Help! Wire connection project messed up!

[MeaAnik]

Help gurus! My dad and i were trying to fix those four connector things to the engine.. i think they are fuel injectors... if you look at the car from the outside looking into it they are on the left of the engine and they have plugs with two wires on each.. well the old ones had harnesses that were all brittle and the nissan guys said to replace them would help my idling and engine problems which seemed true because when they jiggled the old ones just right everything worked ok until they got back out of place from hitting a bump or something. so i got the new harness set and we used sauterless connectors to splice them on.. however, now the car wont start... it almost starts but it just wont catch. what did we do wrong? do the wires need to be sautered for real or something else?

i'm just a girl so please try to make it easy to understand...lol

[blackbeauty240]

there is a tool called a noid light that you can purchase at pepboys. what you do is plug it in to the harness where the injector plugs in. if the light blinks when you turn the engine on or are trying to crank the engine then the computer is sending the command for the injectors to pulse if not you have a problem in the wiring or the computer and on some cars the ignition modual controls the injectors. after testing the harness. you may find that if some injectors pulse and some dont then you may have crossed up some of the wires. the only other thing i can think of is that after letting all of the fuel out of the fuel rail you may need to prime the system(turn the key on, off, on, off,) to let the fuel pump pressureize the system again. oh and one more thing did you maybe unplug the vacuum line that goes to the fuel pressure regulator? hope this solves your prob.

[MeaAnik]

Thanks... we will see how this helps tomorrow..earlier today we cut off one set of the crimped connectors and used a twist type connector... it was suffient to get the car to start but it was shaking. So we started with a diff set of connectors and soldered them.. exact same start, still shaky... then we soldered the set that we had just twisted.. and it went back to the way it tried to start but didnt just like yesterday... at this point we laid down the tools and decided to look at it again in the morning or afternoon, whichever...

[MeaAnik]

Okay, i called all the parts stores (advance, zone, fisher, and napa) because we dont have a pepboys but none of them carry the noid light unfortunately. We soldered another group of wires and the car is starting again but engine still shaking... and the first injector is leaking some fuel either from the injector or the seals and my dad doesnt want to let the fuel out of the fuel rail to check all this.... it has become a much bigger project than we thought it would be... so its apparent that i'll have to take the car in for some diagnosis on all this... at least it wont have to be towed in now though.

[blackbeauty240]

a noid light is basiclly a test light. the only difference is that noid lights are much easier to use if you are working by yourself. it eliminates the second person holding the test light during cranking.

[blackbeauty240]

anyways good luck and i hope this helps

[MeaAnik]

Okay well the shop told us we had gotten some wires crossed up and they fixed it... they also said my spark plugs were in the wrong order and that was something we didnt touch...so i dunno how long thats been goin on... probably since the guy who was on crack worked on my engine...ok i dont know if he was really on crack but he lost some important bolts and stuff.... anyway...so i'm running again but they warned me that i had pretty low compression on my cylinders... only 105 on one of them and the others were low too....whatever that means... not too surprising since it has 313k miles on it... it will keep goin til i find one to put in there though... i dont need horsepower right now anyway since i'm on driving probation for gettin tickets too many times for a tiny little bit of speeding (like 68 in 55's and such).

[blackbeauty240]

yeah i wouldn't worry about having low compression with that many miles. you probably have a burnt exhaust valve in the cylinder with 105 and the others just have excesive wear from the amazingly high mileage. i just hope i can get that many miles out of my car.

[MeaAnik]

oK... someone else checked the engine and found 130 compression in all cylinders... dunno how that happened... and the car engine does seems to be running strong now...

but i still wasnt satisfied with the way the idle was jumping so i took it directly to Nissan this time and they charged me like 350 for diagnosing and soldering more wires all over the place which didnt really seem to help.. they also did an alignment that didnt help because my frame needed straightening by a half inch which is causing the slight pull that concerned me... so i spend 415 total on all that for no noticeable difference!! ugh:mad:

then i spend another 60 or so buying the rotor, distributor cap, wires and nissan spark plugs and they gave that to me for wholesale but they gave me hitachi parts and mine needed mitsubishi, but anyway i finally got all the right parts and put them on... its still idling higher than what it used to but its more steady than during the problem time... yet i'm not satisfied with nissan service cause that 415 feels like a waste right now... any thoughts????

[sleepyS13]

seriously i dont even trust dealerships to work on my car and thats why i dont trust them they ripped you off and dont care to make it right

Heres how i fixed the same problem on mine with229.000 miles

simply bend the male end that is on the injector a few degrees so it grinds against the connector better. I assume you already scraped off all the old corrosion, if not do so with a needle or small knife. Also make surethe female ends are not getting pushed up into the plastic socket instead of connecting.

Ilove Nissans but i have much dislike for tha dealerships:(

[U12 2NR]

stop putting so much money into that old motor.

for the money you spent behind this little problem, i could have gotten that 313k motor replaced with an 80k motor.

[MeaAnik]

the motor itself wasnt really getting the money, i agree that i would not put any more hundreds into the motor, but also how can an inexperienced girl just get an 80K motor to import and insert in her car? i looked into doing that but lining up the car with the motor with the mechanic did not seem to be a simple or inexpensive deal even if the motor would only be a couple hundred... but right now my motor is strong, and no problems

[U12 2NR]

you don't import it you can go to a junkyard and buy one for around $200-300 and have them deliver it to the shop doing your work or to your house if your doing it to yourself. Or you can pick it up yourself if you have a van or something. here in new york i know a few shops that do complete four cylinder motor replacements for $300- $350 flat, you provide the motor. installing these engines are very simple and don't require much 'lining up', if that was the case motor mount replacement would cost a fortune.

The first shop could have been right about your compression being 105psi..if the second person tested compression when the engine was cold, results will be higher.

as long as it's running good and you're happy that's the main thing. But with so many miles and low compression I would start a little fund, start putting away some money for either a new car or another motor. it's great that you've reached 313k, which is rare, but i wouldn't want you to go into unnecessary expenses because your trying to maintain a high mileage motor.

take care