5 Days ago we descended on the Italian side of the "Nassfeld pass", a murderous steep and narrow road with very sharp turns and not a single mirror. What probably saved our lives was the bad reputation: there was almost no traffic.
We were still between snow walls when my wife said she smelled fuel and I saw a wet trail behind us. Our Ducato camper van has pulled this trick several times already and there was absolutely no place to stop and check, so I continued the descent.
Less than 2 minutes later the engine died, which was new to us and very alarming, but I switched into neutral and continued without brake servo and power steering, except on the meanest "serpentines" where I used 1th or 2nd gear. When we finally rolled out in the outskirts of Pontebba and were pulled to the local Fiat service it turned out there was a large crack in the UFI filter housing that spilled more than half the contents of our fuel tank!
As I already mentioned, the van has spilled fuel several times already, always during or after driving a downward slope when the fuel pump builds up a ridiculous pressure and no fuel is needed. Each time the rubber seal between the lid and the can was pushed out. Last year another Italian mechanic who assisted us in Vicenza said it was a common problem with the X-250 models when the ring nut wasn't pulled tight enough. So he replaced the filter cartridge, inserted a new seal, put the housing in a vise and turned the ring nut until it almost snapped....
By now I understand that his action prepared the filter housing for this latest disaster.
We spent the weekend in Pontebba, on Monday a mechanic drove to Udine and returned with a new filter (240 Euro) in a box marked Ricambi Originali Fiat. They installed it, connected the Fiat Examiner computer and found everything OK, so we drove home (Croatia).
Each time we stopped for a coffee break and fuel, the engine started promptly, but driving was impossible because there was a magic boundary of 1200 rpm. After 1-2 minutes trying, the engine suddenly picked up with a lot of pungent exhaust smoke.
At home I connected the newly arrived code reader and found the cause to be excessive EGR. Removing the vacuum hose was no solution so probably the EGR valve is stuck open. Another expensive and difficult to replace part, so I think I will block the flow of exhaust gas to the valve because that is a lot simpler.
In the meantime I am trying to figure out what can be the relation between going downhill with a dead engine or spilling large amount of fuel and a stuck EGR valve.
