Panda (Classic) Snatch Panda

One of my favourite wheels ever, always regret selling my set of them!!

I had those delta hf turbo 14 inch wheels on fiat ritmo{strada} some time ago. I love this type of wheels. Now I use 15 inch variant from integrale on croma, but it is tempting to try them on panda4x4, must install engine and gearbox first though

they look great on cinqs!


and also seis

Thanks men, I like them to look at and their size is about right, the biggest issue is their offset.
We found today that the inside rears touch the arch liners when the axle is twisting. Need to fit some spacers and try again.

Idiocy illustrated

So back on page 15 of this thread, at the end of July, the Snatch developed a misfire.
Finding the cause of the fault has meant trying to logically deduce why compression, fuel and spark weren't making a bang, when they should.

I'm not very good at this...

The good news is - it's definitely fixed- 150 miles today and perfect throughout. Possibly better than ever for crisp throttle response and steadiness of idle.

The answer was one, short, £4, plug lead.:bang:



-So now with the benefit of hindsight, I'm interested in answering the question; - why didn't I work this out weeks ago, since it now seems so obvious..?

Re-reading the posts, I think I wanted to take the head off anyway, so jumped quickly to an excuse to do that.

Pulling the lead off the plug and peering down into the plug tube showed sparks jumping from the end of the lead to the head - and I used that evidence to convince myself that the (new) plug must be firing. But it wasn't.:bang:

I also took resistance readings for each lead but didn't (couldn't) interpret the results to mean anything significant was amiss.:bang:

- I Googled it and if you have the plug lead manufacturer's expected resistance per unit of length to benchmark against then a calculation would be possible but all I learnt was that longer meant more and shorter meant less. Which was what the ohm meter confirmed.:bang: But wasn't the answer.

Smart diagnosis seems to be a question of balancing "This is the most likely explanation, so don't ignore it quickly." and on the other side "Weird things do happen, so keep thinking up unlikely possibilities that may yet turn out to be right."

And the cost of not getting that balance quite right in this case..:

Set of plugs £8
Head set £30
Head skim, strip and build £40
Coolant and stuff £10
A 16V Punto (that popped up on eBay when I was searching for another ECU) £650

Set of plug leads £16

Total £754.

Who said main dealer servicing was expensive..?

Re: Idiocy illustrated

lol, bar the buying a whole other car it wasn't too bad from a financial point of view.

And hey, look on the bright side, now you have had the head stripped, skimmed and rebuilt you know that is tip top.

And you can sell the Punto on assuming you having starting ripping parts off lol. Looks like a very clean engine bay in the punto, whats the rest of the car like?

Re: Idiocy illustrated

blu73 said:

Looks like a very clean engine bay in the punto, whats the rest of the car like?

Click to expand...

Déjà vu

Re: Idiocy illustrated

lol, hey i never said i would buy it - just a nosy curious person

Re: Idiocy illustrated

Nosy away-



When I bought my Panda, the experienced voices said that one Panda always leads to another. I believed them.
What they didn't say was that each Panda also attracts two Puntos to keep it sweet..

Re: Idiocy illustrated

looks pretty decent that, although as we know, all fiats are good at hiding rust, they can look so clean and not be at all lol.. Panels kinda look slightly mismatched colours but i think that could just the picture....?
Its funny there seems to be more 5 doors left in decent condition, do you think possibly because all the 90s boy racers ruined more 3 doors? its a theory.

edit: Also, i think its just fiats attract more fiats more than anything else, heck i even branched out into an alfa at one point hehe

Re: Idiocy illustrated

blu73 said:

looks pretty decent that, although as we know, all fiats are good at hiding rust, they can look so clean and not be at all lol.. Panels kinda look slightly mismatched colours but i think that could just the picture....?
Its funny there seems to be more 5 doors left in decent condition, do you think possibly because all the 90s boy racers ruined more 3 doors? its a theory.

edit: Also, i think its just fiats attract more fiats more than anything else, heck i even branched out into an alfa at one point hehe

Click to expand...

Plenty of rust underneath, and starting at the door bottoms too. I'm pretty sure the paint is all original, don't know about the three/five door attrition rate but you could well be right.
The tacky looking wheel trims are alloys (that surely no one could like?) It's a late ELX so has almost all the Mk1 options - remote locking, paint on the mirror housings and door handles, electric sunroof, six speakers, steering wheel mounted buttons for the radio, it goes on and on...

Real reason I bought it? - one owner, full history, 16400 miles.

But now what, to do with it..?

Re: Idiocy illustrated

sadly there will be next to no-one who will want to rescue it... If no buyers come forward you could keep it in a corner as a parts car maybe? I'm sure there will be mk1 owners that would keen to get the nicer goodies if it doesn't sell as a whole. Shame really but they just not quite old enough to be properly sort after yet - i think the seriously low numbers is beginning to bring the price of solid ones up now but still not many are keen to take on one that needs body repairs. I really would like a 3 door tjet mk1 punto at some point, one day i will buy a farm and have tons of room for cars lol

Re: Idiocy illustrated

Damage report - post quarry madness-

Spacers fitted to rear wheels seem to have worked but I can only test by jacking up one wheel at a time. Needs another excursion to confirm if any rubbing still occurs.


The dented front wing that resulted from the incident in "Freddy's Gulch" luckily fixed:



- When I took out the arch liner and gave it a prod, it went 'ping' and popped back out. Am in two minds whether to repaint the scratches along the side or leave them as 'patina'... because chicks dig scars..?

Excellent, I was expecting full on devastation when we were wedged against that bank, somehow you've got away with it! Were you able to retrieve the side repeater from inside the wing?

I think the scratches should be left...

I agree on the scratches.

Analyzing why we didn't get up 'your' gulch Freddy (because it wasn't all that steep) - I think we lost traction because of the roll taking weight and therefore drive away from the up hill wheels.
-They spun away our power and forward motion was lost.

So. Diff locks it is then.. Any thoughts on how, where from?

Side repeater lens, bulb and end of snapped off bulb holder was lost to the undergrowth. -Another weak point identified.

andyholli said:

So. Diff locks it is then.. Any thoughts on how, where from?

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Tell me more!
We got stuck like that as the front left wheel gone it to deep rut so we've bottomed out on the engine guard. I could try to rock it but was resting on the prop shaft/bearing already - decided to call for Landy help ( same guys who helped Nic & Jimmy).


I'm slowly collecting bits for the brake lock differential BLD, front prop shaft guard will follow.

kolza wasn't there a similar discussion earlier this year https://www.fiatforum.com/panda-classic/442008-lets-talk-diff-carriers.html
I quite liked the look of the selectable locked rear diff. Doesn't help up front though

kolza said:

...decided to call for Landy help ( same guys who helped Nic & Jimmy).

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For the sake of her honour, I must point out that the only help the Landy boys gave to Nic was to laugh at her (in a friendly way) - she did drive the car off in the end with me holding the rear right corner down until the tyre touched and stopped the left rear slacking off. She won't be happy with me if I don't clear her name!

kolza said:

Tell me more!
We got stuck like that as the front left wheel gone it to deep rut so we've bottomed out on the engine guard. I could try to rock it but was resting on the prop shaft/bearing already - decided to call for Landy help ( same guys who helped Nic & Jimmy).


I'm slowly collecting bits for the brake lock differential BLD, front prop shaft guard will follow.

Click to expand...

Im pretty sure this is where I got my panda stuck too, was a big rock in the middle wedged against the front of the prop guard/mount also causing 3 wheels to be off the ground.

Dad ended up lifting the front of the Panda using the bullbars thus putting the rear wheels back on the ground and managed to reverse off! Thank god for the Panda's being so light!

Freebo said:

Dad ended up lifting the front of the Panda using the bullbars thus putting the rear wheels back on the ground and managed to reverse off! Thank god for the Panda's being so light!

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Who needs a winch when you've got a Neil I confess that like Nic, I needed the Land Rover boys and their kit at one point too. - But that was down to my poor driving unlike in Nic's case where it sounded like it was some errant ground to blame.. and nothing to do with the driver at all.