My eper's not that up to date. According to eper, The pistons are seperate.

Not saying it is the cause, but water ingress into an engine will cause pistons to crack. It often bends valves too, but not always. There have been a lot of cars being sold over the past few months that have been water damaged from the floods last year. It was too suspect to sell them last year, now see how many are about, I think sellers are hoping buyers won't think about it. The donor car may have been a write off due to flood damage.

but anyway, hope you get it sorted. And thanks for the pics, we all have a morbid curiosity about dead cars.

Popped into the local builders today, and the pistons are fiat only, so headed over to them.

£80.53 each and £25 for rings. A lot, but I'm gonna have to do it. The one guy is cool though, and often gives me discounts (5% trade) and said he can sort me out


I'm pulling the block out tomo as i took the day off, and taking it down to have the bores checked. They will then hold onto it until the pistons come, and then boring to suit if needed.


I'm hoping it will all be done by about Wednesday, and back on the road.....hopefully it all goes ok!

I didn't speak to mahle etc. I think it will just take to long. I can have the pistons from fiat by Friday.


I looked at the turbo pistons. They use a different pin to the con rod, so the conrods may be different sized as well. That was enough to put me off for now. Just need it back and running hehe.

I think I may buy the piper regrind cams tonight after a few more drinks as well

Cheers,


Kristian

Talk to Fluffy. Can do no harm. £80 for a cast piston is too rich for me.

Suppose it won't hurt. I'll drop him a line in the morning

Yikes over £400 for pistons and rings, that shocking could get another engine for that, but sometimes better the devil you know.

Was going to add when engines are put on long term durability they are held on full throttle until max temps reached, then cooled to below zero again, and then full throttle and that cycle is repeated many many times to replicate years of abuse, so thrashing from cols would not break them in 8K. When you can control every single temperature in a dyno cell, something you can't do on the road as even an engine left for 4 5 hours will never reach full cool temps, hence why cold start mapping is very difficult for aftermarket tuners who do not have access to dyno cells. Its not only for mapping but to check everything from internals to manifolds cracking etc it really is very extreme what engines go through these days as we all expect such high levels of reliability now.

Water ingestion, thats an interesting theory.

Cams a good shout as know that its about the only area that can easily be improved, sure I read either on here or else where even Guy Croft said working on head was worthless.

J333EVO said:

Yikes over £400 for pistons and rings, that shocking could get another engine for that, but sometimes better the devil you know.

Click to expand...

It is a lot, but where can i get another 1368cc from easily?! I'm not going back down a size, so its the only option. Lets just hope it never breaks again

Cams a good shout as know that its about the only area that can easily be improved, sure I read either on here or else where even Guy Croft said working on head was worthless.

Click to expand...

Yep, I've read similar on there, so it seems a logical choice. Lets hope they do the job well. They are 1242 ones, but shoudl work i'd imagine. C&B do a 1242/1368 range, so they must be quite similar.

Cheers,

Kristian

is the 1368 only found in the panda ????? Stilo ??? Punto ????

Just some idea .... man i do actually feel for you, always seem to hit some sort of problems and i hope u get it sorted as cheap as possible !!!
ming

ycming said:

is the 1368 only found in the panda ????? Stilo ??? Punto ????

Click to expand...

And 500. They are becoming a bit easier to find now.

Sorry to hear about this Kristian, as you know i was well impressed when looking at the sei last year with the 1.2 16v in at the stoke meet and you were pleased with it amongst having exhaust probs etc and then while having a quick browse on here the other day i saw you had finnaly got the engine you wanted in

and then this happens to be honest im amazed youve still got the patience to keep throwing money at it, by now your easily into the thousands but your comitment to getting it done is admirable

on this problem front im not totally surprsied, mum had a brand new Seat Arosa 1.4 (same as the light blue one i used to have but silver) from a main dealer, they use the supposedly strong 1.4 8v out of the polo mk4-mk5 , we had a few problems as it was "a friday car" but crap dealers killed the car, at just 12 months old the car wasnt sounding healthy, they were asked to check it and we were told nothing was wrong,

on christmas eve mum and dad were coming back from shopping when the car wouldnt restart and then the ECU light came on, they eventualy got it started and coasted it home, she rang the dealers and they were closed, i then rang the dealer manager on his mobile , told him the problem and we had to have the AA come pick the car up and tow it into the garage where it was left till they restarted work

they checked it all over and found the fault code to read "crank sensor" so what did they do :idea: thats right clear the fault codes and hand it back to us, so what do you get ? thats right the bottom end went due to "piston slap which caused unrepairable damage to the engine bottom end" so at just 7600 miles and only 14 months old it have to have a complete bottom end replacment at a cost of over £1400 to seat :bang:

hope you get it all sorted and i agree with aaron isnt another engine a consideration? also long shot i know but how long was the waranty with the engine?

heres a better idea the fiat waranty covers mostly mechanical parts on new cars doesnt it? so get the waranty book of that panda take it back the dealers and say, "same engine different car the engines stuffed and i want it repaired under warranty" :devil: might not work but i bet the technicians will be in stitches

wayne

ycming said:

is the 1368 only found in the panda ????? Stilo ??? Punto ????

Click to expand...

Punto mk2b
Punto Grande
500
Stilo
Idea
Panda 100hp
New Bravo

and possibly a few more as well

The younger modder said:

to be honest im amazed youve still got the patience to keep throwing money at it, by now your easily into the thousands but your comitment to getting it done is admirable

Click to expand...

Yeah. It is getting a bit silly now, but I still don't want to get rid. Puts a smile on my face whenever im in it still.

hope you get it all sorted and i agree with aaron isnt another engine a consideration? also long shot i know but how long was the waranty with the engine?

Click to expand...

I can't source another of the same size, and if I could, it will probably be the same cost as a repair. At least I will have inspected and checked ALL of the internals of this one, so hopefully nothing else will go wrong with it.

If I went back to a cheaper 1242 I'd have to pay an insurance fee, change the log book and looking at the dvla docs, when you down size you have to have an inspection...so not worht the hassle.

heres a better idea the fiat waranty covers mostly mechanical parts on new cars doesnt it? so get the waranty book of that panda take it back the dealers and say, "same engine different car the engines stuffed and i want it repaired under warranty" :devil: might not work but i bet the technicians will be in stitches

Click to expand...

An interesting idea, but they are quite helpful there, and I think that would just pee them off lol....plus I reckon theres about 0% chance of that happening



It will rise from the ashes, in 1372 guise, just hope it does't take to long and cost too much!

Cheers,

Kristian

Massive thanks to Fluffy I didn't actually get anything from him but he worked his socks off trying to get pattern pistons cheaper for me...muchos respect.

In the end, as most of the stuff is so new and reliable....things liek gasket sets, thermostat, pistons etc are not availble via factors etc....so they are dealer only. Only the simple stuff like the head bolts, oil fitler etc that are common to the 1.2 and 1.1 are available cheap.

So the pistons are on order at the local dealer....as Fluffy would have had to go through FIAT and the P+P wold have outweighed the saving.

Pistons in 0.1mm overbore were unknown lead time and stock size were available by thursday.....so everyone keep their fingers crossed they will fit the bore ok


Spent a lot at shop 4 parts as well though, with the FF discount, and the fact they sell genuine gaskets sets etc for less than ePER it made sense to make the order so I have in the post:

Head Bolts
Gasket set
1.4 16V crank sensor (as i snappe dmine and am using a ford one at the mo)
Thermostat (the funky 1.4 one...not the bog standard 1.1/1.2)
Oil Filter
Timing belt (may as well not risk it for a tenner...even though its done <20K)
--£117 delivered, which isn't too bad

All in---this is a flippin expensinve rebuild...if i could have bought another 1.4 I'd have jumped on it.

Lets hope it all goes back together ok

Kristian

You are in my prayer !!!!

Good luck with it

Ming

Blimey buddy havn't been on here in ages and I find this Must be a bit of a let down after the effort you have put in on the whole car.

On a positive I hope you source a 1368 or alternatively the rebuild isn't too costly. I am surprised as you as to why that enigne had that oil consumption and problems. The FIRE range are normal very tough little engines.

Well whatever best of luck and sure she'll be back soon.

Cheers JR

I couldn't source another engine, so it is being rebuilt.

I got the pistons on Saturday and had a pleasant surprise The pistons came with rings installed, and also new pins as well.

With the discount from research garage, they came in at £280 for all 4, so not that bad.

I just hope they fit OK if the bore has to be honed. I'll hopefully drop the block and pitons in Tuesday evening so we will find out then.

Gonna be a lot of work putting it all back together again lol.....I'm gonna strip the head, replace the steam seals, and regrind the valves on it. May polish up the inlet and chambers as well?!

New cams should also arrive on Tuesday.

Can't wait to get it back on the road

Kristian

I think the bores must have some kind of finish hone, or the rings won't bed in and you'll be back to square one in no time. See what your engine man says. It's not about wear or damage, but that final surface acts as a one time only file, without it you'll be in big trouble.

Good news on the price, though!

This is turning out much harder and more expensive than planned!

I got the pistons fitted and the block honed. He said it was a bit out of fiats tolerance but close enough to not cause any problems.

However, all the crank bearings and floats were loose after the crank was taken out so I don't know what goes where....the fiat part number stamped on them doesn't work in ePER. There are 5 half bearings of one size, 2 of another size, and the one that sits with the floats.

In eper the floats are available seperate, on mine, it looks like they were welded on to a wider bearing but are not any longer.

Basically, I don't know what goes where, how it fits, what part numbers i need, and what size varient i need :bang:

Should have just put a 1.2 6v back in. This is getting me down

Kristian

Pics, please.

I can't see them being welded on, not in a million years.

Could possibly point to overheating/seizure issues: what does the crank look like? Any ovality?

To me, it looks clearly like they are welded on, but in ePER the floats/thrust washers are a seperate part, ordered as a pair




Here are are part numbers of two of the bearings, note they are the same, look like a fiat part, but aren't in ePER:



Here are two of the bearings at teh other end. Same part number but different sizes -14 and -42:




So i have no way of even correlating the bearings with those in ePER, and don't know what sizes i need....arghh lol

Here's just some general eye candy







Cheers,

Kristian

To me, that crank doesn't look good. Looks like wear and discolouration on mains and big ends, but could be oil and fingerprints.

In any event, they need checking for ovality (with a micrometer) and a good look for any grooving which will indicate wear. No point in ordering bearings at this point if the crank needs grinding.