Crankcase breather valve

[daver clasper]

Hi everyone.
I have a Mk1 2Litre Vitesse.

There is no crankcase breather valve fitted, just a hose from rocker cover to a stub on the centre of the airfilterbox. Is this setup ok ?.

Also when engine hot and idling there is just noticable haze of greyish fumes coming from rocker cover with filler cap removed. Is this a normal amount of blowbye through cylinders.

As always any advice much appriciated

Cheers, Dave  

[esxefi]

idling speed won't really reveal full leakage as engine is not under load,also a hole the size of the oil filler is quite large to determine the amount of gas escaping.

place a piece of thick plastic or something else rigid over the filler hole with a 10mm hole in it to get a better idea of flow.
ideally you want next to nothing coming out but a slowish steady stream is ok,you may have steam escaping as well if the engine is cold which could make it look more than it is.

breather  hose into the airbox is ok but keep an eye for oil escaping down the hose and contaminating/blocking up the air filters if you have the paper type,some sort of baffling or screen to help the oil drop out is a good idea.

[Nick Jones]

There will always be some blowby.  Some of the 2L cars did have the diaphragm type PCV valve fitted as standard which is a pretty effective device.

In my experience a healthy 2L is ok with a simple pipe from rocker box to airfilter housing and mine managed like that for many years.  Only as it wore out did it start to suffer excessive pressurisation causing it to "sweat" oil from every joint and seal when driven harder.  The 2.5s....... need more breather.

Nick

[daver clasper]

Thanks so much for your replies. It's great to get such knowlegeable and experienced advice.
I have ummmed and arrred about doing a compression test. The car runs well and if it showed unhealthy readings, then it would preoccupy my mind too much.

Cheers, Dave

  

[Nick Jones]

If the cars runs well and doesn't use much oil, just drive it!  Coimpression tests can also be misleading.  Both my (former) PI and Vitesse (old engine) gave good, even excellent compression test results.  Both drank oil like rabbit holes......  

Nick