The new cars not too well.... it starts well from hot or cold and drives well too, however sometimes it just refuses to idle and dies. It restarts straight away but when its doing this if you give it a little bit of gas it starts to idle very erratically, the revs going up and down all the time, then all of a sudden its OK again. Mostly happens when restarted after a few minutes or sitting in traffic for a time and also if driving fast then stopping say of a motorway or similar. I can only guess carb trouble of some sort, maybe mixture? The plugs are a bit white on the electrodes but its returning around 50mpg which is about right... any ideas please? BTW, its a 1992 900cc Dance.

If they are white it normally mean's it's running lean, does it have a cat?

no cat Alan, I thought lean but it doesnt need lots of choke etc to start and its running well untill this little hiccup happens! will clean out the carb and see what happens...

Possibly the vacuum advance. That's a common failure on my Pandas at least and I know Jim had to fit one to Sylvia. The symptoms are similar.

genuine magneti marelli vacuum advance on ebay..

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FIAT-UNO-PAND...ryZ31352QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Steve said:

Possibly the vacuum advance. That's a common failure on my Pandas at least and I know Jim had to fit one to Sylvia. The symptoms are similar.

Click to expand...

Several vacuum advances to be persice......

Mmmmmm (bloody car.... Apparently the brakes have gone on it now )

Jim

christopher watson said:

genuine magneti marelli vacuum advance on ebay..

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FIAT-UNO-PANDA-1000-750-VACUUM-ADVANCE-UNIT-NEW_W0QQitemZ4582338535QQcategoryZ31352QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Click to expand...

At £18.00 Buy Iy Now plus postage it's expensive. You can get one from Fiat for £17.00.

i would go for the bid of £14.99 as the auction has only a couple of hours left, and you dont need to leave the house

also if you went to the fiat garage, they would probably give you the wrong part, or take 3 years to order the part

Our local dealer stocks them. I think they are an exception to the rule when it comes to Fiat dealers though.

And I quote.....

luke1985 said:

the vacuum advance unit is cheaper at Shop4Parts Had to change mine a while ago. The Part Number: S4P1184 Costs £10 plus Vat

In the meantime, put a screw in the end of the pipe to stop it idling and performing crap...

Click to expand...

I thank you......

Jim

You win. Hopefully a cheap fix for you Barry.

You might be right there as it does pink under load suggesting vacuum advance probs.
Today I changed the air filter, cleaned the breather hoses out as they were all clogged up, cleaned the carb with carb cleaner, adjusted mixture to give better tickover and it still did it when fully warmed up... but not quiet so bad.
Anyone know the factory setting for the mixture screw? I.E. how many turns out from fully screwed in etc?

There is a rough guide in "Porter":

Turn the mixture screw clockwise (in), the idle speed will increase.
Continue until it starts to run "lumpily".

Now turn the screw anticlockwise until it runs smoothly again, and some more until the speed just starts to drop.

At this point, screw the adjuster clockwise a fraction, and you'll be near the optimum setting for smooth runing.

Carbs can be a problem as well I had 4 spare at one point and every single one was knackered on the mixture and couldn't be adjusted. managed to find a brand new one listed under Y10 parts on e-bay never used still boxed for £27.00

Do you not know any garages that can try to adjust c/o for you on their machines then at least you would know for def if it's ok.

You guys were right... the vacuum advance is knackered, but.. its not the whole problem! Today, I got my mates dwell meter which said the points gap was too big so closed it up to the right setting. Then retarded the timing by just 1 degree and hey presto, no pinking at all and she still performs well. It still tries to die a bit but is def. better than before. Found that by removing the pipe from manifold to airbox and repositioning it to get cold air helps too.
Have blanked vac pipe for now and will order one too. Cheers for all the advice. Can use garages CO meter sometime later too, but I reckon mixture is pretty spot on.

Glad you're getting it sorted.

On shop for parts they only list vacuum adavance for the FIRE engines, is it the same as the 903s, as the distributor looks identical to our old 1000CLs one?