No, it's still dirty. I'll do it later this week before the show on Saturday.

I'll do my rain dance then!
Can't have your Panda cleaner than mine!

Yours isn't a 'real' Panda. :yuck:

It's okay - I'm used to everyone picking on my Panda.
Water off a duck's back!

Good to see you with Panda again Steve, been away so missed the occasion.... congrats!

Cheers Barry. I'm replacing the thermostat today and I'll make a start at wire brushing the rear arches and underneath so it can be properly undersealed.

Me and Lloyd have had a productive morning. First job was to underseal the boot floor and rear arches. So out came the wire brush, paint brushes and Tetraseal. The car looked like it had never been undersealed and the arches were still finished in red paint, as was the boot floor. The rest of the floor will be done later this week. The bootseam is very solid so I'm happy with that and it should be ok for another year or two at least.

Here's the before and after shots.

Next up was to sort out the thermostat. A trip to the local motorfactors (who surprisingly had a thermostat in stock) and having parted with the staggeringly expensive sum of £9.67 and we were ready to start.

The car was struggling to reach a quarter of the way up the temp gauge except in heavy traffic, so the thermostat was the likely culprit.

It looked like it was an original part.



The thermostat is easy to access and is held on only with two 10mm nuts. I drained the cooling system and removed the old one.



The new thermostat came complete with a gasket. It's a pattern part, but I find it hard to justify original Fiat parts when the price difference is usually so great.



I love fitting new parts to the engine, it makes me want to replace everything so it looks as shiny as Alan's engine!



The thermostat was plumbed in and the cooling system refilled and bled.



A short run around the block seen the temp gauge quickly rise to 90 degrees and stay there.

Nice one One for the guide section?

Alan.D said:

Nice one One for the guide section?

Click to expand...

I forgot all about that Alan!

I especially enjoyed that because it was on a 750!

Steve said:

I forgot all about that Alan!

Click to expand...

There's probably quite a few posts could be put in there. I know I did a couple more write up's that never made it

looks like a good result rust wise, did the seams on mine as the fiat underseal is very sparse under the boot floors. felt really weird driving the panda today as I have been in the MR2 on holiday for 12 days... the panda felt so old fashioned and slow, a good laugh!

nuovapanda said:

lold fashioned and slow, a good laugh!

Click to expand...

A perfect summation.

I was busy today with Splutter...

This is me coming home from work (see under the dash where the radio should be )

I'll see's you'll all later on Ebay!

Jim

I didnt know 750's could go 50mph!!

nice coat

AppleSei said:

I didnt know 750's could go 50mph!!

nice coat

Click to expand...

You can get over 80 out of them with a good run up and a bit of wind!

Jim And Steve are you bringing the twins (Splutter & LLoyd) to the show on Sat.?

Got to really don't they although I think sylvia needs to make an appearence before the off

Jim do you need the radio holder unit? I got a spare one somewhere..

**EDIT** stupid question really as you removed it for extra wine space

Stuartl said:

Jim And Steve are you bringing the twins (Splutter & LLoyd) to the show on Sat.?

Click to expand...

Lloyd will be there anyway.