I have a 109,000mile, 1995 Fiat Tipo 1.4 ie, I bought for 50 quid. I've had it for a month so far and have fixed several problems so far with help from existing postings on the forum.

Problem: Some suspension/steering component makes a squeaking noise when turning left or right. Does not squeak when travelling straight ahead. Power steering belt is tight and looks okay. Any suggestions?

Just for info: the engine mounts are a bit shot - the car jumps out of third gear when jolted or when turning right - so I'll be changing them soon. Or could it be something else?

Less important problem: I have a tapping noise from the engine at tickover. It sounds like tappet noise but what's wierd is that the tapping is intermittant and only occurs when the engine reaches normal operating temperature. I hoped an engine flush would do the trick but there was no change after flushing. I was under then impression that hydraulic tappets were used but I'm now pretty sure that the engine doesn't use hydrulic tappets. Any ideas?

And here's a list of problems the forum has helped me fix. Thanks chaps:

Fixed: Windscreen judder before return wipe when on intermittant, flick or wash/wipe modes - fixed by cleaning out the control box attached to the wiper's gearbox.

Fixed: Kangerooing/stalling when warm - throttle body potentiometer had worn tracks and the throttle position resistance readings were all over the place - I'm amazed that the mono jetronic ECU could make sense of the readings.

Fixed: Engine never warmed up - temperature guage never reached above 50 deg C! Replaced thermostat and all is well.

Squeaking is most likely the rubber bushes - not a major problem, might be worth just living with it!

The bit about it popping out of 3rd is unlikely to be the engine mounts, more likely the gear selector linkage needs lubricating - it's a common problem with Tipos.

Hellraiser..........>

Gearbox jumping out of gear may be due to damag to the gearbox: gear linkage, or some other internal failure. If its not the linkage, its probably not to expensive to get a refurbed 'box instead of having it diagnosed and fixed. I would however change the engine and gearbox mounts, as the rubber has probably been distroyed (for a car you bought for 50 quid, its probably quite old).

Squeeking around a corner, could be a wheel baring starting to fail, this happend to me when I'm going round a slight corner, but I can't be bothered to fix it since the cars so old. It may be a rear wheel rather than a front wheel...

Tapping sound could be worn tappets, I'm sure somebody here will be able to tell you how to check their condition.

Thanks Alex and Hellraiser, good advice. I'll replace the mounts - the whole engine moves left or right when you move the gear lever around!. The linkages felt pretty tight but I'll grease them up. Hopefully there isn't a gearbox problem but the scrap yard has a Tipo being broken for spares, so I'll make an offer for the gearbox.

If the squeak gets more annoying (it does seem to turn heads ) I'll look in to the mounting bushes...

Cheers!

dunkv said:

Fixed: Kangerooing/stalling when warm - throttle body potentiometer had worn tracks and the throttle position resistance readings were all over the place - I'm amazed that the mono jetronic ECU could make sense of the readings.

Click to expand...

This is a problem many of us have.
Could you please help us by telling us about the procedure?

The Porter manual I am hosting on my server at http://ziggy.tky.hut.fi/ebooks/porter/ does not really talk about the subject.

So like what did you do with the pot? (smoke it? )
Serioisly tho.. did you clean the contacts or was it possible to replace it or what?

I for one am dying for info on this subject!

Malex, I did quite a bit of research on the forum and on the Net and bought a engine management book too.

The mono-jetronic engine management system used in my Tipo 1.4 ie is very similar to the mono-motronic engine management system. The difference is that jetronic does not have the integrated electronic ignition module that motronic has. The book I bought covered the mono-motronic system in detail.

I went through a process of elimination until I got to the decision that the throttle position potentiometer was faulty. The electronic management system works out the throttle position by a resistance reading based on how far the throttle has been opened.

There are actually two resistance tracks: one gives values from 0 degs to 24 degs throttle opening, and the other from 18 degs to 90 degs. Notice that there is an overlap.

There is a four wire connector that plugs into the side of the the throttle body opposite the throttle linkage, one wire provides a reference 5V DC from the ECU, another provides a common ground, the two remaining wires are for the two resistance tracks.

When the throttle valve is completely closed the resistance should be 600 ohms on both tracks. As the throttle opens to about 1/4 open the resistance of one of the tracks should rise SMOOTHLY to 3500 ohms. The other track should stay at 600 ohms. From 1/4 open to fully open, the track that was at 3500 ohms should stay at 3500 ohms, and the other track should rise SMOOTHLY from 600 ohms to 6600 ohms.

You'll find that there is a small motor on the throttle body (it's used by the engine managment computer to alter idle speed, to stop the throttle snapping shut, and also to prepare the throttle position for the next engine start when the engine is shut off).

Unfortunately this motor typically prevents the throttle valve from closing completely, so you'll probably never see the 600 ohms from the track that deals with the first 1/4 opening of the throttle so you'll get a slightly higher initial reading e.g 800 ohms, however the important bit is that the resistance SMOOTHLY increases as the throttle opens.

In my case the resistance was all over the place. As the throttle valve opened, I'd get resistance readings like: 900, 200, 700, 3500, 200, 600. So even though I was gently opening the throttle the engine management computer was thinking I was actually pumping my foot up and down eratically on the throttle!!! It just the same as dust in the volume control of a HiFi - crackle crackle...

Actually the computer is clever than that and probably realised that the throttle was faulty and tried to guess the correct values by averaging. However this kind of help gets you home but isn't great if you keep driving the car in this state.

I don't know if this information will help you. One thing that I did notice was that when my car was going into the stalling state, that small motor I talked about earlier went crazy on my car. It would attempt to open and close the the throttle at a frequency in excess of 10 times per second. It made a rather noticeable ticky-tick-tick-ticky-tick-tick noise, you could even hear it in the car! The motor can't open the throttle more than a little way, so most of the time the throttle was open further than it could influence.

In summary, if you hear the ticky-tick-ticky tick noise. Try watching the motor at the side of the throttle body and rev a warm engine from within the engine bay. Once the engine gets that silly I gonna stall mess, try and keep the engine going by reving as required, and watch to see the motor go mad. If it does, take off the air cleaner, disconnect the throttle potentiometer plug at the left hand side of the thottle body, get a multimeter that can measure resistance and check for the resistances as described. Check for smooth resistance changes as you move the throttle about and make sure you check both tracks.

Now the bad news. You are not supposed to take the throttle potentiometer off the throttle body. I didn't even try. Instead a went for a replacement throttle body. I checked for prices - a brand new one from Fiat would cost 300 UK pounds. I went to my local scrap yard and got mine for 30 pounds.

Good luck - and any questions just ask.

Malex, a thought. Since I have the throttle body I replaced, I could always see if I could dismantle the potentiometer on that, clean it and then reassemble. I could then recheck the smoothness of operation and whether I get the correct resistance results. I'll probably use an electrical contact cleaner to do the cleaning.

MInd you, I'm not going to hook it up to my car though! I don't want to disturb things now it's stopped kangerooing!

Feedback in the new year...

Thanks a million for the info!

*RESPECT*

Squeaking can be due to warped / worn discs rubbing on the calipers.