Resurrection Project

[richardkhill]

Been registered for a couple of years and only posted once, so still deserve the 'Newbie' tag

My son has owned a 56 plate 1.4 8v punto for 3 years, but it's been sat on the drive (SORN) for 2 years whilst he did university. Anyway, the Son has decided he wants to use the car this year, so I've got the challenge of bringing it back to life

The 1st bit of good news was when it fired up 1st time without so much as a hiccup! The brakes were very rusty, but I still managed to get it moving

The plan includes new disks & pads all round, brake fluid change, engine oil & filter change, spark plugs & air filter, gearbox oil change and anything else I come across.

Should I be thinking about Timing & Auxilary belts too?

Only really got weekends free, so will probably take a few weeks before it's MOT ready.

I'll keep you all updated as things progress

 

[varesecrazy]

Hi


Yes will want the belts changing

You probably want to align the sensor inputs once done.. or will flash engine light at high revs

Charlie

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I agree with Charlie, it would be wise to renew the timing belt and it's daft not to do the aux belt at the same time. Personally I'd be doing the water pump too as it's part of the timing drive train and especially as it's been sitting idle for all that time. This will also be an ideal time to renew the coolant as you're more than half way there when you take the pump out.

A careful check of the steel water pipe that runs along the front of the block behind the exhaust manifold would be wise too as they are prone to corrosion and if it's original it could be on a "Shoogly Peg".

One really good thing is that I believe as it's a 2006 8 valve engine it should be non interference? Our 1.2 Panda engines are until they fitted the VVT pulley to the cam, so if you get things "horribly wrong" I don't believe the pistons and valves should get too "friendly". My boy's 2012 1.4 8 valve VVT Punto Easy definitely is interference though.

Good luck with all the recommissioning, I hope it all goes smoothly and gives you an enjoyable time.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

PS. Just in case you don't know, the realignment of sensors Charlie speaks of is the relationship between the cam and crank angle sensors. The ECU will have learnt the relative angular relationship between these two and after fitting a new belt, for a variety of reasons we could discuss at some time, this relationship might be changed slightly.

Typically it manifests itself as the management light showing itself, usually around 3,000 rpm and above. So if you've just been driving gently around town after changing it without any problems and then suddenly, maybe a couple of weeks later take a trip in the country and suddenly there's the light! You have no clue to what it is so you get it scanned and it comes up "intermittent miss fire" or something similar. Many people have reported this scenario and wasted lots of cash buying coils, HT leads, Plugs, etc trying to "cure" it. The problem is that the ECU interprets this slight miss alignment of the sensors as a miss fire DTC and stores it as such. What you actually need to do is a "Phonic Wheel Relearn" - our Fiat main dealer tells me they automatically do this procedure whenever doing a timing belt on the 8 valve engines (I think it's only the 8 valve engines which are affected?) - I think you'll need either the dealer diagnostic tool or Multiecuscan to do this. If the light doesn't illuminate at higher revs, and many don't so our local indy tells me, then the relationship between the sensors hasn't changed enough with the new belt to "worry" the ECU and if you just leave it alone it will "self adapt" to any slight change as time goes by. - The system "self learns" anyway as part of normal running to take account of the slight changes as the belt and pulleys wear normally - It just doesn't like larger variations and has to be told to stop worrying and accept them as the new norm.

A real "give away", by way of "seat of the pants diagnostics" is that, although the ECU reports a miss fire DTC when interrogated, If you've been paying attention to how the car is driving you'll have noticed none of the typical "jerks" of a miss fire and the car will be driving as normal.