Well, not a good day!

Third thread and this is by far the most serious.

So, I thought I'd finally get my hands dirty today and start with a simple oil change (the car needed a 'run in' oil change after 300 miles, as the engine was essentially new following the work that had been done on it).

I followed the simple procedure easily enough, using the Castrol Classic oil that was recommended by fellow owners club members. My car seems to run better with more oil in than less, so I filled it up to the MAX line (perhaps even a tad over, but I didn't think it was over enough to worry about draining some out).

All good, however on the test drive the engine bay started billowing smoke as the engine and exhaust were covered in oil. The dipstick had also pushed out.

I limped it home, repeated the entire process with LESS oil (just above the minimum line), wiped the engine clean of oil and, the same result. After a short test drive the engine and exhaust were covered in new oil and was billowing smoke.

I suspect that I may have caused a problem by adding too much oil in the first place.

What would be the most common issue for me to look for? Would a gasket blow as a consequence of this?

How did you run it in?
Is it actually blowing the dip stick out?
Or just blowing past?

I just drove it carefully for 300 miles, as instructed, and was just changing the oil at the 300 mile mark, again as advised.

On the first test drive the dipstick had just popped out of its seating. On the second the dipstick was still in place (so the fresh oil around the engine must be coming from somewhere else).

Just noticed you said blowing the stick out,
Look at breather related issues HOPEFULLY,
If not your looking at glazed bores, missaligned piston ring gaps, or undersized pistons (honing or board out too much)
The force needed to push that stick out will be quite high, a compression test will tell you better, or which cylinder it might be.

Pete145 said:

I just drove it carefully for 300 miles, as instructed, and was just changing the oil at the 300 mile mark, again as advised.

On the first test drive the dipstick had just popped out of its seating. On the second the dipstick was still in place (so the fresh oil around the engine must be coming from somewhere else).

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Ok so if the stick has stayed in place the only things that could Be overfill related is rocker cover and oil push rod seals, 1st thing I would do is get it to half on the dip stick, clean all the excess oil up and take it for a run out,
You tend to find if you put a lot of oil in engines the crank will splash it everywhere.
Try that and go from there.
Running in oil is way thinner than the proper classic stuff so if it was gonna leak it would of done from the start normally, and it's funny it did it after the change.

GrandeGuy said:

Ok so if the stick has stayed in place the only things that could Be overfill related is rocker cover and oil push rod seals, 1st thing I would do is get it to half on the dip stick, clean all the excess oil up and take it for a run out,
You tend to find if you put a lot of oil in engines the crank will splash it everywhere.
Try that and go from there.
Running in oil is way thinner than the proper classic stuff so if it was gonna leak it would of done from the start normally, and it's funny it did it after the change.

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OK, after wiping the engine and exhaust down and filling it to just above the MIN line I can confirm that after the second test drive the engine is covered in fresh oil from the very top (it looks like at least some has splashed out of the cap). The engine (and right hand side of the engine bay) is covered in oil all over, form the rocker cover down. The rocker cover gasket actually looks dry though, which is odd.

Next step is to run it and rev it and watch to see if I can physically see where the oil is coming from. But, as a new owner, my skills will be very limited. I thought this very simple job would be an easy win, but it looks like I'll have to get it towed to a Fiat 500 specialist, which is soooooo frustrating!

GrandeGuy said:

Running in oil is way thinner than the proper classic stuff so if it was gonna leak it would of done from the start normally, and it's funny it did it after the change.

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Also worth noting, the original oil wasn't 'running in' oil, just the regular classic grade stuff. The guy that tuned and rebuilt the engine just advised to drive it softly for 300 miles and do an oil change at that point (just to be safe).

My money's on pushrod seals, only thing it could be, apart from breather blocked which would push it out of everywhere.

when you filled it up with oil, did you leave it to stand for 10 minutes to allow the oil to drain though to the sump. I have known so many people over fill the engine by not letting it stand and then check the level again.
As GrandeGuy said, if it was pushing the dip stick out then that is usually caused by crankcase pressure. Initially that would happen by overfilling with oil. Now you have lowered the oil level, if it is not doing it anymore then that's part sorted. The other reason is the engine is not breathing, that could be due to a blocked rocker cover cap (it has a vent in it.
You need to find out where the oil is coming out of before you can do anything else. Just rev it up to approx 3000rpm and hold it there and you should start seeing it.
If its coming out of the top like you said, then that has to be a bad seated rocker cover, faulty gasket, bad fitting cap, or the 2 bolts/nuts holding it down are not seated properly. Did you take it off?
You should be able to run the engine with the rocker cap off and only a few spits of oil are likely to come out.

Franko500 said:

If its coming out of the top like you said, then that has to be a bad seated rocker cover, faulty gasket, bad fitting cap, or the 2 bolts/nuts holding it down are not seated properly. Did you take it off?
You should be able to run the engine with the rocker cap off and only a few spits of oil are likely to come out.

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Thanks for the advice. I did leave it to settle for a while and checked the oil again before I took it for a spin. It was slightly above the MAX line, but not by much. That said, I'm now certain I had too much oil in there.

I'll clean it off and rev it to simulate driving tomorrow, and see if I can see where the oil is coming from.

I didn't take the rocker cover off, but even with my limited experience I'm familiar with problems in this area of the engine. The rocker cover gasket is the one area that looks dry, and the studs are firm.

Now for the confession. I'm the winner of the Fiat 500 from the Channel 5 show, Classic Car Rescue, and this is that car!

I was in the market for a 500 already, so I'd done my pre-purchase research and just dropped lucky I guess.

It's a beautiful restoration. I've compared it to a few others in the owners club now and the body work and interior has been very well done, the bonnet fit is actually perfect, better than it looked on TV

If you watched it you'll know what they did to the engine (skimmed, ported etc etc) to eek out 30% more BhP.

Since I took delivery of the car I've had multiple engine problems, all related to this area:

- Both rocker cover studs pushed out (separately, so two separate roadside breakdowns), and both had to be helicoiled.

- Various gaskets blew after those were both fixed, including the rocker cover gasket, covering the engine and engine bay with oil.

Eventually the guys at Middle Barton Garage got hold of it and did a great job of getting it running smoothly, until today!

A simple engine oil change, with borderline oil levels, and seals and gaskets are blowing again!

Is it possible that the extra power that they squeezed out of the engine has made it fragile and is causing these problems? This is the 4th 'pressure' related failure in 6 weeks (300miles).

I can't help thinking that squeezing the extra power out of the unit is causing problems elsewhere, and I'm tempted to just bite the bullet and get a recon 650 engine fitted and ditching this one.

Thoughts on that?

Pete

Pete, interesting extra info there. You had to win it didn't you.
Most things have been covered apart from catastrophic cracks in the castings.
But now knowing who assembled it anything might be wrong. Don't get rid of it though, the new parts were good and the machining looked excellent. It's only slightly "warmed" from what I saw.
Does the filler cap have a rubber seal? Is there a small mica disc and a light spring on the cap? Is the breather pipe from the rocker cover connected?
Keep posting, this is an interesting tale.

fiat500 said:

Pete, interesting extra info there. You had to win it didn't you.
Most things have been covered apart from catastrophic cracks in the castings.
But now knowing who assembled it anything might be wrong. Don't get rid of it though, the new parts were good and the machining looked excellent. It's only slightly "warmed" from what I saw.
Does the filler cap have a rubber seal? Is there a small mica disc and a light spring on the cap? Is the breather pipe from the rocker cover connected?
Keep posting, this is an interesting tale.

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Ye, someone had to win it I guess! And it won't be sold on! If I didn't win this one I would have bought one this summer, so I'm not a Joe Public with an over active text finger who didn't know what I was letting myself in for!

Despite the early problems I'm still very, very lucky.

The guys on the TV show most likely didn't assemble the engine from what I can tell, but hey, let's not go there!

Middle Barton Garage got hold of it and really did turn it around after a terrible first week of ownership (three major engine failures and roadside recoveries in less than 20 miles of motoring). To be fair to Channel 5 they were very understanding and were kind enough to pick up the repair bills (which they didn't have to by the way) but made it clear that I was on my own after the last round of work by MBG.

Anyway, to answer your points:

1 - Yep, the rubber seal is there.
2 - The mica disc and spring are also both in place, although the mica disc is showing signs of minor deterioration (and has done since I had it).

I'm on the brink of getting it towed to MBG again, as I'm relatively close to them in Reading. They're the only guys I really know, and they're familiar with the car (they sold it to the production company AND fixed it last time).

What are my options? I'm not yet geared up at home to do anything other than tinker, and even changing a gasket correctly is probably beyond me with the set-up I have (at the moment).

I have been thinking about this.
It all depends on where the oil is coming out from.
Once you have determined that then we have a better idea of the cause.


If its coming out of the gasket? - blown gasket due to overfilling
out of the cap? Then you have crankcase pressure
1. check/replace cap
2. check breather pipe is clear
3. check air filter - if this is clogged up with oil then breather pipe unlikely to be able to work, this is also a pressure release that feeds back through the carb to burn off any excess engine oil vapours etc.
4. valve seals leaking?
5. possible that there is pressure loss past the piston rings causing excess crankcase pressure, this has to go somewhere and will force oil out of the easiest route.


My money is on no 2 &3. if you filled the rocker box to the top and let it drained down, this could go through to the filter via the breather pipe. If the breather pipe is not working, it causes crankcase pressure, hence the dip stick jumping out. If it was a piston ring issue then chances are you will not stop the dip stick coming out, and yet you mentioned second time it stayed in. So things are improving.


the additional tuning will not make any difference if it has been built correctly. Do the basics first as an oil change should not cause any major mechanical changes unless you really overfilled it!

Franko500 said:

the additional tuning will not make any difference if it has been built correctly. Do the basics first as an oil change should not cause any major mechanical changes unless you really overfilled it!

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This is certainly a relief, as I was worried they had created a Frankenstein's monster of an engine that would forever cause me problems!

I'm certain that the refilling was only marginally too high. In fact, I measured it out to 2L first and, after checking it 10 mins later, I then added another 500 50 600mls. A total of 2.6L (and the recommended amount in the Haynes manual is 4pints, which is about 2.3L). So marginal rather than ridiculous.

Once I'm back from work this afternoon I'll clean the oil off the engine, stand at the back, rev it to 3,000 RPM and see what I can see. I can definitely see splashes at the very top near to the cap, but it could be coming from other places as well.

I'll report back.

Hi Pete

Sorry to hear about the engine oil problem, I am sure it will be nothing serious in the end. I have attached a tech tip from Mr Rylance written some time ago it concerns reviving a dead engine and therefore may not be of any direct use. The 3rd section refers however to priming an engine, I just thought that it may have something in it for you? It's a bit of an egg sucking tech bulletin to be fair so I tender my apologies in advance.

Well done on getting the car too, I saw the programme and thought they did a good job. They didn't talk about the wheels and tyres at all though, I wondered what sizes of wheel and tyre they fitted and did they have any clearance issues or did they mod the wheel arches at all? I'd be grateful if you could let me know the wheel size and tyre size fitted as I am considering changing mine.

Many thanks and best regards
Hugh Jarce

Morning Pete;
Also very sorry to hear of your problems with the engine---I have just re-watched the programme, in case they had fitted an alloy rocker cover (which are stupidly slow to let oil flow through) but they hadn't. The original tin rocker covers can be quite slow fillers, and the surplus oil flows down the breather pipe! Also, have a look at your oil pressure take-off on the side of the crank-case. They had a problem with this in the programme which caused a massive amount of oil smoke--is the new take-off leaking onto the exhaust?. Please let us know what the outcome finally turns out to be.

Hugh Jarce said:

They didn't talk about the wheels and tyres at all though, I wondered what sizes of wheel and tyre they fitted and did they have any clearance issues or did they mod the wheel arches at all? I'd be grateful if you could let me know the wheel size and tyre size fitted as I am considering changing mine.

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Thanks Hugh,

Yes, the wheels/tyres are certainly another feature that help to differentiate this particular car. I'll double check the sizes of the tyres, but the wheels (and steering wheel, I believe) were sourced from Italy, and they're Mille Miglia.

I was pretty convinced that I'd take them off and replace with the standard steel wheels as soon as I took delivery of the car, as I always wanted a very original looking 500. But they're apparently a close copy of the original wheels used on the racing Abarths (I haven't tested the validity of that claim), so they do seem to hold the originality of the car quite well, so I plan to keep them.

I've since found them for sale via Ricambio:

http://www.ricambio.co.uk/69-fiat/2...loy-wheels-mille-miglia--classic-fiat-500-126

Now for the problem!

You've touched on the one other more serious issue with this particular car (in addition to the high engine pressure blowing studs, seals and gaskets) because they DIDN'T modify the wheel arches.

As a result, the clearance is very tight at the front of the arches and I do get a bit of rub at the front of the left wheel arch when I turn right (not in the right when I turn left, interestingly). Thankfully it's not too much, and once you know that the problem exists you can manage your cornering angle/speed accordingly to all but eradicate it.

That said, as soon as I've got the engine running as it should, my next project will be to find someone who can modify the arches so I can keep these wheels. I've contacted a few classic car bodywork specialists and nobody seems to keen to take it on!

Hi Pete

Yes I've seen these at Ricambio, they advise the tyres that will fit these rims go from 145x12 to 165x12. That may be so but if it means messing around with the arches, much as I like these wheels, I'll search out some that will take a 125x12 or possibly a 135x12 at a push. They have some four spoke Abarths too I note. Let me know the sizes as fitted and that gives me a benchmark to start from and work back.

Good luck
Hugh Jarce

Hugh Jarce said:

Hi Pete

Yes I've seen these at Ricambio, they advise the tyres that will fit these rims go from 145x12 to 165x12.

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Hi Hugh, yes, the tyres on mine are 145x12. Slight rub on the arch.

Pete145 said:

Hi Hugh, yes, the tyres on mine are 145x12. Slight rub on the arch.

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If it's the inner arch would small wheel spacers not solve it?