Hello,
suddenly i have found that there is no compression in 2nd cylinder of my Cinquecento- S 899 Year 1996. Most probably, the output valve of this cylinder is dead and I have to take off the cylinder head. It is not so terrible for me as I did this job with this kind of motor twice before… Nevertheless, it was much more space between the motor and the panel in my previous cars, I could easily shift the exhaust collector and then take off the head. There is not so much space in Cinquecento/Seicento and I fear that the job will be much more complicated now. My questions are:


1. Is it possible to dismount the cylinder head just alone, without touching the exhaust system in this car? I would rather unscrew the connection between the head and collector, the job to unscrew collector-catalyst or catalyst-exhaust connections is much more complicated… In the Etzold’s book is written that the head must be taken away together with collector…
2. If it is so, what is the chance to unscrew these three bolts between the collector and catalyst? Or one must be ready to drill-out the collector and rewind the thread?


Many thanks in advance for ideas and good advices…

When I took the head off of my 899 Cinq I'm sure I left the exhaust manifold in the car.
If you do need to separate the manifold from the Cat, it is only three nuts from below, so not difficult.

Sounds good!
How to get then to two lower nuts of manyfold? From below?
Do you really think that it will be so easy to unscrew these 3 nuts (manyfold-cat) after 21 years?

After a squirt of Plusgas they came off ok, all bar one, which unscrewed the downpipe stud from the manifold flange.

To be honest I can’t remember the route to the manifold to head nuts, but it was ok.
I did it with the car on the ground outside my house.

There's some chance that at least one of the bolts/studs will shear off..

Use a lot of Plusgas (not WD40.. it's less effective) and heat. Heat the beast up with a blow-torch (or drive it around) and then spray the Plusgas on it while it's still hot. The shock helps to separate the two pieces of rust from each other.

Start doing this every day for a few days before you tackle the job.


Also buy a brand new 8mm drill bit. If/when the stud shears off in the exhaust flange, you'll be able to drill it out. Also, having a brand new drill bit, means that the bolts will come out cleanly, so you didn't need to buy the drill bit... but it's better to buy it and not need it than the other way round.

Also buy some new M8 bolts (30mm?) and nuts so that you don't have to re-use the old ones.


Ralf S.

Once you take the throttle body off there is much more access to whats behind the engine.

D