Hello,

I have an '84 X1/9, completely standard with about 60,000 miles on the clock. In the last six months or so it has been giving me starting problems. It starts great when cold but does not start when hot, after, say, half an hour or more driving. If I leave the car for 10 or 15 minutes or park with engine cover open then it is fine.

I have change the plugs, coil, condensor, checked the timing. It revs beautifully now, does not miss a beat up to the red line but still won't start when hot.

Any thoughts or tips would be greatfully received.

Thanks, Paul R

More than likely your starter is going bad. Being cheap as I am, I would check the grounds from the battery and the ground strap on the tranny... Without the grounds being clean, your starter doesn't get to use all of the electricity available...

Hope it helps


Later Daze,
Eric Flowers
1980 X1/9 His
1984 X1/9 Her's
1977 Xrace X

"Real men love hugging tight curves"[}]

Check first the carburator fan by connecting the two wire near the carburator...if the fan work you may have the thermo switch located on carburator housing damaged.

I have been living with *exactly* the same problem with a 1994 Fiat Tipo 1.6ie for years and it is a real pain in the ass. I know just about nothing in terms of auto mechanics, so I've nothing informed to say about the deal, but I have heard :

1) the symptoms were once mentioned in connection to a non-Fiat, and the problem turned out to involve the fuel pump relay. I have tried repeatedly to get a mechanic interest in looking at this and but none has done it. (They tend to prefer greater ideas like changing the spark plugs!)

2) at this link (scroll down to Reuben on 7/12/98) http://www.geocities.com/motorcity/3191/forum/letters2.html
someone describes a similar sounding problem on a Tipo. He replace the fuel pump to no avail but eventually solves (!) the problem by replacing "the computer ( the part above the airflowmeter )" whatever that means.

I would be very glad to be rid of this problem, even though the car has never completely faided to start. It actually is cool as I can pretend to be meccanogod by open the hood and symbolically fiddling with random wire until the car decides it is ready to start.

What do you all think?

hi
check for any fuel lines etc. that may have come loose....when engine is stopped ,under bonnet temp rises...possibly leading to evaporation problems on any parts of system that have come adrift.....also check that any heat deflectors etc are correctly positioned.

Hiya,
I had the same problem with my last 1500 '82 x19. If you have auto choke check that and make sure that it is not sticking on and as already mentioned check for evaporation problems.

I had a similar problem with my x a 1500, the problem is called vapour lock, becoz of the reverse flow configuration of the inlet and exhaust, the fuel gases in the inlet manifold evaporate rapidly thus starving fuel during cranking, ths is a very common fiat 128 and 138 engne problem. With tht said you need to repair the carb cooling fan becz ths engine tends to heat up more becoz of its location

This is a common problem on Fiat X1/9's. Fuel vaporisation due to the heat in the engine compartment.
I would say fit an electric fuel pump to help cure the problem.
And lumention system to replace the points is a bonus if you can afford it.

You can also do a lot to prevent this by sorting out the airflow in the engine bay.

The spacer tray between the manifold and the carburettor does a lot of heat shielding but this generally fails as the air cleaner housing acts as a reverse heat sink. A small chrome, free-flow filter rejects the heat and much less is transmitted back to the carburettor with the added bonus that the engine runs better too

It is also possible to open up the engine cover slats to permit more rising hot air to escape.

One possibility (and I don't completely recommend this) is to use a heatwrap on the exhaust manifold. It seriously reduces the heat soak but transfers it all to the luggage area instead so make sure the insulation mat is present. It also traps water on the manifold which can lead to premature failure so if you live anywhere damp or worse still cold and damp where salt is used on the roads the it may not be worth it.

Electronic ignition helps as the engine will start on a leaner fuel mixture and of course a swap to an electrical fuel pump will help to stop it vapour locking in the first place.

If you have a fuel filter in the system make sure it isn't at a high point in the pipework as it will trap vapour and prevent any vacuum pumping (as with a mechanical pump) or better still make sure it is on the positive pressure side of the pump as this will help push any vapour out of the system.

It is also possible to obtain a thermal shield sleeve for the fuel lines that can really help.

Finally - are you sure it is vapour lock? All of the Fiat engines (even the modern ones) can suffer from distortion of the crank plane when they get hot. The X1/9 suffers especially because of poor engine bay ventilation, as do the turbo engine'd cars. Effectively the engine tries to bend the crank resulting in a big loss of power and when the engine is hot it is at its worst - to the point where some cars will barely be able to turn the engine over as if the battery is flat but will start fine from cold.

Sadly there are several batches of engines out there with sub-spec crankshafts that do not have the same strength as they should have, the crank tends to go banana shaped after a while with results similar to the block flex but it tends to be permanent and not just when the engine is hot.

A large part of the cost of getting my race engine built was finding a block that didn't distort and then getting it de-stressed to make sure it wouldn't do it in the future. As the engines get older the problem seems to be more prevalent.

Would it make sense to chrome the air filter housing to reflect some of the heat back? It would look a bit ....
Regarding the hot starting problems, I used to have them some years ago and sorted it out by replacing the fuel filter. It turned out that the carburettor was getting clogged and for some reason would only start from cold