Technical Fiat Panda 1.2 2010 Rust issue and possible solutions for it?

[kavil]

Hello Everyone, i am looking for a Fiat Panda 2010 with 65k km, interior is in really good condition but the underside makes me little worried. There is oily resiedue around the oil pan but it looks semi-old and before and after test drive i did not see

any new fluid on the oil pan or around the car. Exhaust is rusted out a lot and back axis are also rusted, I am not experienced with the rust repair so best i can do clean it and cover it with rust converter and spray or buy new pieces and replace them.

I do not know how bad they are but if possible please look at the photos and give me suggestion about it. Should i proceed forward with the buy and change it by myself or should i avoid it?

 

[koalar]

The three bolt will come out fine with the wheels on the ground

You don't have to touch the centre one

You suppose to undo the upper camshaft bolt, T55 on mine in the picture, yours will likely be a bolt

If it's not been of before it likely to be much tighter than than wheel nuts

It will become clearer as you do the job

 

[kavil]

I do not have time to change the timing belt yet, slowly but surely I am changing a few parts of the car at a time. Due to limited knowledge and diagnostic capabilities. I change something, wait a few days, drive and confirm that everything is OK and move on.

I wanted to change both spark plugs and wires at the same time, but I could not be sure that both new wires and spark plugs would work properly, so I just changed the wires first.

Which was a bit tricky to replace to be honest.

Today the car is with my wife and she will try 120 km round trip to see if everything is ok.

I bought NGK DC7PRE N 10 pregapped sparkplugs, which is what is written in the car service book.
On NGK website it says .039" 1mm gap but I measured all 4 spark plugs and they all have about 0.8mm gap. I am a bit confused if I should increase the gap or not. Shouldn't the gap be correct at the factory? This is the first time I have bought spark plugs.

The throttle butterfly valve has black residue all over it. Can I just wet a cloth with petrol and clean it straight off?

The car still jerks when I take my foot off the accelerator.

I also saw a plastic screw at the and of the fuel injector pipe it was half open but extremely easy to open or close by hand, I did not understand what it was but I moved it a little during spark plug cable removal/installation. What exactly is it and should I open or close it?

 

[koalar]

It not worth gapping

Are you sure that you actually received

NGK DC7PRE N 10 Have a 1 mm gap

And NGK DC7PRE Have a 0.8 mm
in the last 20 year or so the gap on a major brand (denso,NGK and so on) plug has always been spot on
anyhow 0.8 mm is fine some of the equivalents are this
but I would be slightly concerned that if they were marked as NGK DC7PRE N 10 and didn't have a 1 mm gap that they were genuine

 

[jrkitching]

I do not have time to change the timing belt yet, slowly but surely I am changing a few parts of the car at a time. Due to limited knowledge and diagnostic capabilities. I change something, wait a few days, drive and confirm that everything is OK and move on.

This is a very good guiding principle which can be applied to all manner of life situations.

Only change one thing at a time, then if something happens that you weren't expecting, you'll have a good idea of what caused it. If you change more than one thing, you won't know which one it was.

Another good example would be not changing the timing belt on an engine that wasn't running 100% on the old one. I've lost track of the times I've seen folks post something like "the engine wasn't idling properly, so I changed the timing belt and now I've got a fault code".

Don't do routine maintenance on something that's faulty; fix the fault first.

 

[kavil]

I bought them from Amazon de and on the item page and packaging it says NGK DC7PRE N 10.

I do not know if they are genuine, I trust amazon but I can send them back and buy from another supplier. The problem is that car parts are extremely limited in Switzerland. There are only 2 online suppliers and they cost 3 times as much as in Germany. Therefore I had to use Amazon for almost all equipment - parts.

 

[koalar]

I bought them from Amazon de and on the item page and packaging it says NGK DC7PRE N 10.

I do not know if they are genuine, I trust amazon but I can send them back and buy from another supplier. The problem is that car parts are extremely limited in Switzerland. There are only 2 online suppliers and they cost 3 times as much as in Germany. Therefore I had to use Amazon for almost all equipment - parts.

What's it say on the porcelain part of the plug

The N10 isn't used in much except the later fiat 1.1 and 1.2

So they aren't cheap here either, which is why I fit the denso equivalent, normally

.8 will run fine

 

[jrkitching]

The N10 isn't used in much except the later fiat 1.1 and 1.2

They stopped using the N10 with the introduction of the Euro5 engine in mid/late 2010; later engines used the near-identical ZKR7A-10, which is basically the same plug with a 2mm tip extension.

Another good option is to fit iridium plugs; if you want to stick with NGK, DCPR7EIX are the ones you'll need. These will likely last the remaining life of your car; they're good for at least 80000km. I use these myself.

There's a long historic thread on spark plugs; here.

The engine will run just fine with an 0.8mm gap (the iridiums are pregapped to that), and it'll put a bit less stress on the coil pack.

 

[kavil]

What's it say on the porcelain part of the plug

The N10 isn't used in much except the later fiat 1.1 and 1.2

So they aren't cheap here either, which is why I fit the denso equivalent, normally

.8 will run fine

Today car made total of 210km without any problem whatsoever (other than jerky jolting when off the gas pedal but i will look at the rear motor mount for play and throttle body next time) That means new spark cables are in working condition. I am allowed to move on.

New thermostat working wonderfully and i hope it stays that way. Car reaches %50 mark within minutes and stay there entire trip without fluctuating.

Plugs came in this box with DCPR7E-N-10 written all over it. Spark plug Ceramic also has NGK R DCPR7E-N 10 mark on it. there is ///// JAPAN ///// and M37A mark on the metal casing as well

I measured all 4 spark plugs andthey have 0.036" - 0.9mm (i do not have calipers at the moment but i will bring one from work tomorrow and check my gap tool to be sure

 

[kavil]

Today i changed the sparkplugs and cleaned the throttle body. Maybe i made a mistake changing sparkplugs. I watched few tutorials and there all the pictures of used sparkplugs are wornout discolored and really worse condition. Here my old Bosch plugs. They are little dirty due to combustion but look really good to me. I measured its gap all of them 0.9mm I might have changed the plugs unnecessarily.

I could not reach everywhere on throttle body but i used 95 Benzin on a rag and toothbrush and cleaned as much as possible. I could only drive 10 km and i think it is way better compared to earlier. I mean burking-jerking when off the gas pedal. But i might be mistaken and thinking i solved it. I need more road test and second opinion therefore i will let my wife drive and take her opinion as well.

 

[kavil]

I unfortunately had MAJOR BREAKDOWN. Aux Belt aircon and alternator is snapped during a drive made a lot of noise, ripped engine bay insulation wool and scared everyone.

Car drive around 300 km with the new belt that i installed a week earlier without a problem (working alternator-aircon) and it snapped suddenly today during normal operation.
Car starts fine, has Red Battery symbol ( i assume alternator is not turning therefore this symbol) and steering is extremely heavy (without Red Steering wheel symbol)

I do not know what caused it, either i installed it wrongly or faulty belt from the factory. I made sure it was exactly same as the old belt, orientation, grooves and it has tension with automatic tensioner but i afraid i somehow screwed it one way or another, i am doubtful. Would it run for 300 km for 1000-3500 RPM and than snap all of sudden even if it installed wrongly?

I still have the old belt (thank god i have not throw it) I need to install it (because i need the car on the next 3 days for a Long 800 km round trip. Could you please give me suggestion-ideas- so that i can do it this time correctly (assuming i made it wrong in the first place)

That was a huge bummer and i am feeling really shitty to be perfectly honest, which i did not expected at all. Old belt is really worn down but i hope it holds on upcoming days.

 

[koalar]

Cars with Aircon are pretty straightforward

Test nothing is seized before fitting the belt


Turn the engine over a few times and make sure the belt is centred on each pulley

It is possible to fit them off by a one groove

 

[koalar]

Old is 1145mm length
new 1148mm

Profiles are the same

 

[kavil]

Old is 1145mm length
new 1148mm

Profiles are the same

Amazon and few other car part dealers suggested exact same Gates 5PK1148 for this engine-make and model car. Therefore i bought and installed it instead of the old one (i could not remove the old one before to make comparison so i saw it after the removal). Does 3 mm difference in the length makes a difference? (i know i answer my own question because the belt snapped) but i can not really narrow it down. Original Part number on the belt is 55191970 it says compatible on the package as well Gates 5PK1148 compatible . I will contact Amazon about the belt as well.


I just come back from test drive. I fitted the old belt back. All the bearings are turning easily (alternator and aircondition bearings are really easy and tensioner pulley is little bit hard but i can still turn all of them with my 1-2 fingers. So i guess nothing is ceased or stuck. I turned the engine by hand and my wife looked from top belt is running true without any wobble whatsoever.

 

[A3jeroen]

Had something similar on one of my Brava's. Went through 3 or 4 belts before we found out that the alternator wasn't lining up with the rest of the pullies. It was out by maybe 2 or 3 milimeters. It pulled the belts a little sideways which resulted in complete desintegration after a few days.
Happened after a new timingbelt and although I don't think the alternator had been removed, the mechanic must have done something wrong.

gr J

 

[koalar]

tensioner pulley is little bit hard but i can still turn all of them with my 1-2 fingers.

Doesn't sound right to me

Probably took some abuse as the belt fails

 

[kavil]

Had something similar on one of my Brava's. Went through 3 or 4 belts before we found out that the alternator wasn't lining up with the rest of the pullies. It was out by maybe 2 or 3 milimeters. It pulled the belts a little sideways which resulted in complete desintegration after a few days.
Happened after a new timingbelt and although I don't think the alternator had been removed, the mechanic must have done something wrong.

gr J

Thanks for the answer. It is really bad news than. Because after i changed the belt it happened within 7 days and little over 300km. How did you find out that the alternator is out of alignment? I already fitted the old belt and test drive for 20 km. But i will drive 700 km in upcoming days and having bad feelings about it already. Car also gave red steering wheel warning today even after clean contacts and additional earth cable. So i am on the way with sporadic loss of power steering and really worn aux belt. At least i can try to control alignment. Could you help me with that.

 

[A3jeroen]

I think we used a ruler to check it.
Years ago and didn't do most of the work myself.

gr J

 

[kavil]

Doesn't sound right to me

Probably took some abuse as the belt fails

With high probability you are correct. I visually inspected everything. Clima compressor and alternator turning without effort. Tensioner pulley is definitely harder than these 2 but i can spin it with my finger aswell. It feels like any other hard ballbearing but i know some that turns like crazy with low friction (fidget spinners) and others are really hard to turn even although not seized. I do not know which version is present on tensioner pulley. I will buy "emergency belt" for 3 times the price from some local dealer but if the old belt snaps that means either i am installing it wrong or something other than belt is faulty like bearing or alignment.

I am not even sure if it is a good idea to buy replacement belt at all.

I am praying that i can get through these few days. It happened just as i needed the car. Thanks Murphy's law.

 

[kavil]

i am back at home after 780 km with the old belt on highway speeds fully loaded with 4 people and luggage and 4000RPM. Thank god the old belt hold up. That means i installed the first and second time correctly and i have indeed received a faulty belt from amazon. I asked for a refund in Amazon. Steering wheel gave up total of 6 times. I already cleaned all the earth cables and added new one therefore i will buy new Varta C22 battery and will try it again. Car is still jerking but definitely less than before.

 

[kavil]

I would like to try rear view camera ( not that it is needed with this small city car, but rather new toy to play and try to install it.)

In wire loom going to back rear light. Which color cable belongs to rear light? And which place is the best place to tap into it.

For cable routing would it be better to go in ceiling or in floor side?

Lastly which type of fuse is used inside the driver side fuse box with ODB port?

I looked the fuse box under the hood and there are many types of there. I want to buy correct type of fuse tap- piggyback for it.