A series life expectancy

[ryncharlton]

Hi all

Been doing jobs on my maestro and am curious as to how many miles people have been getting from A series engined maestros without a major rebuild. Mine has had a oil and filter change every 4k miles since 70k and a service every 6k. Its also had a new headgasket about 20k ago aparently. Its now on 148k miles and has a slight timing chain rattle and has blue smoke but only for the first minute or two after cold start up , otherwise pulls well and has plenty of power.

Just wandering if its worth spending some cash on the car or if the engine is about to give up the ghost. , im guessing teh smoke is valve seats - if so is it a major job to replace them?

Thanks , ryan

[mgdavid]

if it smokes a bit it will be either worn bores / rings, or worn valve guides. It won't be seats. Worn seats give loss of compression and then it will be down on power and won't pull.

[maestro vans]

Usually it is brittle valve stem oil seals. Did mine on an 89 a series smoked like a gooden when started, The seals had gone all brittle and allowed oil to pass into cylinder, hence on startup a nice cloud of smoke. Changed for nice new rubber ones that weren't brittle, Now no more smoke, great!!
PS timing chain rattle could be a broken tensioner.... had that happen to me before too

good luck

Steve

[emanresu]

i've found the a-series to be an indestructable little engine. I've had many cars with them in which I've passed onto family after doing bodywork jobs on them.

One of which was a Maestro with 180k miles on the original engine. Was a 1.3 Mayfair. serviced oil changes every 4000 miles but not a new oil filter until every 12000. only thing it needed was a rocker cover gasket.

Lovely things.

[D87 SMW]

My Special's original engine had covered 96k miles, most of those with a 4 speed 'box. I have to admit, whilst I didn't like the way it sounded like a washing machine full of bricks, I had more confidence in it than the tyres, on a long run! In the end, I got fed up with it sounding like it had collapsed and was ingesting itself, as well as the pinking going up hills and dodgy emissions! I just dumped in a good used 1.3 A series and it has been brilliant since. :)

[D87 SMW]

Now, I argue against the removing of the above post. :p