Nissan Repair: 94 vg30e bogging problem, shaft seal, vg30e

Question
hi there i brought a 94 navara with the vg30e 3 weeks ago and already iv had to do the water pump which wasn't a prob but a week ago after 1000k road trip its started to run on what sounds like 4/5 cyl and occasionally on 6 iv tested the leads and am getting extreme readings any quick ideas to remedy my problems? any help would be very much appreciated

Answer
Richard,

Usually, the distributor gets contaminated with oil due the shaft seal failing.  The course of action is to replace the distributor.  That is, if you find that there is oil on the optics that signal the coil to fire.  Remove the cap, rotor, rotor post and cover and look at the optical shutter wheel and see if there is oil on the optics.  If there is, repalce the distributor.  If the plugs and wires are old I would replace them first before assuming the distributor is defective.  But, since you say it is an intermittent problem it usually is the distributor.