Hello all,

Wanted to introduce myself. Picked up my Panda yesterday and drove it for about 10km... Wanted to drive it more, but I won't be able to pick up my proof of insurance until Monday when the Italians decide to open up for their hard day's work of 4 hours.

I'm selling my e30 320i touring to a friend and the Panda is gonna be my daily driver until - and maybe after - I find a Delta Integrale in good condition and for a decent price. The "beast" is a white '86 750L with a Fire engine. It has the old, uncomfortable seats that don't adjust. The engine seems to run ok except for running a little rough when downshifting but that may be somewhat related to my adjusting to the clutch and the horribly-positioned/angled gas pedal. I also don't think the engine's been run for a while as the dipstick (you Brits may refer to it as an oil stick or something like that) was completely dry. I'll be honest... I'm gonna drive that thing hard. I drive all of my cars hard, but without trashing the mechanicals, of course.

Nacho on this board is a friend and a coworker and he is responsible for me getting the Panda. I look forward to working on the Beast and putting on the mileage. Should be fun.

Great board, btw. Good to see people interested in sharing good info and having fun with these cars. Keep your hands dirty and your neck cramped.

Cheers,
Serge

An update:

Picked up the car today. Changed the plugs, wires, distributor cap and the rotor, and the filter. Got to finally change the exhaust. This is the one we got from the junkyard and it looks practically brand new. We watched the guy take it off a wrecked car but it still has a sticker on it. We had to cut the old exhaust with a chisel almost the whole distance of where the two pipes overlapped. May sound hard, but it wasn't that bad at all. Took about 20 minutes (on a lift this time). The car is VERY quiet when idling. Sounds very good.

Now I really want to get rid of the front seats as I'm seated with my head almost against the roof. Very uncomfortable driving position. There's also a white Panda at the junkyard and I'm considering getting the front grill and maybe even both of the bumpers as they are body-color. It looks a lot better. I'll try to get some pictures up of my car and Nacho's. We tried to race today but it was hard to find a good strip with no cars. We'll go to an industrial area at night sometime and try it again... Should be fun. I think my FIRE has more kick, but we'll see.

By the way, Nacho says that no one replied to my original post because I called you all Brits...

Cheers,
Serge

I forgot one more thing. I'm bidding on a Haynes manual on the English ebay. I was wondering what the difference was between the Haynes manual that's for '81 - '95 M registration and the Haynes that covers '81 - '87 769cc 903cc 999cc. Sounds like I would be able to use both. Could I? If I can, which one is better?

Thanks,
Serge

the 81-95 version will be the newest so will have the most revisions covered, although as yours is a 96 it wont be a problem which version you get

A Dog Is Not Just For Christmas
Sliced Thinly It Can Last Till Easter

Welcome Serge!
Panda's are a blast, eh? Sort of an insane golf cart for going round round-abouts, and surprisingly good on gravel, tight turning circle for battling it out for parking spaces, easiest thing to fix (mechanical bits at least) this side of an old MZ. When my old man visits from Canada, he's promised to bring me my driving lights from my old Marina...then I'll invest in some rally remoulds...
Justin
Welcome aboard