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Brava 2001 Brava 1.6 SX - Beppe

Sadly he's now been moved on, would've liked him to go to a forum member but couldn't wait around forever. Fortunately not going as scrap and will be used, plenty of life left to give! At least I had my chance at Brava ownership!
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Sadly I'm having to shed my outgoings as I'm in the process of buying my first home! Rather bittersweet that the Brava has to go, two lots of tax & insurance hits my monthly outgoings a bit too hard for the lenders to accept. Out of the two cars the Brava was really my workhorse for commuting and since the house move also involves a job move I'm no longer commuting so Brava needs to be shifted.
The bonnet catch is finally sorted, I took it apart completely and scrubbed all the rust from the latch. The cable has some adjustment where it meets the catch and I expect its stretched over the years a touch so I've moved it along one and now it works flawlessly.
Since finding the drain hole for the scuttle I have fully de-sludged it and even in our most torrential rain of recent the wipers have been working happily so the two major things that would fail an MOT are now sorted.
Car is for sale here would love for him to go to a forum member who will look after him.
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He's just been getting used for the commute and the miles have been piling on, oil & filters will be due in another 2-3 months. Averaging high 40's mpg with my gentle driving which is a must at £100 a tank...

Sat in the garden the other day and heard a car alarm, thought it sounded very close but didn't immediately investigate, 10mins later popped out and found



Turns out people are a***holes, obviously no note left. Couldn't see damage on any vehicles parked closeby so they must've fled. Can only hope the damage to their car is more likely to devalue it further than a dent in a 21 year old Brava

Couple of weeks later I'm sat in traffic and I notice the temp gauge has shot up to the 11 o'clock position. I turned it off immediately and plugged in my OBD, 112c on the coolant :oops:. Fortunately I was only a few miles from home so after letting it cool I made it back.
I let the car get hot and checked the fan would cycle on, it did indeed but temps would climb to 100 in not too long (100 is also the point where the temp gauge moves from the normal 9 o'clock position, still better than a too late light)
The coolant level wasn't particularly low but I topped it up (once cooled down) and ran with the cap off


Well lots of bubbling and ejected coolant followed, I decided to just change the whole lot.


Fresh coolant in and bled, I'm not 100% happy with it, coolant never seems to come out of the upper radiator bleed screw, all the hoses are getting hot, t/stat opens around 88c and fan kicks in at 94 and quickly drops to 84 so its all working properly but I have no idea why the bleed screw never ejects any coolant.
I monitored it for a few weeks and its been working reliably even in the extreme temps so its a case of if it ain't broke don't fix it, for now
Well Beppe has covered a lot of miles recently, first on our outing to Brooklands where he was the only Brava so I'm pretty sure he won rarest vehicle by default ;)


We set off after the long day with a nice load of belt squeal which he has started to do after sitting in the sun, the aux belt is new, I think it's the tensioner...

Finally managed to sort my sunroof, lots of silicon grease forced into the runners followed by copious amounts of rocking it back and forth on the motor until it eventually agreed to open, its been flawless since!

In exchange for having a working sunroof the wipers no longer park at all, so I have no intermittent function and I have to carefully time when I turn them off... its not convenient...

Then a long old slog down to the very pretty Teignmouth and back, 430 mile round trip which happened nary an issue and achieved an astounding 53mpg trundling along at 60-65mph (indicated). The tall gearing and my very light foot help here, an indicated 60 is about 2300rpm. I'm genuinely astonished by this number but it all stacks up in fuelly which I've been using for years and years so I believe it (y) Around 50 or so miles of that tank was town/city driving so I expect the motorway journey alone may have been up to 55/56mpg, not even my Twinair would achieve that.


Also replaced the rear speakers with some I had lying around, I'm not actually convinced they're any better than the originals which are in surprisingly good fettle

The bonnet catch has started sticking again, I think I need to take it off and clean it up, he still won't idle after sitting for an hour or so for the first 1-2mins of running. All things that need sorting but I haven't been bothered 😝
Replaced the rattly old HU with a new one, speakers all appear to be the original and I'm surprised they don't sound half bad.
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The amp I had in my Forfour has been pressed back into use, mounted up behind the glovebox, good amp > speakers in my experience, no point buying stupid speakers if you're driving them from a weedy headunit, I'd rather drive weedy speakers with a good amp (y)

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I gave him a proper wash for the first time rather than just a hosing off which has been regular over the winter. I always find the first up close wash of a car reveals many things you've never noticed before...
Fortunately the pictures hide a thousand sins

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Trust me there's dents and scratches a plenty

After a thorough soaking I noticed a lot of muddy water had collected under the scuttle,
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I peeled back as much of the scuttle I could without removing the wipers (which I didn't fancy doing) and dug around, the whole area is full of sludge and presumably blocking the drain, after digging around for a while it was draining slowly but the scuttle needs to come off really to sort it properly.

Of course being an old Fiat the electrical problems are appearing slowly, sometimes the wipers won't park, they just stop wherever they were when you switch them off, most of the time they're fine. I'm guessing its either corrosion in the motor or the switch on the stalk, I suspect stalk more as when I first got him when indicating in either direction the lights would very briefly (less than a second) switch off and back on, this stopped happening after a few weeks of use, so I'm thinking the switches in the stalks have some crappy earths.

Secondly on trying to inspect my sunroof leak I found it doesn't open anyway, it tilts up no problem and it will tilt downwards ready to slide back but it doesn't budge even a millimetre after 'squatting' down, there's no motor noise or relay clicking so it doesn't seem likes it even attempting to move further.
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Additionally I noticed the coil pack has a crack running through it, not sure if this would be contributing to my lumpy idle

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Aside from the exhaustive list of things to do he's been running well and over the last tank returned 46.5mpg, lots of motorway work at 60-65mph but I'm impressed nonetheless, my TwinAir on the same trip at the same speeds might have managed 50mpg at a stretch and it was supposed to be ultra economical unlike the old 1.6 lump
Been a few weeks running now, first off tyres replaced with some Bridgestone T005, they seemed like a decent choice for such a small tyre. No more wheelspin in wet conditions just axle tramp instead! 21 year old suspension not too surprising
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Apologies for parking with the Fiat logo on the centre cap being completely upside down. The acres of sidewall do make the ride pretty good and it soaks up potholes well.

Sunroof still leaks so seems it was not the aerial, I don't really want to silicone it shut so I will need to look more closely at it.

Changed the oil and filter, here's a fantastic action shot, didn't even need to jack up the car, bonus!
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The old stuff whilst not contaminated or sludgey was very black

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Oil change was just after it passed 30k miles, near 21 years after first registration.

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Now the surprising part, according to fuelly it's somehow managed 42mpg, I was really expecting low-mid 30s. Seems the extremely tall gearing must help (2700rpm at indicated 70).

Now my current issue with it is it feels a bit flat at low rpm, something I hadn't really noticed before but if you floor it below 3000 it really lags, no hesitation like before I changed the plugs but it hasn't got much pickup. Above 3500 it absolutely flies which is what makes me think something must be wrong, it's like someones hit a switch and you actually have power. I don't want to just senselessly replace things, I am fairly sure the idle control isn't living it's best life but the whole throttle body needs replacing for that and I don't know if its the cause of my issue.
Coil? Leads? I'm not sure :unsure:
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Well I changed the plugs, old ones were plenty gross. The hesitation on full throttle has vanished so that's one thing!

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I've got oil and filters to go in but haven't gotten round to it yet... :oops:

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Still unwashed but he looks 'ok'
And has been pressed into daily use! Generally speaking its been ok, on MES the target idle is 700rpm and he hovers around 690-710 so this seems ok. However very occasionally he won't idle, 99% of the time it's fine but on a few occasions I've dipped the clutch when coming to a halt and the engine will stall. It restarts but won't idle you have to keep it alive with the throttle, after a few mins of driving it'll be fine again and idle properly. I suspect IACV but it appears it is integrated with the throttle body.

To my surprise I got a brake light warning last night, on a 21 year old car I'm impressed it has such functionality, props to Fiat for that one.

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New wiper blades fitted because the old ones might have well been the originals given their terrible performance!
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(Never fear I did actually take them out of the boxes)

New tyres have been ordered to replace the 'GOODGRIP' (which they are everything but) on the front currently.
Well firstly I've popped him in a garage rather than fend for himself out on the salty road (I live on a hill that's always gritted when the weather drops under 5C )
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Added bonus that I can work in the dry although its a bit cosy.

The list;
  • Tyres
  • MAF clean/relearn
  • Rust proof
  • Possible sunroof leak - Cleaned a resealed antenna gasket as seen this is a common cause, time will tell if fixed.
  • Service
  • Wash!
  • Throttle cable possibly?
  • Bonnet latch - Copious amount of degreasing and cleaning the latch mechanism seems to have fixed this.
  • Windows
Next up is my lumpy engine which after driving to the garage I have discovered not only is it lumpy at idle there is significant hesitation under full throttle, partial throttle acceleration is fine but if you floor it the car hesitates for a second or two before picking up...
The throttle cable seems ok from what I can tell, I think I'm going to replace the spark plugs first seeing as its cheap and easy and might clear my lumpy idle at the least.
Annoyingly it turns out this isn't the 1581cc engine that I also had in my mk1 Punto (in 8v form) but rather the later 1596cc and isn't covered by Haynes and looks different to pictures I've found online.
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There's two sensors on the throttle body but I can't see a way of separating them so I'm hoping it's not one complete part. I'm going to unplug one at a time to see what error codes are triggered.
Its idling pretty low about 690-720rpm but I'm not sure what the ECU is calling for as that may be correct?
Will get MES on it hopefully and see whats what...
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