on the 147 the siren is behind the inner plastic wheel well on the passenger side, i had this on my silver one and just unplugged it, if you have 2 alarms then one will be triggering the other, i have had this before, i took the aftermarket one out and it was spot on again or pull the fiat one out.

CAMBELT done yet lol

Hey guys, sorry ive not been in touch!

Tell you what though, i am apserlutely in love with the 147, a coupe is definately my next choice!

Unfortunately, im not going to have the funds for a cam belt change for a long time, as its going to be a pretty expensive christmas and next couple of months! however thats not to say that i'l be running the car into the ground either, i've examined the cam belt, and it seems in pretty good nick for the age, im not sure if it maybe could have been changed, but it will need it and i reckon water pumps on its last legs too bless it, bit groany,

Im still loosing coolant, however the engine pulls very nicely, unfortunately i had a look at all the spark plugs last week and all the spark plug tunnels were caked in Oil! no wonder im getting injector warning light flag up! she has a small miss fire when slightly throttle blipped but i cleaned the plugs up and the tunnels for them and shes been running real nice, coolant drain rate is slow and i still have a sludged up Marea, but you know what, she feels bullet proof, the car is covered in all sorts of niggles that wants to be fixed! and i wouldnt mind a leather interior for it, because lets face it, this kind of car deserves it!

So far no luck on the electric mirrors or front fogs, giving her a right clean tommorow though! will check plugs again to see if rocker gasket has failed/incorrectly fitted as i guess that could cause oil to leak into the spark plug holes at certain pressures!

I love it guys, i just hope i can get the funds together in time to get it to its prime again, Marea, what a car...

So far then on the list of things that need sorting, they are :

- Tyres,

Lol not really, managed to get some 185's for the front but the back are still mixed 195s, on the bright? side maybe i got some continental winters for it at an alright price (Y) but really i think the car needs a nice set of Toyos on it,

Speaking of which
Does anyone know where to get stock HLX alloy hub caps for? im missing 1 and it doesnt seem quite right,

Thanks for all the help!

And Rat, i will definately try get that cam belt sorted asap!!!

Sounds like a potentially cracking car and a good project, keep at it.

I'd definitely drain and refill the cooling system a few times, and run it through once with Wynns radiator flush (or similar). Then fill with decent antifreeze mixture. If you're changing the thermostat (worthwhile anyway) then this is the time to do it. On my Brava I had a leaking heater matrix behind the dash so the car would steam up and you could smell the coolant when you turned the heater on. The coolant went rusty as well and orange sludge settled at the bottom of the rad.

As regards the oil, if you haven't changed and flushed it yet I'd suggest you just drain the oil fully, leave the filter and fill with cheap (mineral or semi-synth) 10/40 or 15/40 diesel oil, the traditional stuff had lots of solvents to prevent sludge and if you run this for a few weeks it should clean things up before you do a proper oil and filter change.

Thanks blue, i have sloshing/gurgling behind the dash board, and i can smell coolant as i turn the heater on, is my matrix leaking?? And how can i get access to examine it?

Definately plan on flushing it with wynns, and getting it some good o'l halfords red stuff as i hear that works a treat in the fiats (and i ran it in my last marea)

I too was thinking about the diesel/petrol oil from tesco, since that'd have some aditives to eat away the sludge slowly enough not to damage the car, i will try and decake the engine of sludge, really want the water pump and cam belt doing, but as i say, shes plodding on, and the shells in alright shape too, undersides quite nice as well!

I'l plod on with this Marea, i can only imagine how it'l pull after a proper service, i just want all the worries to vanish, like my last one, got that to a point where i didnt even worry about it no more .

with the rad, i would use a hose and flush it through too, i bought a new rad for £50 delivered so there was no sludging at and i only use paraflu and selena oil, another thing i did was fit a cone filter, this makes it screams like a banshee when using the rev counter, to be honest buddy you may be better buy a complete wheel they are cheap as chips, or like i did buy a set of nice wheels i got a set of team dynamic monza r wheels and nankang and falken tyres for £220 of a forum and they were mint i bought new spigot rings and all new bolts and with the jamex lowered suspension and it handled like it was on rails

Hey Migs, bad luck with the matrix but at least you won't waste time chasing the leak. I would definitely do several really thorough flushes (refill with water, run it and empty the bottom hose with a big splash) until all brown crud comes out and it becomes clear at the end. Then theromostat etc as stated and see how it goes.

As for the matrix itself, they are a proper pain to do cos you need to strip out half the dashboard, there are fiddles for getting at it through the glovebox and I think mr mb20b25 on the brava / bravo forum has done it a few times. But based on my experience I would just clean everything up internally, then add a dose of Wynns Stop Leak (supposed to be better and less gummy / damaging than other products). It took a week or so to fix my matrix leak but it was then fine until I bit the bullet and replaced my matrix. Run it through the winter with straightforward BLUE antifreeze, if all is well you can drain again in the spring if you don't want unnecessary Stop Leak in the system potentially blocking things you don't want blocked.

And keep your wheels standard, we need some classic looking Mareas on the road (especially in black) !!

bluejohn125 said:

Hey Migs, bad luck with the matrix but at least you won't waste time chasing the leak. I would definitely do several really thorough flushes (refill with water, run it and empty the bottom hose with a big splash) until all brown crud comes out and it becomes clear at the end. Then theromostat etc as stated and see how it goes.

And keep your wheels standard, we need some classic looking Mareas on the road (especially in black) !!

Click to expand...

All good stuff,
I read the AD avidly , it looked a million dollars.., :yum:
Sure to make a nice car, ( there are 2 marea in my local cheap car parts yard)
Charlie - Ox12

Well looking at it now, it was worth it varesecrazy!

This Marea seems to have taken a beating, but its rarely missing a heart beat

So far so good guys, i love it, i wont lie, only thing i dont like is the mad petrol adiction it suffers from .

First oil change done yesterday, 4L of castrol GTX and an oil filter.

Next will be a fully synth swap which i bought for 10 quid from halfrauds will get another oil filter and will swap it out betwee 2-4 weeks, the old oil was dreadful, proper treakle like! but after giving it a thrash like, the cams ended up clearer then i originally thought but theres still alot to be rid of!

My all time dream is to own a fiat coupe, but i've loved mareas ever since ive set my eyes on them, so maybe long time/2013 summer dream will either be a coupe, or a 20vt engine conversion for the old time, she deserves it and i cant fault the current body, it needs undersealing me thinks .

So some pictures to share with you all! Hope you've all had a great christmas, and look forward to the new year!






Shes not the cleanest paint work wise, but it doesnt stop me from giving it any of the attention it deserves! i need a new black bonnet or a bonnet respray to sort most of the bad looks! and i want a new rear bumper as its split!

I like making use of my space poorly too, can ya tell?



Still got to sort my arial out!! hate that bit of wire!

On the bright side, some stuff from the oil change, engine bays pretty clean !



Got her nice n up in the air!



Nearly fried the sump plug though, think marea oil gets quite a bit hotter then my usual 1.0 micra, so was fraying the head :S let it cool down a bit and viola, plug undone thank god!



Had a look at fog light bulbs too! one of them is broke, huraaaay, so im hoping with a new set she should fire up on the front fogs, which would be awesome! cant get electric mirrors to work for the life of me though, what could it actually be??

All 4 tyres are sorted, for winter anyway, 2 winter contis on the front and 2 mixed on the back, i took corners here because i just wanted her to be legal :'(.

Still running with water in the expantion bottle though :'( sorry guys, moneys so tight, its the next thing on my list!! i promise!

And oh yeah, my airbox was snapped/freyed/battered to crap! so i remember storing my 1.6 one which was exactly the same , wheel off, liner pulled back, old box out, new box in, tighten up, greese, jobs a gooden!

Stay tuned guys, this cars slowly being awoken .

Migs

Only 4L of oil? Did you run it and then check it couple minutes after shutdown?

Dude the 20v holds 5 litres of oil... Looking good though

Well guys, bad news, seems my coolant mix was too low and one day down here the radiator froze up, blew out everywhere on the way back, couldnt pull over either as its a long dual carrage way back to mine, busy too so i wasnt going to risk an accident down that stretch, the car drove back admirably so now its time i pay the car back.

Is the Fiat marea workshop manual still available for download? i seem to remember getting it somewhere but struggling to find it now.

I'm thinking another 147 motor, drop link replacement, exhaust system, lowering, full new set of dry performance tyres (for the summer), all fluids replaced, dents pulled, lacker sorted, maybe full respray, but for now, the new motor is a priority so im going to need that manual.

Cheers guys.!

Migs.

http://www.fiat-bg.com/Downloads/Books/Marea_Workshop_Manual/

How come you didn't do the simple coolant overhaul and "stopleak" fix that was explained ages ago?

I thought you were on top of things, but it seems you've dropped a big one!

Hehe, i did John, used 3 l of coolant to 4l of water, did a purge on all the piping but it appears it wasnt enough, seems to have issues with pressure so my guess is on the main pump just not pumping well enough its up and running again happily, dont know if it'l over heat as i've sorned it, today its had 2 radiator flushes (with cleaner) and 5l of coolant (Y), she still runs like the day i bought her though! but i'm thinking i'l treat this one for the ways its treat me. Thus i think a big overhall because i like her alot (Y).

if it runs fine, i wouldn't go changing the engine dude, no need, if it was damaged you would know about it, i would say the mighty marea was giving you a warning..... is the CAMBELT done yet??

I have to agree ,
leave the motor - should still be o.k.,
there's no guarantee any donor engine will not be WORSE, :bang:
Charlie

Yo, how's the HLX coming along?:thumbup::thumbdown: