My exhaust :-(

I will be taking it to a garage, but I need to know what exactly is wrong. I'm going to wipe off all of the oil when it stops raining, go to Fiat for some prices, and then see where the oil's comming from.

I wouldn't be able to say goodbye to my Sei. I did have a look at the prices of cars, but there aren't really any which I like (within my price range).

I'm catching up with the group after a few days of being to busy, so only skimming this thread..

Your exhaust baffels are rattling. It's not impossible to conceive this happenening when the after they have warmed up a bit, but not happening when cold.

Plug gaps can make a whole heap of difference to the running of an engine. Larger gaps tend to make for a smoother idle, smaller gaps tend to make for better combustion at higher revs, IIRC. Certainly the former is true, not sure about the latter.

With all due respect, your dad knows f*ck all about cars. I think it's genetic, maybe you're even related to that mechanic who was advising you a few weeks ago. Probably an uncle or cousin if you look through the family tree. My guinea pig would be better skilled to pick up a tool kit than you or anyone related to you! ;)

If you've not got water in the oil, or oil in the water, no fluids are being lost, no smoke is shooting out the back, the engine doesn't sound like empty milk bottles being kicked around (I've had a block go between 2 cylinders sounded just like that), no over pressurisation of the oil or water, and no reason to think the headgasket's gone other than the advice of someone who as a mechanic would make a great pianist, then I doubt it's the bleeding headgasket!

Buy some Autoglym with the red label. Get some nice lint free soft cloths, and a hosepipe, bucket, shampoo and large sponge. Take the bucket, fill with water. Add some shampoo. Dip sponge in bucket, squeeze excess out, then wipe gently over the car. Dip back into bucket, squeeze, squeeze, repeat. Continue until whole car has been done.

Take hosepipe, rinse soapy water off car. Use one soft cloth (or fancy chamois if you so wish) to wipe down car to avoid any water marks. When car is dry, follow the instructions on the Autoglym, and bring the car up to a lovely shine. It's best not to do this in bright sunshine.

Next, take a couple of sheets of A4, a marker pen, and some masking tape or blue tac. Write on the paper "For Sale" and underneath, write down the amount of MOT and tax the car has left on it, along with a £ sign followed by a number of your choosing. Secure these bits of paper to the inside of the rear passenger windows.

At some point, somebody will come along, and take the keys off you, leaving you holding some coloured paper. Use these bits of paper to go on a basic car maintenance course at night school, using the rest to buy yourself something from the late eighties which doesn't have a million and one things fitted to it that you'll never have a hope in hell of even naming, let alone understanding.

Trust me, I think this is by far the best solution for you! :)

It's certainly either that, the cylinder head gasket, or the exhaust manifold gasket. My exhaust's still under gauruntee, so it's very unlikely that it's the baffles. The baffles in my old exhaust never got worn out, it would've fallen off before that happened.

I've realised that :-)

I don't know what you've read, but I've given a detailed description of what the plug gaps do. With a bigger gap it tends to pink at higher revs. A smaller gap certainly is a lot smoother.

I've found out that he was getting confused between the rocker box gasket and cyl head gasket. I don't know how, but he had me completely confused. He does know a bit about cars.

I've got oil running down my cyl head and dripping on my drive way. I think that means I'm loosing fluids!

My engine does sound pretty rough, a bit 'tinny'. It sounds like it's aged 5 years within the last couple of months.

I couldn't bare to see my car go. There aren't even many other cars for sale that I like and can afford. Oh, and I do know how to wash the car.

Oh yeah, if it is the baffles, then how can I prove it to the garage and get them replaced? Somebody said that it can't always be proved if they're faulty. What ever's wrong it really needs sorting because it's not idling properly at them moment, which'll probably use more fuel and increase engine wear :-(

I suppose it depends how badly shagged they are. I had a car where you could hear the baffles shake a bit when you started it, but then all would be fairly quiet until it was either warm or revving it's nuts off.

You need to take a drive to warm the engine up, then when you get back, see if you can hear anything at tickover. If not, then try blipping the throttle a bit, or holding a few revs on. Basically, try to replicate the sound as best you can, so you can go to the garage and show them *exactly* what you're talking about, otherwise they might just fire it up, and check it's not blowing, and send you home again.

Could the cat be on it's way out? Blown baffles have never caused restrictions on my cars, just a "sportier" note, but if the cat's getting blocked that'll make life very difficult for the engine to pump the exhaust gasses out. And if it's breaking up at all, then that would account for rattling/ tinny noises.

As for the oil you've got running down the side of the head, is it coming from where the head meets the block, or higher up where the cover goes? From what you've described it's from the top, which is rocker cover or cam housing gasket or some such term on these new fangled OHC engines. Yours is OHC, isn't it? Last FIAT I had with the small engine was pushrod...

Plug gaps - One way of making an old, proper, car tickover smoothly, is to whack up the plug gap. Which screws the timing a little, buggers up any sort of top end go, but makes people think the car is wonderful because it sounds smooth when it's not moving. Could be different on these silly black box cars of today though, I don't know, and don't much care! :)One thing's for sure though, when an engine is set up to run within certain specifications, changing things outside of those specs is going to have an effect. Could be good, could be bad, but it's not likely to be the same.

Sounds to me like either your car should be painted yellow and have Jiff written up the sides, or you've played and got it all pear shaped somewhere though.

My engine sounds a bit noisy from cold actually, but a non-Sei owner wouldn't know. It's only because I know what it should sound like. The spitting noise doesn't come until it's warm though.

Nobody other than myself would be able to hear the roar without load. The spitting does happen at idle though, or even load when the right foot is moved slightly. When I had the exhaust check the problem mysteriously went which was annoying, but I could probably go back now. If I do take it though I'd really need to make sure it stays running though, or they'll start to think I'm mad :-(

I did think about the cat, maybe?

The rocker box cover is leaking, but we can't be sure whether the cyl head gasket is leaking too (because it runs down). The mechanic who serviced my car thought it was the cyl head gasket, but I don't know how it jumped upto the rocker box lol.

It's an old pushrod. It's the same as the old 903cc ones, but was made a bit smaller to avoid some taxes.

The reason I've been changing the gap is because my workshop manual's wrong. The small gap's been giving me pinking and I've spent about 6 months trying to solve the problem. My workshop manual says 0.6mm, but the Haynes manual appently says 0.8mm.

Nah, I haven't played. It was serviced a few months ago and there were no problems. The only things I've done since the service is changed the plug gaps and put redex in it.

It's only 1cc on a cylinder. You may get that by increasing the compression ratio.

FWIW, the rocker cover gaskets are always a weak point on this engine. They tend to be over-tightened, then lose their, er, thingy, squashyness, so they go all hard, and oil then leaks out.

I'd whip the SPI unit off, all the hoses, 8mm or 10mm socket, whip the cover off, put on a new gasket (you may want to do this before you whip the cover off ;-) and do it back up, making sure all the surfaces are perfectly clean, and _not_ over-tightening the nuts.

A new gasket shouldn't be too much to pay for, changing it is easy, and you'll save yourself the hastle of having the HG replaced (not that it's a difficult job - I've done it at the side of the road in the past!)

HTH

Pete.

I've got a new gasket, only cost a £few.

That'll take ages! Loads of tubes etc and some look like they won't come off without breaking.

You're a maniac! I probably wouldn't do the HG myself. Anyway, if the head needed skimming it would've be pretty difficult to do at the side of the road.

A complete head set for that engine is only =A312, and that's HG, rocker=20 gasket, carb gasket, thermostat gasket and 8 valve stem seals.

It's easier than it looks. Leave the tubes etc. Just undo the 4 bolts=20 holding the unit onto the head (there's no external inlet manifold on this= =20 engine) and gently move the unit to one side.

You may find the throttle cable is anchored on the top of the cover, but=20 that's easy to unclip too. The PCV hose (the one to the rocker cover) can= =20 also be left in place too.

Thank you!

It got the car home, and actually it kept going for another 4 years. My=20 brother didn't have any breakdown cover at this point, so there wasn't much= =20 option really!

TBH, once you've got the rocker cover off that engine, the HG only involves= =20 the removal of about 4 nuts that hold the rocker assembly on. Undo those,= =20 the rocker stuff comes off, leave the pushrods in, undo the 10 CH bolts and= =20 the head comes off.

New gasket on, re-assembly is the reverse of dismantling.

Took about 2 hours from start to finish. It took 2 hours to get to where=20 he'd broken down though (Furnace near Aberystwyth).

Pete.

--=20 NOTE! Email address is spamtrapped. Any email will be bounced to you Remove the news and underscore from my address to reply by mail

*If* the head gasket really needs doing, then it's not a tricky job on a pushrod engine. Think about it - There's a lump of metal with other bits bolted to it. So you unbolt the other bits, and then remove the head.

No doubt it's a bit trickier on a Fiat, but I've done them on Minis in well under an hour, and Triumph pushrod engines in not much over. Triumph ones I find harder because there's some silly big heavy bits bolted to the head that are annoying to take off, and make the head heavy to pull out still on.

Is it alloy or cast head? I've not once had a warped cast iron head, and that's after having some quite major overheating. So you may well not need a skim.

It'll be the 899cc, derived from the 903cc 45bph pushrod rattly thing.

It takes a little bit longer to do, because of the integral manifold (IMO), because one head bolt is inside the manifold, and you _have_ to remove the carb (in fact, it's pretty awkward to remove the rocker cover, let alone the rocker gear without removing the carb).

Certainly not a hard job.

Pete.

Do you know how simple a 900cc Seicento is? - Even a 1980s Ford Fiesta is more complex.

That's what you'd think, but if it's a recentish model, it'll have Single Point Injection, immobiliser, proper engine management system.

Looking at the engine in my brother's Cinq, and being familiar with the base engine, it looked a bit like The Borg had come along and added bits, bobs & hoses to it!

A bit like the old HCS engine in the Fester, being festooned with the latest engine management systems.

Pete.

I know, I had a Cinq. Sporting. It may have a very basic ECU with SPi and Immobiliser, but the oily bits are as simple as they come - especially in the pushrod-engined 900.

That's only the intake system. I junked all that for a K&N kit - it really is very simple in there.

I'd much prefer SPi and an ECU to points and distributors. Much less to go wrong.

I think the rocker box is VERY easy to remove on the 1.1's. I believe there's nothing on the top at all, so you just unscrew it and take it off.

I think the 899cc is a bit more cluttered than the 1.1. My rocker box has a massive injector/carb on top of it with a million tubes etc going into it.

Erm, we're talking about Fiat's electronics here. The electronics on the's vehicles can be a bit random at times (apparently). I don't think I've had any real problems with the electronics.

Yep!

Yeah, the base engine's an old design, but there are loads of extra bits. The size of the bonnet doesn't help either.

I thought a head set was about 15 pound. The rocker gasket was about

3 pound though and I've already got one sitting in my cupboard.

I need to change the rocker box gasket ASAP, but my dad's busy :-(

Hmm, I'll have to see if we have time for this.

My dad thinks the mixture is weak. That's what he thinks is causing the 'spitting'. Any other ideas? CHG is a possiblity, but it can't be the exhaust manifold gasket could it?

If the current 1.1 is like the old 1.1 55 bhp, then it's easy to get to, because there's a proper inlet manifold, so the carb/FI unit is away, and the cover is only a flat plate, because it's an OHC.

Pete.

If the mixture is weak, you'll have an engine management light come on, because the engine can tell it's weak, because it has a lambda sensor (weak mix would cause it to read high IIRC).

On the whole, when your CHG goes, you _do_ know about it.

1) You could get water in your oil. You'll lose water, and your oil will look like mayonnaise. 2) You could get oil in your water. Your header tank will have black gunge in it. 3) You could burn oil. Constantly, and lots of it. Look for the plume of blue smoke. This is combined with one filthy spark plug, and the need to top up oil regularly. 4) You could burn water. Constantly, and again, lots of it. Look for the plume of bright white sweet smelling steam wherever you go (you can't see behind you!). This is combined with one very clean spark plug. This will also pressurise your cooling system, causing the hoses to baloon/fall off, and various other odd things. 5) You could burn a hole between cylinders. This would cause it to run like a heap of crap. This can be diagnosed with a compression test.

BTW, the "spitting" noise you're hearing, where is it coming from? If it's like a "cracking" noise, your engine will do this if it's got poor oil pressure up to the hydraulic lifters, and it takes a while for them to pressurise them. If not, _exactly_ what does it sound like, where is it coming from, and when does it occur?

I personally think you should take it to a recommended small local garage, and get them to take a look at it. We could probably diagnose the problem if we were there, with the car, but it's difficult to diagnose remotely.

Alternatively, get a blowtorch, and set fire to a piece of wiring loom somewhere (a blowtorch may not leave characteristic hydrocarbon residues which the fire brigade could use to prove you torched your own car), and just torch the bastard, then claim on the insurance.[0]

Pete.

[0] I'm not serious! This is insurance fraud, and very naughty. Just don't pour a gallon of petrol onto the drivers seat & chuck in a match. This leaves evidence, and why the hell would a car spontaneously combust in the drivers seat?