Hi all,

I recently came back from a trip in Italy where I bought a very nice red Fiat 500L and imported it by sea freight. This is my first car and the first forum post here. The forum helped me a lot before purchasing the car so many thanks!

A bit of background story on the vehicle:
- I bought the car from a guy who seems to be passionate with cars and takes good care of the ones he owns.
- The car was checked at around 0 degrees C and now it is at an average ambient temp. of 30deg C.
- The car seemed to be running very smoothly and electrics&mechanics systems seemed to be in very good shape when checked in Italy.
- The car was shipped by sea and sat unused for about 3 months total.

Now for the tricky part

When the car first arrived, I had to drive it home for around 50km. First start (after battery sat for about 2.5 months) was smooth. After driving at ~80kmh for 15min the engine started running rough. Felt like something gave little pushes to the car from the rear every 10 sec or so. Not long after, it came to a halt at the side of the road.

Trying to start it (engine hot) didn't work. Jumper cables didn't help. After about 20mins, the car started again. This happened 3 times during the 50km trip where the third time the car didn't start for about 1.5 hours (Each time trying with jumper cables, different combinations of 'choke' and throttle).

The strange thing was that the starter seemed to be running very slowly and a lot of times stalling and not even cranking the motor (This is why we used jumper cables to another car, it felt like the battery had no juice...).
Turns out the battery is good (also checked the car with a new battery since) and the problem now appears whenever I try to start the car

Push starting the car seems to work great but I havn't tried to drive it more than 5 mins so I don't know if it will run smoothly for long.

Had the carburetor cleaned (especially the idle jet as mentioned in one of this forum posts), replaced the earth cable connected from the engine to the chassis.

A bit more details that may solve the problem - It appears that there is still a 'bad earth' problem because the direction blinkers don't work very well and light up the brake light each time they turn on/off. Sometimes they even not working or fade out after two blinks or so.

I thought it might be an overheated fuel pump but the problem happens on cold starts as well (Fuel pump is pumping fuel - checked)

Would appreciate any help an/or advice!
Thanks

Difficulty restarting a hot engine is very typical of not enough valve clearance.

Troubleshooting from scratch is best done by checking first all about distribution, then all about ignition, and lastly carburation.

Try fitting a new blinker relay as they can get lazy when old, but for safety's sake it seems your electrics need a thorough checkout, blinkers lighting up the brake lights is not good news ! Loss of electrical smoke might be next

Thanks!
Not sure I understand what loss of electrical smoke means but I will follow your advice starting with checking for dodgy wires because I just checked the horn leads and they are getting ~7 volts so I guess something is up with that...

Everything here will be a first for me so wish me luck

tmrsgv said:

Thanks!
Not sure I understand what loss of electrical smoke means

Click to expand...

That's comic relief Later on you may want to familiarise yourself with the "LUCAS theory of electrical smoke". Very funny.

The 500 is ideal for learning the ropes and the Distribution-Ignition-Carburation
work order avoids getting bogged down and discouraged chasing a problem where it's not.

A few tools, a workshop manual, a working space, and you're in business

? just read about. Great stuff right there...

And again, thank you for the good advice, will give it a try on the weekend and see where I end up.

Have the Haynes and workshop manual

Quick update - Checked for electrical grounding.
Found two things:
1. Resistance is about 5.5 Ohms throughout the points, is that normal? seems too high. How can I lower it?


2. All the fuses are grounded. According to the schematics I thought they suppose to be on the positive side. What is the correct way to wire them?

Again, updating (if it helps someone in the future...)


Checked again for good earth. No help. Starter spinning the motor very sluggishly and sometimes comes to a halt.


Because the motor almost doesn't crank, I thought it might be useless to check for spark and stuff so tonight I took the starter off for a quick look.


I also filmed the removal and will post it on YouTube. Hopefully it will help all of the guys who are asking about it. will post a new thread for it.

tmrsgv said:

Quick update - Checked for electrical grounding.
Found two things:
1. Resistance is about 5.5 Ohms throughout the points, is that normal? seems too high. How can I lower it?


2. All the fuses are grounded. According to the schematics I thought they suppose to be on the positive side. What is the correct way to wire them?

Click to expand...

Hi,
5.5 ohms is far too high. Any ground should be less than 0.5 ohm.
Check battery negative lead and it's connections first.
With power off or battery disconnected the fuses will read as ground. This is because all the loads are connected to ground and are in parallel. If you have a dynamo it alone will be a fraction of an ohm to ground when not operating.

Robert G8RPI.

g8rpi said:

Hi,
5.5 ohms is far too high. Any ground should be less than 0.5 ohm.
Check battery negative lead and it's connections first.
With power off or battery disconnected the fuses will read as ground. This is because all the loads are connected to ground and are in parallel. If you have a dynamo it alone will be a fraction of an ohm to ground when not operating.

Robert G8RPI.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply!
I did some cleaning of the leads and brought a better fluke to measure with. The ground was then 1.2Ohm from the negative battery lead to the starter (must add that I measured using an extension wire which was a house grounding cable - single core).


I now know that it is also quite high but still, it sounded as if the starter was having difficulty to turn (something mechanical in the starter? )


Any tips on cleaning ground terminals or specific ground straps that would do the job and get low enough resistance?

Quick update to wrap this up.
After the resistance checks I figured i better take the starter apart (have another thread about that).

The front bushing was oval and not in good shape so had it replaced.

The car starts easily now [emoji3]

Thanks for all the help! ?