I think I bought a lemon.....

lemon

maybe it's time to make lemonchello:drink:
one other thing to check if you have the cam cover off is if a shim spit out of it's cup.
not good for the cam or valve.
when I worked for fiat in Berkeley, a vendor came in with a shim kit for an insanely low price and we bought it. turns out that they were shims for some kind of vw (damn Germans) and the diameter was .02 smaller than what was needed and wouldn't stay in the cup leading to a lot of engine repairs.
do check the belt for missing teeth,
if the valves went "boing" you can get a used head/cambox assy, clean prepare surface and maybe put in that hot cam you were considering.
it is so much easier to adjust the shims on the bench, but with the good comes the bad. it is a pain in the a## to get to, let alone tighten the head bolts around the cambox without the proper tools. six of one half dozen the other as they say. I think you have a pool of knowledge here and we can get you through this.
mikemo90*aol.com
 
WildWilly said:
Also, how do I manually turn over the crank to line that up
Click to expand...

Everyone has their own favorite approach. I like to put the car in 4th gear, release the parking brake, and jack the passenger side rear tire just off the ground (think dog at a fire hydrant). Now you can easily turn the wheel by hand or with a socket on one of the lug bolts.

A socket on the crank pulley with transmission in neutral also works, or you can push the car forward while it's in 4th gear.
 
Last edited:
noise

come to think of it, if a valve or two bent it wouldn't restart at all and probably would left you stranded at the light when the noise first started.
this is a toughie
mikemo90*aol.com
 
WildWilly said:
how to see the marks in the tight space.

http://www.diamondl.ca/fiat/cam.jpg
Click to expand...

That's the right picture for a 1300 with the two-piece belt cover and the timing mark on the front of the pulley. You need a bright light, you may have to remove some splash shields at the bottom of the engine bay (I never drive my exxies in the rain, so I long ago removed these shields), and if you take the crank through a few revolutions with a drop light in there, you'll find the marks.

(and if you ever have the motor out, clean up those marks and put white paint on them).
 
mikemo90 said:
come to think of it, if a valve or two bent it wouldn't restart at all and probably would left you stranded at the light when the noise first started.
this is a toughie
mikemo90*aol.com
Click to expand...

Yes... Maybe if the timing was a little bit out and got worse because the locating dowel sheared... Or a shim gone walkabout caused the belt to skip a tooth or so, and then jammed again causing another skip.... All rather far-fetched because as you say, jumping timing will generally kill the engine immediately.

That's why we so need to know about the timing marks - if they're still lined up we're going down a completely different diagnostic path.

Another piece of trivia... The very end of the 1300 production run in some of the '78s were not interference motors. The pistons had deeper flycuts like the 1500. And WildWilly does have a '78....
 
thanks nightowl....

The engine was rebuilt about 3,000 miles ago. The distributer moves a little left to right, I would call it play when you grab it. Took the cap off and had a look as I know the rotor button is a problem for lots of us. Rotor looked ok, put the cap back on and snapped on the clips. The compression test has me a little freaked out, with no compression, it sounds like the valves are open. Trying to figure out now how to check the marks on the pulleys to see where we are with the cam timing. If I was really lucky, and generally I am not, it has jumped its timing, just need to put it back to the right spot and away we go. But things don't usually work out that well for me. But I will keep trying.
 
turning the crank...

thanks, I'll try the 4th gear and jacking her up and tuning the wheel. Hopefully, I can see what I need to see. You guys are great for all chiming in to help, I really appreciate it.
 
interference...

It would be AWESOME if I didn't have an interference engine. I'm really worried that this is bad news, but maybe not.
 
WildWilly said:
I'm really worried that this is bad news, but maybe not.
Click to expand...

There are only two things that are catastrophic for an X1/9: terminal rust or a collision bad enough to twist the unibody.

EVERYTHING else can be fixed and the repair generally consumes way more time than dollars.
 
Turning the motor

An alternate way of turning the motor is to use a 1-1/2" socket on the crankshaft pully nut. This will give you a better feel if you are having valve interference. Remove the right rear wheel for access.

Go clockwise and I suggest finding the timing mark on the flywheel and set to 0. Locate and mark the cam pully,crank pully and rotor and turn the crank 2X clockwise. If all marks re align, it is not a belt slipping problem.

Are you getting low to no compression on all four cylinders?
 
Yes..

I had one of the non-interference '78's.

I lost a belt on the highway and did not suffer any valve damage.

My '75 was not so lucky...

There is hope, Willy!
 
Cam Timing

Hey Willy. It's real easy to check the cam timing. No need to remove the timing covers. But you will need really good eyesight !!!

2 methods - first is easiest but 2nd is more re-assuring.

First method. Rotate the engine (as Eric explained) until you see the TDC mark on the CRANK pulley. It aint much of a mark - just looks like someone filed a notch in the outer rim of the belt pulley. Look here at the picture:http://www.midwest-bayless.com/stor...l.aspx?sid=1&sfid=208227&c=193014&i=250927913
"click to enlarge" on the photo and you will see the notch at about 7:00. Might be tough to see on your car depending on how much accumulated dirt and crud is on your pulley.

When you do find it, it's a good idea to mark it with some white paint or nail polish. Makes it easier to find in the future. You will see 3 ribs on the bottom of the yellow timing cover about 1/2" apart. The right-most one is TDC. Rotate the crank until both marks align. This is crank TDC.

Now because the cam only rotates at 1/2 crank speed, the cam aligning mark on the cam pulley could now be at #1 TDC or at #4 TDC. On your engine , there are probably 2 cam aligning marks. The first will be on the outside of the cam pulley. It will be just a round indent, and should line up with a cast pointer on the engine snail mount. But this will be very difficult to see with the engine in the car.

The other (alternate mark) will be on the back side of the pulley. It will line up with a pointer on the black sheet metal bracket that the timing cover bolts to. Difficult to describe but it you look closely enough you should see it.

IF the above marks dont line up, then the cam must be at #1 TDC. So rotate the crank one full revolution to obtain #4 TDC to see if the marks now line up.

You can also verify that the engine is at #4 TDC by checking the distributor rotor. At #4 TDC it should be pointing at the terminal that leads to #4 spark plug.

If all the timing marks line up correctly, and the belt is turning, then all should be well there.

The 2nd method is a little more work, but actually tells you a lot more. Remove the valve cover. Rotate the engine clockwise and watch the camshaft turn (if it is not turning you ARE in big trouble) until the cam is at #4 TDC. This is the point where the cam lobes on #4 cylinder (the one closest to transmission) are pointing to a Y upwards - that is the pointy part of the lobes are at 10:00 and 2:00 in relation to the valve shim being at 6:00. Understand ?

This for sure is #4 TDC. Just eyeball it as close as you can. At that point glance over at the back of the cam pulley and you should see the timing mark VERY close to the pointer. Rotate the crank until the marks align perfectly. Then move over and look for the marks on the crank pulley. At this time they should also be perfectly lined up.

If all 3 of these things are lined up, then your cam timing is perfect !!

Using method #2 is best. It verifies the the cam lobes are in the proper position at #4 TDC, because....

Also, it is possible that the dowel that locates the cam pulley onto the camshaft has sheared. If that happened, the timing marks on the cam and crank pulleys will still line up perfectly, but the cam itself could be out of phase.

Good luck, Doug
 
maybe good news....

so while waiting for andrew to arrive, I got my self started. jacked her up, took off the back wheel. Looks like with the crank pulley on 0° the cam pulley is right on the mark on the engine mount. let's hope that's good news. once andrew arrives, we will dig a little deeper I'm sure. Hopefully, this is good news. I guess the valve cover is next. Also just turned the engine over via the rear wheel to watch the timing belt make one full revolution. No missing teeth or damage to the belt. More good news.
 
timing marks...

best I can tell the timing marks are still lined up. The crank pulley is pointing to 0 and the cam pulley is bank on the mark on the engine mount. Hope this gives you some idea of where to go next. I'm stumped, but I know next to nothing:)
 
Check the cam itself. Take off the cam cover and then slowly turn the engine and make sure the cam is actually turning. I broke a camshaft once and the symtoms were pretty close to what you are describing. It was very difficult to diagnose, because everything seemed to be set right. It wasn't until I took the cam cover off and watched part of the cam turning while the other part didn't that I was able to figure out the problem. I replaced the cam and the engine ran fine. Mine was a 1500 model though.
 
cam cover...

That might be next. Andrew was out tonight and we did a whole bunch of things. First off, the crank pulley is lined up with 0 on the timing belt cover. Took the right rear wheel off so I could see it and turned the brake rotor to make sure I was lined up. Then to the cam pulley, it was lined up dead on with the mark on the engine mount. So I'm thinking we're looking good. Slowly turned the rear wheel to inspect the timing belt. No bites, no broken teeth, all seems well. Check the rotor button all seems well. When at TDC, the button is pointing more or less to #4 plug wire. So we tried starting, and poured gas directly down the carb. Well she backfires and spits, eventually throwing flames back up the carb, at one point over a foot high. So we are both a little stumped. Took out plug #4 and put a thumb over the plug hole and turned her over, seems to be lots of pressure. We didn't try the others, I'll go to the auto store and borrow a compression tester next week to see what I find out. So at the moment, I might be lucky and down to two possibilities. No. 1, timing on the distributor is off enough to stop her from starting, No. 2, possible broken camshaft and the valves aren't opening and closing when they should. If anyone else has any ideas, please pitch in. Thanks again to all....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top