Nissan Repair: 92 Pulsar sluttering and dying when hot, fuel pressure regulator, nissan pulsar

Question
Hi there,

 I have an intermittent problem with my 1992 Nissan Pulsar. It has 185000 kms on the clock. It runs fine 95% of the time. However sometimes in the mornings after 15-30 mins of driving at about 100km/hr when the engine is warm, it will splutter, cough and loses power and sometimes even dies completely. If I pull over to the side of the road and rev the car, it will splutter and die. On attempting to restart it, it will turn over a number of times without firing, eventually it will fire and black smoke comes out the exhaust, the car will then run perfectly till the next morning.  This problem only seems to occur in the morning (it can be quite cold in the morning but above freezing) and not in the evening. This problem occurs both when the fuel is need empty or just been filled.  I am about to change the fuel filter, which will hopefully fix it Do you think this is a likely solution? or do you think something else is the problem? and do I need to reduce the fuel pressure in the fuel line before replacing the filter or can I just plug the lines? if I need to reduce the pressure how do you do this? If you offer me your advice it would be most appreciated.


Answer
Hamish,

I think it is the distributor that is giving you the problem and not the fuel system.  But, it is easier to change the fuel filter first and see if that corrects the problem.  There would be no need to reduce the fuel pressure unless the regulator is defective.  And, if the fuel pressure regulator is defective the Pulsar would get really bad gas mileage and you did not indicate this.  The engine would love the extra gas but the mileage would decrease.  The reason I feel it is the distributor is that you indicate that it blows the black smoke when you attempt to restart.  I think the optical pickup in the distributor is getting oil on it and that is causing the engine to misfire and that is where the over rich condition would occur.  Take the distributor apart and check for the presence of oil on the pickup.