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Tipo (Classic) My 95 Blue Tipo 1.4 workhorse

Introduction

This car has had the odd mention on a couple of threads, so I'll start its own little thread with a single photo for now...



1995 late model Tipo 1.4 ie with the modernised engine (coil pack ignition etc), safety upgrade interior (seatbelt pretensioners,airbag) and nice blue check interior (very worn by now!).

Bought about 1 year old with 16K miles as an ex-rental from Perrys Ford Milton Keynes, I traded in my 1992 Panda 1000 CLX!

Now with about 110K miles but running well thanks to a modest rolling restoration, she's been well battered over the years, renovating / building about 4 houses and carrying all sorts while pulling an overloaded trailer.

Now enjoying semi-retirement with ongoing repairs to keep one of these increasingly rare cars running for me and the public to enjoy! There's a couple of years left in her yet hopefully.

It's got a quite unusual colour... I think some 90s Ulysse models came in a very similar blue.

Hope it inspires someone!
It's always nice to hear of another 'good runner' pottering about and still in fair condition.
I'm not one for go faster stripes and all the trimmings any more, it's enough to keep one in running order and legal.

I too hope it inspires someone.
 
Looks lovely bluejohn. Its great to have a car so long and no doubt know it inside out! That is indeed a nice colour, I don't recall seeing many tipos with it. Your tipo has a nice patina, gives it character. I like a car to be used and not a cotton wool wrapped museum piece.
 
Wow loving the Tipo - and still has her original hubcaps! Great to hear you are keeping her going, usage is the best way. There is a silver one of these near me with a hedge growing through it, I always go past and image what it could look like with a little refurbish :D
 
Car is currently shared with my Dad, kept at his house and he pays the insurance,I sort the machanics and MOTs etc. It generally does runs to the tip and hauling messy stuff around, as required.

It was put to very good use yesterday, my mate's building project needed a huge amount of builders crap and plastsreboard etc taking to the tip - 3 x runs with packed car and overloaded trailer did the trick! Unfortunately I didn't photo it fully loaded up and down on its springs - would have made a great shot to share!

Nothing has defeated it so far - we've burst a couple of trailer tyres though...

I think if it as the car they couldn't kill... the automotive equivalent of "Meet Supercop... The cop that can't be stopped!" :D
 
Well the latest good news is that it passed its MOT again with a bit of work - I had done a fair bit of rewelding to the floorpans a bit ago so that was fine, I replaced the rear shocks with some (standard oil-only) spares I had because the gas ones seemed to be leaking - perhaps due to overloading. Fortunately my mechanic repaired 2 x rear subframe bushes with a kit he is able to get hold of, so that's a major problem avoided and it runs / rides much better now.

The brakes were a complete nightmare - ever since last year when I serviced the front calipers and pads I've had spongy braking that comes and goes, no matter what I change.. I've had a new master cylinder, front hoses, main brake lines, rear shoes and cylinders, and finally the brake bias valve. Everytime someone works on the system it set it back from good braking to fluffy braking, that gradually improved itself... The "new" master cylinder from last year did fail and was replaced under warranty.. but we only got reasonable braking now finally by unbolting the bias valve from the car and lowering it to let an airlock out (????). I'm still not 100% happy but hopefully it will settle down.

It only just passed emissions on unburnt HCs, there is a bit of a misfire and occasional hiccup so I've been trying to get another set of plug leads (last year's wer OK but not correct for the car... too tight) but this has been a nightmare - everyone will only supply the wrong leads for an older 1.4...

Hopefully I'll trace the rough running and start to enjoy the car after a fair bit of effort and expense.
 
I've bought a similar 1995 M reg 1.4 i.e Tipo off this very forum a few months back!!! like yours it's been well used but mechanically ok.

And just to match I have some roof bars that came free with it, which is handy for my mountain bike!!

Good to see another, and a bit of inspiration for my own ;)

As for your leads the previous owner of mine fitted genuine ones, so I take it he probably had the same problem with pattern ones?

Anyway here's a pic the owner sent me before I bought it..

tipo 2 002.jpg

looks a bit cleaner now as since then I've blacked up the bumpers etc..
 
That looks like a nice Tipo - congratulations!

I had a silver one as well - M reg - but had the slightly older engine / ECU config. It's one of the nicest colours - mine had a few hailstone dents on it etc. but unfortunately it crashed into a lamppost and died. :(

You've got the original wheeltrims too which actually looked OK on the silver car but a bit grim on others... nice to see it standard-looking.

In theory you shouldn't need roofbars for a bike - the interior is huge but it would save hassle and potential damage!

Mine still has a couple of niggles but I'm narrowing things down - erratic warmup seems to be a dodgy temp sensor plus wiring, and the servo performance comes and goes, but otherwise the car is enjoyable and satisfying to own and drive.
 
Cheers it's not too bad, a bit of a rough diamond but it's all there :)

My brother did a decent job of polishing it up, as it looks a different car!!

As you say it's a good colour as the silver suits it, not so good about your old Tipo :(

Mine had an argument with a bus and won under the previous owner, though the car still has the dents to prove it!

Yeah the car is all still standard, even down to the Grundig radio cassette player which works pretty well so I'll have to make a mix tape for long trips.

I might not fit the roof bars, but there again I'm pretty careful and don't want to drag my muddy bike into the car if I can help it!!

Glad it's not just my Tipo that has these little quirks, on mine the stepper motor is definitely kaput as it idles up and down and is quite high even when warn.

Plus I have a constant ticking from a relay, think it's the hazard light relay. I had replaced the one that I thought was dodgy, but the noise still persists which is quite annoying!!

It also interferes with the passenger window oddly, so think I'm in for fun and games on that!! As the tow bar wiring is a bit suspect as well, but like you I'm hoping to work through it all as I go.

I had a similar problem with my Fiat Uno Brakes, in the end it was down to a dodgy master cylinder. Maybe yours has gone again, as some aftermarket ones can be a bit rubbish to say the least!!

The Tipo doesn't look much to some people, but for the money I feel like I've made a good choice. Like you said there a good car to drive and quite satisfying to own, from my own experience so far I've not been disappointed.
 
Hi paul,

Sounds like you've got some interesting fiddling to do.. as regards your ticking you could check that it's not the indicator stalk giving problems with a short - this was a problem that I and others had. I need to fix my towbar wiring too, I bodged it on originally and have lived without it for a few years (the wide and big Tipo light clusters mean that following cars can see all the lights without a light board!).

My Tipo had done some sterling work with trailers in the last few weeks. First it took a complete 8 x 6 shed to the tip in one go (with my 5" x 3" trailer), then I did 3 bigger trips clearing a load of building waste and rubble from my mate's build. For this I had a bigger trailer and on the 3rd trip with a fair bit of rubble in the trailer (about the same as the 1st 2 though) I had 3 worrying incidents of "weave" with the trailer... Don't know what caused them, but the final one was quite scary and kept going as I approached a right hand bend... I really didn't know how things were going to go but fortunately turning the bend seemed to settle things down and I proceeded cautiously and successfully for the last 500 yards to the tip!

This could be a sign that I should take things easy with her now...
 
Yeah I think that might be a sign to ease up a bit maybe :D last time I had anything to do with a trailer was collecting cones off a race track after an event!!

Towing it around at about 10mph on the back of my brothers Vauxhall Cavalier, so never got to experience any ''weave'' at that speed!!

I've not yet had to use the tow bar on the Tipo, but I'm sure I'll have to use it at some point along the way. Least I know the car will be up for the job ;) especially by the sounds of what you've been carrying behind it!!

At the moment it does a decent job of keeping people from tailgating me :D cheers for the tip on the indicator stalk I'll look at that.

Although since last time the clicking is intermittent, sometimes it'll do it for a few seconds, all the time or not all :confused:

As for the tow bar wiring it's a spaghetti lash up with scotch locks, think I'll have to re-do it properly some point soon.
 
Well she's got her new MOT and she's finally running great!

Long story short.. 3 years ago I had the head refreshed and cambelt changed, but it alwas ran with a slight misfire that made the MOT emissions test difficult - it always had to be coaxed or fiddled through due to the high HC and CO readings.

I knew this year I had to fix it and had already been through the electrical system several times to rule that out - and I reckoned it couldn't be fuel so that just left mechanical.

I was convinced that the machanic hadn't reset the valve clearances when he put it back together, so I finally used my Haynes manual to check them myself (can't trely on anyone else unfortunately.. ) and found that they wer all too tight - especially cylinder 3 that I already suspected as causing the misfire.

I got my mechanic to fit a new decent Ebay Cat and carefully change the shims with me supervising, and Hey Presto it suddenly ran really nice and flew through the MOT emissions test - really clean!

The car only does 2000ish miles a year but it's great to know that it is running cleanly and economically, and will be on the road for a few more years!
 
Well the latest update is that after running it quite intensively and happily for the last month it has suddenly developed a rough grinding noise from the right of the engine, which I was convinced was the water pump bearing failing. I decided to check with my mechanic since there are 3 types of pump for these Tipos, all with different pulley arrangements, and see what he thought... and he promptly told me that the item at the top of the engine I had asumed was the water pump was in fact the power steering pump! I then assumed that this could be a culprit, but definitely not the alternator since that had been changed by my dad's garage about 6 mounths ago and it was all shiny and silver.

Then I suddenly had a brainwave - maybe it is the bearing on the idler pulley that the water pump belt runs around... I had a series of these fail in exactly the same way about 12 years ago and I finally traced the fault to a missing splash guard in the wheel arch... some cowboy had removed it allowing spray and salt to get up the side of the engine and find a weak point. So I found another splash guard and fitted it... problemm solved for all time I thought!

But what do I find this morning when I get up early and decide to investigate by removuing the belts and spinning various items... yes the wonderful garage who did the alternator didn't bother to replace the splashguard and almost certainly caused the same fault to reappear. I was pretty p!ssed off...

So I have now arranged to give it to them on Wednesday and insist that they sort it out. They should get me a new splashguard (hopefully the olsd one will be in a corner somewhere?) Otherwise they're going to be busy looking... I haven't found any online yet.

The worrying thing is that Eper does not show that part for either the Tipo or Brava/Bravo... the nearest subsection is entilted "Protection" but that only shows the main wheelarch liners.

Does anyone have any knowledge or bright ideas where to locate or identify the part?

I'm hoping that it will be the same or similar to the parts for the Brava / Bravo / Marea....
 
No bright ideas, I'm afraid, but I hope you get the answers you need and the workhorse is back up and running smoothly again. Let us know how you get on!
 
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Just re-read your post sorry. The covers are on Eper but are not easy to find. From memory - on one side bizarrely it's called a 'battery cover' or similar, e.g. it may have been under the electrical section and on the other side I think it was associated with the engine categories. Once I eventually found both of them on Eper, both were available from Fiat last year for the 1.9.
 
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Hi Jonti, thanks for the tip about Eper... however I still haven't found anything. Maybe you could go into hypnotic regression and somehow find it again! (or you receipts when you bought them?)

Are you sure you found just the lower panels, and not the actual wheelarch liner with the panels attached? I called my local Fiat and they only found the liner for around £90 but he couldn't see the splash panel, he assumed it was part of it.

Cheers

John
 
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