The ongoing journey of Spartacus’ 1988 Fiat Panda

[Marshall2810]

7 hours ago, wesacosa said:

thanks mate. Once I'm on the road its ok, its the thought of it in the lead up that stresses me.. It was the same with the XM in Feb too.  I think the problem is with the ulez I can't just drive them around when I like so tend to sit a while and then my first journey is a crucial one to the MOT station. My XM was my daily until last August and I never felt any nerves going anywhere in it but once I'm not driving it regularly post ulez the nerves start 

Id also done a load of work on the Panda the last few months and all of it untested other than a quick 100 meter run on private land*

Fantastic news on the pass wes, must be a big weight off. Just to echo @grogee I'm sorry your not feeling as good about taking your cars out. I think ULEZ just encourages people to be paranoid when going out. I don't live anywhere near a ulez but imagine it's like when I got caught speeding years back (36 in a 30 or something at 4am!) , makes you very paranoid whenever you go anywhere or at least it felt for me.

Onwards and upwards  

[wesacosa]

6 minutes ago, Marshall2810 said:

Fantastic new on the pass wes, must be a big weight off. Just to echo @grogeesaid im sorry your not feeling as good about taking your cars out. I think ULEZ just encourages people to be paranoid when going anywhere. I don't live anywhere near a ulez but imagine it's like when I got caught speeding years back (36 in a 30 or something at 4am!) , makes you very paranoid whenever you go anywhere or at least it felt for me.

Onwards and upwards  

cheers mate. I'm actually in the ulez zone itself so it's £12.50 to get off my street, so there's no incentive to just pop to the shops in it and build up confidence in small regular journies 

[Marshall2810]

It'd just make me want to hang on to them all longer until they're exempt. Why not treat yourself to a Visa in the meantime? and f@%k 'em!

[wesacosa]

45 minutes ago, Marshall2810 said:

It'd just make me want to hang on to them all longer until they're exempt. Why not treat yourself to a Visa in the meantime? and f@%k 'em!

Sadly the next exempt one is 2029 

I was tempted with the Visa but cant take another car on until at least two go, and even then its probably not what I need at the moment.

[Grumblespeed]

Great news on the pass Wes, no matter how much you put into the mechanicals it's always a relief when the testers hammer doesn't put any new holes in. Should make it much easier to move on too if it's still the plan. hope you get to enjoy it a bit first though.

[wesacosa]

5 minutes ago, Grumblespeed said:

Great news on the pass Wes, no matter how much you put into the mechanicals it's always a relief when the testers hammer doesn't put any new holes in. Should make it much easier to move on too if it's still the plan. hope you get to enjoy it a bit first though.

thanks Andrew. Yeah definitely is a relief. I'm ok with most of the mechanical bits all be it a bit slow but any welding would be a blow. Need to get the Vactan and underseal out asap though I think otherwise next MOT might not be so favourable 

It was good to get out in it again and to be fair it ran pretty well considering I've messed around with all the ignition and fuelling 🤣

I also remembered how uncomfortable the accelerator position is. I'm wondering if people modify the pedal as its so high? 

 

[Grumblespeed]

1 minute ago, wesacosa said:

I also remembered how uncomfortable the accelerator position is. I'm wondering if people modify the pedal as its so high? 

Weirdly still a thing on the Mk3 - Mrs hates driving mine because of the high throttle position. Reckon the Italians designed it for the ladies to drive in heels😉

[wesacosa]

Just now, Grumblespeed said:

Weirdly still a thing on the Mk3 - Mrs hates driving mine because of the high throttle position. Reckon the Italians designed it for the ladies to drive in heels😉

ha maybe. 

[Zelandeth]

It was a thing in the Cinquecento as well as I remember.  I ended up removing and bending the throttle pedal in my last Lada as well because that sat so high, so may well just be a Fiat thing.

Great news on the pass.  Always a huge weight off your shoulders when a car that's been sitting around and/or fighting you gets a fresh test.  Real shame about the ULEZ though, as the single best thing for it now is probably getting some miles under the wheels when there's no salt on the roads.

Should make it a lot more attractive a proposition for any potential new keeper with a ticket on as well I imagine. 

[wesacosa]

well today was supposed to be handover day but this week hasn't gone to plan

When I tried to take the Panda to the SE meet at flower farm in March I had to abandon as the front brake was seized on. I found a stuck caliper and wound it back and it freed off but started sticking when I ran it around the block.  Anyway I hadn't had a chance to fit the new calipers and discs I'd bought until this week . Things started to look a bit worrying when I took the flexi off the caliper as only a dribble of fluid came out whereas on the other side a more healthy leakage . Once back together I bled the drivers side through but the passenger side the pedal stayed hard with the bleed valve open. I was using a one man bleeder so I couldn't see how much fluid was coming through as I had to press the pedal 

I took the flex out the caliper and into a jar and pumped the pedal and nothing seemed to come out

The flexi on that side is considerably older looking than the drivers side so my first thought is that could be the likely culprit.  However the bastard thing is stuck. Even a little pressure with a proper brake spanner has just rounded the nut 

I'm still not one hundred percent convinced a collapsed or blocked flex could cut off all the fluid (a blocked metal pipe maybe)

I don't think it's the master cylinder as on the Panda it's not a diagonal front to rear split, the fronts are on the same MC port and the drivers side bleeds ok

Bloody cars

 

[Sigmund Fraud]

54 minutes ago, wesacosa said:

Even a little pressure with a proper brake spanner has just rounded the nut 

When brake spanners fail, it's time for mole grips - they have never failed me in situations like this.

[wesacosa]

2 minutes ago, Sigmund Fraud said:

When brake spanners fail, it's time for mole grips - they have never failed me in situations like this.

I did think about that but the worry was that the pipe twists with the union or fractures. I guess the pipes dead anyway but I don't have the tools put in a repair section on the pipe so would need to get a whole new pipe and the risk of busting the union in the master cylinder end too was weighing on my mind (especially being under time pressure)

[Sigmund Fraud]

I've been there (haven't we all ?) - some heat, then mole grips on both ends seem to give the best chance of not damaging the rigid pipe.

[RoverFolkUs]

Definitely sounds like a collapsed brake flexi, the pipe itself should be fine assuming you can get the union undone without twisting and breaking the pipe. 

Spray as much penetrating fluid into the union as you can, some atf if you have some handy, grip the Flexi with mole grips and another pair of grips on the union if a spanner is rounding, work it back and forth to try and break up the corrosion 

[wesacosa]

14 minutes ago, RoverFolkUs said:

Definitely sounds like a collapsed brake flexi, the pipe itself should be fine assuming you can get the union undone without twisting and breaking the pipe. 

Spray as much penetrating fluid into the union as you can, some atf if you have some handy, grip the Flexi with mole grips and another pair of grips on the union if a spanner is rounding, work it back and forth to try and break up the corrosion 

Would you expect it to completely block the flow though? 

[grogee]

1 minute ago, wesacosa said:

Would you expect it to completely block the flow though? 

Yes I had this once, I couldn't understand why I couldn't suck any fluid out of the nipple. Changed the flexi and it was fine

[wesacosa]

Just now, grogee said:

Yes I had this once, I couldn't understand why I couldn't suck any fluid out of the nipple. Changed the flexi and it was fine

Ta.  There is a set of flashy braided hoses @spartacusleft with the car but never fitted if I could get the bloody thing off. Although current plan is the new custodian is planning to come along on collection day with some pipe and bending/flaring kit and a repair section so if worse comes to worse we can cut the pipe off and then make a repair section 

WCPGW!

[RoverFolkUs]

2 hours ago, wesacosa said:

Would you expect it to completely block the flow though? 

Yep, it's rare but does happen

[wesacosa]

some good news and bad news

The bad news is the pipe/union is stuck solid. Tried all the suggestions above and its now now it just turns with the flex hose and spins around the pipe. 

The good news is that its now leaking between the union and the metal pipe. This is good news because when I press the brake pedal it's soft and fluid spurts out between the union and the pipe, which is good news because it pretty much confirms the flex hose is the culprit and if we can cut the pipe off and patch in a repair section and new end of pipe the replacement flex hose should hopefully fix the issue