Q: During the fast driving stuff, I was driving rather hard, not exceeding redline, but quite full throttle and high revs. On checking the car over last night, I am missing some coolant from the radiator, which I had solidered up before leaving. Then when driving, I noticed some smoke on revving up, and I think it might be coolant. Usually with modern cars, I look into the coolant expansion tank to see if the fluid is bubbling, indicating a blown head gasket. There is not a steady stream of smoke on idle, I need to check it out some more. My question is it advisable to retorque the head gasket, and what torque would you recomend for the 1300?

A: I am not sure that re-torqueing the cylinder head bolts will cure your problem. Anyway, their torque is 23 lb.ft since you have a first series car (the torque value drops to 17 if you are using S2 bolts). Needless to say, you need an accurate torque wrench for this job.
However, Fulvia cylinder heads very rarely need retightening (unlike other cars): in fact, this was never specified by Lancia even after fitting a new head gasket. I think the smoke problem requires careful investigation (leaking hose, blown head gasket, etc ?). Check if there is coolant in the engine oil and that the radiator is not spurting out coolant because the rad cap opens at too low pressure.
- Andrea -

Follow up on head bolts torque

The bolts MUST tightened with a very good quality torque wrench following the sequence indicated in the factory manual. Remember that average torque wrenches will apply too much torque. I normally reach the torque value in two stages after finger-tight tightening of the bolts. Failure to do so will create problems in future. UNLIKE the large majority of cars, Fulvias do NOT need re-torqueing the cylinder head bolts after a few Km. To prevent rapid camshaft wear after refitting the head, use the special assembly grease (black)and/or run the engine at about 2,000 revs for at least 5 min.
- Andrea -

Why do you want to retorque Duina's bolts? Note that re-torqueing is an issue open to misinterpretation. Normally engine heads are retorqued with a cold engine after 1000 Km: the bolts are un-done and retorqued. On modern cars it is necessary to add also the angular value, that is how many degrees the bolt is rotated after the right torque value is reached. A special tool is necessary for this. The reason for all this complication is quite simple: to save manufacturers money (on the number of bolts) and to cope with the higher engine running temperatures a relatively small number of bolts must be tightened quite considerably. The Fulvia engine relies on a very different philosophy (different even from Aurelias, Aprilias, etc): an extremely large number of fine bolts is used to fix the gasket. Note also that the metric fine size of the bolts is designed to provide a strong intrinsic strength to these bolts which are also quite tensile.

With S2/3 cars saving money was more important and thus the bolts were different and needed higher torque (being of lower quality). Most torque wrenches are unsuitable to deal with Fulvia bolts. Once the cylinder head is refitted, the Fulvia engine does not need retorqueing which is actually discouraged (like the practice of oiling the bolts before fitting them as the attained torque value is wrong). At about 1000 Km it is necessary to check the valve clearance and this is the time to check that the bolts are still at the correct torque value WITHOUT undoing them first. I suggest that everytime a Fulvia head gasket is ruined, there is a man-made problem which caused it and there is the potential to create future problems as very few people would be so strict like the Lancia factory in fitting the cylinder head.
- Andrea -