Nissan CD17 / CD20

Nissan's small diesel four — the 1.7 CD17 and 2.0 CD20 — in the Sunny, Sentra, Primera and Almera.

They are indirect-injection engines with mechanical pumps and nothing electronic worth the name on most versions: no rail, no filter, nothing to regenerate, and very little to read with a scan tool.

So diagnosis is physical. Compression, glow plugs and their relay, injection pump timing, and injector nozzles account for very nearly the whole fault list.

The timing belt drives the injection pump as well as the camshaft, so a belt service is the specialist job it always is on this generation of diesel — and getting the pump timing back is the part that takes the skill.

The YD family that replaced them is common-rail and has its own page here; nothing about the two transfers.