I better call her Murphy

[Tappy]

Ok its a nice day for a drive , but the Little itallion has her own way showing it wont ride

She got an oil leak , a coolingleak and a fuel leak , dang is it that time of the month already.

Fuel leak is easy to spot its the diaphragm again , imo its not normal that after 1000km to go leak again so i'm starting to think one of the webers is damaged where the accelerator plate supposed to sandwish the carbs body.

The oil leak i tought resolved itself didn't seem like to have been resolved at all , due uphil parking in the garage the leaking dripped of backwards , i have a cardbord to proof that.

On top of that the cooling sytem supposed to be fixed earlyer isnt fixed no more , and i have fear there is a much bigger problem there also I really want you guys toughts here (this would also explaine the troubles before , leaks leaking caps etc )

The odd thing on the cooling system is that only after 30 seconds of driving the car out of the garage on the street the overflow bottle already flowed over. the cooling aid wasn't even warm. The hose seemed to be on extreme pressure Where does that pressure come from ? Only thing i can imagene is the pistons , whith other words i suspect a bad headgasket

The headgasket been replaced not 500 km ago that seems like a damn schort life, it better be the headgasket because a warperd , cracked head /block would be far worse On the other hand i have an oil leak in another gasket also somewhere in the front , and that leak wasnt there with the old gasket on this block.

On that last one , the oilleak there i suspect or the oilpan gasket , or the crankshaft returnring/gasket These repairs are going to be a PITA with no diaphragm , no (head)gaskets ,no pressuretester, no jack , no stands, no special tools, no money and not much skills ...


Far worst is the fact that i now have to go to the new job after next week ,ON BIKE , a stunning 3km .Even that one doesnt work properly , so need to fix that also this week. I have no high hopes for this summer with Belladonna i even considering getting my grüntlichen deutsche oldtimerbike a tune up and use that this summer Keeps me married also ,i CANT spend more on The little ittalian then on the wife

If any of you fine technicians need a vacation in Belgium this summer , your welcome to be our guest There will be lots of fiat activeties ..

[baltobernie]

Oh my goodness, Tappy! You sure have a bad string going on!

The oil leak, unless a gusher, you can live with for now. The fuel leak, I can't help you with. The cooling problem sounds like it's related to your new cap, not a head gasket.

3k isn't too far on a bicycle, but I hope we can get you sorted out before it gets very warm outside

[mbouse]

i feel for ya. this is supposed to be a hobby, not a career. sometimes it runs that way...fix this, then that, then that again, then the other thing, then something else, then that again.

and there are other years when you need to do nothing. those are the years we all look forward to.

hang in there. like bernie says, unless the oil is coming out faster than you can replace it, you prolly can get by for a while w/out addressing it. Keep your eye on the dipstick as you go out for test drives. if you see no significant change in the oil level over a period of a week, i'd say you have a minor annoyance that can be lived with this season. w/out jacks or jack stands tightening those oil pan gasket bolts is gonna be difficult. i dunno how you can own a fiat and not have jackstands and a jack.

are you sure you have the thermostat in correctly?

[sonosml]

Tappy! On my old Punken, I once was convinced too that I had a bad head gasket. First, I started the car, quickly drove the gravel to the highway, 3/4 mile down the road and once I got to the highway, I nailed it. The car was NOT properly warmed up. Antifreeze was spraying up on the window. I too, had high pressure on the hose, but not hot. I drove it home and left in the daily driver. MAD, not only cuase I was running late, but thinking I had a bad head gasket.

After I cooled down, pardon the pun, I got home, and messed with it. I parked it on an uphill slope and let it warm up properly. I shut it off and left it to sit and hopefully suck some more fluid in from the overflow tank. When I came back to the car a little while later, my upper hose was "SUCKED" flat. Yes thats right, sucked flat. The overflow tank was still full. I popped off the rad cap and the biggest sucking sound I've heard since my kids were bottle fed.

I replaced the cap with one aquired from the local Autozone, choose the pressure relief level option for an extra dollar an I never had trouble again. Well that was until I parked it becuase I found out it has a bad case of non-curable bone cancer.

Give it a try. Just pull the plugs and look to see how they are burning. A quick internet search should show you pictures of different conditions of plugs. they should show one that has been burning Antifreeze.

Good Luck,
IA-Mike

[Tappy]

Its another day now and i'm not seeing the things that dark no more , thx for the comments guys.
I guess i first need a new rad cap before starting sloping of the head. Its already another cap , but this can be also 30years old. I'm pretty sure the stat is on there right , bought another one and this is marked to waterpump/to rad hose +its the same as most of you have shown pictures of , also drilled an little hole in there to relase airpockets. Expantion tank is working on days she decides its time to cruise (it was clogged before with rust , fixed that)

the oil leaks out on a tempo i can follow to refill , so i probably work arround that this season.It would be real cool if retightning the oil pan bolds solve that problem.

the fuel leak is onther problem i need to tackle i hope the carb body isnt damaged to bad so i can fix this , last time i fixed it using locktide blue rubber gasket sealer , fuel oil proof , but seems like it didnt hold

[Curly]

If any of you fine technicians need a vacation in Belgium this summer , your welcome to be our guest There will be lots of fiat activeties ..

I'd love to have a holiday in Belgium Tappy, even if it means working on your Spider . One of the most beautiful towns we came across on our last trip to Europe was Brugge. Are you sponsoring the air fares as well as the accommodation ?
We have another link to your country as well, this is Cherry, our (rather wet) Belgian Shepherd.

[adrians]

Tappy,

Check the oil leak isn't from the weld seam around the sump bolt.

[Tappy]

i'll check her out later ...

curly as long as i kbow my wife she is nagging me about going to Australia , so if a ticket has to be bought , its going to be one for here (and me!)

Anyway thanks for the offer !! nice dog you have there , i'm suppriced you know where belgium is , its such a tiny country !!

[baltobernie]

Tappy, how is the cooling problem?

[Tappy]

still not solved , i'm about ordering a new radiator cap , before i start taking the head of Right now i cant start no more i started working on the fuel leak today and therefore removed the accelerator cover from my carbs as described in another post

i'll keep you updated

[baltobernie]

Yes, saw your Fuel Leak post; good luck with that.

I was thinking that maybe you could "go back to the beginning" on the cooling problem, and start from there. While your engine is disabled with carburetor repairs, perhaps a few experts can chime in here on the following suggestions:

First, remove the thermostat from the housing, and reconnect the hoses. Either "burp" the cooling system, or install a Tee like we talked about before. Do not install the radiator cap, but rather start and run the car with the system open to the atmosphere. The car should take a long time to reach operating temperature, and some water will vomit out the filler neck as it expands, but the car should run indefinately in this configuration. (I would not recommend driving it like this, though!) See if you can get the car to sit and idle without overheating, cycling the fan automaticaly, maybe adding a little water to the radiator as required to keep it full. Heater control should be set to Maximum during this test.

If Step 1 is successful, shut off the car, let it cool down, top off the radiator, and screw down the cap. Start it up again, and see what happens. Report back to us with results.