Hi everyone. I'm new here. I have a 79 fiat Spider, carbed, mostly stock. Runs and looks great. But boy do I have a fumes/blowby gas issue. I am not burning any oil (maybe a quart in 6000 miles), there are no exhaust leaks, no smoke at all. But the passenger compartment is smelly, especially when using the engine to break. The engine compartment seems to be filled with fumes. Can I block off those two strange reed valve gizmos coming out of the top of the cylinder head, or will that hurt something?

I'd appreciate any help/advice. I have attached a picture of the gizmos, circled in yellow.....

And if anyone has any obscure fuel/idling or electric questions/problems with 850 Sports, I might be the guy..............


Reido

First of all, hello all, we are back from holiday and really ready to... go back on holiday if I'm honest. Anyway, this is prolly on the wrong board as we seem to be mostly UK and this looks like a Federal emissions set up to reduce atmospheric pollution from crankcase gasses. To research a bit i would do a compression test wet and dry and this may give you a clue, cars can still go well even with a lot of blow by. I would also check the reed valves to ensure they are not stuck open, can you get tube to them and try blowing into them? I imagine there is one to the head and one to the crankcase. A tempory fix if it is blowby would be to run breathers to the back of the car and leave it all to the 6.0 litre V8 Jeep behind you It may just be stuck rings and a Redex sort of gloop is worth a try, although I have not had much luck with it

Reido, just checking if you've made any progress. I have the same issue with my '81 spider. Now that it is winter in South America, I have to drive with the top up and I am gagging on fumes.

I had a similar problem with my 1980 and have removed both valves from the head, then blocked them both off with simple bolt-in plugs. I haven't seemed to have any problems with my engine since then (~5 years), and in Pennsylvania the car is old enough to be emissions-exempt so there's no problems there.

Hi,

Do you know the size of the plugs for the reed valves and where to get them?

Steve:bang: