Technical Engine gurgling

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Technical Engine gurgling

Tigcurti

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Hi!
I have an 06 Fiat Stilo 1.4l 95hp, I noticed sometime last week a gurgling noise inside the crankcase which gets louder when I pull the dip stick or unscrew the oil cap,there is a lot of blowby, if I wipe the dipstick clean and start the engine, oil gets splashed on half of the dipstick, also you can feel how much blowby is when you put your hand close to the oil cap
Today I also noticed a light colored foam on the dipstick after a 20 minutes drive.
I suspect the head gasket it's blown, but when I asked a mechanic he told me that it's normal because there is no oil in the expansion tank and the engine is not overheating.
What do you guys think is happening? Thank you
 
If your head gasket has failed, you will get any or all of;

a) Coolant and oil mix - the "mayonnaise" under the oil cap
b) Coolant getting into the combustion chamber - condensation out of the exhaust

** But remember that in cold weather these "symptoms" can be normal

c) Gas in the cooling system - overheating and high pressure in the coolant tank
d) Gas in the crankcase - blow-by

It depends where the gasket has failed.

I would ask the mechanic to do a compression test to identify which cylinder (if any) are "leaking".

The highest and lowest reading shouldn’t vary by more than 15%. If one or more of the cylinders reads lower than the others, use an oil can to put a good squirt of engine oil down the spark plug opening, and retest the compression of that cylinder. If the reading rises after you insert the oil then something is knackered in that cylinder.

If the pressure is out by less than 10% then you could just drive it and test it again in a few weeks' time to see if it's getting worse. If it's way lower than 10% (or less than 100PSI) then it'll probably fail soon so maybe it's better to strip the top end and have a look before that happens.

Your gasket could also be fine and it's a piston ring problem.. but unless you get some readings and understand if it's getting better or worse, then it's tricky to be sure. If it was me, I'd get that top-end off have a look. If it's the gasket, and it gets worse, then you will get one of the other symptoms.. probably oil and coolant mixing first, so keep looking out for the mayonnaise.


Ralf S.
 
This is the sound I'm hearing.
[ame]https://youtu.be/-5dbcJOgCug[/ame]
And about the foamy substance,it doesn't show when the engine is running
 

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Hi


Sounds like your head gasket went, also if no anti-freeze it might be the reason for this.
1. Any blow back via dipstick or oil filler cap indicate cylinder pressure passing into sump area which should not occur.
And.
2. The discoloring of oil indicate water mixing with oil.


Suggest you keep driving to a minimum since oil lubrication and viscosity not good now, and it will create unnecessary damage on bearings etc.
Agree that a quick cylinder pressure test might confirm gasket failure. Dry test will be adequate.
 
1. Any blow back via dipstick or oil filler cap indicate cylinder pressure passing into sump area which should not occur.
Is the head gasket at fault for the excessive amount of blowback? The only way this could happen is a chip in the head gasket between the cylinder and the oil channel, right? And since coolant is getting in the oil there should be a chip between the oil and coolant channels?
I tried to take the head off but I got stopped in my tracks by the polydrive head bolts..fiat is not making it easy for you
 
So this is the 16v engine? I know the 8v, not really worked in the 16v. However, maybe my observations will be of some use. The noise from the dip stick tube is pretty inconclusive. There's a sump full of liquid down there and some very fast moving bits of metal whipping it all around!

The white whipped up "mayonnaise" on your picture of the dip stick could be put straight into a textbook as an example of emulsified oil. Is it the same on the underside of the oil filler cap? try wiping your finger round the inside of the oil filler hole (with engine switched off!) is there some in there? Radiator header tank would be another place to check - but you say this seems to be ok?

Emulsified oil is oil and water whipped up 'till it combines. It is not a solution, like sugar melted in tea. If you put a blob of it in the palm of your hand and gently pat it you'll see it separate back into oil and water! There are two very common reasons for it. You can hope that it's because the engine isn't getting hot enough to evaporate the water vapour which naturally forms inside an engine (and would be normally "breathed" out through the engine ventilation system) Do you do a lot of very short journeys which don't allow the engine to get up to temperature? This is a big problem on "shopping cars" in the cold winter weather.

There are other things that might give this symptom (I had a Morris with a very small pin hole low down in one of the bores! when the engine stopped with that piston quite well up in the bore, water leaked, very slowly, into the sump. Took me best part of a year to find it. I was sure it had to be the head gasket, but no! I did the head gasket twice before eventually dropping the sump. Were it an 8v I would say it is probably more likely that you do have a head gasket problem given these engines liking for blowing them when they get older. Head gaskets can blow in different ways so, although you often get oil in the water/ water in the oil it's not an absolute given.

A good place to start is to pull the plugs and see what their "business" ends look like. If one looks very different from the other three, especially if it's damp with condensation, then Bingo! As has been said above, a compression test might be revealing. A cylinder leak test, where a special tool allows compressed air to be fed into the cylinders as you put each cylinder on TDC compression and then measures the air leaking through even better. This often will produce bubbles in the header tank if the gasket is blown. Some garages will have a chemical tester. This is a bottle with a chemically reactive fluid in it which reacts to exhaust gasses. It has a flexible pipe which is fitted in place of the radiator/expansion/header tank cap so that any gasses escaping will pass through the testing bottle. The testing fluid/chemical changes colour if exhaust gasses are present. It's a very easy quick test to do so shouldn't cost you much - but is anything cheap these days?

At the end of the day I suspect you'll end up taking the head off. If you do it yourself and the leak is only a small one - which it would seem to be from what you're saying, otherwise you'd be for ever filling the rad up with coolant - it can be the very devil to spot. It's often well worth giving the head to a local engine specialist so it can have a light skim applied to the mating face and pressure tested for porosity before reassembling with all the new head bolts, gaskets etc.

Finally, Just to say good luck with it! Do keep us informed how it turns out.
Jock
 
So this is the 16v engine? I know the 8v, not really worked in the 16v. However, maybe my observations will be of some use. The noise from the dip stick tube is pretty inconclusive. There's a sump full of liquid down there and some very fast moving bits of metal whipping it all around!

The white whipped up "mayonnaise" on your picture of the dip stick could be put straight into a textbook as an example of emulsified oil. Is it the same on the underside of the oil filler cap? try wiping your finger round the inside of the oil filler hole (with engine switched off!) is there some in there? Radiator header tank would be another place to check - but you say this seems to be ok?

Emulsified oil is oil and water whipped up 'till it combines. It is not a solution, like sugar melted in tea. If you put a blob of it in the palm of your hand and gently pat it you'll see it separate back into oil and water! There are two very common reasons for it. You can hope that it's because the engine isn't getting hot enough to evaporate the water vapour which naturally forms inside an engine (and would be normally "breathed" out through the engine ventilation system) Do you do a lot of very short journeys which don't allow the engine to get up to temperature? This is a big problem on "shopping cars" in the cold winter weather.

There are other things that might give this symptom (I had a Morris with a very small pin hole low down in one of the bores! when the engine stopped with that piston quite well up in the bore, water leaked, very slowly, into the sump. Took me best part of a year to find it. I was sure it had to be the head gasket, but no! I did the head gasket twice before eventually dropping the sump. Were it an 8v I would say it is probably more likely that you do have a head gasket problem given these engines liking for blowing them when they get older. Head gaskets can blow in different ways so, although you often get oil in the water/ water in the oil it's not an absolute given.

A good place to start is to pull the plugs and see what their "business" ends look like. If one looks very different from the other three, especially if it's damp with condensation, then Bingo! As has been said above, a compression test might be revealing. A cylinder leak test, where a special tool allows compressed air to be fed into the cylinders as you put each cylinder on TDC compression and then measures the air leaking through even better. This often will produce bubbles in the header tank if the gasket is blown. Some garages will have a chemical tester. This is a bottle with a chemically reactive fluid in it which reacts to exhaust gasses. It has a flexible pipe which is fitted in place of the radiator/expansion/header tank cap so that any gasses escaping will pass through the testing bottle. The testing fluid/chemical changes colour if exhaust gasses are present. It's a very easy quick test to do so shouldn't cost you much - but is anything cheap these days?

At the end of the day I suspect you'll end up taking the head off. If you do it yourself and the leak is only a small one - which it would seem to be from what you're saying, otherwise you'd be for ever filling the rad up with coolant - it can be the very devil to spot. It's often well worth giving the head to a local engine specialist so it can have a light skim applied to the mating face and pressure tested for porosity before reassembling with all the new head bolts, gaskets etc.

Finally, Just to say good luck with it! Do keep us informed how it turns out.
Jock
Thank you for your reply!
Yes it is the 16v 95hp one
I took the spark plugs out, they all look just fine.
As for the engine not getting hot, the stat was broken since I bought the car, the engine never gets hot, I never thought that this will cause the oil to look like that, but still, the first time I heard the sound was a week ago and the first time I saw the oil looking like that was yesterday, this never happened before.
Other thing I'm worried is the amount of blowby, which is pretty excessive and it wasn't like that before (it throws oil all the way up the dipstick), because none of these happened before I think there is something wrong for certain
And about going to a garage, there aren't any good ones around and I'm not sure if it's safe to drive like this( the oil seems watery, but maybe it's just me being paranoid at this point)
 
Blowby is a normal thing in the engine please do not forget that piston rings doesnt seal cylinder walls ideally . I would check the crankcase ventilation before doing anything else, also when running with a failed thermostat you're risking of seizing rings with burned oil so you should also consider this option .
 
A duff thermostat will let the engine run cold, which means (on an injected/ECU controlled car) that the car will always run slightly rich (it's in "cold start" mode) which will mean more fuel in the cylinders than it really wants, which can wash the oil off the bores and lead to ring wear (although this is a slow process, it won't get wrecked after just a week) and the fuel will end up in the oil, diluting it a bit and making it "watery". I suspect you have a bit of that.

Running cold means you will also use more fuel (since it's "rich".. you will not be) and a cold engine is more likely to collect condensation under the oil cap (the foam) since a hot engine can evaporate any moisture more quickly, before it emulsifies.

If/when you do the repair work, *change the thermostat*, since you'll be draining the coolant anyway and removing the head (thermostat is on the side of the head). The cost of thermostat is not much.. £30? and you will save that in a few weeks just because you will use a lot less fuel.

Otherwise, I still think you have a head gasket problem (gas in the oil) so a compression test is the next step forward. As I mentioned above, you can get an opinion how bad it is, depending on the readings.

Is the oil black and horrible, or still golden brown? Gas in the oil will turn the oil black quite quickly (soot, basically).

Exhaust gas is high pressure and basicallly "burning petrol vapour". Your gasket is plastic coated metal mesh... so it's only going to end one way. The gas leaking into the oilway will also eventually force its way into a coolant channel, which will cause pressure, coolant to be ejected out of the header tank, air in the radiator and then over-heating.

How long this takes will depend on how far you drive, what revs you use, how hot the engine gets and what state the gasket is in.. but you can still drive it around if it's just to take it to a garage. Keep an eye on the temperature - if it gets high or falls suddenly then that means the engine is overheating (falling temperature because there's no coolant left, once it's been ejected by pressure in the system).

You don't need a Fiat garage to fix this.. any garage can do a compreesion test (the tool is a little gauge with a pipe attached... 99% of garages will have one) and to chnage a head gasket is quite a regular job.. there's nothing strange or tricky about the 1.4 engine.. in fact, it's one of the easiest ones to do (loads of space around it).


Ralf S.
 
A duff thermostat will let the engine run cold, which means (on an injected/ECU controlled car) that the car will always run slightly rich (it's in "cold start" mode) which will mean more fuel in the cylinders than it really wants, which can wash the oil off the bores and lead to ring wear (although this is a slow process, it won't get wrecked after just a week) and the fuel will end up in the oil, diluting it a bit and making it "watery". I suspect you have a bit of that.

Running cold means you will also use more fuel (since it's "rich".. you will not be) and a cold engine is more likely to collect condensation under the oil cap (the foam) since a hot engine can evaporate any moisture more quickly, before it emulsifies.

If/when you do the repair work, *change the thermostat*, since you'll be draining the coolant anyway and removing the head (thermostat is on the side of the head). The cost of thermostat is not much.. £30? and you will save that in a few weeks just because you will use a lot less fuel.

Otherwise, I still think you have a head gasket problem (gas in the oil) so a compression test is the next step forward. As I mentioned above, you can get an opinion how bad it is, depending on the readings.

Is the oil black and horrible, or still golden brown? Gas in the oil will turn the oil black quite quickly (soot, basically).

Exhaust gas is high pressure and basicallly "burning petrol vapour". Your gasket is plastic coated metal mesh... so it's only going to end one way. The gas leaking into the oilway will also eventually force its way into a coolant channel, which will cause pressure, coolant to be ejected out of the header tank, air in the radiator and then over-heating.

How long this takes will depend on how far you drive, what revs you use, how hot the engine gets and what state the gasket is in.. but you can still drive it around if it's just to take it to a garage. Keep an eye on the temperature - if it gets high or falls suddenly then that means the engine is overheating (falling temperature because there's no coolant left, once it's been ejected by pressure in the system).

You don't need a Fiat garage to fix this.. any garage can do a compreesion test (the tool is a little gauge with a pipe attached... 99% of garages will have one) and to chnage a head gasket is quite a regular job.. there's nothing strange or tricky about the 1.4 engine.. in fact, it's one of the easiest ones to do (loads of space around it).


Ralf S.

The oil is light brown but it feels a bit runny.
I will get a compression test tomorrow.
I was going to replace the head gasket myself but I got stopped by the choice of head bolts, I searched online a bit and it seems so have polydrive or riben cv, I don't know if they're different and I don't know the actual size of the bit I need( it would be great if you could help me with that).
Also the coolant is red even if I filled it only with water for the past month ( a full expansion tank every week because of leaking radiator which steams when the engine is hot, that's why I delayed replacing the thermostat so I don't lose even more coolant).
I know there are too many things wrong with the car and it'll better to scrap it, but I can't afford a new one ..
 
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The oil is light brown but it feels a bit runny.
I will get a compression test tomorrow.
I was going to replace the head gasket myself but I got stopped by the choice of head bolts, I searched online a bit and it seems so have polydrive or riben cv, I don't know if they're different and I don't know the actual size of the bit I need( it would be great if you could help me with that).
Also the coolant is red even if I filled it only with water for the past month ( a full expansion tank every week because of leaking radiator which steams when the engine is hot, that's why I delayed replacing the thermostat so I don't lose even more coolant).
I know there are too many things wrong with the car and it'll better to scrap it, but I can't afford a new one ..

Personally.
I would spend €15 on a new thermostat.

Change to some budget oil fo an hour.. then do a new oil and oil filter.

Drive..enjoy


In March-Marz.. make a decision ;)

Head bolts.. can be used (torqued) twice..

So basically @€50 and you are done .



Yes it MIGHT be losing coolant into the cylinders.. but that is currently unclear.

Gurgling.. not sure.. maybe the compromised oil isnt helping..

IN FACT- experience tells me.. that the DAMP water laden air recirculating in the motor.. will definitely compromise the EGR circuit..crankcase breather.

So..
Address that before even changing the oil.

Oh...
The joys of a cooler climate ;)
 
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Personally.
I would spend €15 on a new thermostat.

Change to some budget oil fo an hour.. then do a new oil and oil filter.

Drive..enjoy


In March-Marz.. make a decision ;)

Head bolts.. can be used (torqued) twice..

So basically @€50 and you are done .



Yes it MIGHT be losing coolant into the cylinders.. but that is currently unclear.

Gurgling.. not sure.. maybe the compromised oil isnt helping..

IN FACT- experience tells me.. that the DAMP water laden air recirculating in the motor.. will definitely compromise the EGR circuit..crankcase breather.

So..
Address that before even changing the oil.

Oh...
The joys of a cooler climate ;)
I been to a couple of garages today, none of which had compression test kits, but the thing is, on the way there the car starter to run on 3 cylinders, it has spark but no fuel on cylinder 3, I don't know, there are too many things wrong with it I think I'll just give up
 
no fuel.. or no compression?

Cylinder 3 cuts out intermittently, it runs the same with the injector or coil unplugged, the coil gives spark so it narrows down to the fuel, it happened soon after I jumped a friend's car, maybe something fried, I can't seem to understand what's wrong with it, sometimes it runs fine with all four cylinders firing, but lately cylinder 3 is completely gone
 
If the "problem" is on no.3 cylinder, then the injector could just have been killed-in-action.

If your beast is burning some oil/soot sucked in from a head gasket failure (for example) then it could be pushing that soot into the injector and blocking it up.

You can swap the injectore from no.3 for one of the others to see if the injectore fires okay in its new position or if it is still sooted/blocked and not working, no matter where you put it. That will prove whether it's the injector or the electrics at no.3 not "firing".

Alternatively you can just stick a bulb into the injector plug. If you have one of those bulbs with a glass bottom and two metal prongs folded over then end, you can unfold the prongs and they'll fit into the injector connector plug, to improvise a test rig. It'll flash when it's getting a signal.

Don't leave the swapped injector in the no.3 cylinder position. Put the old injector back in no.3. If the cylinder is killing its injector then you don't want to leave a good injector in cylinder no.3 .. it will kill that one too.


Ralf S.
 
If the "problem" is on no.3 cylinder, then the injector could just have been killed-in-action.

If your beast is burning some oil/soot sucked in from a head gasket failure (for example) then it could be pushing that soot into the injector and blocking it up.

You can swap the injectore from no.3 for one of the others to see if the injectore fires okay in its new position or if it is still sooted/blocked and not working, no matter where you put it. That will prove whether it's the injector or the electrics at no.3 not "firing".

Alternatively you can just stick a bulb into the injector plug. If you have one of those bulbs with a glass bottom and two metal prongs folded over then end, you can unfold the prongs and they'll fit into the injector connector plug, to improvise a test rig. It'll flash when it's getting a signal.

Don't leave the swapped injector in the no.3 cylinder position. Put the old injector back in no.3. If the cylinder is killing its injector then you don't want to leave a good injector in cylinder no.3 .. it will kill that one too.


Ralf S.

That's a good Idea, I will try so swap the injectors when I have some spare time. Thank you
 
How can a garage not have a compression tester? :confused:

Best that you don't ask those garages to fix it...


Ralf S.

I know, and they are quite known around here, but they can't even change some tyres properly
 
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