Blown head gasket?

[racydave]

In addition to whats been said; Im not sure how this relates, or not, but alot of new gaskets are permiated with materials, as opposed to a dry or copper head gasket. I would not apply any treatment to a new gasket. Copper coat was good back in the day, the addition of the solvents in it will break down the resins in the newer gaskets. I also highly recomend Permatex form a gasket for dry gaskets such as water outlets and hose connections. It does not fully set up like glue, but provides a good seal. Make sure to match the head gasket to the head and the block...

[TulsaSpider]

update.. I got a hold of a cooling system pressure tester today before I began working on it. It held pressure just fine 14 LBS . That's good news. The bad news is that I am an idiot sometimes.. or is that good news? anyway as I was sitting there it hit me... I forgot to drain the block yesterday when we removed the head so the water came from there. I feel like such an idiot, but I was exausted last night when we finished up..


However
I changed the oil and filter warmed it up took it for a short drive and it belched oil out the vapor hose again, I mean ALOT!!
Ok I thought well somehow I got too much oil in there... I drained some out...test drive.....same thing oil everywhere after I got up a little speed!!
drained some more....test drive..... same thing... Then I just went ahead and drove it to my stepdad's house which was about a mile away. I babied it there but it still belched oil heavily... I was trying to figure out when it did worse and it seemed to do it worse when the engine was under load in higher gear and did better when the rev's were around 2000 or so... When I got there it looked like a murder scene under the car.
This condition cannot be duplicated just letting the motor idle in neutral and revving it... no oil comes out...none....
I then performed a compression check. The engine was warm, not real hot.
#1 125
#2 125
#3 135
#4 120
Then I drained the oil. The oil was clean!!!!! wohoo! However there was only 1 quart left in the pan!!

Now what gives????
So something like this came up the other day in another thread and I thought the only reason that it would come out is overfilling, apparently that is not the case!!
On another forum someone said: "While you posted that you also cleaned the oil-air separator and hose,
: these things can take days of soaking to clean them properly. A clogged
: breather can pressurize the crankcase and cause oil to be expelled."


Does anyone know what he is talking about? I just replied...

I replied "Something you said puzzles me about the cyclonic trap. I took it off and
cleaned it quite easily, it only had a bit of the "snot" looking crud in it
from the water contamination. It is just open space with partitions in there
right??? Why would that take time to clean? Or am I missing something?????
What did you mean by clogged breather? you don't mean air filter do you?? I
think mine is oil soaked now of course... could that be it????"

almost beaten.....
Clark

[racydave]

If you were to remove the long hose from the air filter breather, vent it to the atmosphere, it should eliminate the air filter clogged scenerio.

[TulsaSpider]

Dave... could that really be the issue ????????

[racydave]

If the air filter was clogged, and the trap hose is located inside the filter perimiter, I could see it pullin to much from the crankcase. Just an Idea...

[TulsaSpider]

It's outside the filter... and I believe I left it off once today and it still happened....

Does anyone have a pic of the backside of the separator? I can't find one.. Someone said that you can't clean them that quickly, usually an overnight soaking is required. A visual inspection can't tell if it's clogged. ?? Is there an internal passage that I missed seeing or something?? I thought it was basically open on the block side??
Well I am a bit puzzled cause when I took it off, I turned it over and it had the "snot" like stuff in it from the water contamination. I cleaned that out with brake cleaner, as well as the long hose. Other than the "snot" it seemed clean. As I write this I am thinking of what I did. After I cleaned it I put the new gasket on it with a bit of silicone. Did I over tighten it maybe?

[So Cal Mark]

the trap is just a series of passages, nothing hidden. Cleaning and reinstalling is an easy process, no need to wait overnight.
Excessive crankcase pressure can be caused by a high oil level, or blowby from cyinder leakage, or a restricted vent. The Fiat TC is unique in that the intake and output is done with the same hose. It's large enough that air can travel both ways; in and out of the crankcase so if oil can travel up, then you can rest assured that air can travel down the hose. If you're emptying the crankcase, then you may have a ring sealing issue causing way too much pressure. At this point you need to do a leak down test on each cylinder and see if you have a broken ring or some other sealing issue.
When it's idling or revving do you have lots of air coming up the breather hose?

[TulsaSpider]

I don't know about "lots" I don't have any way to judge that, but it has always puffed out air. It doesn't seem to be any different than it was before. The compression test I performed today are the same results as I got back in May when I got the car. It wasn't doing this yesterday when I was driving it before we changed the head gasket etc... I just read up on leak down testing, this would pinpoint a bad cylinder I guess.. and tell me if it's a ring or valve right? Damn I can't drive it so I don't know how I could perform the test.. We have a small compressor at work but I don't think it gets too much pressure.. Would it take just one to cause this? We have one more day of nice weather, then it's droppin into the 20's all next week.
I'm getting really depressed now when it rains it pours eh? My jobs going badly... my personal life... now my only car is going to the scrapyard possibly....

[rlux4]

Because a lot of us aren't bonifide mechanics, we sometimes have a problem with our car that almost tempts us to just give up on it. We're all good at something, so we get frustrated when we have an issue we can't solve right away. Hang in there Clark. We'll keep trying to help you get this issue taken care of.
Ron

[So Cal Mark]

I hope you don't give up that easily! No reason to consider scrapping it. You'll feel a great sense of accomplishment once you figure out the problem.

[ventura ace]

Clark, I believe your primary issue is the water that is getting into oil. The appearance of #1 piston suggests that it is somehow getting into this area (cracked head, cracked block, bad head gasket seal, bad intake gasket seal ????). It's also getting into the crankcase somehow. Perhaps it is blowing by the rings in the #1 cylinder and ending up in the crankcase. When the crankcase oil temperature gets hot enough to boil water, the water becomes steam, which expands greatly, producing pressure, mixes with the oil vapors and pukes out the crankcase vent system. That may be why you don't see a problem at idle or no load -- because the oil temperature is not hot enough under that condition to boil off the water.

You mentioned that the problem is worse, now that you have changed engine gaskets, and I think you said that you didn't use any sealer on the water passages of the intake gasket. This is the first thing that I would try (assuming that you've already run your diagnostic leak down tests, compression tests, etc). Pull the intake off, put sealer on the gasket around the water passages (you may have to replace the gasket if it is shot already), bolt everything back up, and run it.

Just my 2 cents. Keep plugging away at it, good buddy!

Alvon

[TulsaSpider]

Thanks guys but things are pointing to major engine work right? I am out of ideas and out of time to work on it not to mention out of money..

I guess I can find some people to beg to use their garage ..

IF I can find someone... I don't know that many people...
Can I pull the motor leave the top end that I just redid intact and re-ring it from the bottom and I'll have to get new bearings I suppose, I doubt I can use the old ones again.. or if I pull the head off can I re-use the same gasket since I just put it on? The cylinder walls looked good, I could not catch my fingernail on the ridge at the top.
My hours have been cut and I have a little Christmas money maybe 100 to 150 max$ I was gonna give my kids, that's it.. I'll have to rent an engine hoist and does a normal engine stand work?

[TulsaSpider]

Alvon,
Yesterday I drained the oil and refilled. After that there was no further water contamination that I could find. The oil was still puking out the vapor hose when it only had 1 quart of oil left in it. I am told that with a clean cyclonic trap system the only reason that this is happening is excessive blow by which I believe is a ring issue. Perhaps from idling 15 min with contaminated oil, as it wasn't doing this before...
Compression numbers
#1 125
#2 125
#3 135
#4 120

I am going to pull the intake so I can get to the trap. I'll seal the intake water areas up with silicone. I am not sure believe the intake was the source of all this actually, probably just needed tightening as I seemed to find lots of not very tight bolts!

[pope]

Clark,
I feels for ya, dont get too down about this. I think your just running in circles here. You have to get in the right frame of mind for working on the Spider. Out with the bad thoughts, in with the good air. Breath! A little Dean Martin on the radio would help.

I dont want you to spend any more money. make sure all mating surfaces are extremely clean. Make sure the head gasket is clean also, (you might have to buy a new one). Since you are new to this, NO goops on the new gasket just dry.
First off, do you have the cylinder head to block alignment guides, I dont see them on any pics. I consider them manditory. Second, on every book I have, they say that you should torque the head to 61.5 ft.lbs., and do this in three stages. Put all the bolts in and hand tighten them. Next follow the torque pattern starting with inside bolts and torque to 35ft.lbs. When you are all done, retorque to 50ft.lb. in pattern. Then do a final torque to about 62 ft.lb.

Now breath again. See the sun starting to come out!
Good luck buddy!

[TulsaSpider]

Pope.
All the work has been finished on the head.
Yes the dowels were there, well one was sunk into the block but the other one was there. We got the head on. I posted the torque numbers I used on here and nobody else corrected me... I also searched on here and found the same numbers my book does.. I searched the other site and I saw 61 there as well..
The mating surfaces were extremely clean I was meticulous about it. The water problem seems to have been fixed
So I now have the problem of puking oil, so any thoughts?