Panda (Classic) Living Life in COLOUR (with twin sunnies)

Sounds great. This means Fizzle has now officially demised though?


also "more" pictures?

panda panda said:

The secrets out!

Here is my latest (and hopefully last(for a while)) purchase!


Bought from JamieK and rehomed from London this is perhaps the ultimate combination for me - a late model fuel injected twin sunroofed RED Panda!

Suprisingly no one mentioned it was for sale on car and classics and after the demise of Fizzle I knew I would have to have at least one red Panda on the drive.

Though a little scruffy around the edges with new bumpers, sunroofs and a bit of magic dent removal and lots of polishing (not to mention a full cavity waxing/underseal) hopefully this little fella will go from faded glory to full techniCOLOUR.

Provisionally called "COLOUR" (I'm keeping the decals on) he's been fettled by Freddy panda1408 at the moment and the initial inspection of the underbody is excellent.

More pictures to follow

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Woah woah woah, fizzles demise? I knew there was some rust found but didn't think it had come to anything yet??

Well done John, really nice to meet you the other day. I'm just about coming to terms with the fact I've actually let it go now. The fact it got you all the way to stoke with no issues after being off the road for over a year is fantastic! As I said on the day your a brave man to have attempted it but you've got your reward for taking the chance can't help thinking though that I should have just Driven it to Devon myself and kept it :bang: Still, there's some good panda related news on my front coming soon and I don't just mean the new Selecta I told you about

Looking forward to seeing what you do with Colour and hope you bond with it in time as you did with Fizzle

Well panda1408 has given it a thorough once over and has sniffed out a few rust spots to fettle but nothing to worry about.

The emissions issue may be a bit trickier to sort but Fizzle is their to donate any suspect parts - which reminds me that his MOT expires on the 27th this month so really need to get him home for dismantling before then.

I think headlight aim was off too. New bumpers, sunroofs and a bloomin good polish will see this motor transformed into my summer runner!

My previous summer runner Sky started and ran great yesterday - I completely forgot about the MOT as it's in the back yard, sorned and unused since last year - he'll get Mot'd and either part exchanged with VmanC or sold on hopefully to a forumer (if anyone's interested send me a PM) after he's done a trip or two to Panda central to collect Gertie etc. Only reason that Sky is going from the fleet is my dislike of none servoed brakes (and two near misses because of them) other than that he's a grand little panda and certainly holds the road very well with his lowered spax springs (amazingly enough mum used to work for them years ago in London), and I certainly want one of my cars to have a set eventually.

Anyway, wafflling,

panda panda said:

Well panda1408 has given it a thorough once over and has sniffed out a few rust spots to fettle but nothing to worry about.

The emissions issue may be a bit trickier to sort but Fizzle is their to donate any suspect parts - which reminds me that his MOT expires on the 27th this month so really need to get him home for dismantling before then.

I think headlight aim was off too. New bumpers, sunroofs and a bloomin good polish will see this motor transformed into my summer runner!

My previous summer runner Sky started and ran great yesterday - I completely forgot about the MOT as it's in the back yard, sorned and unused since last year - he'll get Mot'd and either part exchanged with VmanC or sold on hopefully to a forumer (if anyone's interested send me a PM) after he's done a trip or two to Panda central to collect Gertie etc. Only reason that Sky is going from the fleet is my dislike of none servoed brakes (and two near misses because of them) other than that he's a grand little panda and certainly holds the road very well with his lowered spax springs (amazingly enough mum used to work for them years ago in London), and I certainly want one of my cars to have a set eventually.

Anyway, wafflling,

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You should offer him to Sam first John - as a previous owner and Pandaritus sufferer maybe she'd be tempted? :idea:

Palio said:

You should offer him to Sam first John - as a previous owner and Pandaritus sufferer maybe she'd be tempted? :idea:

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Yes of course - what was her user name?

panda panda said:

Well panda1408 has given it a thorough once over and has sniffed out a few rust spots to fettle but nothing to worry about.

The emissions issue may be a bit trickier to sort but Fizzle is their to donate any suspect parts - which reminds me that his MOT expires on the 27th this month so really need to get him home for dismantling before then.

I think headlight aim was off too. New bumpers, sunroofs and a bloomin good polish will see this motor transformed into my summer runner!

My previous summer runner Sky started and ran great yesterday - I completely forgot about the MOT as it's in the back yard, sorned and unused since last year - he'll get Mot'd and either part exchanged with VmanC or sold on hopefully to a forumer (if anyone's interested send me a PM) after he's done a trip or two to Panda central to collect Gertie etc. Only reason that Sky is going from the fleet is my dislike of none servoed brakes (and two near misses because of them) other than that he's a grand little panda and certainly holds the road very well with his lowered spax springs (amazingly enough mum used to work for them years ago in London), and I certainly want one of my cars to have a set eventually.

Anyway, wafflling,

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Freddy called me by accident today instead of calling you but I was a bit distracted having seen a Citroen traction avant poking out of a barn I drive past every day, the barn's always locked up but today the beautiful white traction was poking out so I had to investigate! Anyway, I'm waffling now! What's up with the emissions? I'd have thought the good run you gave it and the new Lambda I fitted it would have been fine?

panda panda said:

Yes of course - what was her user name?

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Don't think she's on here John. I can pass on a message though - pm me something and I can forward it for you.

You're not on Facebook are you? I recently was forced into using it & must admit it's been useful for journalistic Panda purposes!!

JamieK The injector light stayed lit which also indicates emissions are off. It's running lumpy and rich apparently. Not to worry, swapping a few bits from Fizzle should get to the bottom of it.
Palio Just pass on my email Gavin asking if she's interested, I only want what I paid plus parts fitted to it if it goes to a Forumer.
I used to have a facebook thing but the trivia of everyone else's life was just as boring as mine and quite frankly I'm not interested in what others are having for dinner/doing/done whilst looking for constant validation as a worthwhile person or simply bragging online :yuk:

The engine idle/injector light is off!

My helpful suggestion of removing the offending bulb was ignored and the temp sensor in the throttle body was replaced with Fizzles. A wire had broken elsewhere which was repaired too.

Freddy's made a great job of the small ammount of welding and complete undersealing and cavity protection too.

Just a few other bits and pieces before it faces the tester, cam belt will be changed as the cover box has broken so while the idler pulleys out may as well renew it.

New trailing arms are going on, most of the rubber bits at the front end will be done too.

Underneath will look and nearly be new!

panda1408 feel free to post up some pictures of your work

So, time for some much needed photo's!

Firstly some of Colour before any work started, as you can see he is tidy looking car, but in need of a good clean and polish after sitting outside for some time. Unfortunately there are a couple of paintwork issues, but I think once he has been cleaned up these should not detract from the overall appearance of the car, especially with the new bumpers and other new plastic bits that will be fitted.





The main reason John bought this car was because of the excellent condition of its underside, so my first job was to get it up on the ramp to verify that was correct, happily it was, with very little of the original factory rubber coating peeling off and no previous welding having been done.

I did however find a few areas that needed some attention with the welder, thankfully nothing too major, but they needed to be done as if left they would certainly turn into much bigger jobs. Firstly the seam in the drivers side rear wheelarch had rusted right through and needed to be cut out and replaced:









The front edge of passenger side front inner arch was starting to go so that too was cut out and replaced:




Finally the most common Panda rot spot was dealt with, the back of the inner sills. Both sides had some very small holes here, fortunately they had not crept up behind the trailing arm mount so it was a relatively easy (if fiddly) repair to do, without the need for cutting the outer sill off for acess.



No picture of the completed repair I'm afraid!

With the repairs done I moved onto the main job of undersealing. Any surface rust was treated with a rust converter and the brakes, suspension and any other bits that I didn't want to get convered in wax were masked up.


Cavity wax was then injected into every possible cavity and a light coat sprayed over the entire underside, once that was dry the black underbody wax was applied, giving this result:















You may notice the rear springs have been removed, done so the currently intact spring cups could be cleaned out and protected properly. The doors, tailgate and bonnet have also been treated.

As John says I have also sorted out the running issues, caused by some broken wires to the throttle position and air temp sensors aswell as the air and coolant sensors giving false readings, these were swapped with known good ones from Fizzle and the Colour is now running just as Fiat intended.

Next job as John says is to do a proper service and replace the suspension parts, after which he will be ready for an MOT.

Great work Freddy, I'm already thinking about how to get the top half as good as the underneath!

My thinking is to keep the grey plastic interior but fit Fizzles grey seat belts and interior trim as I'm not too keen on the green dash roll.

It will be the beneficiary of Fizzles Alfa seats too.

Not sure about fitting a body kit or roof rails, I will probably keep it as it is for now and see how it goes.

If the bungalow restoration doesn't bankrupt me I may even think about a splash of new paint

Boy, it's a bit hard seeing this as I know this panda is a of a bit of a special one, but I'm so glad your doing everything it needs to make it one of the best and keep it going for years to come as I said before it couldn't have gone to a better home and I think when you've finished adding all your personal touches to it you'll have found a Panda for life

This is exactly the same model as mine. I feel very inadequate as I have owned her for over 2 years and have not made anything like the progress you have. To be honest I have got rather a lot more welding to do than you had, but still....
Where can you buy new sun roofs from?

Partsworld or Franko at Ricambi

May be cheaper on ebay.it. Search for "Panda telo (or teli) capote" . Then enjoying browsing and see what you can buy whilst making the most of the postage charge/saving

e.g. http://www.ebay.it/itm/FRP-COPPIA-T...2?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_101&hash=item336c355c8a

Thinking on.. perhaps the Panda Express needs to go international?? Order some things for delivery to the Panda Trip Italia team while there and bring back. Midnight Panda Express?...

JamieK said:

Boy, it's a bit hard seeing this as I know this panda is a of a bit of a special one, but I'm so glad your doing everything it needs to make it one of the best and keep it going for years to come as I said before it couldn't have gone to a better home and I think when you've finished adding all your personal touches to it you'll have found a Panda for life

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When I dropped my spares cache to Freddy and saw Fizzle and the Colour side by side it was a strange experience. Fizzle was there gleaming red paint but rotten underneath whilst the Colour is exactly the opposite!

I'm really taken with Colour, it has some character which I like, the grey plastics and multicolured binnacle. Some bits will get changed, others will stay but I'm not trying to make Fizzle2 I want Colour to evolve naturally without losing his character.

If I want to do mad mods I've got the black CLX which was bought to assure Fizzles future and somehow superceeded him - once the running problems are sorted he'll be the
workhorse of the fleet as he's never going to be a concours car.

Colour is certainly a keeper!

I had a phone call from Freddy last night, unfortunately the scuttle and A pillar has some pretty bad rust under the window rubber, it could be treated but would still lurk and annoy me so that will be a new windscreen job as no point putting a chipped one back in once sorted. It has the slight advantage of being able to replace the non-standard pillar aerial with a Zendar clone.

This lead on to a further conversation.

The doors have been resprayed (or replaced) and blown in with lacquered paint which is now peeling. The rest of the car is solid polishable paint - it is never going to match!
The twin sunroofs are being replaced and suddenly with no windscreen, sunnies on the next logical step is a respray.

So we're on the lookout for recommendations for paint shops in the Stoke area.

There. I've said it in public. I'm getting a car professionally painted. In the original colour.

I never liked having money in the bank anyway - I'd rather have it on the drive in Panda form Ahhhh