imagejpg10_zpsef21d6fb.jpg

Punto (Mk1) My exploit yellow 75 elx

Introduction

Hi.
My name is Simon and I haven't been on here in ages.
I'm a fiat nut who has owned fiats all my life as have my family. I work in a fiat dealership in dundee and have treated myself to a new car, as it's the first time in my life I have been without a fiat.

I bought the following car off ebay for 4 reasons

1. I had one as my first car
2. I just bought a house and have somewhere to keep it
3. My mum had a brand new exploit yellow 55 sx back in '95
4. Have plenty fiat techs to fix it when it breaks

So, I'm in dundee, the car was in Yorkshire, so my dad and I left 5:30am Saturday morning in his 500L to pick it up. I was worried about bringing a near 20 year old fiat 260 mile up the road, but it didn't miss a beat. It drives like a new car.

History- we'll it was sold new to a mrs crappe, at carnell fiat, she had the car garaged from new, done 70,000 miles in it. It had its original dealer plates on it which I changed, as they were tatty. Full years mot with no advisories, and a full service history. She specced it up with a drivers airbag!

The car come with a few parking dings, original scuffed wheel trims, and a couple of light scratches, otherwise it's mint.
Luckily working in a fiat dealer, I can get parts, a workshop with a 40 years served fiat technician, a dent man and body shop.

Took the car into work today to get all the dents removed, was up on the ramps for a health check- solid underneath, just needs new discs and pads and a rocker cover gasket. Underneath is solid, clean and all present and correct. It also needs a new cam belt cover as mine is burst. Then that's it mint.
Turns out the rear tyres are the factory originals, made 3rd week of 1995, so it will be getting a full set of brand new Goodyear duragrips I have in my garage.
Surprisingly every single thing works on the car, even the remote locking and being an elx it has an electric sunroof!!!

It's quite funny because all the fiat techs were all over it today, donating parts. One of them had an exploit yellow touch up pen that's been in his toolbox for 15 years, got handbrake cables and a rocker cover gasket, with more bits offered. They also went on e-sigi and printed out the complete history of my car, showing recalls for brake pipes, airbag ecu etc which is nice to keep.

Work so far done-

New genuine wheel trims
New genuine punto mats
Original fiat tape deck
Genuine fiat lineaccessorie front and rear mudflaps
General tidy up
Clay, wet sand, machine polish bodywork
New numberplates
Dents removed
Brand new badges
Full valet

I love this car, I can't believe how mint it is. Taking bad with no power steering though.
I put it in the showroom and took some piccies.
Anyway the pictures.......

imagejpg1_zpsc924ba6a.jpg

imagejpg2_zps873fb497.jpg

imagejpg3_zps2d221895.jpg

imagejpg4_zps38ab8098.jpg

imagejpg5_zps96eb4620.jpg

imagejpg14_zps41d3d93c.jpg

imagejpg7_zpsbccf4ace.jpg

imagejpg6_zps92be4983.jpg

imagejpg9_zps849942d5.jpg

imagejpg8_zps6e832c96.jpg

imagejpg13_zps5e04db80.jpg

imagejpg10_zpsef21d6fb.jpg

imagejpg11_zpsc7b4da7e.jpg

imagejpg12_zpse1b5bd02.jpg


And my main/ daily car

image_zpsc9fa3907.jpg
New alternator ordered from work today.
Wasn't bad at £55, priced up a genuine Fiat one and it was £280- and that's after my staff discount too!

?

I had to get a new alternator for my Grande last year, and the mechanic fitted a bosch 1 which i believe was about £150. It should've been £250, but he haggled £100 off the price!
 
New alternator in, took about an hour, took a while for the car to start and it was coughing and spluttering but it sorted itself out now and is running sweet as a nut again ?

Took it for a wee test drive, very different from what I'm now used to with the kuga though.

The casing on my alternator I took off the car was cracked, may explain why it was siezed
 
The car is booked into my work on 3rd March for its 81,000 mile service. I asked the fiat techs is they had a service sheet but they haven't seen one for years, so luckily I found this on here.....



Getting a really good deal on a service, because I work for fiat I get the service at half price so a genuine 81k mile fiat service- £50.40 all in ?
Even though the car only has 72,000 miles on it

Plus the bonus of because it's a fiat service, I get a years AA cover also, and the tech that does the servicing has been a fiat tech for around 40 years.

One pampered punto I have.
 
yeah the 8v has bucket style tappets with shims. It is in the regular maintenance procedures to check the clearances. Its actually really easy to do, you just need some feeler gauges and then if you need to adjust you have to buy the appropriate shims. As said fiat should be able to do this no problems at all, very simple procedure. If you wanna do it at home Big Mick at EuroCarCare will sort you out shims for cheaper than anywhere else i can find. ;)
 
Bugger it!
I now have a 3 month old baby girl, and whilst taking the car seat out the kuga, managed to dent my beloved punto.

So today I took the car into work and got my dent guy to work his magic on both sides as there were a couple of tiny wee ripples.
This is now one of the straightest punto's on the planet.....


 
Back
Top