Ducato Engine breather Series1 Ducato 2.5 DT re-route

Hi Alex, you seem to know a lot about fair Ducatos and wondered whether you could help me. I have a 1987 Fiat Ducato motorhome, I presume this is a series 1? My air filter has a switch essembly on it and a hose to the turbo, that’s it. My problem is the breather that emits oil particles occasionally throws out 500 ml oil. I have a box coming out of the block with wire mesh inside, this goes, via a hose, into a black plastic cylinder with 2 other hoses coming out of it, 1 going to the oil sump the other going to the front bumper and into the atmosphere.
Does this make sense to you?

Pamwest The meshed unit is a flame trap. Even in modern vehicles, vapours will get forced pass the piston rings. Additionally, the oil in the sump will give off vapours when when it is quite hot. There is a risk that these could ignite. The vapours exit through the breather.

It is quite normal for oil to splash up in the sump & get drawn into the breather system. The trap should be occasionally removed and cleaned with a drop of petrol, perhaps every five years or so.

To get half a litre of oil coming through the breather sounds to me like you have too much oil in the sump. My experience with my Ducato is that the dipstick measure is especially sensitive to tip in side to side level, as well as front to back. Make sure the vehicle is absolutely level when taking a reading.

I have noticed your other posts about your gearbox. You can get gears disengaging if there is insufficient gearbox oil. Mine will do it on fifth gear and needs topping up every couple of years.

The unit with two pipes sounds like a PCV. Perhaps UK regs in 1987 required one to be fitted. Make sure this is cleaned occasionally too. Same as the flame trap. (For the mod that I have outlined, use the pipe from the PCV, the one that goes to the bumper)

With regards your coolant level, I would check the earth connector that's hidden behind the electronics box, rearward of the main battery. It's a bolt that connects lots of equipment to their return. Any resistance build up here can cause the various components to route back through each other instead of through the body work. We are talking steel body work and simple atmospheric corrosion .... Every two or three years, this is a clean up job for me. I probably should wire in a direct battery return next time but the problem usually happens when I am on the road somewhere and I never get round to it.

Thank you for all you advice. Finally, we have it Mot’ed and will now see how it all goes.

Hmm. "The trap should be occasionally removed and cleaned with a drop of petrol, perhaps every five years or so."

That probably should read:

"The trap should be occasionally checked, perhaps every five years or so. You can remove it and clean it with a drop of petrol or engine cleaner, if needed."

The whole affair tends to be pretty much maintenance free and casting an eye over when you are doing an oil change is probably something that happens instinctively.

Check mainly for things like breaks in hoses or loose clamps. They are quite messy things. Use gloves.