Turner Brown
New member
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2020
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- 2
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I have a question for anyone who may have knowledge of the heat gauge operation on the X19. The events I am about to discuss happened in the late 70's and involved an X19. I knew a guy with a daughter that owned the X19. When her boyfriend was driving the car, he went around a 270 degree exit ramp as fast as he possibly could. The oil light came on and the result was the engine needing to be overhauled. They claimed that all of the oil went to one side of the oil pan where the oil pump could not pick it up. Rather than take the car to a Fiat dealer and pay their shop rate, he chose a local mechanic that had never worked on this kind of car. The daughter had went back to college a thousand miles away before the car was fixed and her dad asked me to deliver it to her. Before I got half way there, the engine blew up. I was keeping a close eye on the heat and oil pressure gauges and everything looked normal up to that point. When they tore the engine down, the pistons had holes burned in them so it obviously got very hot but the heat gauge never showed it. The dad accused me of continuing to drive the car after I knew it was hot which I did not. He did not believe that the heat gauge showed normal temperature. In a way, I can see why he felt the way he did but I know what the gauge showed. The reason why I am sharing this experience is to find out if anyone on this forum has any knowledge of the X19 having this type of issue where the heat gauge did not perform the way it should have. Any replies will be appreciated.