Please Advise X19 1300 build

I am at a bit of an impasse and I am starting to panic a little!!! I have the pistons installed, and happened to be looking through other builds and saw that their valve reliefs are facing away from the auxiliary shaft. Mine are facing the auxiliary shaft along with the numbers on the connecting rods. The manual says to have the number facing the auxiliary shaft. DOES IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE? The motor is already in the car too.
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Yes you have your pistons in 180 degrees off. Very good question. Two issues- valve:piston clearance and if there is any proven combustion or flow deterioration. Also, not sure if incorrect rod orientation matters. You can resolve this without pulling the motor I think.
 
Both the piston and the rod orientation matter and have to be right.

The valve cutouts are necessary both for valve clearance and flow at top lift.

The engine is designed so that the rod is not exactly straight up and down through the center of the wrist pin and big end journal when the piston is at top dead center - it's advanced a bit so that the downwards pressure will rotate the crankshaft instead of pressing it straight down into its bearings. That's done by very slightly offsetting the wrist pin from the center of the piston.

I won't tell you from memory which is the right orientation of the stamped numbers on the rods/caps and the valve cutouts because I won't get it right, and unfortunately I don't have any of my spare motors open to verify what's right.... but someone here will have the right answer for you.
 
Yes you have your pistons in 180 degrees off. Very good question. Two issues- valve:piston clearance and if there is any proven combustion or flow deterioration. Also, not sure if incorrect rod orientation matters. You can resolve this without pulling the motor I think.
LOL, Just my luck!!! It looks like I'll be able to do it in the car. The manual wasn't quite clear on that part or may be I couldn't read or something 😂 it says, "When assembling piston to connecting rod, make sure number on connecting rod faces away from side of piston bore". I was expecting valve relief not piston bore.
At least I wasn't to far along.
 
Pistons were installed 180 degrees outa whack. Start that up, valves will be bent.... most likely ALL of them.

The number stamp on the stock piston-con rod assembly as noted in the service manual is intended to prevent what just happened as the stock as delivered piston-con rod assembly uses those numbers for valve pockets on the piston orientation.

Direction of the con rod does not matter as they are symmetrical. These pistons as designed by Lampredi has a wrist pin offset (about 1mm) to act as a slight bias or helper to move the piston down the bore rotating the crank.

It should be possible to drop the oil pan, un-do the con rod caps, take the piston and con rod out and re-orient the piston as they should be. Do know piston rings have an orientation relative to the wrist pin. While controversial, IMO, this should be done.

Assembly lube on the rod bearings, then torque the con rod bolt-nuts to spec. Keep everything as clean as possible.


Bernice
 
Pistons were installed 180 degrees outa whack. Start that up, valves will be bent.... most likely ALL of them.

The number stamp on the stock piston-con rod assembly as noted in the service manual is intended to prevent what just happened as the stock as delivered piston-con rod assembly uses those numbers for valve pockets on the piston orientation.

Direction of the con rod does not matter as they are symmetrical. These pistons as designed by Lampredi has a wrist pin offset (about 1mm) to act as a slight bias or helper to move the piston down the bore rotating the crank.

It should be possible to drop the oil pan, un-do the con rod caps, take the piston and con rod out and re-orient the piston as they should be. Do know piston rings have an orientation relative to the wrist pin. While controversial, IMO, this should be done.

Assembly lube on the rod bearings, then torque the con rod bolt-nuts to spec. Keep everything as clean as possible.


Bernice
So the connecting rod direction doesn't matter? I can remove and rotate the whole piston and rod assembly as is, 180 degrees? Correct?
 
Essentially, yes. Do note the piston ring gap position as noted in that Wiesco install note.
The only way the numbers stamped on the con-rods do not correspond to the illustration in the service manual, the pistons have been removed from their connecting rods, then re-assembled 180 degrees changed.

Was this done? If yes, why?


Bernice


So the connecting rod direction doesn't matter? I can remove and rotate the whole piston and rod assembly as is, 180 degrees? Correct?
 
Essentially, yes. Do note the piston ring gap position as noted in that Wiesco install note.
The only way the numbers stamped on the con-rods do not correspond to the illustration in the service manual, the pistons have been removed from their connecting rods, then re-assembled 180 degrees changed.

Was this done? If yes, why?


Bernice
The valve reliefs and the numbers are both facing the same way. I'd have to change them to face opposite each other and have cable reliefs facing away from the auxiliary shaft.
The connecting rod orientation was the confusion I was having.
 
Back up, secondary check. Hold the cylinder head in it's proper orientation and position as it would be installed on the block. Note and observe the valve angle relative to the valve pockets in the piston top.. does the angle of the valves match the position and angle of the valve pocket on the piston top?

Bernice
 
I am at a bit of an impasse and I am starting to panic a little!!! I have the pistons installed, and happened to be looking through other builds and saw that their valve reliefs are facing away from the auxiliary shaft. Mine are facing the auxiliary shaft along with the numbers on the connecting rods. The manual says to have the number facing the auxiliary shaft. DOES IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE? The motor is already in the car too.
View attachment 35539 View attachment 35538
Unfortunately you are a victim of a misprint in the service manual. It is is a major mistake as you've found. It should read that the numbers should be pointing AWAY from the aux shaft. Everyone who owns a service manual should go to that page and note the mistake. Also, if possible it should be noted in the online version too.

It's good that you found it in time to avoid a disaster. At this point you have the head off and can see that something is wrong.

Maybe we need another thread dedicated to corrections to the factory service manual?
 
I was looking through the manuals and found that they do differ. The 79-82 have the numbers facing away from the auxiliary shaft, and the 74-78 facing to the shaft. Both have the reliefs facing away.
Is this still correct for the 1300's?
 
After see this post, I decided to check my Fiat manuals. My 1974 Fiat Roosevelt X1/9 Service Manual had it wrong. However, my 1969-1974 128 Haynes manual and my 1974-1980 X1/9 Haynes manual had it right.
 
I was changing the gear oil on my 4 speed and this came out. There was a huge metal pin at the bottom. It looks like it been in there for a while. There was also metal shavings on the magnet, but I'm not overly concerned about it. Transmission shifted fine. Sometimes locked me out of 1st,but was otherwise fine. Is it possible someone forgot something in it?
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Neil,

Hopefully someone else will reply, but I am wondering if that is part of the shift gate spring. You may want to start a new thread on this question. You can check the manual or look at a vendor site for a picture.
 
It does appear to be half of the centering spring for the translator.

They do occasionally break ad it's always at the mount.

I just went out to the shop and snapped this pic of one.

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There is no other piece in the transmission that is anything like that.

Of course somebody could have dropped something during assembly. I have seen it before and done it myself.

I assume that your shift lever now doesn't have a positive self centering action on the 3-4 shift gate. The half of the centering spring that is broken is the half that keeps the shifter from falling to the 1-2 gate.

Also, you are quite fortunate that you found that piece stuck to the drain plug. You can see it has been beat up from bouncing around inside. If it had gotten ingested between two gears you would have had an instantaneous catastrophic transmission failure.

To replace it you will need to open up the transmission and swap out the translator (the assembly in the photo I posted).
 
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It does appear to be half of the centering spring for the translator.

They do occasionally break ad it's always at the mount.

I just went out to the shop and snapped this pic of one.

View attachment 35896

There is no other piece in the transmission that is anything like that.

Of course somebody could have dropped something during assembly. I have seen it before and done it myself.

I assume that your shift lever now doesn't have a positive self centering action on the 3-4 shift gate. The half of the centering spring that is broken is the half that keeps the shifter from falling to the 1-2 gate.

Also, you are quite fortunate that you found that piece stuck to the drain plug. You can see it has been beat up from bouncing around inside. If it had gotten ingested between two gears you would have had an instantaneous catastrophic transmission failure.

To replace it you will need to open up the transmission and swap out the translator (the assembly in the photo I posted).

Cool, shifter never really felt right when I got the car. I assumed it was normal. Looks like I'll have to pull it apart. I guess it a project for another time.
 
Good news and bad news. I fired up the new motor today. Started on the first try!! However I have coolant leaking from the head gasket and the water pump at the seep hole. I'm not sure of what I have done wrong. I let it warm up and then turned it off. Coolant seemed to stop coming out of the head gasket on the distributor side while it was running. Should I let it cool down and retorque the head bolts or replace the head gasket?
 
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