Joseph Buttigieg
New member
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2012
- Messages
- 66
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- 23
My Marea 1.8 16v has developed an external oil leakage, which appears to come from the head gasket right at the corner next to no. 4 cylinder exhaust manifold.
After a thorough investigation, it appears that the leakage has developed at the cylinder head gasket.
Before deciding to pull of the head, I am thinking about a last resort: re-torqueing the cylinder head.
This seems to have worked on other cars in some cases. Some manufacturers even recommend it for some engine types. Anyone tried this before?
Problem is that the bolts are stretch bolts meaning that they should only be used once. The tightening sequence is 20 Nm+40Nm+90 degrees+90 degrees+90 degrees. Actually they shouldn't go loose as the bolts have been stretched into their plastic range.
This procedure does not indicate a final torque level which I can check.
My head gasket has been renewed 100.000 kms (7 years) ago. I'm not quite sure whether the garage doing this job renewed the bolts at that time. Some manufacturers recommend renewing the bolts after lets say three times retorquing but the Fiat manual is silent on this. Perhaps the bolt next to the leak did go loose or the gasket has lost its resilience. Could be a slight warp in the head of course.
For the rest, there are no internal leakages so this oil sweating is the only issue at this stage.
The leakage is next to no.4 exhaust manifold ie. at the right bottom corner in the pic below. As you can see in there is a bolt adjacent to the oil galley from which the oil is leaking.
Any advices will be highly appreciated.
I need advice.
After a thorough investigation, it appears that the leakage has developed at the cylinder head gasket.
Before deciding to pull of the head, I am thinking about a last resort: re-torqueing the cylinder head.
This seems to have worked on other cars in some cases. Some manufacturers even recommend it for some engine types. Anyone tried this before?
Problem is that the bolts are stretch bolts meaning that they should only be used once. The tightening sequence is 20 Nm+40Nm+90 degrees+90 degrees+90 degrees. Actually they shouldn't go loose as the bolts have been stretched into their plastic range.
This procedure does not indicate a final torque level which I can check.
My head gasket has been renewed 100.000 kms (7 years) ago. I'm not quite sure whether the garage doing this job renewed the bolts at that time. Some manufacturers recommend renewing the bolts after lets say three times retorquing but the Fiat manual is silent on this. Perhaps the bolt next to the leak did go loose or the gasket has lost its resilience. Could be a slight warp in the head of course.
For the rest, there are no internal leakages so this oil sweating is the only issue at this stage.
The leakage is next to no.4 exhaust manifold ie. at the right bottom corner in the pic below. As you can see in there is a bolt adjacent to the oil galley from which the oil is leaking.
Any advices will be highly appreciated.
I need advice.
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