In February of 07’, my 95’ Altima met with a horrible fate of being totaled from hitting a curb from black ice. I didn’t believe the body shop and bought it back, made my own repairs that took me 2.5 hours and $250 in parts/labor for alignment, etc.
Unfortunately, I had already purchased a 96 Infiniti J30 using the Insurance settlement money. So I decided to just park it. I had also bought a second parts car for the Altima and had hauled them out to my grandparents place where they sat for the next 6 months–after they sat somewhere else for about 9 months.
The parts car had to be towed, but I drove my Altima out there with no issues. Two weeks ago–six months after I moved it out there, my Infiniti was totaled due to ice–hail, rather–and I took the blessing in disguise (or so I thought) because repairs on an Infiniti, regardless of how nice a car it is, are well… really expensive. So I let the Infiniti go, and paid off my credit card and loan and still had enough left over to put towards the Altima if I needed to (Did pretty good I think!).
So now we come to three weeks ago. I moved my Altima back home. It started right up. It came all the way to the insurance office where I dropped off my other car, and it didn’t start from there.
I had a friend come out, checked everything out–it turned out that the distributor had oil in it. So we replaced it. It started, and I managed to get it almost home. It died right in front of OReilly’s Auto Parts.
After a replacement ignition coil, I managed to get it home. It started just fine the next morning, I did some running around town, and then took it to Advance Auto Parts because I had a check engine light kick on. It sat for two days from non-start.
So from the start:
This is a 4cylinder 2.4L engine with a 5 speed transmission.
Have replaced:
Battery
Ignition Coil
Starter
Ignition Wires
Spark Plugs
Distributor
Rotor
Cap
Checked:
Ignition Control Module
Timing
Fuel Pressure checks at 45-48psi
Fuel Strainer was off the pump, but put a new one on.
Fuel is getting to the rail.
Fuel is getting to the cylinders.
Syphoned Old fuel.
Put in new fuel.
Put in sea foam to dry out any remaining water.
Put sea foam in the oil to get any water out.
Let it sit for a day.
Dad managed to get the car to run very badly with a constant current from his truck via jump cables. Burned a lot of bad gas out, I think. As well as anything else in there, …I think.
The car was smoking like it was on fire. There was smoke coming through the vents, from underneath, from the tail pipe, from the front, from everywhere.
This makes NO sense, as the car drove 100 miles home just fine with no issue before it started acting up.
PS: My time is hazy, it was three weeks ago that the hail damage was done, about two weeks ago that I moved my car.
Also, the codes I got on the ODBII machine are these:
P1320 - Malfunction ignition misfire
Crankshaft position sensor
Camshaft position sensor
I deleted them and they have not kicked on yet.
The camshaft position sensor is INSIDE the distributor which is brand new. The car has run since I deleted the codes–when hooked onto an already running engine/current. Albeit badly.
It sounds to me like your catalytic converter was damaged. The internals have broken loose and are plugging up the cat. Have the converter taken off and tested. I bet it’s completely plugged up. It will cause the exhaust system to get red hot and the engine will run terribly and that would explain all the smoke.
I’ll have the shop come tow it on over. That would also explain the backfires.