Rough Idle on MA10?

Courior

Courior

Fat ppl r harder 2 kidnap
I have been noticing for the past few days that my car has a rough idle. the rev needle used to be like a rock and the engine note never change on idle, now however it slightly variates about 100rpm either way. and i can hear it in the engine. It also has this roughness when holding revs ie in neutral at 2.5k rpm. sometimes its worse than at other times. I have changed the oil, fuel filter, air filter. The 2 things i think it can be is the vacume hoses to the air pan or the coil? mine is a 1989 so no dizzy (am i right?) any ideas people?

Thanks in advance!!!

Courior
 
Your micra certainly has a dizzy! The differences was the early ones used points and the latter had electronic ignition.

How many miles has the car done?
 
about 93000 miles. hmmm you think this could be the prob? i do a lot of motorway work in it as well. how does points and electronic ignition differ?
cheers
 
I put new vacume hoses on and also took off my modded airbox, but still running rough. gonna change the sparkies next :) anyone have this problem? the car stutters when holding revs either in nutral or in gear? any help would be V apprieciated!
 
Ive had so many engine problems, i've lost track of what was responsible for each condition! Its usually down to the Dizzy, ignition components or the carb! A good way to indicate carb was extremely poor MPG and it smelt like a petrol forecourt. Dizzy was running problems, cutting out, mis fires etc. I'd start with a general service. I was told that even though parts can be new, they can be faulty too - so don't assume it's ok if it's been replaced!
 
i took off my carb and clean it inside and out and the amount of crap that came out of the air holes (brown liquid came out when i used clear brake cleaner!), jets and float camber was incredible.

also have a look at the bottom of the fuel filter if its a nissan one they are clear and you can see the condition of the filter if theres crap in the bottom of it then change it.
 
Ive stuck a load of redex in the petrol and its running through now. yet to see anything from it. hopefully this will clean the carb without taking it off. The car doesnt like the damp so im leaning towards a ignition fault and so i bought some new NGK sparkies. i will be cleaning out the dizzy cap tommorow morn. I put a new coil on and no difference. hmm. would a carb problem come up so suddenly though?? i use the car a LOT so the carb has flowing fuel all the time, and i rev it a lot so i dont see how the carb can be gunked up. but if all else fails i will take the carb off and get a sprayin with the brake cleaner lol..

I have changed some of the obvious vacume connector hoses, are there any other places that have air leaks on a common basis??

Thanks so much 4 all the help so far :) i soooo wanna fix my car !!
 
Have a good look at the bottom of the fuel filter like Fordy mentioned. My K10 wouldn't even move yesterday. The filter looked fine from the top, but once I removed it, it was chock-a-block with rubbish at the bottom. I changed the filter last night and hey presto car runs again.
 
i have fitted a new fuel filter, oil change, air filter etc.... are there any common carb/ignition probs that happen on K10's?? i have 93K miles and the engine looks 100% original
 
The dizzy cap could well be your problem then if it suffers from damp, because this was the dodgey area on my car for many months until i finally replaced it. Take it off and wipe out any excess moisture, and spray a little WD40 inside. You also want to check the condition of the rubber seal, usually on the Dizzy that sits between the cap and the Dizzy itself. If this is perished, moisture will get in and cause you some grief.

Also, when the cap is removed, check the condition of the metal bits on the inside. You can usually scrape off the surface and bring them back to metal, otherwise you could just replace the whole thing if its due a replacement anyway. A halfrauds one would do.

The Electric ignition Dizzy's on K10s do have problems when once they reach a certain number of miles, around 90/100 thousand, they'l start to cut out at high temperatures, mis fire lots and generally run awfully, then it'l just give up completely.
 
ME ME ME ME (unless i can sort it with a replacement cap)... how many miles did the beast have on it? arnold says they go pop at 90 and i am at 93k and its playing up so im waiting for it to die totally. im in kt3 area how much you want Inc postage?

arnold, going to change the plugs and have a look at the dizzy cap like you said. i hope it aint gonna be anything costly to fix! how much are them dizzy caps from halfrauds?

cheers
 
No no they can start to go wrong around that milage, but they can last alot longer! Im referring to the electronic ignition though, the points one (pre facelift) doesnt have this problem. It's something to consider if you had electronic ignition, however i'd look at the dizzy cap and other servicable bits first! A cap from frauds is about a tenner.
 
Try and find a decent parts service in your area rather than Halfords. There is a reason why they are referred to as Halfrauds!! I bought a dizzy cap, rotar arm and HT Leads from Chester Auto Parts on Tuesday:

Distributor Cap - £6.25 (ex VAT)
Rotor Arm - £2.79 (ex VAT)
HT Leads - £11.78 (ex VAT)
-----------------------
Total - £24.26 (inc VAT)

Granted I get a hefty discount on most parts, but even at RRP they are cheaper than the exact same parts in Halfords.
 
Ive changed the plugs. i had Denso plugs in there now i have NGK. i cleaned out the dizzy cap and gave it some wd40 treatment. there was white gunk on the electrodes which flaked off so they are nice and shiny now. also i upped the idle speed ever so slightly. now its not as rough as it was. ill drive it a couple a hundred miles see if its better then if not i'll get the new rotor arm and cap. are there any fueling issues that can crop up at ~90K miles? the carb window shows fuel just over half way up the window, does this mean everything fuel wise is ok?
 
Courior said:
Ive changed the plugs. i had Denso plugs in there now i have NGK. i cleaned out the dizzy cap and gave it some wd40 treatment. there was white gunk on the electrodes which flaked off so they are nice and shiny now. also i upped the idle speed ever so slightly. now its not as rough as it was. ill drive it a couple a hundred miles see if its better then if not i'll get the new rotor arm and cap. are there any fueling issues that can crop up at ~90K miles? the carb window shows fuel just over half way up the window, does this mean everything fuel wise is ok?
Click to expand...

That white gunk is the stuff i meant by scraping off the metal connectors inside the cap. By removing that should help you out, but you need to make sure the seal on the cap is completely secure too. You shouldnt need to replace the cap unless those metal points are worn.
 
I have uneven idle too (revs periodicly dip) and rise again also does this above idle. Mine is ONLY aparent after the engin has warmed to temperature

I have electronic ignition

I have tried so far swaping rome a V. good condition 18,000 miles K10 :
-coil (Didnt work)
-condenser (Didnt work)
-distributer..<also electronicand with thoroughly cleaned cap contacts and roter arm>(Didnt work)
-air pan(Didnt work)

My next step is to swap the carb and the vac lines ( I will be doing this as part of another mod) so I'll let you guys know if this helps/fixes th prob


(my bet is on the carb)
 
sammo adjust the mixture as it sounds as if the engine is hunting, go down to the local mot station and get it set to 1.7 co dead on and you should be fine after that
 
sammo yeah we have exactly the same prob. after making my idle a little faster its now much more steady. also i threw a bottle of fuel cleaner in there and i rekon thats helping a lot as well! im doing a fueling test on my carb, i normally get around 360 miles to a tank so ive filled it up till i could get no more in and and gonna go till the E and if its around 360 on the trip then i will think the carb is set correctly and not leaking or anything (i cant smell any fuel in the engine bay or anywhere so should be ok). I would be interested to know how your fixes go mate, keep adding stuff to this thread, im sure we aint the only 2!

Arnold, the cap electrodes had like a V cut into them and the rotor arm had a smooth end to the electrode so i got some from halfords and the new cap has no V cut into the electrodes and the rotor has a 3 pronged tip. hasnt really helped with the rough idle but at least its nice and new!

So far i have done:
new fuel filter
new air filter
oil change
new vacume hoses
fuel system cleaner (redex)
new sparks
new dizzy cap
new rotor arm
sped up idle by 150rpm now at ~950

cheers ppl
 
Cheers chaps,

I will try this..I have to admit Ive not touched the mixture screw in about 6 years but there is a chance that a mate of mine moved it all those years ago when I knew nowt about carbs..

Ive looked at a couple of emissions reports from past MOTs

UNEVEN Micra 'K' 100k miles:
Test 1997: 1.15%
Test 2005: 0.25%

EVEN Micra 'H' 18k miles:
Test 2006: 3.18%

The upper limit is 3.5%
 
I think i'm having similar problems to the ones your describing, basically when i start it from cold it starts ok and then when i rev it to pull away sometimes it doesn't respond and will stall, its a recent problem but i had new distributor and ht leads about 3000 miles ago and also sprayed a load of carb cleaner through incase it was clogged, i do a fair amount of motorway miles as well, my theory is that it is the auto choke mechanism sticking, haven't had a proper chance to look yet though!
 

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