Hey all! Me again...

Another little problem has sprung up with my GP 1.4L 16V Sporting... This time its an oil leak. Yay.

I have attached an image which circles where the leak is. It's kinda hard to see the leak on the picture but it should give you a good idea where abouts the leak actually is! It is "deep" in the engine down the side of the Engine block. Right now it's a fairly small leak and has only dripped a little bit but either way, it is still dripping and is all up the side of the engine block. Any leak needs sorting...

Has anyone had a similar leak in the same place before and if so what did you find to be the cause... I have read one or two other peoples posts but none seemed to quite match the problem I'm having... Some where saying it could be a crack in the sump or an O ring etc etc...

Anyway, any help/advice on where to start getting this fixed/plugged up that would be amazing! Thank you all!!

feel underneath the top engine mounting.
Is there any oil under there. ??

Ours had a leak very similar to this.
You could feel the oil on the underside the engine mounting, which in turn runs down the front of the lower timing cover.

Behind the top cam belt cover, you'll see the main cam belt pulley.
Slightly to the left of this is a blanking plate, which has a rubber o-ring inside.
The o-ring had perished.

Even after cleaning the area behind the timing cover, and around the blanking plate, with the engine running and watching the area, it would take anything like 20 minutes before any trace of oil was spotted.
My initial thoughts were that this wasn't enough to cause such a mess, but it was.

If it turns out to be the same case with yours, you can just about get to the o-ring without taking the pulley and belt off.


Lock the cams using a suitable home made tool via the locking hole on the front of the cam carrier.
Remove the top pulley blanking cover.
You'll need tons and tons of old rags, paper roll, kitchen roll etc as it will leak quite a bit of oil out.

Crack off the top pulley bolt and unscrew a number of turns, but don't fully remove.

Using a pry bar, gently lever the pulley as if pulling it off, but don't pull it off completely, leave it connected to the cam shaft. (this is why we don't remove the bolt)

Now remove the two bolts holding the blanking plate and see if you can maneuver it out, you may have to pry the top pulley just a little more.
You don't need a great deal of room, but it just won't come out with the top pulley in situ.

Again, you'll need loads of tissue, old rags etc, as more oil will come out when you remove the blank.
I guess in total, you'll lose about a vending cup full of oil, so not enough to worry about but enough to make a mess.

I considered that raising this side of the car on blocks, might reduce the amount of oil spillage.

Fit the new o-ring and reassemble.
Check and top up the oil level.
The job will take no more than an hour.

For what it takes to take the top timing cover off, i'd be tempted to take it off, and take a good look around this blanking plate, any trace of oil, wipe it down, wash it down and clean it off.
Refit the cover and run the car for a day.
Then check again.
Any trace what so ever of oil on or around this blanking plate and i'd suggest that this is the cause.

Hey dude!

Thanks so much for such an in-depth response! I think I actually found and read your thread on here from when you was having the problems when I was researching it!! I have been on eLEARN also and been looking at some diagrams too and how you have described it, it sounds like it could indeed be exactly the same problem! I'm going to have a little look under that top plastic cover and see how things look under there and I'll report back with what I find!!

I don't suppose you have the part number for the rubber O-ring if it is that do you?? Or is it a pretty standard part that you can pick up off the shelf almost from most car repair shops/halfords type thing?

Thanks so much again!!

iirc it was a 40mm o-ring.
But i can't imagine the genuine fiat one being expensive

Heyy! Finally ordered the o-ring from Fiat, that should be here in the next day or so. I've had the cover off as you suggested, cleaned up all the oil left it over night and once again, engine has oil dropped all down it and it does indeed seem to be coming from that end plate/o-ring! One question though, I have attached a picture of the main camshaft timing wheel/pulley you mentioned making a home made tool to insert into the wheel to keep everything in time while we loosen it off? I don't see any holes?? So, do I take off those 5 outer torx screws AND the larger centre one? Will doing that reveal the main bolt to loosen the pulley wheel off or is that large torx bolt the main one that loosens the wheel from the shaft? Where abouts are those holes located to keep the wheel in time??? Thanks again for all your help!!




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I know it may not sound nice but if you don't know how to lock the variator/cam then don't touch anything. You can do fatal damage to the engine. You must have the right tools to lock and re-timing cam, no need to mention torque wrench.

Maybe right time to replace the belt as well ?

Sorry for the late response.. been as busy and busy bee this week.

Remove the air filter box (4 screws), and directly on the front of the rocker cover, you'll see a round plug, round about the middle.
This is where you lock the cams.
You may get a small dribble of oil, but nothing major.

Remove this plug and insert your home made tool. ( i used an allen key as the locking tool)
Using a socket with a Torx, rotate the top cam pulley with the center bolt.
Don't touch the 5 or so smaller bolts around the edge.
Eventually you'll feel the locking tool drop in to a groove or hole in the cam.
It might take a few turns of the pulley for the hole to come round.

The centre bolt in the top pulley is actually a blanking plug, now that the cams are locked, you should be able to remove this.

Now when you try to rotate the pulley, the locking tool will pull hard against the rocker, allowing you to remove this blanking plug from the pulley.

There will be quite a bit of oil lost as the pulley is filled with oil as part of the variable valve timing.
You'll not lose gallons, but enough to make a small mess, so be well prepared with lots of rags and kitchen roll etc.

When you have the plug out, you can crack off the centre bolt. Don't remove it fully, maybe 3 or 4 turns.

Using a pry bar, lever the pulley off the shaft a little, not too much, we don't want it coming off, just enough to give us a little clearance.. maybe 5-10mm at most.

You should now be able to get that pesky blanking plate out, if not, lever a tad more on the pulley.

This is where the locking tool should go, remove this plug and rotate the cams until you feel it.

www.cabletiefan.co.uk/webimages/camlock.jpg

I also need to reiterate the blanking plate.
When you remove this, there will be more oil spillage, so again be prepared with rags, kitchen roll etc.
I stuffed a load of roll/rags inside the bottom timing cover.

www.cabletiefan.co.uk/webimages/blank.jpg

Hey! My apologies for not replying for ages! It has been extremely busy recently!!! I just thought I'd take the opportunity to thank you hugely for all of your help and advice with this job! I completed it a few weeks ago with my dad and it has 100% fixed the leak! We had to go one step further and to make the job a bit easier we took the left side (looking in from the front of the car) engine mount off so we could get to everything with ease! All went perfectly to plan thank you so much! I've attached a few pictures from doing the job!


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Hi there i found water where my feet lie when driving

Foam under the tapestry is soaking wet- removed all the foam and is dry now however as i removedthe plastic on the side where the clutch is i found like a white plastic thing tgat seems to be leaking water

What is it?

Thanks

Alan

louisvella01 said:

Hey! My apologies for not replying for ages! It has been extremely busy recently!!! I just thought I'd take the opportunity to thank you hugely for all of your help and advice with this job! I completed it a few weeks ago with my dad and it has 100% fixed the leak! We had to go one step further and to make the job a bit easier we took the left side (looking in from the front of the car) engine mount off so we could get to everything with ease! All went perfectly to plan thank you so much! I've attached a few pictures from doing the job! View attachment 144679 View attachment 144680


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Click to expand...

Nice!

I hope you replaced the belt as well cause the cracks are noticeable from the pictures.

Nice one.
Thanks for the update.