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So what started out as a wheel refurb as you'll see in my last post, turned into something rather more involved.

With the wheels off everything behind the wheel looked really grotty and rusty. The main concern was the subframe given italians tendency to build them out of rust which just crumbles in our UK weather, I was also concerned about the state of what was behind the wheel arch liners and if the fronts of the sills where rusty.

So without any real plan I started stripping everything down. Off came the lower arms. Steering joints. the drive shafts. struts and wheel arch liners. It wasn't long before there was nothing left in the wheel arch but a brake caliper hanging on its pipe. (that eventually came off too)

Soon the car was dangling in the air without any of its important bits that connect it with the ground.

The subframe was not just in a surprisingly good condition, aside from some very mild surface rust, it was basically completely untouched.

A quick clean up with a wire brush to clean up any loose dirt and rust, and then a damn good blast with the pressure washer and it was as good as new.

I layed down a coat of Etch Primer, then some gloss black to make it actually look as good as new.

These three pictures show the subframe before paint.

This picture shows the subframe before removal from the car and you can only see any real rust behind where the exhaust bracket mounter. this was just from the bracket and the metal under the rust was basically unmarked and still painted.
What then followed was a lot of sanding, wire brushing and cleaning. over the course of the last 3 or so weeks in the evenings. Then the application of a lot of paint. Some colour coding of parts to make it a little more visually appealing rather than just painting everything black. So anything springy (springs and roll bar) got painted red. Anything structural got painted black, and anything else was either painted silver or nickel plated to add contrast. The steering joints for example were painted silver as everything attached to them was painted black. Finally because the brakes would be visible through the wheels and the car being red I panted the calipers a nice bright Yellow.

The drive shafts have also been fully refurbished and painted. new grease and checked for wear.

Everything was properly prepped and painted with high quality paints.
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I have installed all new parts where needed or essential for safety. So new brake discs and pads. New shocks, new antiroll bar bushings. New ball joint covers, new clips and bolts where needed. New boots and gaiters where needed.

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I am super happy with how it has all turned out. Everything looks shiny and new and is better than when it left the factory. I am just waiting on a set of bump stops for the shocks (the old ones had ceased to exist) and then I can start bolting everything back on the car. The one thing that has really surprised me is the insane amount of weight in all these components for such a little car, I would estimate probably more than 75 KG in everything bolted to the subframe. I think I may have to find a way to weight it to see for sure, and that is without wheels.

Anyhow I hope you can enjoy all the shiny bits before they get bolted back on never to be seen again. I would like to thank @ben for not only allowing me to host the pictures from the build here but for also providing a really good set of tools to format all these pictures and text to lay it out so its easy to read and navigate having been here >10 years I can appreciate just how much the forum has changed and improved over the years,

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Well after languishing for way too long, multiple failed attempts at trying to release the alternator I finally just ordered a new one and consigned myself to paying a garage to do the work. The problem lay with not being able to get eneough leverage on the alternator mounting bolt, the garage who changed the belt waaay over-tightened it.
Shortly after my new alternator arrived (at a ludicrous £300) I discovered this tool

I'm really not sure what to call it but it seems like it would resolve my problem of not been able to get my breakbar onto the bolt head.
And that it did...

Sucess!

To actually get the alternator out of its position some light bending of some metal had to be done, I can see why the official procedure is to remove the driveshaft, but its all out of sight anyway and it bent back fine

The new one now in place, not quite out of the woods as I can't get enough tension on the belt and tighten the adjuster bolt at the same time so its pretty loose, last time I tightened the old belt I had a friend help so I will be employing someone hopefully before the weekend to get it tightened up ready for some summer driving, at last!

Purchased the propshaft I previously mentioned as set about replacing the old one last weekend. Got the original shaft out, some pics including the new one to go in:

Cleaned all the bolts by wire brushing then degreased in acetone. Started to fit the new shaft and began to suspect that it may not be of the best quality. The CV joints were extremely stiff, could barely move them. It had quite a few balance weights on it and when we offered it up it was a tight fit and the centre bearing bracket holes didn't quite line up, had to force the bolts in.

All finished, took it out for a test drive and was not happy. The shaft was noticably sapping power (presumably the CV joints) and began to vibrate at 45mph right through to 60mph. It produced a thrumming throughout the whole cabin. I had a word with another member who had a similar problem with a shaft from this source but his vibration wasn't as bad and disappeared afte a short while. I thought I would give mine a few days but there was no improvement. So, yesterday I ordered a new one from Des Shelly Shafts in Wolverhampton.

It arrived today and I set about doing my second propshaft change in a week. I forgot to take some pics, doh! The new shaft is of a much higher quality - better welding, the CV joints move easily and smoothly, only two small weights for balancing. It fitted perfectly, went on a treat. The test drive was a joy, all the power was back and not a trace of vibration anywhere. Job done.


The other shaft is going back Monday.

Rebuild process here

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I have also been working on some other little jobs along side the engine.

I have obtained a second steering wheel with airbag which I plan to retrim with Leather, a nice little project to undertake soon.

I have also been working on the allow wheels in the background. This is the first of 4 to be done. It was a total mess of corrosion to begin with so really happy at how well it has turned out. It still needs a couple of coats of lacquer but looking forward to getting all 4 to this state so they can finally go on the car and I can get rid of the horrible modern Punto wheels currently on the car.

The front of the wheel is Steel silver and the back is black with a blend between the two behind the spokes to give them some contrast, once the suspension is sorted the calipers and everything behind the wheels will be painted so the black will help make that pop a bit more.​

All the structural work and welding on the bodyshell is now complete.

Scuttle welded in position along with the front panel and wings. It wasn't a perfect fit where it meets the original parts of the A-post by the windscreen, but again a skim of filler will make it look right. Getting the whole lot to line up was a bit fiddly.

Once the front end was all welded in place I cut out the framework as there was now no risk that the body could deform.

I then welded in place teh repair panels I had previously made for the bottom of the B-posts. At the same time I made up two formers and made panels to repair the A-posts and then weld those in place.

As I've mentioned previously the LH gutter and roof had been damaged at some point in history. The gutter condition was not recoverable so I cut it off, folded up a new section of gutter and welded it in position.

There were a few little repairs required to the roof where the LH rear of the hood attaches. The other hole is also repaired, but I haven't got a picture of that to hand....

And that's it for all the welding. It's all done...at last.

Now on to preparation for making it look shiny and white again!

Have been using the Punto the last couple of days- even took it to to work today, and it rained, then it was blowing a gale and my car park is just pure dust- so tonight was spent getting back to business

fresh MOT this morning

So, back from the Alfa workshop where the Panda spent the last two days having the clutch, DMF, concentric release bearing, crank oil seal and gearbox/transfer box fluids changed. For those interested the total cost was round about £1300.

Unfortunately, I still have a squeaky clutch pedal so it wasn’t the release bearing as I had thought. I had a look at the pedal box and there is grease everywhere so I guess the previous owner or their mechanic already had a go in that area. I think this means that the only culprit left is the master cylinder. Now, do any of you know how a new master cylinder is bled when connected to a concentric bearing? Obviously the bearing can’t be accessed so if the hydraulic line is opened to fit the master cylinder air must get in so how to get that out? Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated.

Whilst with the workshop they discovered that the centre propshaft bearing is close to failure so I am going to fit a new one. Anybody see a problem with this one below?

FIAT PANDA PROPSHAFT 4x4 (169) 2004-ON 55222107 55193595 55197051 55264146 | eBay

OE Part Number: 55222107. FIAT PANDA 4x4 2004-ONWARD. Position on vehicle: UNDER. If you have any technical queries regarding any of our products, our trained technicians are here on hand and are happy to help.

www.ebay.co.uk

It's been almost a year since my last update! A lot has been going on, but almost none of it Fiat related. I took a break from this project as we welcomed our first daughter last June. Now that we've gotten a bit into a rhythm, I've been able to give the Fiat more love!

Front Suspension

During my last updated, I was convinced that a prior repair job had resulted in an asymmetric suspension setup; however, upon further inspection, it appears that the chassis hard points are symmetric but the fenders are not. So I redesign the suspension, again, and I used this opportunity to lower the roll center, add more camber gain, and make some custom upper control arms using rod ends to give this suspension a lot of adjustment. I also now have access to a 3D printer so I was able to make some test parts to make sure I was happy with the alignment before building everything. I ended up adding adjustment to shift the wheel forward or rearward 1/4" (6mm) allowing me to better fill out the wheel well. Has anyone else felt that the front wheel should move rearward to better fill in the wheel well?

Still need to finish the cross brace supports, finalize the hardware, and probably add an anti-roll bar and a rebound stop (will just use the shocks for bump). The GAZ shocks are totally busted, leaking and not holding pressure, so that's disappointing. I might find a local shop to rebuild them (shipping back to the UK is not cheap), or look at switching to a different manufacturer. Also, it is worth noting that with this steering rack and brake upgrade, I do run into interference at full lock between the brake caliper and the upper control arm. The custom arms are designed to reduce this but it will still contact. Not sure if anyone else has run into this issue, but I'll look at modifying the rack to limit the travel so that this can't happen while driving.

Engine Frame

I ended up redesigning to engine frame, adjusting the position of the engine so I don't need a belt tensioner and modifying the frame so I have access to the engine bolts on either side of the rear panel. New parts were designed and printed to verify measurements on the engine and the Fiat's frame, then I had the tubes laser cut and routed out a tacking jig. Once I was happy with how everything fit, I welded it out and cross my fingers. It fit!

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this aesthetic of this frame and how it pays tribute to the classic Ducati trellis frames! I still need to finish welding out the frame, add the last engine mount, gusset everything, oh and build the rest of the engine frame, but this rear section, making sure everything lined up between Fiat's frame and the Ducati's engine mounts was the highest risk. Glad this all seems to fit up nicely.

Looking forward to what everyone thinks. More to come, with hopefully much less time before the next update!

Finally done after two attempts. After the first attempt I had to give up and purchase some of the plastic screws that refused to come undone. These are used on the top and bottom of the bumper. For those interested the sequence was:

1. Jack up and remove wheel for the side concerned, in my case the drivers side.
2. Remove 4 or 5 crosshead screws (one under car), 1 x M10 plastic nut, 1 x metal M10 nut and 1 x M10 bolt. Pull inner wing out.
3. Remove Torx screw holding bumper to wing. Unplug the DRL and fog lamp connectors or else the wires may break when the bumper comes away.
4. In my case, cut off all plastic screws along the bottom of the bumper.
5. Remove or cut off plastic screws on top of bumper in engine compartment. Remove 2 x Torx screws.
6. Using a plastic tool for leverage, carefully pull the bumper away from the wing. Keep working the join and the clips will separate, don’t force it!
7. I held the bumper in place with hands/knees and undid the three retaining screws holding the DRL unit.

Reverse the procedure and replace any plastic screws you cut off. These just push straight into their fixing points.

I now have a working, condensation free DRL. Another job off the list.

Taxed and battery charged.

MOT booked 9am Saturday.
Had better dig it out of the garage

Well, apart from lube on sticking door handle, bonnet release and squeaky rear bootlid struts, did the first minor fix on the car since getting it.

The strap that keeps the petrol cap tethered to the car had rotten away and it's really annoying not having it.
So, order new strap from flebay. Actually, two in a pack, including the pins that may also be needed.

Gently lever off the rotating cuff, push out the thin pins, pull out the rotten strap.
A bit of silicone spray to clean the cap and help lube it.
Push in new strap, press pins back through it, slide it back onto the cap, hook the end of the tether onto the catch in the opening flap, job done.

All straightforward enough and means I can do those occasional fill-ups without leaving the petrol cap on the roof!

The last couple of weeks the rebuild has stalled due to going on holiday, and stupidly losing a clip that has to come from Italy.

So I have taken to doing a little light restoration work, this involved using stuff around the house to Nickel plate some of the more rusty and grubby parts

Brackets that support the air filter box


Misc metal brackets that hold the headlights in place

And I have been plating all the bolts and hardware to prevent corrosion when putting it all back together.

Decided to clean the interior for the first time since purchase. On lifting the passenger side floor mat I found a pool of green 'radiator water' which appears to be coming from the heater core. After some testing I discovered that if I leave the A/C in COLD position it doesn't leak, living in sunny Spain this is not too much of a hardship so I am not going to attempt to fix it for now. The temp gauge is always just below normal so it must be a small leak. Is this a common fault on early models equipped with aircon?

Its all a little bit out of order here, but here is the video to go with all the bits on the intake side that I had to fix

Its been a while since an update over here, updates have been very frequent on the Fiat Coupe Forum, I've been working on the car a decent amount, currently tackling any rust on the floor pan, plan is to strip all the sound deadening and wire brush the entire floor and re-paint once all rust is there is any has been dealt with, the rear passenger quarter panel is completely rusted through on the inside and everything behind it has gone too, not to worry, we cut up the 20v donor which was in good condition in these areas and will be welded in once the weather is nice. Engine will be serviced and a good inspection before running sometime this spring, had a good look around the car and everywhere is all solid no rust except for behind the rear quarter panel, my uncle thinks it has spent most of its life in a garage prior to him owning her and already had rust repairs, hence the lack of rust in other areas

Started lapping the valves last night, only got one cylinder done but was getting a pretty good seal, put some water in the head and left over night, this
Morning a lot of the water was still there.

Was having problems with the stick not sticking to the valves, basically the valves are just too small so I’ve ordered something better which should arrive same day

Cylinder head stripped down cleaned, combustion chambers given a light polish and the ports all given a going over to remove burrs moulding marks and anything else that will disrupt airflow.


The valves are all now clean and have been kept with all their own original parts, this engine has double valve springs which is impressive the collets have all been cleaned.
One of the discoveries is that the exhaust valves were so dirty and coked up even when fully open they would have had a considerable restriction in air flow.
They also had a about a mm of cack as were the intake valves the amount of carbon in the engine both in the combustion chamber and on top of the pistons would have massively decreased the displacement, airflow and increased the compression ratio this is probably why I was getting such high figures on the compression test



The air intake pipe work has also been cleaned up and will need a wash in the industrial parts washer (dishwasher) to get all the grit and grim out of the inside.