for fuel and one for spark, I've seen these fail gradually making weird difficult to trace issues., but generally the distributor and ignitor are more prone to acting up when warm.