General First Ever Car Project

[MidlandsFarmer]

hi in fairly new to the forum and first of all im going to explain the situation.. right ok im 15 and i am training to be a mechanic. my uncle gave me a 1993 red fiat cinquecento 899cc which had a suspected head gasket failure as it was loosing coolant within 20 mins. so i was given the car for free to practice my training on it. i am in the process of finding the problem but also making it look more presentable. i earn roughly £40 a month so i have not got a massive budget. any help or advise would be greatly appreciated. unfortunately due to space my car is kept up my family farm, so i can only work on it at weekends or holidays. pics will soon follow...

many thanks

JP

 

[MazCinq]

hi and welcome to the group what plans you got for it

 

[MidlandsFarmer]

not sure yet it was a right mess when i got it, dents scrapes everywhere front seats were a mess but some how rear seat had an oil stain on it. needs a good t-cut but not sure what to do to it yet. Certainly a new stereo when i have got the car running again.

 

[Eklipze3k]

Sounds like a good way to get into it, I wanted to do the same with my 126 when I had it (pretty much dismantle it and rebuild) but had to sell up when I lost my job

Enjoy!

 

[MidlandsFarmer]

here are some of the pics...

 

[MidlandsFarmer]

here are the rest so far... ( mostly of cylinder head )

 

[MidlandsFarmer]

engine noise was very loud and lots of loud tapping so i tried adjusting the tappets which my dad suggested. so put all of that back together and then car would not fire. so retried a couple more times still with no luck and then one time i tried and then the engine would not turn over. so someone suggested that the engine was jammed so i decided that if i was going to clean it up i would redo the cylinder head as it was very erratic before. stripped of the cylinder head to find gasket was about to fail. so right now im in the process of redoing the cylinder head and valves. and that's were most of these pictures are from.

 

[MidlandsFarmer]

also found out that the radiator has a hole in it so that's were all the coolant was going. so i bought some radweld to try and fix it. i cant fix the radiator until i have the car running its just problem after problem with this car.

 

[Eklipze3k]

You've got 2 years before you can use it on the road so take your time with it
I'd have said you'd be better to get a new rad but the radweld should do for now until you know whether it's all dead or not.

 

[MidlandsFarmer]

i will try and take my time but knowing me i like to rush things and get it working again. at the moment i am struggling to get the valve springs to compress with my new tool from halfords.

 

[MazCinq]

if its going to be 2 years at least before you are road legal what about converting it to an 1108 or bigger just an idea

or do you want to keep it stock

 

[MidlandsFarmer]

insurance would be sky high so possibly want to keep the car engine its self stock but engine accessories i dont mind.

 

[MidlandsFarmer]

by the way do you think i would get away without skimming the head?

 

[terrorcrane]

You could get away without skimming but you need to make sure that the two surfaces are really clean of crud. Personally I would skim anyway just to be sure, one of the first jobs I did with our sei when I got it.

 

[MazCinq]

insurance wise i couldn't see a prob 899 group1, 1108 sporting group3 so still dirt cheap

 

[AppleSei]

insurance wise i couldn't see a prob 899 group1, 1108 sporting group3 so still dirt cheap

Its not as simple as that and doesnt work like that anymore

age, experience, location, NCB, pass plus etc etc all have to be considered

It wouldnt be dirt cheap for a 17 year old (assuming they get their licence at 17) to run a car with an engine change regardless of the difference, i couldnt think of anyone worse

At least he appears to have his head screwed on the right way regarding engine changes and disregarding them for now

 

[Eklipze3k]

:yeahthat:
Also, given how many people have swapped from 899 to 1108 I'd say there are a lot of 899's around just ready to give up some spares to the cause

 

[MazCinq]

well ok yeah i agree that he has got his head screwed on i was just going off the quote i just got for the gt conversion on my cinq

punto turbo was going to be 1600+
cinq with GT lump and cage 1300ish

and before you say, i have no NCB and 3 points and live in newcastle with is high risk and its parked on the street lol

the one bit of advise i can give is look into everything and do your research before doing anything and yeah as for spares i am sure there are alot of guys on here with spares for the 899

hmmmmmm has a mad thought................899 turbo......:devil:

 

[MidlandsFarmer]

insurance wise i couldn't see a prob 899 group1, 1108 sporting group3 so still dirt cheap

just looked and no insurance company will insure a 17 year old with a non standard engine in a cinquecento unfortunately, so standard engine it is

 

[ycming]

With £40/week .... am not sure you will get this car into a useable state .....

Are you willing to use the full £40/week on it ?

I'll see what i got for the 899 .... i'll sned it for free to ya if you cover the postage.

Do you have a list of things you neeD?

Ming