Panda Mr & Mrs Blu's Panda 100hp

Which Ulter did you buy? 80, 100 or the 90x65?

gr J

Re: Mr & Mrs Blu's Panda 100hp

Was the smaller round one, so 80mm if that's what the different sizes are.

Thx! I'm thinking about the 90x65 to keep it as stock as possible. Yours doesn't look too bad though

gr J

Well finally got round to replacing the coil connectors and coils today.
Not particularly exciting so no pics or anything but it defo made a difference, runs noticeably smoother. [emoji106]

Next job, change the starter and clutch slave. Starter makes a horrid noise when you start car and I don't really have an issue yet with the slave cylinder but I suspect it's on way out, slight creaking when depressing pedal that you can only hear when it's not running and grinds into reverse if you don't do it slow and gentle.

Place your bets on how long it will be before I get around to actually doing them lol

The slave cylinder change is minimal cost but might not help very much. I changed mine but the real problem was the master cylinder. It comes complete with hose and aluminium connector to fit the slave cylinder hose. The old connector is likely to be seized solid so use the old hose with the new slave.

Creaks from the clutch suggest issues with the release mechanism or maybe the clutch is getting towards end of life.

yes i know, but change the easy cheap thing first and see isn't it

edit: Like i say, its not bad, I dont think a none car person would even notice it at all really. Cars pretty low miles, just over 70k on it now - its defo never had a new clutch but i also would like to think it should last more than 70k. But if it comes to that then so be it, no biggy of a job really in the grand scheme but I will try the slave first. To me it feels like either the master or slave, hard to describe but its like right at the bottom theres a bit that you have to push ever so slightly harder than the rest of the travel - which to me feels like the rod in the slave has some corrosion you have to push through to get the pedal right to the floor. But again, its so slight most people wouldnt even notice it. I'm being picky really. But as I need to change the starter which is in the same region of the bay thought I'd just swap the slave out while I'm there, and the intention was to use the existing pipe, fill the new slave and quickly swap the pipe onto and then bolt it down so it doesnt really need bleeding (or not much bleeding depending on how swiftly and smoothly that process goes lol)

The clutch feeling like you have to push harder on the pedal (like getting it over a ramp) is not a good sign. Neither is the creaking.

However, when you fit a new clutch the master cylinder is weak and really should be changed at the same time. So do that and take it from there.

of course, if it comes to full clutch replacement then everything will be replaced, no point not changing all the parts in that case.

blu73 said:

of course, if it comes to full clutch replacement then everything will be replaced, no point not changing all the parts in that case.

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Agreed but most folks change just the clutch parts and maybe the slave cylinder. Few change the master as well. On the Panda that's likely to be as knackered as the rest of the clutch.

So I'm suggesting to replace the hydraulics, see how it behaves and if still no good then do the clutch.

yes i understand.. I'm just saying its really not bad at all and 99.99% of people would just leave it well alone, me included really. but as I am soon to swap the starter and am in the area I'm gonna do the slave at same time. If it improves then great, if not then so be it - the rest will be left until probably at least next summer, nothing is on its last legs here its just me being me and changing parts way before they really need, its a habit of mine. Just like the coils and their connectors, the coils worked fine, any normal person would have just left them. But i changed them cause i did the plugs recently and then looked through what history i have and although i know the coils werent original I couldnt find a receipt for them so they might have been 2 years old or 5 or 8 or 10 - so i changed them. And as I was changing them I also got new connectors cause they were old and brittle and 2 of them kinda broken but not so badly that they didn't connect and seal on the coils, so i changed them too. Its not made a huge difference, I can tell its different but again i'm sure most people wouldn't notice. It idles ever ever so slightly lower and just feels a teeny tiny bit stronger under load. Was it worth it? not really at all from a financial point of view, but i can tell its slightly better. This is the same, it works, its totally fine, but for the sake of 20 quid and few more mins on another job I'll just swap the slave.

In other news, I've had a weird knock at the rear, which was yesterday traced to a bolt on the middle bracket for the rear seat bench. Properly sounded like something bad suspension was broken but was just a seat bolt lol. All the seat bolts have now been taken out, cleaned, locktite'd back in never to ever come loose again, ever lol.

blu73 said:

yes i understand.. I'm just saying its really not bad at all and 99.99% of people would just leave it well alone, me included really. but as I am soon to swap the starter and am in the area I'm gonna do the slave at same time. If it improves then great, if not then so be it - the rest will be left until probably at least next summer, nothing is on its last legs here its just me being me and changing parts way before they really need, its a habit of mine. Just like the coils and their connectors, the coils worked fine, any normal person would have just left them. But i changed them cause i did the plugs recently and then looked through what history i have and although i know the coils werent original I couldnt find a receipt for them so they might have been 2 years old or 5 or 8 or 10 - so i changed them. And as I was changing them I also got new connectors cause they were old and brittle and 2 of them kinda broken but not so badly that they didn't connect and seal on the coils, so i changed them too. Its not made a huge difference, I can tell its different but again i'm sure most people wouldn't notice. It idles ever ever so slightly lower and just feels a teeny tiny bit stronger under load. Was it worth it? not really at all from a financial point of view, but i can tell its slightly better. This is the same, it works, its totally fine, but for the sake of 20 quid and few more mins on another job I'll just swap the slave.

In other news, I've had a weird knock at the rear, which was yesterday traced to a bolt on the middle bracket for the rear seat bench. Properly sounded like something bad suspension was broken but was just a seat bolt lol. All the seat bolts have now been taken out, cleaned, locktite'd back in never to ever come loose again, ever lol.

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First of all let me thank you and DaveMcT for inspiring me in keeping my 100HP.
This was the wife's, 2010, Only done 26K, but she wanted me to sell it.
No! I'm keeping it dear as my fun car.
So as a hobby I'm going to return it to it's just out of the factory condition.

Anyhow, I have the same knocking noise at the OS back. it went for its MOT yesterday & I asked the garage to have a good look at the rear.... Nothing found.
Then read this post last night about the seat bolt, but I couldn't find anything loose. Which bolt are you actually talking about?

You have to take the rear bench out to get at the one which was loose on mine. You grab a 16mm socket, undo the 2 bolts facing forward at front in rear footwells, in boot theres a bracket each side bolting bench to floor, take them out. Then on the middle bracket there's a hole with another bolt, undo that and the bench will slide out forward.
Now you can get at the bolts for the middle bracket. 2 rear ones hold the seatbelt buckles in and there's one at the front near the fuel pump access panel, that one was loose on mine.

All that said, knocks at rear of a 100hp are often rear shock top bushes. If it's that and your shocks are still ok you can either fill the holes with tigerseal to firm them up or do it properly and buy some poly bushes for them.

Anyhow, today I did the starter and slave cylinder. I renewed clutch fluid as well while I was at it. Result? New starter is quieter, starts car quicker and no sticking and horrid screeching.. the clutch feels a million times better and reverse no longer grinds in. The old slave piston had a rusty ring round it as I suspected, that's what was causing the weird feel at the pedal I think. The squeak I traced to the spring inside above pedal, bit of lubrication and that's not making noise at all anymore. Overall feel from having new fluid is much improved, eliminated all inkling of spongyness.

Dunno what's next now tbh, car doesn't need anything really but sure I'll find something to do soon lol.

Great thanks, I'll see if I can get round to it on Saturday.
Can't be the rear shocks, as this was the first job I did on the car & replaced them with Koni's - the ride was really harsh up until then.

Well done with the new slave cylinder. If it starts to mis-behave again then its likely to be the master cylinder seals wearing out.

blu73 said:

You have to take the rear bench out to get at the one which was loose on mine. You grab a 16mm socket, undo the 2 bolts facing forward at front in rear footwells, in boot theres a bracket each side bolting bench to floor, take them out. Then on the middle bracket there's a hole with another bolt, undo that and the bench will slide out forward.
Now you can get at the bolts for the middle bracket. 2 rear ones hold the seatbelt buckles in and there's one at the front near the fuel pump access panel, that one was loose on mine.

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Hi Blu73,
Took the rear seats out today but alas, all the bolts were tight.
So I had a good clean out of the boot (the spare was stuck to the well - never been out since new) coppersliped the bolts, put all those back.
The I had a look in the bag with the jack & wheel spanner, there is also 2 towing eyes in there that appear to have been clanking on the jack.
Wrapped those in cloth. then went for a test drive - noise has appeared to have gone. Maybe this was the cause afterall.
Anyhow, posted "how to" in the guide section with some pictures for the next person. But it was very easy.

So another new gaiter fitted, much nicer softer leather and black this time.

Really need to paint to top bit now though, it annoys me greatly

Well I guess it's time for a little update, been a few months since I posted here.

All goes well with Finn still, no huge issues. Went in for it's MOT towards end of 2018. Advisories for backs of both rear discs being pitted. So I've stripped the rear calipers down and cleaned everything and fitted new slide pins, discs and pads.

While I was there I stuck a universal poly exhaust hanger on just one rear box hanger, this has moved the tailpipe down and across ever so slightly, much happier with how it sits now.



I found some coupe 15" wheels for a bargain price so went for a jaunt to Weston Super Mare to pick them up to use as winters. They are same size and width as the 100hp alloys just 10mm higher offset.
So got some sparco wheel spacers as well.


Ordered some Nokian WR D4 winter tyres.


Think it looks pretty decent on the coupe wheels, not that I prefer them to the factory ones or anything but as cheap winters I'm pretty happy with them. And tyres are great, not had the worst weather here but they are really quiet on the road and grip in wet and snow/ice is epic
Heres a snap of what it looks like on its winter wheels - Looks ok but can't wait to put the 100hp wheels back on in Spring!!


Bar having another fresh oil and filter change just the other week I think that's all that's gone on.

Well more not really needed but want parts arrived. Just want to do a little freshen up at the front.

New discs, pads, control arm pinch bolt and nut, new shock to knuckle bolts and nuts (nuts not pictured), new caliper carrier to knuckle bolts.

Well i guess i should post something here again, been a while.

Since last post I got upset with myself for fitting the new rear discs and not sealing them so the hats went rusty immediately. Just one of those things that grates on me, nothing actually wrong. So i ordered a pair of brembo rear discs as every brembo discs ive ever bought before has been coated (the fronts i ordered do for example) but these came uncoated... sigh... so painted them and the outside edge myself with some vht paint and fitted them. So far so good, not a spot of rusty in sight

Still not got around to fitting all the new hardware at the front or the front discs and pads - but no rush there, they don't NEED changing yet, i only really bought them cause there was a huge sale on brake parts at ECP at the time so were less than half price. They'll go on before the end of summer though as the front discs do have a fair old lip on the edge so must be at least getting close to the minimum thickness.

The winter wheels and tyres have obviously come back off and the normal wheel back on, got new tyres for them before they went on, went for Uniroyal Rainsport3 this time.

Only other thing of note is the top radiator hose decided to split at the weekend, cars fine though, didn't overheat or anything - i noticed the coolant was a little low on Saturday during regular checks, I've never had to top it up before but had no time to have a proper look. Rechecked on Sunday and was low again so went investigating and found this..


Checked on the eper & it shows the 100hp has a specific hose, could not find one in stock anywhere though and figured a 1.2 one can't be that different so ordered a gates branded one for a 1.2. Did consider a fiat 500 1.4 silicone pipe but couldnt find anywhere that had a reasonable waiting time considering the car was out of action, i couldn't wait nearly 2 months for a pipe!


And i can confirm that fits perfectly fine.


This wasn't really the worst thing in the world, i've been meaning to refresh the coolant anyway so took this opportunity to flush the system a few times with just water before refilling and bleeding up. So thats another job off the to do list

While car was down i also took the CDA off and cleaned and re-oiled the filter - its only done about half the miles that is recommended between cleaning the filter but was filthy!

Think thats all thats happened. Heres a couple of pics from last time i washed it, cause we all like pics

Rusty brake disc inner dome/top hat is easily sorted with a wire brush, rust converter and paint. Obviously, there is no point if the wearing surfaces are getting old.