Excess Oil in Air Cleaner Body

[jandarah]

Hi, had some four lap runs at the Fiat Nationals (Australia) Supersprint today. Pushed the beast pretty hard and it seemed to go well, but still slower than the "big boys". However, after the second and subsequent four lap runs, when parked back in the pits, copious amounts of oil dripped onto the ground via the Turtleback air cleaner throats. It appears that excess oil was appearing in the body of the air cleaner via the breather hose during these quite demanding runs. It did not seem to affect the performance of the car (I was still the slowest) and I even reduced my time around 10 seconds. At no time did the oil pressure light or gauge react adversely. When the next session came up, the car started easily, idled well and seem to run well.
I have never noticed this amount prior to the sprint, although there is always a bit of oil on top of the oil filter that must be coming from the bottom of the air cleaner body, during normal operation. (Twin Weber 40 IDF's, 1756 engine)

Your ideas and opinions most welcome.

[124JOE]

is it coming from the crank case vent?
how high was the oil on the dipstick?

[jandarah]

Hi,
Well, after the shock and horror of seeing oil on the ground, I traced it back to the big turtleback air filter body and the oil "vapour" hose coming from the side of the engine to the bottom of the air filter. No, the oil dipstick showed ok and, as long as it is the correct dipstick, the sump oil level should be fine. I am going to change the oil and filter, so, it will be interesting to see how much comes out. The Facebook spider group tell me that the rings might be shot, hence the high crankcase pressure. I will do a compression test, but don't like the sound of that.

Thanks,

[124JOE]

i had this happen what i found was the hose going to the air filer was kinked "so it wasnt venting
this pushes oil out everywhere "distibutor ,air filter and anywhere it can so check that hose

[jandarah]

Yep, after checking underneath the big Turtleback air cleaner body, what did I find, but a kinked breather hose. Not totally shut off, but very much restricted which would have helped build up the pressure, until ...... Wham........... oil everywhere. I am pretty sure that, once fixed, all will be well.

Thanks again everyone on this great forum.

[131]

Which spider were you driving?

[jandarah]

Hi Mick, I was driving my one and only Fiat, the bright yellow 77 model, fitted with 1756 engine and twin 40 IDF's. I have not yet mastered the photo inputting on this forum, but, if you have Facebook, there is a good shot of it running about the track on Matthew Paul Photography's page ..... along with many others. I have just opened a Dropbox account, so should be able to do something on this forum soon.... I hope.
It had "Spiderman" decals on the doors, plus some other decals elsewhere.

[gandyrail]

My turtle was full of slobber and had never been cleaned I am guessing anyway, my manual says these need to be cleaned every 15K. The chamber under it was full of sludge.