Panda (Classic) Black Panda Wanda 1000CL Formula 91

Had them for while now, but some small paint job was required before tyres could go on.
Tyres are the same as been fitted to the weller rims.

Tyres 155/70/R13
Rims Momo 4x98mm 5.5J x 13, offset 35 if i'm not wrong.

Front 5mm spacers, rear had to use the X1/9 8mm spacers and longer bolts.

Any body have spare set of alfa, lancia, lada or any centre caps?

They look different!

I've had centre caps off ebay but yet to fit them. You should be able to get some no problem.

I've got alloys waiting to go on all of the cars barring the 4x4 but getting the bolts right is worrying me, what's the best way to make sure I've got the correct bolts for a varied collection of alloys?

Where did you find those wheels anyway!

panda panda said:

I've got alloys waiting to go on all of the cars barring the 4x4 but getting the bolts right is worrying me, what's the best way to make sure I've got the correct bolts for a varied collection of alloys?

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Get a standard bolt & stick it through a standard steelie, measure how much
thread is poking through. Now stick the same bolt through your alloy and see how much less is poking through, and order bolts that much longer than your standard ones.

firstcar-Y10 said:

Get a standard bolt & stick it through a standard steelie, measure how much
thread is poking through. Now stick the same bolt through your alloy and see how much less is poking through, and order bolts that much longer than your standard ones.

Click to expand...

You make it sound so simple!

I think I have a car with standard wheels and bolts somewhere...

panda panda said:

You make it sound so simple!

I think I have a car with standard wheels and bolts somewhere...

Click to expand...

Hint: spare wheel Incidentally if you've got alloys on and the standard spare wheel under the bonnet you really ought to keep 4 standard bolts with it as you'll get issues if you ever have to fit the spare with the longer bolts.

Ooops, sorry kolza wandering off topic there, meant to say those rims look great!

firstcar-Y10 said:

Ooops, sorry @kolza wandering off topic there, meant to say those rims look great!

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No worries guys, as long as it refers to car it's fine.

The CC sporting wheel bolts are 5mm longer, X1/9 bolts are 8mm longer, so as long as you can find a fiat nutter/ breaker you might get them at low cost.

As Andrew pointed out, the steeel spare wheel issue is worth to remember, std bolts set or alternatively one wheel spacer to compensate the extra lenght.

Momo's were bought from Forum member (same who sold the mk1 madagascar to Vmac).

Just drover the car to work, at 75mph there is no single vibe at the steering wheel - first time ever!

Rims itself are really light weight and you can actually feel that when driving.

Just been at local Waste collection pointwith one old double bed and matres.

All in one go, i love the extra haulage capabilities which the roof rack is giving.

Right, I was trying to eplain that in number of diferent ways but the Black Panda had a habit of spontanously refusing to start!

Today was the forth time, with no luck after making the starter red hot.

Luckaly I was only going for my weekly shoping - not with wife in 8th mounth.
The car would not start, I've brought the Easy start with no luck, gone to unit to bring out the muddy Sisley for Tesco shopping, having in mind that Sisley had all major service parts on boad the Black one was investigated - results - the insulation on the internal pair of cables/wires just disintegrate casing shortage and lack of spark.
Cablels were re- insulated and kept apart, car started streight away.

My bodge job did not lasted long enough, it was working and would allow me to drive to unit for dizzy swap, but we went to town centre instead for more shopping. Car behave as normal, but when tried to start it again after less then an hour - and no luck!
It would be fine but the peak of rain fall was actuallu during our walk back.
Gone home for some dry cloths and my camo rain suit, took the sisley out as all the tools are still inside, gone back to town centre and removed the dizzy from tha Blacky, went back to unit to rebuild the dizzy with working pick-up sensor, drove back to Blacky to fitt dizzy back in and finally start the engine. Did not had the timing light whith my so dizzy was set back on marks.
Drove the sisley back to unit, walked back to Blacky and drove her back.
Today we've done approx. 15 milles and i've noticed some flat spots between 2-2.5k in 2nd gear and 1.8 - 2.2k in 3rd gear. On the way back from Sunday walk timing was check with light and was at -2*BTDC, after being re-set to correct value throttle responce came back to normal.

Just another ordinary weekend and joys of Panda(s) ownership.

Just to add cherry on the top - this morning when attempted to remove my bar type steering wheel security device. The key would not go fully down in to the key hole, the inside of the barrel disintegrated causing multiple pins and tiny springs to become loose. Removed all of them but the lock remaind locked all time as all theose bits were vital part of lock mechanism
Walked back to unit ( I'm glad it's only few mins walk) took braker bar and 24mm socket with me, gone back to undo the steering wheel. On my way back i felt multiple streange "look" on me from other members of public - I wonder why?
Used angle grinder to cut the thingy ( it was definately not even close to hardened steel ), returned back and fastened the steering wheel and drove to pick wife for walk, being only 40 minutes late. How she can understand all that ?? Not a single grief.

Haven't driven Panda for few days now, as the Black one was left on Manchester air port and I already have major witdraw symptoms! I can Panda's everywhere! Behing every single corner and orange tree. Is it me going crazy or is it just Sicily thing? Pandas do match Italian character in 100% especially in ciity driving techniques.

Been swaping wheels from Momo road tyres to the ex-sisley M+S Marshall rubber.
Give a quick look under and I'm in need for one metal ring which goes between rear coil spring and rubber spacer/ring, anybody?


Cheers

Thre is one on Ebay.it but the postage will be as always sky high.

Near side rear shock with signs of moderate oil pissing out .

interesting piece of kit in the classified section
https://www.fiatforum.com/classifieds/showproduct.php?product=33796&limit=recent

Today was Black Panda day...

Broken rear coil ring was noticed two week ago, suspension worked ok apart from that when looking from the back i was able to see that the broken side was lower. Which is actually correct as the pig tail of the coil was digging more in to the rubber doughnut at one side

New ones are availabe on ebay.it bu shipping cost is much more then one piece price.
So i've decided to take them off, de-rust and weld it back with some additional strengtening metal over.


While I was there with Omega axle hanging low, i've decided to clean the bottom spring seats as a lot of crap can accumulate there. Was actually expecting much wors and more rust but noting major to report.

Now all covered with nice thick layer of heavy duty paint.



As someone will notice , the coil spring is not std panda coil it is dual rate. In my Sisley thread was mentioned that i've brough few pair of different coils with me for the lift job.This actual one is Cityrover rear with two coils less.

First from right


Firs cut was at 1.5 coil but after puting more thoughts in i've decided to cut half of coil more and ground the pig tail a bit.



Soft rate end went to the top, at the coils are nicely leveled there it was decided not to put the metal ring back. Rings will be amended and kept with the std rear coil springs.

Ride hight seems to be without any change - which is good.

What i might achive by doing this is improved ride comfort.



Ps. when i was pulling down in to the unit this morning, local postman seem me passing and parking so decided to pop down for panda chat, apparently he've been working in Hull fiat dealer ( Jordans) in 1991, and one of his tasks was to putt the Formula '91 decals on Pandas and other fiats. Then he told me that there are only two pandas in Scarbo .

Another milestone in our journey to the infinity.



44444 - done,
55555 - done,
66666 - done,
77777 - to do,

Both Pandas deserved good wash today, Black one was even hoovered inside, being my daily car she does take some abuse and nasty salt.

First on the list was to check how bad is the front shock.
Monroe 11038 both side was fitted new when i've bought the car so must be five years now, On last MOT there was advisory suggesting small play between shock rod and top collar. It started to be noticible at low speeds especially when monoeuvering. Damping has not been affected yet but the tracking is out as N/S tyre is showing uneven thread usage.



Is 5 years and 26k miles enough? looking for new pair now.

For last few weeks i've noticed that driver side of the car sits lower when lookig directly from back, i was thinking is it something to do with the CityRover coil spring, but it is NOT.

Noticed that the bumper sticks a bit to far and there is no gap, clearly some tw@t bumped into me





Ok let see how bad the bracket is.
Now i can say that the dome nuts are the best thing you can use for bumber brackets, no single issue, 4 min later bumper was off.





Bracket itself, managaed to make it stright again, same with the mount plate.


Opposite side, clean & nice thread covered by dome nuts preventing all the bumper nuts issues.


I'm not looking forward to MOT in June.


And again, my dual rate rear coil springs, after few week they seems to be more comfortable with same stifness.


Both doors bottom start to flap, can you buy black gaffa tape?

It looks like new set of HT leads is required as the original ones starts to loose the spark.


Been checking the timing yesterday as gentle hesitation and acceleration has developed, while trying to get with socket on an extension to the bottom dizzy nut I've been electro shocked as there seems to be tiny hole in one of the dizzy 'finger' boot.


Another weird behaviour which was noticed was when car left on idle and well up to temp, with no reason engine was increasing revs by it self for certain periods of time, somewhere round 1.5k but the rev counter was going mad at the same time and oscillating between 2.5 -3.5 k. After 30-60s all went back to normal idle.


I've seen such things on injected cars but not on cars with carburettor.

As fuel pump is suspected as well, unit was tested and results are indicating weakness of the pump.


Spec states pressure > 0.2bar (2.9psi) @ 4000RPM.
Flow rate 60l/h - not tested at that point.


My gauge did not get over 2psi at all and reading was not constant, needle was all over the pace between 0 to 2.0 psi.


New pump to go in this afternoon.


Did anybody played with the pump spacer thickness to increase pressure / flow rate.

I've decided not to change the pump yet, few small jobs first.

New fuel filter as the old one had haze already, and retrofited the old ( new ) Lucar sport coil as I did not thrust the 1.1 coil which was supplied with my breakerless dizzy.

I was a bit optimistic in thinking that anti roll bar can be fitted in one evening.
Actualy it would as it is ready full assy readu to bolt on but as i'm fitting new track arms as the bushes had they best time long time ago resulting in uneven use of one tyre so the ols arm had to be removed. First bottom ball joint did let off with minimal effort, second side did not let off at all! had to remove the CV and undoing the whole hub carrier but the ball joint was already bend so pressing in new one tommorow.
When ARB will be in situ the Momo whell goes on as well - more speed in roundabouts? oh yeah!