1986 Nissan Truck engine shudders

AFD7B

MEMBER
1986 NISSAN TRUCK
4 CYL
2WD
MANUAL
134,000 MILES

I am somewhat mechanically inclined. This is the first nissian I have ever had and I dont know much about them except the motors are good. This one has two problems not sure if they are related. One is the idle is set way high and tried to turn the idle screw and nothing happened. The other problem is when I take off in in gear and attempt to gain great speed it starts shuddering I guess is what you would call it. It does it in every gear. When I give it more gas it goes away. Plush clutch in it goes away. When it does this a moderate ammout of black smoke comes from the exhaust pipe but quits when pedal is pressed harder. Truck is kinda cold natured. Has aftermarket elec fuel pump and regualtor mounted under hood and the regulator is set to 3.5, is this high or low. I have changed all eight plugs and they were black and I replaced them with ngk plugs gapped to.032. What is the cause of these problems and remedy. Truck idles smooth and tranny is good.

1 Reply

SURFERPAT

MEMBER
4 POSTS

Here is my posting [1987 Truck "choke" sticks on], that may help you. When I found that the water temp sending unit was not fully connected, and then reconnected it, it made a HUGE difference. My truck is an automatic, and would puff tons of black smoke (running rich) out the tailpipe. I would also pop it out of gear, rev the engine, it ran even richer for a second, (lots of black smoke), then smoothed out, seemed like it would fix the problem for about two or three seconds, then run super rich again. Anyway, my temperature sending unit connection was the problem.

My original posting:
My truck is a 1987 Nissan, 2.4 liter with Throttle Body Injection. At completely random times: rolling or not rolling, high or low engine rpm, engine hot or cold, ambient air temperature hot or cold, etc, the engine goes into "choke" mode, runs very rich, black smoke coming out of tailpipe. Of course, I know there is no choke plate, but rather the injector pulse-width is being told to go rich via the computer. The engine often cycles in & out of "choke" mode instantly, that is, electrically, like someone is opening & closing an electrical switch. I have not checked the fuel pump pressure, but did replace the fuel filter (was pretty clogged).
Update: January 26, 2010
I was about to put a stick of dynamite under the truck because I was so frustrated by its super rich mixture, when I decided to re-check all of the electrical connectors. I found the connector going to what I believe is the water temperature sending unit, (hiding below the intake mainfold area, pretty hard to see) had pulled out just a smidge. I must have jostled it when I was changing the oil. I clicked it back into place, and the truck runs 3000% better. It still will run very, very rich on its intial start-up in the morning, for about the first mile or so, but here in East Texas, winters are really mild, so once it has a little engine temperature, and the water temperature circuit shows some heat, it comes out of "choke" mode, and runs great. I plan to also get that warm-up circuit working, where intake air is pulled across the exhaust manifold, and up the the metal tube that goes to the air cleaner snorkle tube. (The metal tube, the sensor, and the vacuum lines that operate that warm-up mode diaphram are all missing).