White Si ALO ALO

downrodeo

downrodeo

Hey there.
Last car died, and after doing a lot of research and looking around, settled on an old almera as an ideal car to buy within my price range. Found this on ebay, £600. Just within my measly budget. Love it already. Love the way it looks, the smoothness at high speeds, the solid construction. Had good service history too.

The only really bad thing about it is the utter crap paintwork on mine. It's peeled on the roof where a bird shat on it and the previous owner didn't bother cleaning it for months. Also unfortunately got some bloody rust bubbles on the rear arches, and the alloys are completely bummed (the metal has actually come off with the white undearneath revealed on three of them).

More importantly it tends to hesitate a bit on acceleration. Have given it an oil change and changed all the filters - that helped a little. Thinking maybe spark plugs next, NGK I assume? The hesitation is also intermittent - it's always there, but sometimes much worse than others.

I'm not too bothered about the paint tbh, but the hesitation pisses me off. Going to get all the wheels balanced/tracked on the weekend, as it does tend to vibrate between 65-80mph.

almera.jpg
 
Hey there, glad to hear you like your car!

If you arent too worried about the paintwork you can DiY your arches, it'll take about a day!

The hesitation may be something to do with the air intake, on K11 micras the solder around the intake breaks down and can cause the engine to act 'lumpily'. As Micra CG series and Almera GA series engines are fairly similar, it could be a possibility?

Alternatively you could try higher octane petrol for a while, have you changed the fuel filter also?
 
AHA! I used to have a K11 micra a while back, was my first car. That took such a beating it made me proud.

I'll have a look around the air intake. I assume you mean the pipe running from where the airfilter is to the front of the car? Or am I completely thick? (I probably am).

Changed the fuel filter along with the oil and air filter. It clearly hadn't been changed in years (fuel filter) and was a complete cow to get off. The car has a good service history, but it's been lying around for the last 4 years doing hardly any mileage at all by the looks of it (about 10 thousand in 4 years), so I think they didn't bother servicing it much during that period.
 
Righto. I'll see if I can get the air filter box off over the weekend and get a look down there to see any damage. Will probably change the spark plugs anyway as I don't think they've been changed, ever. It's on 54 thousand miles, believe it or not. All the MOTs are present, so I reckon it must be genuine.

Thanks for the tips! Will probably join as a member soon, as I'm sure the joining fee will pay itself back in hours of time saved by searching the engine bits of the forum.
 
Hi :) welcome to the AOC! Glad you're enjoying the 'mera...sounds like you got a bargain there! I'm with corbs...sort the rust yourself, and waxoyl all under the car and arches to prevent further deterioration. Might be worth investing in some new HT leads if the new plugs / air intake doesn't solve the problem :)

Would definitely recommend signing up...my membership fee has paid for itself a thousand times over from what I've learnt.
 
Schnakey said:
it may well just need a good blast out. Hit the dual carriageways.
Click to expand...

good point...red line it in every gear (except 5th obviously)...I used to do that to my old fiesta before it's MOT to blast all the cack out :lol:
 
I drove it down from up north and accelerated fairly aggressively most of the way exactly to try and get the gunk out, although I didn't redline it - was scared of damaging the engine. Sadly it didn't make any difference. Now that I think about it, it seems to sound more and more like the air intake thing, as it is temperamental. What would that mean, changing the air intake?

In the meantime, I'll fill it up with optimax (or is some other brand better? higher octane like corbs said) and thrash it a bit more.

One thing that has improved is the rev counter - it was completely erratic and bounced around and would repeatedly smack itself off the 8000 revs peg when i got the car. After the oil and filter changes it's ok now most of the time.

Will sort the rust out in a couple of weeks hopefully, when I can get a mate to give me a hand and advice.

again, thanks for all the advice!
 
Also check condition of rotar arm, distributor cap, HT leads & plugs mate.

My old motor used to hesitate badly and that had a crack in one of the plugs causing it to miss regularly. That's the first things i'd check to be honest
 
I have exactly the same problem on my 1.4, it feels like its withholding power when I put my foot down, then all of a sudden the power kicks in. I've tried everything bar the throttle body trick and leads/dizzy cap - I'll probably try these next!
 
ta slapster. Going to check the plugs today, and replace them anyway as I don't think they've ever been changed and the car is on 55k (1996).

then will change HT leads if that doesn't work. really hoping this sorts out the problem, as I've never touched a distributor cap or rotor arm (that will require the haynes).

I have the EXACT same symptoms you talk of james.

When I was driving last night, sometimes it was perfectly ok, and sometimes it was really bad and holding back with random surges of power.

Will be sending off for my membership today, if I don't forget!

ps, mines is a 1.4 too.
 
downrodeo said:
ta slapster. Going to check the plugs today, and replace them anyway as I don't think they've ever been changed and the car is on 55k (1996).

then will change HT leads if that doesn't work. really hoping this sorts out the problem, as I've never touched a distributor cap or rotor arm (that will require the haynes).

I have the EXACT same symptoms you talk of james.

When I was driving last night, sometimes it was perfectly ok, and sometimes it was really bad and holding back with random surges of power.

Will be sending off for my membership today, if I don't forget!

ps, mines is a 1.4 too.
Click to expand...
Let me know how you get on mate cos it's been driving me up the wall and ideally I want it fixed before it goes down the drag strip at the meet at the end of the month!
 
I just noticed that it doesn't seem to be as bad when cold. That's a bit weird. Will let you know if i have any results, but since you've already changed ur plugs I doubt I'll have any good news.

Anyway, I just went to halfords to try and get my hands on some ngk spark plugs, and the guy at the desk said they didn't have ngk. I'm sure thats not true, but anyway, where does everyone get their plugs? I'm going to try eurocarparts next. I used to use GSF when I had my saxo (apologies), but i'm stumped as to where I can find a similar outlet for jap parts.

ps. I've just sent off for my membership via paypal
 
try your local motorfactors or partco...I got my NGKs off ebay though! lol and you're right, halfords do do NGKs...I've walked past them enough times! Go and have a look for yourself fella...don't trust the shop assisstant ;)
 
downrodeo said:
Going to get all the wheels balanced/tracked on the weekend, as it does tend to vibrate between 65-80mph.
Click to expand...

Take the wheels off and give them a good check, the wheels my GTi came on did this and it turns out 2 were cracked beyond repair. Quite dangerous really.
 
I got my NGKs from Halfords, it's in their little booklet of all the part numbers by the spark plugs. If not the part code is BKR6E - just look for it on their shelves :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom