Micra (Pao) MA10 engine advice.

[miaspa]

The Pao did nearly 300 miles without fault yesterday.

But.......................

Coming home from work tonight, pop and loss of power, luckily after just pulling away from a set of lights, pulled into the side and had a look. All my HT leads were connected ok, nothing obviously broken or lose, had a look underneath. Alternator belt ok, shouldn't there be a cam belt connected on that big pulley next to it. Whipped the Cam belt cover off and saw the remains of one snapped cambelt.

Not sure how many miles it lasted but the cambelt was last done when the water pump went November 5th 2007 on the way home from Guy Fawkes night, so say about 30,000 miles ago.

Next decision swap the engine or risk changing the push rods. Given I was going so slow I wonder what sort of damage was done.

[retrowagen1234]

got a rocker cover? can ya check the valve stems? see if any are bent? if not try lining it all up wack a cam belt on (cheap anyway) and turn it over by hand... and look all the valves... see if they are bent... then maybe try starting it? got nothing to lose lol

[horney™]

That sucks mate but good advice from retrowagen. I love your car and I'm pretty sure I spoke to you once outside Halfrods in Basingstoke.

nick

[markbognor]

I'm pretty sure that someone over on the Micra Sports Club K10 section would know.

[BiAS]

WHS^^^^
MA10 is interference, i.e. bent valves
I think the valves are the same size right the way through production, if so I've got three of each you can have. My MA12 came with 2 bent valves and I put 2 out of an MA10 in.
The headset for it isn't very much and with an HBOL it's not too bad a job, if you don't fancy putting new valves in your head maybe get a complete 2nd hand head and swap it over.
HTH

[UtterPiffle]

Sorry to hear about that. Hope you can fix it without too much £££

Isn't this the chance to change that engine for something bigger anyway? There must be loads of 13 or 1400 Micra's in the scrappies now.

[miaspa]

Jun 30, 2009 7:28:56 GMT UtterPiffle said:

Sorry to hear about that. Hope you can fix it without too much £££

Isn't this the chance to change that engine for something bigger anyway? There must be loads of 13 or 1400 Micra's in the scrappies now.

Priced all new valves new cambelt water pump all gaskets £186, would love to swap in a bigger motor but funds are severely restricted at the moment and can't fit a dog and child on a pushbike, whilst its off the road.

The MA10 is overhead cam so why I thought of pushrods I don't know.

Seems I have an oil leak from the cam shaft seal that weakened the belt causing premature failure.

Will have a good look at the weekend, and if its damaged the pistons, it will be time to find a MA12 for an extra 8hp and 20N-m of torque.

Peanuts really but thats nearly 10% more horsepower and over 20% more torque.

[waveman1500]

That sounds a real shame, and very annoying that the belt broke after so few miles. Still, at least it should be relatively simple/cheap to fix. My mate's brother has a year 2000 Alfa GTV 2.0 16V Twin-Spark, which stripped 19 teeth from the cambelt and bent all 16 valves. Been helping him fix it and it's an absolute child born out of wedlock to work on. Needed all new valves, lifters and re-sleeved valve guides, belt, seals, head-gasket, etc. Mad $$$ and three weekends of labour on the driveway so far, and then one of the stupid cam bearing cap bolts stripped all of it's threads out the block!!! Thoughts of burning it and claiming on insurance are becoming tempting...