Bravo (Classic) 1996 Fiat Bravo 1.8 HLX - Ink Black

blu73 · May 5, 2014

i stick a LHD rear cluster on one of my cars so it was symmetrical once, cool mod.

So does it not have a fog light now or have you wired it into a 3rd brake light or something

Adrian Bravo · May 5, 2014

The drivers side has a red bulb in so it is still a fog light. The passenger side is a reverse light.

blu73 said:
i stick a LHD rear cluster on one of my cars so it was symmetrical once, cool mod.

So does it not have a fog light now or have you wired it into a 3rd brake light or something

blu73 · May 5, 2014

cunning - well you can guess what my solution was from my previous comment lol

Adrian Bravo · May 6, 2014

My original rear seat backs are made of a sort of recycled brown fibre, one must have been wet with something in the past.

The Mk2 one is made of a plastic with a felt material on the inside. Once I get some trim clips that are better quality than the originals I can fit these;

Some people may have noticed my mistake on the rear quarter sound deadening, I am pretty mad with myself for not getting it right first time. I had to notch a concaved section into the sound deadening just a little to accommodate the rear quarter door card.

The sound deadening is fantastic really good, well worth the four days of effort. Its a modification I will probably do to any car I own.

bluejohn125 · May 8, 2014

If you upgrade your rear speakers, make sure you get the adaptor rings so the sound transfers through the grilles as well as with the originals...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CT25FT02-...arts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item589d5a692b

or a kit

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fiat-Brav...4?pt=UK_In_Car_Technology&hash=item1e71e9ecc0

ChrisUK · May 8, 2014

Seeing this I want to buy some Dynamat to do my GP

.

How much did you buy to do those bits?

Adrian Bravo · May 9, 2014

I used 5x 18"x 32" (457mm x 812mm) sheets at £14.55 each so £72.75 and from that I also did three good size strips on the roof from one sheet. So really six would have been easier for me. Patching together the odds to finish the last bit took a lot of time.

Since I did it I've been driving round feeling kind of a little gobsmacked at the difference. On rainy days before the back end was very loud with the sound of spray, now its quiet in the wet or dry. The exhaust note is much quieter in the car, I am hearing the exhaust more from the front than back now. Id hoped to see a difference in motorway driving and its done that so I am happy.

I got these trim clips for the rear seat back covers. These are quite nice because the clip down but when you want to remove them you turn the centre 45 degrees and it pops out again.

ChrisUK said:
Seeing this I want to buy some Dynamat to do my GP .

How much did you buy to do those bits?

Adrian Bravo · May 14, 2014

Just another small improvement, I have put blanks on the passenger side roof where a grab handle would go. Clears up some of the clutter and gives a more roomy feel.

I also got a mk2 bit of trim that goes around the sunroof cut out in the roof card it originally had a grey cloth stuck to it, I pealed that off to reveal a black finish which matched the black sunroof blind handle I prefer it to the original grey bit of trim.

Adrian Bravo · May 21, 2014

I decided to get one of these Lancia oil caps for the engine. I was having a really hard time finding an original one with Fiat written on that lined up perfectly horizontal when tight. I have four and they all tighten in utterly different places.

Happy with this one was worried it would look wrong;

CFREITAS · May 25, 2014

Adrian Bravo said:
I decided to get one of these Lancia oil caps for the engine. I was having a really hard time finding an original one with Fiat written on that lined up perfectly horizontal when tight. I have four and they all tighten in utterly different places.

Happy with this one was worried it would look wrong;

Engine cover looks good together with lancia cap

Adrian Bravo · Sep 7, 2014

I finally fitted my powder coated battery tray and Relay/Fuse box. I replaced every nut, bolt and washer with stainless steel ones.

Here is the one I took out, I painted this with hamerite spray about 5 years ago. Its done ok.

This is the powder coated tray. I bought this part new and had it powder coated.

I had to remove the battery strap for powder coating and shorten it to securely hold the Optima Redtop battery. I used some high strength nylon thread.

In the car.

I made a rubber matt to go between the battery and tray. The Optima battery is a gel type and maintenance free so no drip tray or drain is needed.

Overall shot, you can see my new Lancia oil cap. I bought this because the ones with FIAT written on just never lined up with the writing going the right way.

This last picture shows the main wiring loom connector in the engine bay. I was doing some tests and noticed my car is incorrectly wired for air-conditioning when it does not have it. So I have corrected the wiring to match the non-aircon wiring diagram. I need to change a Maxi fuse that should be 40amp but a 50amp fuse is mistakenly fitted for aircon.

Adrian Bravo · Mar 19, 2015

I managed to pickup a second hand leather steering wheel for £20 delivered. I had it retimed and it has come out really nice. Will be interesting to see how well the leather lasts and how well the glued down parts of the leather last. Ignore the dirty scrapyard airbag, though the flash makes it look much different than the leather its not so different in real life.

steve20vt · Mar 20, 2015

Excellent thread Adrian, really enjoyed reading through it. Your attention to detail is praise worthy.

Adrian Bravo · Mar 21, 2015

Fitted the re-upholstered steering wheel I am very happy with it. It looks much more natural in the car and in daylight.

Here is a picture of the steering wheel nut, I use a 24mm six sided socket to get it off.

I ground down the face of the socket to get a much better contact surface with the nut as most sockets have a taper on the front edge.

A few weeks back I decided to try out Multiecuscan to read the cars various ECU's I was very impressed.

I bought an iDiagnostics KKL cable and the 16pin to 3pin converter cable.

I have to admit the 3pin connector part of the convertor was not very good quality. It didn't fit the cars connectors very well at all so I purchased some AMP 3-Way Superseal connectors and a 16pin obd connector and made my own cable;

Both sites explain what you need and if it will work with your car;
http://www.multiecuscan.net/SupportedVehiclesList.aspx

http://www.idiagnostics.co.uk/

blu73 · Mar 29, 2015

well, just read this from start to end for a bit of inspiration as i just got a bravo and damn there is some effort and attention to detail gone into this car! I take my hat off to your sir.

CFREITAS · Mar 29, 2015

blu73 said:
well, just read this from start to end for a bit of inspiration as i just got a bravo and damn there is some effort and attention to detail gone into this car! I take my hat off to your sir.

Yes chris, without offending anyone I think Adrian's Bravo is probably one of if not the best in the UK

blu73 · Mar 29, 2015

oh totally agree, i was following this thread already but only from a little bit back - just reading the whole thing made me realise how nice it actually is!

Adrian Bravo · Apr 1, 2015

Thank you for the kind comments guys.

I have had the 1.8 for over 5 years. It has been faultless I can not complain in the slightest and I am really proud with what I have done. The only incidents have been a gear linkage pop out due to that being damaged and the idle control valve needed cleaning when I bought the car.

There has been some rust on the underside which I have had professionally repaired in the past but unfortunately I have just found a different area on the underside that needs a rust repair. I am not sure what will happen with this car over the next year, it might be its last.

My bigger hopes for the car would be;
- 6-Speed gearbox
- Stainless 4-2-1 Manifold
- sump from a punto hgt for extra exhaust room
- Strut brace
- Limited slip differential, I know its just a 1.8 but I would still like to try one.
- HGT rear anti roll bar

blu73 · Apr 18, 2015

Adrian Bravo said:
I had a bit of bother last sunday a rubber bush popped out on my gear selector linkage so i could not change gears. I was stuck in 3rd and managed to get to a layby. I changed it to 2nd from the engine bay and slowly got home using that gear only.

Luckily the damaged bush was just ontop of the wishbone when i opened the bonnet. You can see it here next to a replacement that cost just £1.48 PN:4259848

I wanted to buy an entire new gear linkage rod from Fiat but it is the only one of the three no longer available. ePer does not show this bush as replaceable on the rod.

This was another lucky moment, further down the gear linkage is a bush (part 2 in this diagram). I ordered one out of caution and it was exactly the same bush as the one that ePer does not list for the broken rod.

To get the rod out of the car I had to jack it up fairly high and unscrew one bolt, shown here.

Here it is, one end has a proper all metal ball joint infact all but two are this type.

And the other end takes that rubber bush.

So I had to press the new bush into the rod using a bench vice. I found a tapered pipe fitting in the shed with the exact same smaller diameter as the hole in the rod so I cut it now and used that to guide the bush in. I also heated the bush in boiling water for about 5min to soften it up.

So far that was all easy now the hard part getting the rubber bush to push onto the balljoint that is attached to the gearbox itself. It took me almost 4 hours to fit. I was trying all kinds of C-clamps, balljoint pullers and wood working clamps. In the end a wood working clamp that I chopped down in size and notched a grove into got it on. There is almost no room to work everything is in the way, subframe, steering rack, drive shaft, brake pipes, power steering cooler pipe, other gear linkage rods, gearbox case.

Someone has had a mess around with this before because the bottom nut in this next picture was rounded off, plus the inner wheel arch has some damage from someone prying somthing against it. I really would have liked to unscrew that nut and fit the balljoint into the bush in the shed. I will try and order a new balljoint from Fiat so if it happens again i can saw the damaged one off (no room to grind).

Top arrow shows the successfully refit gear linkage rod.

Here is a digram of the overall system,

Right sorry to bring up a post from ages ago, gonna test your memory now Adrian.

If I understand what you have said right - looking on the overall pic of the system you posted.. this one

Your saying there is 2 rubber bushes. One at the end of the rod numbered 2, and another (same type of bush) and the end of the rod numbered 5. Is that right??

Gears on my HGT feel sloppier than i think they should - having never had one before this is just a feeling more than anything but there is slight creaking when moving the stick through the gears and just doesn't feel direct enough to me.

if i pull up on the gear stick it moves up a bit more than i think it should. So looking at this pic on the eper and thinking this is probably item 3.

I will also change item 2, of which i will buy a spare and that spare i can change the bush at the end of the rod you swapped (i think marked on this pic) - pretty sure thats the rod you changed the bush on?? and that would make the rounded bolt you posted pic of number 14..

Does that all make sense or have i not understood you properly?

Sorry if that has made your brain hurt, certainly mine is aching from writing.

Adrian Bravo · Apr 19, 2015

Yeah I agree with everything you said Blu. I bought 5 of those rubber bushes because they where so cheap. Italian ebay also has one that looks to be made from a different material since its red

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181059855476

blu73 said:
Right sorry to bring up a post from ages ago, gonna test your memory now Adrian.

If I understand what you have said right - looking on the overall pic of the system you posted.. this one
View attachment 153422
Your saying there is 2 rubber bushes. One at the end of the rod numbered 2, and another (same type of bush) and the end of the rod numbered 5. Is that right??

Gears on my HGT feel sloppier than i think they should - having never had one before this is just a feeling more than anything but there is slight creaking when moving the stick through the gears and just doesn't feel direct enough to me.

if i pull up on the gear stick it moves up a bit more than i think it should. So looking at this pic on the eper and thinking this is probably item 3.
View attachment 153418
I will also change item 2, of which i will buy a spare and that spare i can change the bush at the end of the rod you swapped (i think marked on this pic) - pretty sure thats the rod you changed the bush on?? and that would make the rounded bolt you posted pic of number 14..
View attachment 153419

Does that all make sense or have i not understood you properly?

Sorry if that has made your brain hurt, certainly mine is aching from writing.

Bravo (Classic) 1996 Fiat Bravo 1.8 HLX - Ink Black

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