Fiat 1.9TD engines

also fitted to Brava.

but you would be better to put it in the crusher and save yourself a lot of time and money

Ta. Anything else?

Depends, dunnit. If I can get a Brava with a decent engine for less than

200 quid, I could end up with a pretty tidy motor for not much money at all and maybe a weekend's hard work. Diesel estates are always worth more than petrol or saloon equivalents so I'd have to be very unlucky to lose money on it. Time and effort's another matter of course, but hey I'd only be lounging around on the beach or drinking beer, so ... erm ...

not as far as autodata knows

Damn, that reduces my chances of finding a match somewhat. Ah well, replacement starter motors for these things cost over 140 quid each, so if I do end up scrapping it I should make a few quid. Thanks for looking it up.

The message from "MrCheerful" contains these words:

For the amount of time and money you're going expend, I'm inclined to agree with Monsieur Cheerful, you could have got a working one for the final bill.

I'd break it up and flog the bits on eBay.

Aye, it may well come to that. Still, it'll make a handy shed until I've decided.

The message from Willy Eckerslyke contains these words:

Hen coop?

No, it's an estate.

The message from Willy Eckerslyke contains these words:

I read that as "it's in a state".

Probably is!

Having just glanced around t'net, I see what you guys mean about it not being worth the effort. They're not exactly expensive are they! I'm almost tempted to buy a decent one for 300 quid or so and use this one for spares. They can't be that awful can they?

Well it _is_ a Fiat....

The message from Willy Eckerslyke contains these words:

They're probably not bad - it's just that there are an awful lot of cars about. My Mundaneo was £500 - R-reg, goes OK, needed a few bits and pieces here and there. Also now needs some major welding on the back of both sills - perhaps I'll do that in the summer. If we get one.

They're not bad cars at all. You wouldn't find a mid-sized diesel estate for less from any other manufacturers.

One big advantage over the Mondeo is that you wouldn't have to weld the sills on the Marea :-P

The message from snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk (SteveH) contains these words:

Very probably. I thought they were all galvanised these days. Or at least had a ten year corrosion warranty or somesuch.

Shockingly, my B6 Passat is going a bit orange where there are deep stone chips on the leading edge of the bonnet - also on the trailing edge of a couple of doors where the door has hit the wall.

On the other hand, Katie's 156 is now nearly 8 years old and has no sign of rust *anywhere* on it.

Update on this Marea estate that I bought cheaply the other day. I've now collected it and the bloomin thing's immaculate inside and out! It's actually a pretty nice car so I'm extremely loath to scrap it.

I know it'll only be worth 500 at most if I get the engine sorted, but if I can persuade the missus to drive it, we could probably get a few years use from the thing.

So, the plan is to use it as a shed it for a couple of months while keeping my eye out for a replacement engine or donor vehicle. In the meantime, I may as well lift the cylinder head to see what's what. I'm pretty sure the head gasket's gone but don't know if that accounts for all the symptoms.

The engine starts OK, but chucks out masses of smoke - white with a hint of brown (?) - enough to hide the rest of the world very impressively. There's a loud, top end type rattle at higher revs. I can't decide if this is mechanical or just a severe diesel knock. Too much throttle and the revs suddenly go sky high - it revs its bollocks off even with the accelerator released, only dropping back after ten seconds or so. The cable doesn't seem to be sticking.

Seller said coolant was disappearing with no obvious leaking to outside.

No signs of water in the oil.

The smoke has an odd smell to it that I can't quite figure out. That and the brownish look to it have me really puzzled. Even wondering if there's something odd in the diesel.

Engine's already been replaced at some point and has a general look of being mucked about - missing fasteners, yellow scrapyard marker on the injection pump, etc.

Any thoughts?

Skim head, refit, scrap when it dies. They warp severely if you run them with a dead gasket.

The extreme white smoke plus possibly heavy diesel knock sounds like its running on its own sump oil, especially as it will diesel when revved too much- how much crankcase pressurisation is there?

Also likely are turbo / seals buggered and the oil's getting into the inlet manifold that way. Remove the inlet ducting and see if its dripping with oil..... I've seen intercoolers full, where afew revs and it will suddenly suck a gulp of oil which causes big revving for abit.

Tim..

That certainly seems to fit.

I didn't notice any when I removed the oil filler cap with it ticking over (roughly). There's an odd plastic air box thing bolted to the back of the engine with two hoses out of the bottom and one into the top. The top one was loose. When I removed it, white smoke wafted out of the box for quite a while after stopping the engine. With the engine running, some pressure built up if I held my finger over that opening. Not that excessive though.

OK, will do so over the weekend if the rain holds off. It'd be nice if that is the problem. Would it do any harm if I tried running it with the turbo disconnected?

Yuck! I'm pretty sure it doesn't have an intercooler, so perhaps it's just burning the oil as it goes along rather than letting it build up.

Thanks Tim!