1997 Nissan Sentra Blown head gasket

A blown head gasket wont cause the vehicle to crank, a bad intake manifold gasket could if you have a wet type manifold.

But a blown headgasket would prevent a car from running right or even running, perform a compression test on each cylinder to find out, lowest should be no more then 25% less then the highest cylinder.

Check the cylinders for coolant if its a headgasket it will show in this model sentra-BTDT and don't forget to have the head resurface.