Hi

I have a 750L formula Panda which I bought just before Xmas for £250 as a cheap disposable runaround. Suprisingly I am totally impressed with it and I think it is a great little car. I intend to keep it longer term and therefore I have given it a service (it has 47000 miles) including timing and CO2 mixture etc.

The car is running really well now except for one small problem. Tickover is fine without any electrical load, but when I turn the lights, heater, wipers etc on the tickover drops and I have had to turn the tickover up to 1000rpm in order to enable the car to tickover with the lights on.

I understand some tickover drop is normal, but not to the extent that my car has. Does anyone have any ideas? Could it be a bad earth??

Also did any of these car come with a five speed gearbox???

Thanks for your patience, Andy.

bobdog,
I am not the most familiar with the panda, but I also have the 750. Mine also does have a large drop in idle when you turn on the lights, heater, ( on high that is) and the wipers, and/also the rear window defrost. I believe it is just the fact that the engine is so small that when there is an electrical draw the alternator has to really work. Which makes some of the 30ish horsepower disappear.[xx(] It is not a bad thing to have the idle at 1000rpm. This is what most cars I have ever dealt with are set for. The batteries is not the biggest so the alternator may have to work more in this car then others with larger batteries. Unless you have a bigger one in your car. My car has one that looks like it belongs in a motorcycle. Then again the motor is smaller then some motorcycles. I only figure with the size of the motor and the juice it takes it is normal. Hope someone else can help.
Nacho

Originally posted by bobdog
Also did any of these car come with a five speed gearbox???

Click to expand...

Hi Andy.

The 750 only had a four-speed 'box.

However, some 903 and 999 Pandas had a five-speed to cope with the extra power!

Originally posted by PandaManPaul

Originally posted by bobdog
Also did any of these car come with a five speed gearbox???

Click to expand...

Hi Andy.

The 750 only had a four-speed 'box.

However, some 903 and 999 Pandas had a five-speed to cope with the extra power!

Click to expand...

I'll have to disagree. Apparently that depends on the country the car was sold on. Here in Portugal we had the 5 speed box as an extra... my gfs Panda has one and I thought it was a conversion, which made me a bit suspicious so I did a bit of background research and they were in fact sold like that when new. Not very common, though.

Goncalo D.

Sorry, I was merely commenting on the UK market since bobdog, who originally asked the question, resides in this country

Hi,

I've renewed the thermostatic thingy in the air cleaner which was broken which has helped to stablise the tickover in this cold weather. I can push the choke in a lot early now and turning on the electrics has a lesser effect on the engine.

Regarding the gearbox, I knew a 5 speed 'box was available as it is mentioned in the fuel consumption section of the handbook. It's a shame one isn't available in the UK, but now I know I won't waste my time looking for one!!

Thanks for all your replies

Andy.

Did you buy the thermo door as a separate spare part from the whole filter housing[:0]??

Passion has neither brands nor models!

La passione non ha nè marche nè modelli!

I don't think the thermo door and the pipe it is fastened to will seperate from the main air filter body, it looks like they are bonded together during manufacture.

I bought half a used filter body from a scrapyard for £2 (the half with the thermo parts in). The flap was broken in it, but the thermo parts (thermo thingy, spring and rod arm) were ok. My old rod arm had snapped so even though the thermo thingy was moving in and out (I tested it with a electric heater) the flap was staying put in the 'summer' position (flapping open). I replaced the rod arm and spring in my filter body and it worked. It was a bit tricky but I managed it in the end.

1991 Panda 750L
White and Rusty (but it's got a sunroof!!!)