Lemon Lupo - DOA?

[2MB]

20 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

Oh, nice - I missed this thread earlier in the week.

My mother bought an identical one new in 2000; I only ever drove it a handful of times (usually whenever my Datsun had eaten a wheel bearing or some such) but I also found the clutch very odd - a high bite point, and oddly wooden.

The only problem I recall it having was that the steering lock would occasionally kick in on roundabouts, making it impossible to steer the bloody thing off the roundabout until it was forcibly released. I think it had a new steering column fitted under warranty.

She got £1000 trade-in allowance for it against a new Fiat 500 nine years later. It had 11,000 miles on the clock at that stage, had been dealer services all the way through and really was like new. The guy in the Fiat dealership said it was too good for the forecourt, and he was going to take it himself and give it to his daughter as her first car.

About 18 months later I saw it parked up in the University Quarter in Belfast - both bumpers were cracked, there were dents all over it and the interior looked like it'd been used for a mud-wrestling tournament. It also had a 'Powered by Fairy Dust' sticker on the tailgate.

I didn't tell my mother.

Still, for £150, I think you've done alright - hope the pulley bolt issue gets sorted without too much hassle!

Can’t think of a better car to drive round and round a roundabout than a yellow lupo

[bunglebus]

Despite it being colder than a witches tit, there's no wet stuff falling out of the sky, so it was cambelt take two

1/4 inch rather than 6mm hex saw the rounded bolts removed, ground some replacements down to the required 20mm length on my Fisher Price My First Bench Grinder

Two rotations and everything lines up, nothing went bang when I started it so I'll call that job done.

Happy mrs bunglebus!

[chompy_snake]

Hopefully you changed the water pump at the same time (doesn't look like you did in the picture). They are prone to failure because reasons I guess. 

These are cracking little cars, I really enjoy my 1.0 and it's unstoppable in the snow it seems. 

[bunglebus]

I didn't but no signs of leakage. To be honest the cambelt isn't a hard or expensive job and it won't be doing many miles, especially now driving lessons are restricted to essential journeys and no doubt yet another test will be cancelled while we're in lockdown. If it fails I'll change it.

Hopefully the keyring I ordered will cheer her up

 

[Isaac Hunt]

The Diamonds in the lemon are worth more than the car, proper job.

[chompy_snake]

Check the price on a good Lupo these days, I reckon nostalgia is pushing prices north 🤷🏻‍♂️ 

To get one under 80k and in a reasonable condition with valve guides and exhaust valves intact is getting tough under £1000 these days. 

Odd because 2 years ago they were panda pops money.

[doug]

Yes prices sure to rocket now we traded in daughter no2 lupo for £500.

Sent from my SM-J330FN using Tapatalk

[bunglebus]

10 hours ago, Isaac Hunt said:

The Diamonds in the lemon are worth more than the car, proper job.

It came from wish.com, I don't think they're real diamonds

[bunglebus]

Doing duty as an car, picking up our new cooker

And with a yellow friend

during the journey the exhaust started blowing, sounds quite good but I suppose I'd better fix it

[chompy_snake]

If it is the middle section or the rear silencer thats blowing, my spares car still has reasonable ones on it I just can't be bothered to take them off it. Not sure if it will be the same system as its a 1.0mpi  AUC car 

[bunglebus]

Yep same as ours. Sounds like the rear box but I've not crawled underneath yet

[chompy_snake]

If I recall correctly this one has a Bosal rear and centre section and it didn't blow when I parked it before tearing it to bits. 

The only issues would be removing it and getting it to you with current situation from chesterfield. Would be a shame to throw it out when the shell is disposed of if someone can make use of it.

I am in no rush to dispose of it so it isn't going anywhere for a while yet. And it is the best price of FREE for a fellow Lupo botherer 👍

[bunglebus]

Brilliant cheers. I'll look into costs of stock replacements or maybe a cheeky cherry bomb if it's a straight bit of pipe

[bunglebus]

EML came back on the other day, coupled with a slight hesitation/misfire. Fearing the worst, got a code reader plugged in - which suggested an EGR fault. This is in some ways good news, as the EGR is leaking coolant anyway so was on my list of bits to replace

I will fit a new thermostat (doesn't get past abot 75/80 degrees) and temp sensor (reading drops to zero intermittantly) at the same time as I'll be disturbing the cooling system anyway.

Interestingly while we had the bonnet open, a tell-tale TICK coupled with a brief engine miss  reveals that the sparks are escaping somewhere too, so new leads and a coil pack have also been ordered.

Still haven't looked at the exhaust...

[chompy_snake]

I didn't actually realise these egr units had a coolant jacket on them. Embarrassing as I have removed and refitted mine while doing the head repair. I guess the coolant feed is through the water jacket in the head to the egr?? 

Something for you to check out while in that area is the brake booster hose. They have a tendancy to rub through and leak badly, also tend to cause a random misfire. 

I do know that the egr if faulty will cause misfire and they are well documented doing this.

[bunglebus]

Cheers. I did actually check the servo function as the brakes feel about as effective as the ones on my BMX. Probably just cheap pads so they'll get upgraded once they're worn out. 

[chompy_snake]

The brakes are a little like playdoh feel wise. They are comedic size wise and solid discs so I would imagine a low quality pad would feel awful.

I will be upgrading mine to ebc grooved discs and matching performance pads for a better bite and feel as the current toss fades so fast if you ask even a modicum of speedy braking of them haha. 

Your BMX possibly has better stopping power 😄

[chompy_snake]

Just had a dig in the shed and I have a spare EGR that was removed from a car in fully working order .

If you want it I can post it out to you if you like?

No signs of leakage and didn't show faults on the car it was removed from.

[bunglebus]

That's very decent of you - I've ordered a pattern one but if it doesn't work I'll take you up on that

[spartacus]

Smoll cars like this look great in yellow, I like a 'fixing up' thread too!

[bunglebus]

Finally a day with decent weather, so I didn't have any excuses to avoid spanner twirling. 

Coil pack, leads (yellow of course), EGR, thermostat and temp sensor DONE. Only took an hour too

Don't think the thermostat is meant to do this?

Temp gauge now gets to 90 and stays there, no misfire either. EML still on, if it doesn't clear itself I'll disconnect the battery for a few hours

[chompy_snake]

Out of curiosity what is your idle speed? Just want a comparison to mine as I think it may be a tad low on my car again (probably the replacement used coil pack failing I think ..... again)

[bunglebus]

On 3/19/2021 at 9:13 PM, chompy_snake said:

Out of curiosity what is your idle speed?

Just at the petrol station hence the light on

[bunglebus]

Doing a bit of tinkering today and remembered I had an illuminated badge in stock - too big for the Passat but perfect for this

 

[Datsuncog]

Snazzy. Does it get brighter with the brake lights, or does it just look like that cos of low light levels in the final pic?

[bunglebus]

It's wired into the brake circuit, I didn't realise the whole thing lit up, thought it was just the edges. Last pic  was a night time snap. 

[bunglebus]

Oh dear. Went out this morning and after about 10 mins the temp shot right up and brought the warning light on, didn't seem especially hot under the bonnet and the fan didn't come on. Do these have the stupid plastic impeller on the water pump?

*just checked, coolant is returning to the reservoir fine but the rad hoses aren't getting hot. Suspect brand new thermostat is FUBAR 🙄

[bunglebus]

I r confused. Put another new 'stat in the Lupo. Checked the temp after literally a few minutes and it was at 90 which I don't believe. I then sat watching the gauge, a couple of times it dropped fast to zero, or 70, before going back to 90. Squeezing the hoses saw it climb to 110 and stay there. Bottom hose is warm for the first few inches near the engine, top hose is cold and heated hoses are hot. There seems to be coolant returning to the reservoir. What is wrong with it?

[mhrallye]

hi - when you changed the thermostat did you also change the housing it fits in to? from my memory i think the centre pin from the thermostat pushes into a cross piece in the centre of the pipe - trouble is through time it pushes completely through - this might cause the wierdness with the temperatures. worth a look - think it might be a good idea to change the whole coolant housing on the end of the cylinder head.

Also the water pump - i noticed  you said you hadn't changed it at timing belt time - at our branch (i work for vw) when we used to see a lot of these we always did the water pump - in fact we would refuse to do a belt job because you could bet the pump would fail within a matter of weeks...don't think they liked getting disturbed! hope this helps!

[bunglebus]

Having convinced myself the problem was the water pump, I took it all apart...

and the old pump is a replacement with the metal impeller, so it's not that. Bollocks