(G) Water Trap

Washing the 500 (for the third time - well I have had it for a week now) I am a little concerned about what could be a problem in the cars later life. When you lift the bonnet the concave washers on top of the suspension units remain full of water.

This has already caused the threads above the locknut to start rusting so I have to blow the water out and smear a little clear grease on them for protection. I can see that later down the road it will be very difficult to undo those nuts in the event of needing to replace the strut if precautions are not taken now.

I don't know if the same thing will happen with rain but I will be making some covers to prevent this happening in the future.

Exactly the same thing happens with rain, indeed. Surely they have wet weather in Italy?

John

This happens on the new Micras too, so Fiat must have copied them! On my Micra the thread went rusty in about 3 months... on older Fiats like the Cinqs they actually fitted rubber covers over them, but deleted these on later Seicentos, obviously to save some dosh

very similar to the strut tops on mk2 puntos then and pandas i would imagine and yes if they have gone rusty then very difficult to undo but at the end of the day when will you need to unless you have a spring or shock failure then it wont be a problem

all very easily solved with a little oxyacetylene

my mk1 punto has plastic covers and indeed he nuts underneath are like new so maybe a good idea to fashion your own example unfortunately i cant think of another fiat were a similar cover would fit i think the rubber ones on top of doblo ones are a little big but worth looking into they are similar to like those tops you get for opened bean cans and made of rubber should do the trick if they fit

must be careful making your own water proof protection because if you end up in the situation were water can get in but cannot get out again as you block air flow youll end up worse off

i would imagine when the engine is up to temperature due to it's close proximity to them it wont take long to evaporate so maybe a good idea to clean the car after it has been out for a run

i would say from experience the best thing is simply a bit of grease or if you don't mind the colour of it coper grease or silver grease applied librely

in retrospect it's all a bit trivial to be honest i mean just think of all the bolts under the car that are open to the elements and constantly bombarded with stones and grit and salt all year at the end of the day a good mechanic will get them undone it's one of the most important skills of anyone wanting to work in the motor trade as a mechanic getting things undone without breaking them

in the case of strut tops the actal threads between the nut and shock will not rust as a nylock nut seals them from the top and the mating surfaces seal the bottom

anyway it's nice to know there is someone else out there who cares about the engine bay as much as me not just how the rest of the car looks

if you were in the garage i work in last weekend you will have cough me buffing some bolts nuts and screws back to a silver shine on the wire wheel at work basically anything that is immediately obvious under my bonnet

exactly, its a very trivial point indeed... as are most of the issues so far, obviously the 500 is so good its proving hard for people to find something to moan about, LOL!

here here

Sorry for mentioning it! Didn't intend to moan and sorry if it came across like that. I DO like my 500 and as it is the first NEW car I have ever had it is the first one I am able to try and keep looking new.

As this is my first Fiat I guess what I was hoping for was that someone with more knowledge of the marque might have a suggestion such as " the Fiat xxxx has rubber caps on theirs, that might do the trick" or similar.

With regards to the parts underneath the car that are "bombarded" by the elements, this is why the manufacturers have tried their hardest to protect the underside as much as possible, but feel free to remove the underwing shields if you prefer the rusted look.

I guess the upshot is, most members of the forum will always offer helpful advice and that is the reason for joining. For the few who want to nitpick there is someone in another thread who is "moaning" about having bare metal on the back seats of his 500.

i did mention that the covers from the doblo might fit over them i was actually looking at a 500 today and did notice that there was also some dust and gravel beginning to accumulate around the bolt on a car with no less that 786 miles on the clock not rusty thou they are in quite a vulnerable spot the water falling into that grill just falls straight into them

if i had a new car the first thing i would be doing is going round with pot of grease and librely aplying over things like door hinges locks and catches check straps clutch fork then silver slip the wheel hubs around alloy wheels brake callipers then take a can of under seal to the underside getting into the nooks and cranys inside chassis rails coper slipping all the bolts for the under trays and stuff that is likely to have to come off in the near future
so don't think we all think your too trivial i'm probably the worst on here for detail

i just thought of one other thing if you don't want the threads above the nut to rust up then mk2 puntos have a little plug screwed onto the top of them originally intended to help the machines guide the strut tops into the cars shell but they were left on so you can find some if you go into a scrap heap and happen to come across a mk2

Littlepip, thanks for the reply and also for the info re the Doblo covers, I had taken that on board. Perhaps I over-reacted a little but the trouble with forum speak being so "tongue in cheek" is that it is easy to mis-interpret the real meanings sometimes.

With regards to you being perhaps "the worst on here for detail" I'm sure that isn't a bad thing. However, looking at some of the posts on here, especially those that talk about things like carnauba wax at many hundreds of pounds a pot I doubt if we would even make the top 100.