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Punto (Mk1) My exploit yellow 75 elx

Introduction

Hi.
My name is Simon and I haven't been on here in ages.
I'm a fiat nut who has owned fiats all my life as have my family. I work in a fiat dealership in dundee and have treated myself to a new car, as it's the first time in my life I have been without a fiat.

I bought the following car off ebay for 4 reasons

1. I had one as my first car
2. I just bought a house and have somewhere to keep it
3. My mum had a brand new exploit yellow 55 sx back in '95
4. Have plenty fiat techs to fix it when it breaks

So, I'm in dundee, the car was in Yorkshire, so my dad and I left 5:30am Saturday morning in his 500L to pick it up. I was worried about bringing a near 20 year old fiat 260 mile up the road, but it didn't miss a beat. It drives like a new car.

History- we'll it was sold new to a mrs crappe, at carnell fiat, she had the car garaged from new, done 70,000 miles in it. It had its original dealer plates on it which I changed, as they were tatty. Full years mot with no advisories, and a full service history. She specced it up with a drivers airbag!

The car come with a few parking dings, original scuffed wheel trims, and a couple of light scratches, otherwise it's mint.
Luckily working in a fiat dealer, I can get parts, a workshop with a 40 years served fiat technician, a dent man and body shop.

Took the car into work today to get all the dents removed, was up on the ramps for a health check- solid underneath, just needs new discs and pads and a rocker cover gasket. Underneath is solid, clean and all present and correct. It also needs a new cam belt cover as mine is burst. Then that's it mint.
Turns out the rear tyres are the factory originals, made 3rd week of 1995, so it will be getting a full set of brand new Goodyear duragrips I have in my garage.
Surprisingly every single thing works on the car, even the remote locking and being an elx it has an electric sunroof!!!

It's quite funny because all the fiat techs were all over it today, donating parts. One of them had an exploit yellow touch up pen that's been in his toolbox for 15 years, got handbrake cables and a rocker cover gasket, with more bits offered. They also went on e-sigi and printed out the complete history of my car, showing recalls for brake pipes, airbag ecu etc which is nice to keep.

Work so far done-

New genuine wheel trims
New genuine punto mats
Original fiat tape deck
Genuine fiat lineaccessorie front and rear mudflaps
General tidy up
Clay, wet sand, machine polish bodywork
New numberplates
Dents removed
Brand new badges
Full valet

I love this car, I can't believe how mint it is. Taking bad with no power steering though.
I put it in the showroom and took some piccies.
Anyway the pictures.......

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And my main/ daily car

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It's the silver one on eBay. Have slept on it and decided to keep the punto. The tipo's lovely but expensive


I know these guys, my mate shares their premise (he owns the window company you can see the logo for in the background) they specialise in low volumes of mostly rare Italian cars but their prices are eye watering some times, they would put your punto up for £3k most likely, they had a mk1 punto GT recently for £4K and a cabrio for the same price, good condition but nothing special about them
 
This morning was set aside for a rear brake overhaul.
Borrowed a fiat master tech for this morning, which was handy....


Things started fine, then we realised the brake shoes I bought were the incorrect part for my car even though eper said they were right. Luckily the brake shoes still have plenty meat left on them, so continues with the cylinders and handbrake cables, all genuine.
Original handbrake cables were knackered.




Then more disaster, the brake pipe snapped, so Ali is making me up a new one at work on Monday.


Abandoned until next week


Also battery was flat from sitting about unused for about a month so that's out and on charge again :(

 
i did last winter. I was using the car up until 4 weeks ago and every day off I was meaning to go out and start it but my wee girl and the wife got in the way.... that plus the cold weather have discharged it.

I'm just wondering if that yellow one I have I can keep on as it's a trickle charger
 
read the manual, should say in there if it has overcharge protection and stuff which is the main issue with leaving them on all the time. I got mine at screwfix when it was on offer, made my ring automative and called something like smartcharge+. They have quite a few different models but for the money its a very good charger, my panda battery has been connected to it since i started my engine swap months ago, charges upto a certain voltage and then just maintains it rather than continuing to charge.
 
Brake pipes... scary when the fail like that, it's easy to forget that they are thin 20-year old steel when the look OK on the outside.

My Brava blew its rear ones during an MOT aged about 12 years, :eek: I think the paint protection wasn't as good as in the mid-90s with the Puntos and Tipos.
 
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