Hi there. Long time lurker here.
I have been running a Fiat Bravo 1.4 T-Jet (110kw version) for a while (read: sine 2008). I am posting here, simply because there are a few vehicles with this engine in the Fiat range.
Through the last few years, and by virtue of downright horrible service centres, the engine ate a few turbos (It's on number 5 now). While I would have been tempted to absolutely bin the car in late 2020 when Turbo #4 went, my wife loves the car.
So a mate (an ex fiat mechanic) and myself spent the holidays completely disassembling the engine and replacing everything that looked remotely dodgy. While opening it, we noticed years of carbon build-up, and had the whole engine acid bathed, sandblasted, refinished, etc.
Virtually everything is new:
Gaskets, spark plugs, water pump, oil pump, most valve stem seals (rookie mistake - ordering 8, instead of 16 seals), turbo, oil filter, fixed a very slight starting crack in the exhaust manifold, Timing, Fanbelt, etc. Safe to say it was a somewhat lengthy project.
The parts we didn't replace were the hard plastics around the top, as well as the bearings (since they are fine), the Manifold oil separator and those 8 valve stem seals (we took the best of the 16 we took out for that purpose).
Since then, the car ran fine for over a year.
Lately, it has been smoking in a weird way, though:
Nothing when the car is all cold and just staring.
Oil smoke as the car comes up to temperature (roughly 1-1.5km into a drive), on idle and thereafter when pulling away from a stop (normal acceleration, no flat-footing). It's quite a LOT of smoke, but it stops once the car is fully up to temperature.
Oil consumption is quite high on the car, as a consequence.
Now - I have two suspects here:
Option one is the Crank Oil Separator box... that was NOT replaced, and is a quick replacement (albeit a surprisingly expensive part). I did once try cleaning it, and chunks of carbon came out, but that didn't change much. It may be that the diaphragm is just shot. My logic here is that, as the engine runs, it does its job, but deposits all the oil on idle, due to the vaccuum not being strong enough to overcome the spring tension. There MAY be an underlying issue here, insofar as that there may be an actual vaccuum leak somewhere, but on visual inspection I don't see where that would be.
Option two is the one I am dreading, being that one of the valve stem seals gave in (probably the old ones). Logic applied: As the oil warms up a little, it gets into the combustion chamber on idle. At higher RPM, that seal is compressed too much of the time for oil to leak in there, and at temperature, the seal expands a little.
Is there ANY way that the smart people in this Forum can think of to test for the options, ideally stopping short of "replace one, see if the problem persists", since that could become very pricey (and I frankly don't have the time to attend to it myself right now, so I would need to hand the car to an actual mechanic if it's more than the oil separator or a hose)?
Thanks in advance.
I have been running a Fiat Bravo 1.4 T-Jet (110kw version) for a while (read: sine 2008). I am posting here, simply because there are a few vehicles with this engine in the Fiat range.
Through the last few years, and by virtue of downright horrible service centres, the engine ate a few turbos (It's on number 5 now). While I would have been tempted to absolutely bin the car in late 2020 when Turbo #4 went, my wife loves the car.
So a mate (an ex fiat mechanic) and myself spent the holidays completely disassembling the engine and replacing everything that looked remotely dodgy. While opening it, we noticed years of carbon build-up, and had the whole engine acid bathed, sandblasted, refinished, etc.
Virtually everything is new:
Gaskets, spark plugs, water pump, oil pump, most valve stem seals (rookie mistake - ordering 8, instead of 16 seals), turbo, oil filter, fixed a very slight starting crack in the exhaust manifold, Timing, Fanbelt, etc. Safe to say it was a somewhat lengthy project.
The parts we didn't replace were the hard plastics around the top, as well as the bearings (since they are fine), the Manifold oil separator and those 8 valve stem seals (we took the best of the 16 we took out for that purpose).
Since then, the car ran fine for over a year.
Lately, it has been smoking in a weird way, though:
Nothing when the car is all cold and just staring.
Oil smoke as the car comes up to temperature (roughly 1-1.5km into a drive), on idle and thereafter when pulling away from a stop (normal acceleration, no flat-footing). It's quite a LOT of smoke, but it stops once the car is fully up to temperature.
Oil consumption is quite high on the car, as a consequence.
Now - I have two suspects here:
Option one is the Crank Oil Separator box... that was NOT replaced, and is a quick replacement (albeit a surprisingly expensive part). I did once try cleaning it, and chunks of carbon came out, but that didn't change much. It may be that the diaphragm is just shot. My logic here is that, as the engine runs, it does its job, but deposits all the oil on idle, due to the vaccuum not being strong enough to overcome the spring tension. There MAY be an underlying issue here, insofar as that there may be an actual vaccuum leak somewhere, but on visual inspection I don't see where that would be.
Option two is the one I am dreading, being that one of the valve stem seals gave in (probably the old ones). Logic applied: As the oil warms up a little, it gets into the combustion chamber on idle. At higher RPM, that seal is compressed too much of the time for oil to leak in there, and at temperature, the seal expands a little.
Is there ANY way that the smart people in this Forum can think of to test for the options, ideally stopping short of "replace one, see if the problem persists", since that could become very pricey (and I frankly don't have the time to attend to it myself right now, so I would need to hand the car to an actual mechanic if it's more than the oil separator or a hose)?
Thanks in advance.