The ongoing journey of Spartacus’ 1988 Fiat Panda

[MJK 24]

Very pleasing levels of illumination!

[Matty]

1 hour ago, wesacosa said:

hmm so seems like all 3 bulbs to illuminate binnacle and heater had blown 

That's a view that takes me back

[Zelandeth]

Interesting.  On the 1993 one we had the heater controls and all the switchgear were lit from a single lamp via fibre optics.

Still love that dash design.

Panda is one of those cars I would absolutely love to own.  I did many miles in the one my folks had.

Sadly no room at the inn presently as I'd definitely be colouring myself interested if/when it came up for sale otherwise.

In good tune a 999cc FIRE engined Panda should be pretty peppy in performance terms, though obviously needs to be revved what feels like to the moon compared to most cars of the time to get the most out of it.  Ours obviously benefited from being injected, but it would absolutely happily cruise (albeit noisily) well in excess of the motorway speed limit no bother at all.

[wesacosa]

this one has a single type 286 bulb for the heater control Illumination and two type 286s for the instrument binnacle immunination

[wesacosa]

Really odd FTP at the weekend. Drove down to the Southern meet up.  About 40 miles mostly motorway. Car drove really well, none of the rough idle/cutting out and happy to sit at 70 and not run out of steam at 50-60 so looking like the vac hose was to blame

When I came to leave a few hours later the car started up but was running really rough under load and misfiring. 

Took the dizzy cap off and the graphite contact for the king lead has snapped off.  I have only done about 100 miles since I replaced the dizzy cap and rotor arm to see if it helped with the rough running I had previously seen. I put it down to a duff eBay part and got a lift back home to pick up the old dizzy cap I had saved .  This is where it goes a bit odd.  I put the old dizzy cap on and the exact same thing happened. The graphite tip snapped clean off. I wasn't rough with fitting it or anything like that. 

My first thought was have I the wrong rotor arm.  I posted on the Panda FB forum and someone noticed there are some gouges in the plastic by some of the HT lead twrmninals.  However this photo is of the original dizzy cap which never ran with the new rotor arm and has been on the car for an unknown amount of time but well before my ownership (and no mention of it being changed in any of the posts by @spartacus).   

So dizzy cap A and rotor arm A ran without issue for potentially a long time (although some gouges seen in the dizzy cap)

Cap B and Rotor arm B ran for about 100 miles before FTP. 

Cap A and rotor arm B , graphite tip snapped off during fitting of cap, never ran

All very odd

oh, and the fixed dashboard illumination lasted about 2 miles before it went out 🤔🤣

 

[wesacosa]

the new dizzy cap which only ever ran with the new rotor arm also shows the gouge marks around the HT lead terminals 

[steveo3002]

is the rotor arm a tight fit on the shaft? and any wobble on the shaft? 

[wesacosa]

29 minutes ago, steveo3002 said:

is the rotor arm a tight fit on the shaft? and any wobble on the shaft? 

it seemed a tight fit but will do a wobble check later too!

[wesacosa]

https://youtu.be/kOUV2p6u-uQ

small bit of rotational play but no vertical play.   The tip did flex a tiny bit if you pressed it. Old and new rotor arms similar but not identical 

 

[steveo3002]

see if you can get some decent brand name parts and see how it goes...id get cap n arm from same brand

[Back_For_More]

Have you checked for height.... Especially when on the shaft? (quiet at the back) 

If the new one was gouging then it seems it sits higher than. The original. 

Tipp-ex or chalk on the conductor tip and a quick turning over would show you too perhaps.... 

 

[wesacosa]

7 minutes ago, Back_For_More said:

Have you checked for height.... Especially when on the shaft? (quiet at the back) 

If the new one was gouging then it seems it sits higher than. The original. 

Tipp-ex or chalk on the conductor tip and a quick turning over would show you too perhaps.... 

 

the gouging is where the tip meets the 4 spark plug lead terminals so its more length than height.. The new one is a fraction longer but the old cap shows signs of gouging too and that only ran with the original rotor

[uk_senator]

What make was the cap & rotor? I only use genuine or Lucas (!) ignition in my lot, after numerous issues with CI & Intermotor shite.. I also change my cap & arm every other service, as they do tend to gouge no matter what make you use. 

[Zelandeth]

This definitely brings to mind the massive headache I had with the ignition system on Six Cylinder's Lancia Trevi.  It had always had a little bit of a miss, but this escalated one afternoon when it out of the blue lost all spark.  Thankfully about 50 yards from my driveway and at the top rather than bottom of the hill.

Found the coil to be dead.  Which immediately raised an eyebrow as that's not something I have generally had issues with unless they've rusted out or been killed by other factors.

We found a somewhat sickly ignition amplifier, but what caused a huge headache was the rotor arm.  The original spec item was an obsolete Bosch part, and it turned out that the third party items while *mostly* consistent among themselves all were made to different dimensions than the original, leading to there being the best part of a millimetre gap between the rotor tip and contact posts.  Obviously meaning the plug gap was effectively something daft like 2.5mm.

After no small amount of digging we did find someone who had a couple of NOS examples of the correct rotor arm in stock and grabbed them.  

I also had issues years back courtesy of Intermotor having the wrong rotor arm listed for one of my cars.  That ran absolutely perfectly for about a fortnight and probably north of 500 miles before we started to lose spark (and in an odd way which had me chasing my own tail for another non existent fault for well over a month).  

Is odd that the post could break off like that though.  I do wonder if the old cap just had it worn to the point that it bound up when you were fitting it, bad luck and coincidence rather than an obvious fault.

Would be worth having someone spin the engine over while watching the distributor shaft though to make sure there's not any undue movement going on when things are actually spinning.

[wesacosa]

2 hours ago, uk_senator said:

What make was the cap & rotor? I only use genuine or Lucas (!) ignition in my lot, after numerous issues with CI & Intermotor shite.. I also change my cap & arm every other service, as they do tend to gouge no matter what make you use. 

intermoto cap ( was Hobson's choice when I bought it) and NOS Motaquip arm. Not sure what make the original cap or arm were.  I have ordered Lucas cap and arm today 

[wesacosa]

2 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

This definitely brings to mind the massive headache I had with the ignition system on Six Cylinder's Lancia Trevi.  It had always had a little bit of a miss, but this escalated one afternoon when it out of the blue lost all spark.  Thankfully about 50 yards from my driveway and at the top rather than bottom of the hill.

Found the coil to be dead.  Which immediately raised an eyebrow as that's not something I have generally had issues with unless they've rusted out or been killed by other factors.

We found a somewhat sickly ignition amplifier, but what caused a huge headache was the rotor arm.  The original spec item was an obsolete Bosch part, and it turned out that the third party items while *mostly* consistent among themselves all were made to different dimensions than the original, leading to there being the best part of a millimetre gap between the rotor tip and contact posts.  Obviously meaning the plug gap was effectively something daft like 2.5mm.

After no small amount of digging we did find someone who had a couple of NOS examples of the correct rotor arm in stock and grabbed them.  

I also had issues years back courtesy of Intermotor having the wrong rotor arm listed for one of my cars.  That ran absolutely perfectly for about a fortnight and probably north of 500 miles before we started to lose spark (and in an odd way which had me chasing my own tail for another non existent fault for well over a month).  

Is odd that the post could break off like that though.  I do wonder if the old cap just had it worn to the point that it bound up when you were fitting it, bad luck and coincidence rather than an obvious fault.

Would be worth having someone spin the engine over while watching the distributor shaft though to make sure there's not any undue movement going on when things are actually spinning.

thanks. some good suggestions 

[Zelandeth]

This is how many rotor arms we went through getting a good one!

Here's the difference between a third party and the correct Bosch...

Not enough to spot with the naked eye, more than enough to cause problems.

[wesacosa]

to be honest I'm tempted to just clean up the old one and see how it goes. although no idea if thats the correct one or not

[wesacosa]

fitted a Lucas rotor arm and cap this morning.  The king lead contact looks a bit beefier on this one and the rotor arm a fraction smaller.  quick spin round the block and all seems to be back in order but will buy a spare of each just in case 

[Skut]

On 3/27/2023 at 9:12 AM, wesacosa said:

Really odd FTP at the weekend. Drove down to the Southern meet up.  About 40 miles mostly motorway. Car drove really well, none of the rough idle/cutting out and happy to sit at 70 and not run out of steam at 50-60 so looking like the vac hose was to blame

When I came to leave a few hours later the car started up but was running really rough under load and misfiring. 

Took the dizzy cap off and the graphite contact for the king lead has snapped off.  I have only done about 100 miles since I replaced the dizzy cap and rotor arm to see if it helped with the rough running I had previously seen. I put it down to a duff eBay part and got a lift back home to pick up the old dizzy cap I had saved .  This is where it goes a bit odd.  I put the old dizzy cap on and the exact same thing happened. The graphite tip snapped clean off. I wasn't rough with fitting it or anything like that. 

My first thought was have I the wrong rotor arm.  I posted on the Panda FB forum and someone noticed there are some gouges in the plastic by some of the HT lead twrmninals.  However this photo is of the original dizzy cap which never ran with the new rotor arm and has been on the car for an unknown amount of time but well before my ownership (and no mention of it being changed in any of the posts by @spartacus).   

So dizzy cap A and rotor arm A ran without issue for potentially a long time (although some gouges seen in the dizzy cap)

Cap B and Rotor arm B ran for about 100 miles before FTP. 

Cap A and rotor arm B , graphite tip snapped off during fitting of cap, never ran

All very odd

oh, and the fixed dashboard illumination lasted about 2 miles before it went out 🤔🤣

 

That happened to me more than once with my old Panda. Always on new distributor caps bought from Halfords after a long run. Once happened on the Isle of Mull which was helpful. Just crap parts I reckon. The Graphite contacts don't seem good enough quality to handle a long run and break off flush with the plastic. 

You can just pull the brush out as it's an interference fit spring underneath it and replace it with one from another cap. It's how I got mine running again on Mull after rooting through a garage scrap pile.

[wesacosa]

Only had time for a quick wash and polish before Bromley Pageant tomorrow due to other commitments taking up my free time.  only had a quick spin around the block in April since the breakdown at the Southern AS meetup.   Hopefully it will make it there and back this time.  Pop over and say hello if you are at Bromley tomorrow

 

[wesacosa]

phase 1 achieved 

[wesacosa]

at the Bromley Pageant in @spartacus Panda, @Mrs Spart

Its looking nice and shiny and getting some nice comments and a fair bit of interest

 

[rob88h]

[wesacosa]

its funny, when I took the Panda to the AS Southern meet it looked tiny but parked next to those Fiats and then your mini it looked gigantic!

[wesacosa]

Car made it to Bromley and back in one piece which was pleasing, however it was only 20 mins each way. Had a really good day and nice to see the Panda getting a fair bit of attention especially given just how many cars were at the show.   The dash illumination failed again though, so clearly something loose somewhere

also the flat spot that @spartacusmentioned earlier in the thread still isn't perfect despite being improved significantly. On the ignition side the only thing not looked at or changed as far as I can see is the points.  The Panda has a cassette type points setup which isn't easy to get to with a feeler gauge so the gap is set via an external allen key, so has to be done by dwell. I only have an old Gunson analogue multimeter of unknown provinence available. Hooked it up and seem to be getting around 70 percent dwell which is too high. However no idea if the meter is accurate.  might have to wait until the Estelle points are replaced and gapped and then see if the meter reads somewhere near for dwell on that 

 

 

[wesacosa]

just tested dwell with my newly arrived digital auto multimeter and its showing around 70 degrees versus 50-55 degrees specification so seems like that's probably not helping matters 

[wesacosa]

well would you believe it, 3rd MOT for me in the Panda and 3rd issue (well actually its the same issue as last year). Bloody gear linkage gone again. Luckily I was able to tape it up and limp home but going to miss my MOT slot. Its a different part of the linkage this time, I did renew everything but looks like one of the locking pins has either come loose or snapped.  Thankfully it did it just around the corner and not on the m25 where I was heading but still really frustrating.   With this and the ULEZ perhaps the universe is telling me it's time to pass on the baton on this to another member 

[grogee]

Did you manage to perma-fix the linkage and get another mot slot? Tis a lovely machine. 

[wesacosa]

1 hour ago, grogee said:

Did you manage to perma-fix the linkage and get another mot slot? Tis a lovely machine. 

I haven't taken a look yet.  Had some work to do on the Estelle yesterday, which is incidentally hogging my ramps at the moment and the Panda is better on ramps than axle stands. I did find my bag of gear linkage spare bushes and clips though so hopefully I have a replacement for whatever is broken