DIPSTICK BLEW OUT ?

Nothing is needed to hold the dipstick in place other than gravity. If it is being pushed out you have pressure in the crankcase, there should be no pressure in the crankcase. If there is you have a serious fault in the breather system. If not fixed right away far more serious problems will develop. I have seen rear main seals and all manner of gaskets blown out from that cause.

 

Haven't seen a Mondial engine before, but as Brian said you should have a breather hose sometimes fitted with a filter on the cylinder head covers. This filter is usually made out of steel wire. This could be blocked and therefore causing some pressure inside the crankcase blowing out your dipstick. Have a look at it and if it's there just wash it out with some benzin and make sure the breather hose isn't blocked.

 

Sound like the PCV (Positive Crankcase Ventilation) is clog up or blocked

 

My '76 Alfetta did the same thing once. The crankcase vent ran through an oil separator before being bled back into the intake. One winter morning, the condensation in the oil separator froze, blocking the crankcase ventillation.

The car started normally, but then began to run very poorly. After a couple of miles, there was a metallic "bang" and it suddenly ran fine again. When I got to work, there was a huge oil streak down the side. I found the dipstick wedged between the coolent overflow tank and the inner fender. It had blown a couple of liters of oil out with the dipstick. (Fortunately, the Alfa 2L holds over seven liters of oil, so the loss of only two liters barely registered on the oil pressure.) I topped up the oil and replaced the dipstick. It ran fine on the way home, after the oil separator had thawed.

After that, I always left the hose into the oil separator clamped very loosely. Whenever the oil separator froze, the hose would pop off before the crankcase pressure could build up much.

"Character" is the way people describe italian cars.

If yours only went at redline, you may have a partial obstruction in your crankcase breather system.

 

+1 not a good sign, usally means serious blow-by, a high percentage I have seen are from a dusted engine

 

I'll bet you had a warm feeling when you saw that.

I'm with PAP, you might have excessive blow-by. Check the breather system. If you don't fix this you'll have oil coming out everywhere.

 

The 3x8/Mondials have an oil vapor separator type crankcase ventilation system. It's known to clog up & let the crankcase pressurize.

First thing is to remove the separator & give it a good cleaning with mineral spirits.

Haven't seen much about problems with it lately, but it came up several times in the 'old fchat'. search the body of posts for 'oil' and 'separator'.

 

Just like Brian told you, check the PCV system. Some thing is clogged or blocked. Porsche's are known for this, makes them idle like crap.

 

Thats the oil breather/vapor seperator. If its clogged and crankcase gasses cant escape, it could be your cause. Also if you are overfilled with oil it might do it. If the return hose at the bottom that goes into the motor is very old, it could be clogged. Check all those hoses and lines over and be sure its all clear. Make sure you wernt overfilled. With oil all over your belts, sad to say but they should be replaced as soon as practicle, especially the timing belts if they were in fact oil soaked. In the meantime, rinse it all off clean with some brake parts cleaner and get your problem sorted out before you go replacing belts. I'm sure you dont want to go to all that trouble again needlessly. Just to be safe I would re-run your compression tests again just to see if anything went wrong.

But I dont think it would do that. I had one totally blown cylinder and the one next to it half blown on the first 308. On the short little jaunt I gave the car it blew a lot of oil up into the aircleaner and liberally soaked and lubed my muffler internally, but it never blew out the dipstick. I lost 3 quarts in 11 miles! Check the fine metal screen inside the aircleaner on the steel tube that the big breather hose from the seperator attaches. If that pipe clogged up it would definetly cause your trouble. Just an FYI, but both my cars had carbony oil gunk partially blocking that screen. That is the only place crankcase pressure can escape.

 

Make sure the two big hoses are routed correctly to the correct pipe on the separator. If you switch them over this could cause your problem.

Cut the separator in half, scrape and clean it all out and re-weld or braize it back together.. or get a new one.. but the problem with them is that the powder coating lifts off and eventually a flake of it will sit on the drain hole.. so a new one is actually not as good as a "fixed" one...

Check the cylnder leakage... and listen to where it leaks to... take off the oil filler cap while the cylinders are pressurised and listen in there....

There are wire traps in the cam cover spouts that connect to the breather... clean them, as said.

 

Ain't it grand, mate, when the BP comes down? Great forum, this.

 

Fantastic. Glad it's all over .

 

Kinked hose?... Human error causing owner concern once again!!

good result.. the gauze is in the little spouts on the cam covers, where the cross pipe connects to, not in the separator