Italian Stallion: Kiltox’s 1982 Fiat Panda 30!

[tooSavvy]

On 20/11/2020 at 10:55, lesapandre said:

Legislation and crash survival as well as car seat and seat belt provision probably rules it out these days?

Have I read that the 'frontal/safety cell' steelwork in, say a C1, makes a large slice of the total weight/front weight bias..??  😕

[Dan_ZTT]

On 11/21/2020 at 10:42 AM, Dan302 said:

 

That is excellent

[Dan_ZTT]

On 11/21/2020 at 10:42 AM, Dan302 said:

 

That is excellent

[1duck]

[ProgRocker]

What a lovely lesser spotted Panda. Well bought @Kiltox

[bezzabsa]

owned a panda 750 for a while, paid £50 for it as an MOT fail...£20 patch of welding on the sill and flew through, cracking car to drive, piece of pee to park, and whether you drove it like a granny or like you stole it, it wouldnt drop below 45mpg...top speed was 65mph, as my commute took in the M5 and M42 twice a day..sold it to a young girl as her first car...and she promptly turned it into a banana with the help of a lamp post and lack of talent!!

[Kiltox]

Been stockpiling bits for this. Hopefully have a decent update fairly soon! Got some household DIY bullshit sucking up my free time at the moment though (that and working 6 days a week, joy.)

I have some service bits, mirrors and wheels 👀 

[Spottedlaurel]

Saw this the other day and thought of you and the Panda:

Wonder if you can get a 30 on three wheels?

[Kiltox]

Now has a OS mirror

 

I’ll worry about the rust later. 

Changed the air filter and ignition leads today too. Think it starts a little easier now - before it was very clearly firing one cylinder up before the other and I think that has definitely improved!  Must change the plugs too - they’re quite awkward though, socket I have doesn’t fit them due to how long they are. 

I bought a set of 4 steel wheels from Italian eBay a few months ago. Have put two of them in the boot of my MG so I can go and get a couple of tyres in the same size as the front axle. 155/80/13. Not sure if that’s right or not but the front tyres seem to have plenty of tread on them, aren’t too ancient and are in good condition. 

[TrabbieRonnie]

On 11/19/2020 at 11:31 AM, egg said:

An air cooled drag race between this, a 2CV/LNA/Visa/Dyane (preferably all of them) and a 'blue vehicle' would be better than Carwow...oh, and a Trabbie I suppose.

I'll bring the Trabbi!  26bhp of raw DDR power.

Brilliant buy btw Kiltox, well done that man!

[somewhatfoolish]

On 11/21/2020 at 7:48 AM, Timewaster said:

Not really. I'm pretty sure petrol requires a spark or flame to ignite, you could drip petrol onto a hot surface and it would just evaporate. 

Brake fluid however can ignite through heat alone. 

Petrol does have an auto-ignition temp(temp at which combustion occurs without a source of ignition), most flammable liquids do, it's just quite a bit higher than that of brake fluid.

This is proper shite. 13.71/10.

[Kiltox]

Do we reckon I’ll get a phone call asking if I’m sure I have the right tyre size for my vehicle?

[scdan4]

“Are you sure it’s not a half rubbed out 18 sir?”

[Skizzer]

On 12/6/2020 at 7:50 AM, Spottedlaurel said:

Saw this the other day and thought of you and the Panda:

Wonder if you can get a 30 on three wheels?

I don’t know what magazine that’s from but it’s shockingly poorly written and sub-edited.

Great to see some Panda progress though, can’t wait until it’s MOT’d and trotting about.

[hairnet]

1 hour ago, scdan4 said:

“Are you sure it’s not a half rubbed out 18 sir?”

he might rub one out when he sits in it

 

[Spottedlaurel]

51 minutes ago, Skizzer said:

I don’t know what magazine that’s from but it’s shockingly poorly written and sub-edited.

Popular Motoring, which wasn't exactly Car......

[spike60]

3 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Petrol does have an auto-ignition temp(temp at which combustion occurs without a source of ignition), most flammable liquids do, it's just quite a bit higher than that of brake fluid.

This is proper shite. 13.71/10.

Some years ago I had a Scimitar SE6a and I changed the carb on it, keeping it idling while I faffed about adjusting it. I gave it a test drive and noticed it smelt  of petrol, then pulled in when I noticed it REALLY  smelt of petrol. I opened the bonnet to see quite deep boiling petrol in top of the still running V6 engine with distributor in the middle......  😵.  

I switched it off, walked home and went back later with the original carb and refitted it at the roadside to drive home. My lucky day I reckon!

[Richard_FM]

3 hours ago, spike60 said:

Some years ago I had a Scimitar SE6a and I changed the carb on it, keeping it idling while I faffed about adjusting it. I gave it a test drive and noticed it smelt  of petrol, then pulled in when I noticed it REALLY  smelt of petrol. I opened the bonnet to see quite deep boiling petrol in top of the still running V6 engine with distributor in the middle......  😵.  

I switched it off, walked home and went back later with the original carb and refitted it at the roadside to drive home. My lucky day I reckon!

Especially as the fibreglass Reliant used burns very fast!  There are some scary photos online of a Reliant Regal which caught fire not long after being restored.  In only a few minutes there was little more than a smouldering chassis.

[Kiltox]

On 11/20/2020 at 9:25 AM, twosmoke300 said:

The fuel filter resting above the exhaust manifold is a nice touch

 

Do we think I need to replace the fuel hose to the carb to make it longer?

This one doesn’t seem to have the filter resting there, just a hose

https://www.mcgrathitalian.co.uk/browse/cars/fiat-panda-30/

[St.Jude]

On 12/4/2020 at 10:37 AM, tooSavvy said:

Have I read that the 'frontal/safety cell' steelwork in, say a C1, makes a large slice of the total weight/front weight bias..??  😕

Given that my 107 likes to swap ends on a roundabout in the wet, I can certainty agree with that. 

[spartacus]

19 minutes ago, sgtberbatov said:

Given that my 107 likes to swap ends on a roundabout in the wet, I can certainty agree with that. 

What tyres are you using, I could corner Mrs Sparts old C1 really hard and never had an issue?

[St.Jude]

8 minutes ago, spartacus said:

What tyres are you using, I could corner Mrs Sparts old C1 really hard and never had an issue?

A pair of Toyo's on the back, that'll be replaced with Falken EuroAll Season tyres. In fairness it's just one roundabout, and if you're going over 25mph off throttle the arse starts to slide out. 

So if I go to it at 25mph but the throttle on, there's no problem. The wife doesn't drive like that, took it at 30mph and ended up facing the wrong way on that roundabout. 

Great fun though!

[Zelandeth]

3 hours ago, Kiltox said:

Do we think I need to replace the fuel hose to the carb to make it longer?

This one doesn’t seem to have the filter resting there, just a hose

https://www.mcgrathitalian.co.uk/browse/cars/fiat-panda-30/

Given I've had failures from three inline fuel filters in the last couple of years I'd be inclined to alter the routing to put it somewhere more sensible. 

The join between the two bits of the casing split on one, the second one just turned to powder, and the third one didn't fail externally, the filter assembly failed internally.  Made me give in and just buy one of the glass and metal screen type ones in frustration.

Marine grade fuel hose is also your friend.  It'll quite happily sit resting against the exhaust manifold without breaking a sweat, though the ensuing vapour lock would probably alert you that something was amiss.  The heat and abrasion resistance properties of it are far better than normal automotive hose - plus chemically it's resistant to pretty much anything.

[Grumblespeed]

22 hours ago, Kiltox said:

I bought a set of 4 steel wheels from Italian eBay a few months ago. Have put two of them in the boot of my MG so I can go and get a couple of tyres in the same size as the front axle. 155/80/13. Not sure if that’s right or not but the front tyres seem to have plenty of tread on them, aren’t too ancient and are in good condition. 

Would have been 135/80/13 from the factory I think. Certainly on the later cars it was 135/80 or the option size was 155/65, cant see Fiat feeling it necessary to fit the wider tyres on a 30.

[Kiltox]

4 minutes ago, Grumblespeed said:

Would have been 135/80/13 from the factory I think. Certainly on the later cars it was 135/80 or the option size was 155/65, cant see Fiat feeling it necessary to fit the wider tyres on a 30.

Thanks! I don’t think any of the plethora of odd tyres I have are that size  although there might be a 155/65 knocking around. I’m still going to go with the 155/80s as the cheapest way of having 4 matching legal tyres for now I think. 

[Grumblespeed]

3 minutes ago, Kiltox said:

Thanks! I don’t think any of the plethora of odd tyres I have are that size  although there might be a 155/65 knocking around. I’m still going to go with the 155/80s as the cheapest way of having 4 matching legal tyres for now I think. 

Aye, they'll be close enough, just in case you were planning ahead for some sort of concours resto😉

[Kiltox]

6 minutes ago, Grumblespeed said:

Aye, they'll be close enough, just in case you were planning ahead for some sort of concours resto😉

Haha I don’t think it’ll be getting to the standard of that one McGrath are selling any time soon. Maybe if I spend £11,000 on it. 

[Kiltox]

 Is that the size from a space saver or something?

[Grumblespeed]

6 minutes ago, Kiltox said:

 Is that the size from a space saver or something?

Pirelli too! OE spec👍

 

[Kiltox]

What’s the whole “spare / temp tyre” thing all about though?