Punto (Mk2/2b) The MK2 "silver streak" by Gadge

[varesecrazy]

Lovely little car. Nice ones are such a nice drive


I have standard tape units..

Yours if of any use

Hows the sump pan..?

 

[AndyRKett]

It’s a fairly low mile car given it’s age.

Looks in ok shape from the top, have a good look around the rear suspension mounting points, in the wheel arches and along the back underside( especially the inside) of the sills and rear foot wells, all prime areas for hidden rot on this age of punto now.

Many a mark 2 has ended up in the scrap yard needing welding in these areas.
All can seem well so really get in and poke about.


And good work getting rid of the dodgy mods, someone’s paint work on the vents clearly needs more practice

 

[gadge]

Lovely little car. Nice ones are such a nice drive


I have standard tape units..

Yours if of any use

Hows the sump pan..?

Thanks Charley may well come back to you on the tape player it's funny you mentioned the sump, it had a new one fitted in 09 at a cost of around £115! I know this as I found a receipt for it I figured he must have scrubbed it on a high kerb

It’s a fairly low mile car given it’s age.

Looks in ok shape from the top, have a good look around the rear suspension mounting points, in the wheel arches and along the back underside( especially the inside) of the sills and rear foot wells, all prime areas for hidden rot on this age of punto now.

Many a mark 2 has ended up in the scrap yard needing welding in these areas.
All can seem well so really get in and poke about.


And good work getting rid of the dodgy mods, someone’s paint work on the vents clearly needs more practice

Thanks Andy hoping to give the underside a scrub and a dose of underseal. I've also got a can of cavity wax which I was going to use on my 126 so I'll blast some of that in too. Its not in to bad shape one or two very minor creases in the rear panel on one side which I think will pull out and a few stone chips on the bonnet (one quite bad). Other than that I'm convinced with just a bit of elbow grease it will come up great! It's well worth saving and spending a bit of time on it and giving it some TLC so I'm looking forward to getting on with it. And yes I'm so very glad he stopped at just the air vents :bang:

 

[gadge]

I decided that before I pressed my bargain banger into regular daily use I had better give it a service so after work in the sweltering heat of last weeks heat wave I set too.



Jobs done.......

Oil and filter change (10w40 semi synth)
Air filter
Coolant change
Spark plugs (old ones were desperately in need of a change - see below)
New HT leads
And a new pair of coils (included in the sale)






I had forgotten just how delightful the FIRE engine is to work on with everything changed with ease with only a snapped air filter securing bolt spoiling what was to be a very satisfactory engine tinkering sesson

This weekend was supposed to be when I gave the underside a scrub down and an underseal but sadly the weather turned very British and rained but that didn't stop some work getting done. I removed all that fly eye crap from the rear lights and ripped all the LED neon blue lighting out of the boot gradually returning the car to a more normal look. I also gave the inside a clean up too with both front seats and door cards responding well to a clean



Still some work to do like getting it undersealed and sorting those head lights out.

 

[gadge]

I've had a busy few weekends on the streak. Given their poor resistance to corrosion I thought it best to give its neither regions a good inspection and under seal. the day before I started I gave the wheel arches a wash. This is the crud that came out of just one wheel arch highlighting just how much muck can accumulate over time



Next day it was off with its bumper.



Initial inspection showed the underside to be in very good shape but not perfect. It's going to need a bit of welding around one of the rear jacking points and a very small bit at the back of the sill. All in all though given its age and the fact it's a MK2 punto its very good. The sills along the floor are solid as are the floors and chassis box sections and under the arches so I decided to treat it the whole underside except for the areas to be welded which will be treated after the repairs are made.

These are some of the products used - a big tin of brushable under seal. An aerosol of the same stuff for the hard to reach places, anti rust primer (not pictured) Cavity wax for the sills and box sections, seam sealer, CRUST rust converter (also not pictured) and some stone chip shield.



So the first job after giving it a brush down was to treat the any rusty spots with the rust converter. Once dry the sound metal was painted over with the anti rust paint and the joints between the various sections were brushed with the seam sealer.



After two coats and 24 hours drying time the whole area was painted with the under seal and all box sections and sills were injected with cavity wax (4 cans in total)







The following weekend I turned my attention to the front.



There was a bit more stuff to remove like the inner wheel arch but once removed it was all good and solid so more painting and under sealing.



Incidentally at the front there is a big rubber grommet behind the wheel arch liner. When I pulled them off there was surface rust inside the box section. If you find yourself working in this area it's worth just pulling them off and filling them with wax or underseal. I used cavity wax.



Make no mistake it's a mucky job but it's well worth doing and it will make sure your punto will last

 

[Fialfa]

Hi nice work think you’ve given me the inspiration to do the same to mine

 

[gadge]

Hi nice work think you’ve given me the inspiration to do the same to mine

For the sake of a weekends work and not a lot of money it's well worth doing as once rust takes hold it'll never stop unless treated. The phrase "prevention is better than the cure" is very appropriate here

While I had the front end up during undersealing I took the opportunity to lower the bumper a tackle those nasty yellow head lamps. Now I mentioned in a previous post how I was going to rub down and polish them up however by chance I happened to find a pair of brand new Fiat/Valeo lamps for £62 including delivery. I couldn't resist - they even came complete with bulbs! With the bumper lowered fitting them was easy enough So now I have nice clear vision.

Before


After


Looking sharp

 

[Fialfa]

Looks good[emoji106]

 

[gadge]

I’ve been busy over the days on the streak this time on the inside. I’ve replaced the dodgy looking silver and black painted air vents with some black plastic ones off eBay. I chose black as I couldn’t find the right shade of grey to replace the original ones but the black works well.



After market radio has been ditched in favour of an original head unit.



Now some would wonder why I would replaced a half decent clarion for a standard head unit but I do have a good reason. Firstly it’s not gonna get nicked and secondly it’s actually not a bad unit in terms of spec - it’s the version with the sub woofer control which also has an adapter for using a cd changer so I bought a device that plugs into it so I can play music though an iPod (admittedly and old 30pin version). I routed the wire so it pops out through the back of the ashtray.



I also replaced the steering wheel with this one from a MK2b as the old one was going crusty

 

[gadge]

More work done. I had noticed while scrabbling around underneath the other week that the tank straps on the punto weren't looking thier best. One had corroded quite badly and I was certain the MOT man would pick it up so I bought a very good second hand set and and gave them a paint first with some anti rust primer and then with a coat of chassis black paint. When this stuff goes off it goes rock hard so should give me many years of use.





I've also done a bit of de-activizasion, by that I mean take the streak up market from its active roots by adding a few things that would've featured on higher up models such as the top end stereo mentioned on the previous post. I hadn't taken any notice before but higher up models such as the ELX I owned 19 years ago had a matte black coloured B post (in between the two windows).



Since discovering this fact it had niggled me so I bought a metre and a half of matte black vinyl wrap off eBay for less than a fiver and stuck it on. Not only was it a cheap mod but also a quick one to do.

 

[gadge]

I'm always amazed at what a new set of wheels can do to an appearance of a car. Ever since I bought my first MK2 way back in 2000 I've always liked these HLX wheels so over the last few weeks I've been busy collecting them one by one until I had 4 very reasonable looking ones. There are inevitably one or two marks on them but given that they were probably the best part of over 15 years old I can't complain. One was covered with baked on brake dust that took a good hour of scrubbing with autosol to get it to look respectable and only one came with a tyre. Fortunately that particular tyre was less than two years old and had still got a very generous amount of tread left on it for me to justify keeping it. So it was then down to the tyre shop and I bought three Firestone multihawks for £110 all in and fitted the odd one out of the four on the back.



Incidentally the old steel 165s are up for grabs with the wheel trims FOR FREE! Just have to come and get them. Here's the link
https://www.fiatforum.com/classifieds/showproduct.php?product=35856&limit=recent

 

[DraigGoch]

Have to say, I love these MK2 Puntos - ever since I got my sei i've regarded them as my 'mortal enemies' on the road and always try (and fail) to leave them for dust at the lights

It looks amazing with those wheels!

 

[gadge]

Have to say, I love these MK2 Puntos - ever since I got my sei i've regarded them as my 'mortal enemies' on the road and always try (and fail) to leave them for dust at the lights

It looks amazing with those wheels!

Being a 1.2 my car certainly isn't a ball of fire off the line - you just need to find the right mk2

Spent today having a bit of a detailing session on the silver streak. Machine polish followed by a wax. Wheels and tyres done windows polished with Autoglym glass polish and all the black stuff on the body was treated with plastic gel (again autoglym) even cleaned the inside out and despite having 103000 miles on the clock this punto is looking great

 

[werdna]

Did it come with a hammer, screwdriver and piece of rag to put under the bonnet ?

 

[gadge]

Did it come with a hammer, screwdriver and piece of rag to put under the bonnet ?

I was wondering about that rag......

 

[gadge]

With just over 2 months to go until MOT time I thought it best to have a proper look at that crusty rear jacking point. Just to re-cap earlier in the year I gave the underside a good going over with underseal and some cavity wax. While prodding around I found that there was a small but concerning amount of corrosion around the N/S rear jacking point. I knew this would be and issue for the MOT man and quite right too so naturally I decided to forget about it and sort it out later. Well that time is now so up it went on axle stands and I set to to remove all the items in the way - passenger seat, handbrake centre trim, rear bench seat and seat back and the N/S rear side trim panel. What greeted me was a little more than expected

This is the view from inside the rear footwell directly above the rear jacking point.



And from below as sunlight beams through the rusty hole. The jacking point itself seems pretty sound but the same can't be said about the metal it was attached to



The big surprise was when I removed the rear seat. These are the mounting points for both the seat belt (right) and the rear seat back (left). Another MOT hot spot which will have to be sorted.



Daunting as this all looks I'm confident I'll be able to sort it. My welding skills are by no means pretty but they are always satisfactory. I'm starting to see why so many MK2s are in the great scrapyard in the sky. I can understand how easy it would be for the non-mechanically minded person to simply scrap this car as the quote for a garage to sort this out would almost certainly be double the cars value. Not this one though