Oil in Radiator

S

stew

Guest
Hi everyone,

first post :grinning: not a great one to start.....i've got a '91 H reg Micra 1.0 GS with 100K on the clock..................

was doing a routine oil change and service yesterday (as you do on boxing day fwn ) and open the raditor cap and there was a whole load of thick black oil....oil change was definately overdue but this is an added complexity! So i scratched my head for a while and thought head gasket. Any further offers?

the oil that came out of the engine was normal, with no signs of water leakage and engine has been running fine with no signs of any overheating. i changed the sparkplugs a month ago and they were the right colour to indicate a healthy engine.

if the consenus is head gasket - is this a sizeable job? and any tips to make it a smooth process?

cheers :laugh:
 
Sounds lilke headgasket to me, unless someone accidently put oil in the water :)

And changing the headgasket is 'medium' on the scale on difficulty I think, but it very much depends on your experience with engines. Think the haynes manual should explain it quite well. And perhaps you should get the head skimmed as well when it comes off, at least get it checked for warping just to be sure.
 
If i were you, just continue with your service and change your oil and give it a little flush. completly flush out your cooling system and replace it with 50/50 mixture antifreeze, and just keep your eye on it. I'd be tempted to leave it as long as it still runs OK. IT wont harm anything really.
 
this is a prime example of what happens to a 100k 15 year old motor which we were on about in another thread.
its just corrosion yes head gasket gone,
a good thing to do wilst the head is off is to get it skimmed,wip the head down to your nearest engine reconditioner and get them to take off 40thou,,,,,,its the best performance upgrade you do can do to a standard engine....well thats what i would do......
 
thanks folks......showed it to my local mechanic who also asked if someone had dumped a load of oil in the radiator! but thought it to be a head gasket also, and obviously recommended to leave it be....my schedule is all busy for a couple of weeks so a bit of time to sit on it and think about it before binning it or trying to fix it.....
 
I've got the same problem, when I pop the lid on the radiator, it's covered with brown, smelly oil. I am so bad with engines, don't know #### about 'em. At least the radiator works... lol...
 
100k and if gunna change a head gasket id say it will blow the piston rings. clean and regrind the valves in but if you do be VERY VERY carefull as the extra compression will most likely blow the pistons rings also when the head is off dont clean the top of the pistons as the crap will go down the side of the piston and into the rings thus helping to blow them.

what id do is get a head gasket set,
clean the carbon off the valves and regrind them in (but if you do be VERY VERY carefull as the extra compression will most likely blow the pistons rings),
id also change the valve stem oil seals (these would of gone hard and brittle by now and probably leaking a little),
id get a sump gasket set and replace the piston rings as the same time as they might aswell be changed because you will probably find the extra compression will blow the piston rings anyway since they are 100k old and for £35 for a set of rings and £5 for a sump gasket set you cant go wrong changing them will mean the engine should be fine for another 100k
 
The extra compression will not blow the pistons rings in a K10. They are so mildly tuned anyway that it would hardly make any difference. Not only this that if the compression had droped so much that regrinding thevalves really made that much difference they would most probably be burnt out anyway.

What is actually a known issue with the MA10's is removing the headgasket often causes carbon to be disturbed trapping in the ring lands and damaging the seal. Often after a head gasket change they will still burn alot of oil.

Ed
 
I bought my '90 ma12 in Canada with oil in the radiator for $500CAD and 210000Km. Now it has 270000km on it and the only thing the oil in the coolent did was melt the rubber inside the very expensive heater core which plugged it up and popped the end caps off. Luckly I found a good one at a wreckers for $15 ($325 at the dealers).

I say if it still runs don't sweat it but keep a piece heater hose in the car incase you need to bypass the heater core and overfill the rad now and then to flush a bit out at a time. When my core blew it dumped a couple of liters of coolent into the car in a minute, but like I said that was 3yrs after I noticed the problem.
 
Oil in the cooling system

We used to see allot of this with the old K10 Micra, it is most likely the head gasket. We did have some success by just cracking down the headbolts by tightening the bolt just to the point were it breaks it's seal and moves very slightly. You do have to be careful because you don't want to break a head bolt. We did find a few Micra's were one or two bolts were actually loose. Make sure the engine engine is hot before doing this.
 
yes its the headgasket, in germany 80 percent of the k10 have this problem, because Nissan has made a bad work at the MA12 egine. The MA10 hasn't a problem with that,

btw. the Ma12 was never sold in Japan ;)
 
What is Wrong?

The MA12 was never sold in Japan, i have the information from a friend he lives in Tokio and owns 3 ST and one -R (an Stagea and a N14 Gti-r two) :D
you can ask him self, he speals englisch chineese german and japaneese.

I have owend 3 Micra MA12 all had an demage at the cylinder head gasket.
in the German Nissan FOrum ( www.nisbo.de ) you can read many people with the same Problem, its in germany the bigest reason for the death of a k10

the biggest Problem of the MA10 is the Toothed belt (don*t now if i translate it right)

Here is the link to Rulfs profil, so you can contact him ed,,,,

http://www.nissanboard.de/profile.php?userid=11360

but not too many users please ;)
i think he can answer all your question ;) an it will be interresting for you two to talk about the ST ;)
 
thank you this was just the babelfish translation ;) i hope to learn more words in Ferbruary when some Nissandrivers and I travel to london :D
 

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