(G) New Uno Owner

Hi chaps,

I have just purchased an Uno. It is an 89 Uno 45 3 door, a bit of a heap to say the least but cheap as chips. The engine seems sound although the syncro isn't great on 3rd gear. Just thought I'd buy it to have a play around with really. I'm sure I'll be posting on here shortly for some help with fixing things. The bodywork looks reasonably sound no rust around the suspension mounts filler chap etc. There is a bit of surface rust in a couple of areas but nothing major to report. I haven't really had a chance to assess the car yet, pretty much bought it on a whim for about £100.

Would this be a mk 1 or mk 2 car at this age?

Cheers
PF

Welcome to the wonderful world of Uno ownership!

An '89 Uno could be either a mk1 or a mk2, as late '89 was the year the mk2 facelift Uno was introduced.

Easiest way to tell is by looking at the dashboard. If it only has one column stalk (indicators and horn), with the lights/ wiper switches in 'satelite pods' either side of the instrument cluster then it is a mk1. If it has a more conventional dash arrangement, it is a mk2.

Also, the front of a mk1 (headlights and grill) is flatter - the car looks more 'chunky', whereas the mk2 is more wedge shaped. Look at my avatar picture and see if it is like yours!

Synchro on 3rd gear is often crunchy, so as long as it doesn't jump out of gear I wouldn't worry. The Uno gearbox isn't the slickest around, but it's ok for everyday use. If your gears are a bit graunchy, it is probably worth changing the gearbox oil as it is often neglected for years.

By the way, have you any pictures of your new Uno?

It is a mark 1 then; must say strangest arrangement of controls I've ever seen. I won't post pictures just yet because it is currently a bit of a heap and I want to have a chance to assess what needs doing to improve it. I am not particularly concerned with the 3rd gear, on an ancient car like this things like that are to be expected. Will probably change the gearbox oil when I get a chance, as you say it has probably been neglected a bit like the rest of the car really.

I quite fancy an Uno Turbo, there are a couple on ebay that look tempting.

Strange, huh?

What about this:

ah the Citroen Visa

my sister had one of thoe, and i loved it as a kid

Welcome to Uno ownership - but obviously with 420 posts you've been a FIAT owner before?

It's a really good idea to have a FIAT handy for when the Alfa is, shall we say, having an Italian moment on you. Or maybe, for when you are saving up to fill the tank (I have to save up for a month to fill the 164!) Your signature had me confused, as it seemed to feature the nose of both a GTV and a 166...

What am I saying - my reluctantly-saved Toyota refused to crank over the other night for no good reason - it started straight away when we waved the jumper leads in its direction without actually connecting them...

Gearbox oil change may make a big difference to the gearbox, or it may not. It is getting cheaper and cheaper to just get a secondhand box which may well be better - or you can combine parts from both gearboxes to make one good one. I don't know how happy you are at the thought of removing a gearbox and taking it to bits?

1989... 'ancient'... ha, that's what we'd call a 'newer' Uno over here. Most of ours are '87-ish!

When I think about it, I've never actually been let down by an Uno - they always get me there in some shape or form. Hope yours does the same. Chas will be delighted to have another Mk1 45 owner in the midst. There are a number of usual 45 'improvements' - vacuum advance unit, thermostat, etc. but none of these will actually stop the car from going. They just make it much nicer to use. I personally think it's worth it for these cars, as the parts are so cheap and the engines themselves generally last forever.

Cheers,
-Alex

Cheers for the welcome/

Yep former Fiat Stilo Abarth owner, sold to a mate when i bought the Alfa 156. My Alfa is a JTD so does 50mpg or 550-600 miles to a tank of fuel at a cost of about £50 to fill. Probably about the same efficency as a 1.0 Uno.

My signature is a mixture of all kinds of Alfa bits you are correct- The left most one is the headlights off my old Alfa GTV, The seat is from a Breara, The Grill is a 156 Phase 2, and the rightmost is the headlights from a Breara if I am correct. Just fancied creating an Alfa Signature.

While I haven't dropped a gearbox out before I certainly wouldn't have any concerns giving it a go. I plan to have a good tinker with the car and have got myself a Haynes manual, bought more so I can learn abit more about car mainteance and give me the confidence to tackle more on my other cars without the risk of expensive bills.

Sorry don't mean to upset anyone with my ancient comments, it is the oldest car I have owned since 1997 when I sold my F Reg Sierra and bought a Saxo VTR.

The former owner of this owner seems to have retro fitted quite a lot of Turbo bits and pieces, has a turbo interior, steering wheel, arch skirts and grill. Unfortunately the drivers seat is quite worn and could do with covering or repairing. My mother in law is very handy with a neddle and thread so may task her with restoring the drivers seat. If anyone would like a turbo interior I would consider removing and selling for a small sum or swapping for a standard interior as I'm not that bothered by it and someone may well want an interior like this.

I must say I was really surprised how solid the engine feels considering it has just over 100,000 miles on the clock. I'd be interested in getting a rundown on some of these improvements.

Hey I wasn't upset by the 'ancient' comment! Our cars in NZ tend to last a lot longer anyway because of not having salt on the road etc.
New cars are nice, when you can afford them. The 156JTD sounds lovely! I think in the Uno forum, most of us probably can't afford new (or new-ish) cars. And, those that can, decide instead to spend the money on amazing wheels and intercoolers etc.

Turbo seats - early Mk1 Turbo black-with-red-logo seats anyway - are rubbish as far as the covering durability goes. The later grey Turbo seats are excellent. However the actual foam and shape of the early ones is great - you would notice how roly-poly the standard seats would be in comparison.

The improvements. Three spring to mind. First, the vacuum advance unit on the distributor is really prone to having a split. Follow the pipe up to the carburettor, pull it off, clean the end, and suck on it (yes, really!) It shouldn't be possible to draw air through the pipe and you should feel something moving inside the distributor. If all you get is a gurgling noise then you need to splash out on a new vacuum advance capsule - it will make a really noticeable difference to the ease of starting, idling, etc.

Related to the above air leak, the FIRE carburettor is really sensitive to air leaks because it runs so lean. So, make sure the vacuum advance pipe is free of splits/cracks by flexing it along its length and looking closely. But also consider enlarging the idle jet in the carburettor. There is just one nut to undo to remove the air filter housing (and a clip under the front of the housing, to the cambox). The idle jet has a brass slot-headed top, the smaller of the two you will see. Unscrew it and you will find a small jet pushed into the bottom of the approx. 1" tube. I have had great success drilling this out to 0.55mm (standard is 0.47mm) - you will find then that the mixture screw on the carburettor will actually have an effect when you adjust it. Engine idling will probably be smoother straight away without any adjustment.

Third improvement: new thermostat. Usually the old thermostat become stuck-open, and the engine warms up to maybe 70 degrees in about ten-twenty miles or more. With a new thermostat, the engine warms to 90 degrees (centre of the gauge) within five miles. Oh that's right, you might not have a gauge (the 45 in NZ only had a light, but I think in the UK you did get gauges). Fitting the new thermostat is very easy as these things go (when I changed a thermostat on my 164 it was a week-long job involving re-sealing cylinder head coolant hoses and the drilling-out of a sheared-off, irreplaceable-sized bolt...)

Fourth, fifth, sixth etc. improvements: time the engine with a timing light (I use the hole on the gearbox bellhousing) by adjusting the distributor. Five degrees BTDC is good (vacuum advance disconnected and plugged). If it is right at the end of its adjustment, pop off the cambelt cover and just check that the cam pulley lines up with a notch at about 43 minutes to the hour with the crank at TDC - someone may have mistakenly assumed it to be horizontal.

Lubricate the clutch cable with some general-purpose grease, by popping off a clip on the clutch pedal pin, taking off the cable, and greasing the pin. Also grease the semi-circular block on the clutch release arm. You may like to grease the cable itself, but this is probably not necessary; just the end fittings.

Check that the choke linkage is adjusted correctly with an appropriate amount of fast-idle, so that the engine idles ~1500RPM with the choke at the first (non-enrichment) notch.

That's really about it - if the alternator belt squeaks or looks glazed, replace it (cheap as chips), and of course change the oil if not already done so.

Incidentally, the FIRE engine is 'non-interference', which means that if the cambelt breaks, you won't have any bent valves to worry about. You won't be driving home either, but at least it will be a cheap fix! Actually, changing the cambelt is very easy so if it looks aged/cracked you would probably want to.

The Uno is an easy car to do jobs on yourself, and as such it makes great low-cost 'backup' transport. I think you'll find it surprisingly reliable. Even if every single service item is shot, it's still good value in my mind because you know what work has been done. Unlike if you take a modern car in for a service...

Hope it goes well for you!
-Alex

Thanks for the advice, great advice by the way. Well I had a look for corrosion. All appears sound apart from the offside rear turret (damn missed that one) which is quite badly corroded; It should be possible to weld so I'll talk to my brother inlaw who can weld and see if he can come over and do it for me. The rest of the car is solid that I can see, no issues with rust in the sills or other suspension mounts.

The air filter needs replacing and it was a bit oiling which I understand to be as a result of some sort of return system. I had a look on the forum for the vacuum advance unit and shall carry out the suck test shortly.

The car warms up to around the 90c mark so maybe I'm lucky and the thermostat is sound.

I thought the engine was non interference so atleast I can drive round and not worry about the belt snapping.

The chap I got it from said the car had a recent oil change but I'll probably do it anyway, it was looking quite black and I've a load of spare oil in the garage. Like you say service items and replacement parts seem pretty cheap. A few quid will be worthwhile.

That's good news!
At least the welding is fairly simple because it's in a 'hidden' area - not as hard as concealing a welded repair to the door bottoms, for example...

I re-read my post and realised that I pretty-much implied that all faults/conditions would exist at once - of course, they don't have to Those are just the more common faults in my experience. So it's great that your thermostat is actually working!

-Alex

PF, good move!
We treat my Uno like a run around too.

Things that I did as routine "improvements" but items not usually considered servicing:

rocker/cam cover gasket. You may even find it's leaking now. Few quid from Fiat. Takes less than 10mins to do, but spend a few hours cleaning the whole head. Get new rubber breather tube too (as it'll probably be old and snap with full of muck). This could be a task to do at the same time as the oil change - When the cam cover is off you'll be able to see a bit further than just below the camshaft.

rubber gasket around the distributor. You can't see - It's at the dog-end connection when attached to the camshaft on the end of the engine block. But you can probably see black muck, so you know it's leaking. Few quid again. Bit longer than 10 mins - Need to mark what position you remove it in so the timing is the same.

Carb spary the carb. lots. Let the car warm up and just keep revving it loads with lots of carb spray going into the intake. Loads of black coloured crap should come out the exhaust.

Those three above made the most difference for my Uno.

It's really good to fix oil leaks like that, isn't it?
People always think that old cars will be dirty and leave patches on the driveway, so for just a few hours work it's nice to prove them wrong... Oil leaks seldom result from something mechanical wearing out - it's always the small details...

Speaking of oil leaks, it's always worth checking the oil level in the gearbox (should be full to overflowing at the front plug (12mm Allen key)). The driveshaft boots are prone to leaking on the pre-'89 models at least.

-Alex

Mk1 Uno's ROCK!

I hated having a dirty engine bay. I also hated other people thinking there was something wrong with it. 18months and 15,000 miles later, they still can't believe it.

The car is currently dumped in my front garden with the rear bumper removed; was the last thing I did before heading off skiing for a week.

I've just bought some Gunk to clean up the engine bay. I want to make a good crack at getting this beast sorted over the weekend now I've got some time. Am thinking about buying a MIG welder to sort the arch corrosion and gain some new skills, little concerned about the promiximity to the fuel tank so that will probably need to be drained. It may be little pricey doing it that way, but I'd rather spend a bit more and get some gear than paying someone else to do it.

Started to sort out the minor areas of surface rust on a couple of the panels unfortunately I ran out of time so left them bear over the week so will need to be rubbed down again