Turbo FIRE Engines

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Fiat Panda FAQ

Note: This FAQ is an ongoing process and is by no means near completion. In the future I intend to have separate FAQs for different engines.

Induction kit for a panda

A Fiat Uno induction kit (1 liter) will fit onto a panda, assuming that the panda engine is a FIRE one. Look on [www.needforspeed.co.uk], they sell an induction kit for an Uno and air filters for a Panda. A universal induction kit will be able to fit onto your car but I don't know how difficult this will be.

With K&N you have 2 options, you can buy a direct induction kit for a Fiat Uno, the other option is to buy a conical K&N filter, model "RC 2600", this filter would fit directly on to the intake pipe with an outside diameter of 70 mm.

Seats

The Panda's a good little car, but the front seats are sh1te! Go to the breakers and have a look. I presume the front seat fixings are the same in the Uno / Panda (anyone know for sure?), but what about the rear seats? It would be nice if they all matched. Don't know if you've sorted this already but any seats should fit so long as the actual size of the seat fits in the car (ie.. you couldn't put range rover seats in a mini) it should just depend on the position of the subframe (which can be changed or modified if it doesn't fit).

Note: If the seat is too wide you'll have a hard time engaging reverse gear.

I've got a panda

It had been standing under trees in 6 inches of water for gaiters split. I used it for the first 6 months with an engine that 2years and it had a broken windscreen. The brakes were all seized up and the rubber missed coughed, the revs changed as they felt like it, till I found the fault slack and wobbly and vacuum advance split. drives lovely . it was the post in the points now ,once it warms up but the choke has to be played about with in and out . had 4 thermostats in 18 months as they are rubbish. It starts instantly in any weather but I have to fiddle with the choke till it warms ,then in, then out and so on, maybe a slug of cold water . It wants the choke in after 10 seconds then it wants it out after 30 when the stat opens ?? apart from that it is a friendly little car now. My Panda running has overheated regularly so I'll add a new thermostat to my (when it's ever1000 CL but I replaced mine with an electronic one from a 4x4 and -growing list of jobs. I don't know if the distributor and coil are the same as the old 1989 is very much better have sticky linkages on your carburetor. I sprayed the carb body and . I renewed my clutch cable as it was a little sticky - perhaps you might linkages with brake cleaner to get rid of the gunk and just sprayed with WD afterwards. Working the gas (sorry, accelerator) pedal and choke knob freed -40 things wonderfully would be extremely upset to part with it - like me it's been through hell and ! Glad you like the Panda - I've had mine from new (13 years) and back, although it's currently immobile with a busted gearboxsteve@yensen.co.uk) 1989 Fiat Panda 1000CL "Rustwagen" Electronic . Steve (I'm also on Distributor Metamec copper brake pipes Currently immobile with a knackered gearbox Replacement 5-speed 'box and new QH clutch in garage ready to fit and is likely to remain there for some time yet due to my EXTREME LAZINESS wet out there - okay, so I'm a wimp) ...

Thanks for the reply, I have replaced Alternator, Distributor, all brakes, exhaust and any bits I find at scrap yards that are newer than mine. next will be water pump and I will fit a new timing belt. it is the best car to work on I have had as there are no complicated electronics and computer Gismos. when (if) the rain and snow ends I'm looking forward to pottering about with it. it needs new tires but I cant find any at scrap yards. I wonder which cars have the same wheels or even tires ,I'm not sure what size tires will fit the rims. I've been filling all the nooks and crannies with oil and coating underneath with tar.

What wheel sizes will fit my Panda?

13" tires

135/70R13 (standard on the 750)

145/70R13 (standard on the 4X4)

155/70R13

155/65R13 (standard on 1000S)

165/65R13

175/55R13

185/55R13 (may require arch mods)

14" tires

135/65R14

155/65R14

165/55R14

175/55R14 (may require arch mods)

15"tires

135/65R15

155/55R15

165/55R15

175/45R15 (may require arch mods)

Note: There are cars known to use 16"+ tires but custom work is required and it begins to cause engine issues due to the large rolling radius (not to mention MOT problems)

Wipers

The intermittent function on this Panda has ceased. There is a faint click from somewhere behind the fascia when the switch is operated but that's all. Continuous wipe is OK.

The manual is not much help apart from indicating that the function controller is situated on the fuse panel. I cannot see whether this is plug-in unit or whether the whole panel has to be changed. The self parking problem is usually an internal problem with the wiper motor - there's a track inside that has a break in it where the wiper should stop. The track's either damaged or not making contact. The intermittent wipe function is controlled by a plug-in unit on the fusebox. If you look under the parcel shelf by the pedals you should be able to see the fusebox. The intermittent unit is on the right hand side. Replacing this unit may solve the problem.

Brakes

My experience with the brakes is that they are OK when working properly. The sliding caliper set-up corrodes up. Gives you half the braking effect for the effort, and wears out the (very expensive) hub bearings. If the inner pads are worn more than outer things are sticking. An hour or twos effort dismantling, cleaning, and reassembling with "copper ease" or similar on the bits which need to slide helps. You also need all the surface area of the disk: My CLX had disks which were badly rusted in from the edges. 30 UKP got me a pair of new disks and a set of "pagid" brand pads from a motor factor ( APE in Erdington, Birmingham ). They were not too difficult to replace, once I'd worked out which bolt to undo which wasn't mentioned in the manual . The brakes are nice now, and don't come as much of a worry after driving with a servo. But I do wind the window the wrong way ;-) I believe it is possible to fit a servo from a donor (Panda4x4/Uno), but is more work than I'd consider. Your enthusiasm and skill may well exceed mine :) Also while you're at it, check that there is no air or water in the brake fluid. Get the brakes bled if you're not sure. I've found that with a small amount of any kind of impurity you don't always have a spongy pedal but brake efficiency goes right down! Also check the pistons aren't sticking. This usually results in pulling to one side during braking, but not always ... Also again (and this is the last one honest) check that your disks are not too thin even if not corroded, as they will get hotter quicker and the pads will not bed in properly. A glaze will build up, again reducing brake efficiency!

John H, I'm glad you found which bolts to undo - but in my experience they are an absolute PIG to undo. They were so tight that I actually bent my 3-foot breaker bar. You need a lot of grunt and muscle power - I'm 6 foot 4 and 14 stone and even I found it difficult. Don't we all wind the window the wrong way? Or is this a reference to something I'm not aware of? ;)

Noises over bumps

Knocking noise on cornering/over some bumps

I've managed to get rid of the above noises, and improve the stability by replacing the rear shocks: look like the originals, no leaks, but lacking damping. The knocks were clapped bushes: metal to metal under sudden movement - Knock

Rear wiper

First post here, and a bit of a newbie. So be nice please. I've recently bought a Panda 750L, and was wondering if I could fit a rear wash/wipe to it, the holes seem to be there, but the wiring loom (about 8 wires) don't seem to have any adapters to fit a rear wiper. Has anyone tried to fit one, and what should I look out for? Before you start - as standard the rear wiper either runs all the time, which is irritating and noisy, or for as long you "wash", or off... I'm not too familiar with the spec. of the 750 But there are 5 cables shown in the 8 way connector for a "fully fitted" Panda. Shown on that connector are blue/yellow and brown/white cables going to power the rear wiper motor ( in addition to an earth ). Assuming the wires are in the loom, you still have a number of things to sort out, before you consider getting a wiper motor:

missing tube for the wash through the car back to the tank under the bonnet[?]

missing pump [?]

missing switch [?]

missing washer nozzle [?]

You might be able to be cheeky and tee the pipe into the existing front wash, after the pump, and wash both at the same time [:0] But the routing through the car won't be that easy to do, but possible if you're determined to do it If the wiring is in the loom, the blue/yellow goes to the wash/wiper switch, which is in a cluster of 4 buttons at the left hand end of the Speedo assembly. The brown/white goes to the front wiper motor and tees onto a pink. TBH I don't use mine that much, but I suppose I'd miss it if it wasn't there. I'd miss the HRW more ;) John H

Bigger brakes

3G: grooved discs only.

Black Diamond: grooved, drilled & grooved, just drilled. (this discs are all in black)

Brembo: grooved (Brembo Max), drilled (Brembo Sports).

Red Dot: drilled & slotted, 2 kinds of grooved discs (different patterns).

From what I've been told these discs are not bad, and together with some good pads (green stuff ones are excellent!) they should make any panda to brake MUCH better. All this discs are 240 mm diameter!! I think that they will only fit Fiat PANDA 1.1 & 1.1 4WD from 93 to 95. Other Pandas should have to upgrade to 1.1 calipers, if these are different, or just the caliper support, but I don't know the difference between the two so...

Note: To install bigger discs the caliper supports have to be fabricated and bigger calipers installed, if I was going that far I would definitely install the brake master cylinder, servo and calipers off an Uno/Punto and maybe place rear discs as well. (Reason being the stock master cylinder simply sucks, even with a servo and bigger discs just ask anyone with a Selecta!!)

Better brakes

I've been looking after two Pandas for a while now, and have finally got to the bottom of why the braking effort required is so different between the two (neither of which have a servo). The one I use as my daily driver had some "Pagid" pads and new disks fitted when I got it, and it stops quite well: you don't need to do your Bruce Lee impressions to stop it, and you can lock the fronts up on a dry surface if push comes to shove.  But the other one (which my daughter crashed the other day, because it wouldn't stop...) has never had the same feel to the brakes, despite lots of cleaning of the sliding bits, and lots of "copper ease" on reassembly. Today (having got it all straightened, and glued back together again) I thought I'd have another go at the brakes on the daughters Panda and replaced the FIAT pads with some BOSCH ones 9.99 from A.P.E. in Erdington - cheaper than Halfords own brand), I had wanted the Pagid ones so I could compare like with like, but they were out of stock. Anyway, having got them somewhere near bedded in I reckon the braking effort is now broadly similar between the two. a lot better than it was :D Moral to the story, if you want to stop a Panda (or have a handbrake that works on a Cinq, from what I gather in the other bits of this forum) you need something grippier than FIAT standard parts. I understand Pagid is German as of course Bosch is - I think they know about the need to stop

CLX cutting out

I'm about at my wits end with this one at the moment, perhaps I'll get the better of it when I catch up on my sleep again (won't be on the bamboo spikes though :) ) Anyway, here are the symptoms: Sometimes cuts out at tick-over when fully warmed up, but not hot enough for the fan to operate. (usually at a set of lights with lots of traffic behind Generally a third to half of the way down a tank from full. ( the filler cap isn't totally plugging the tank ) Will restart after cranking for anything between 10 and 30 seconds. There is no spark when it won't fire up, and I've seem the spark return under cranking on the one occasion it died when I got home and had time to put a spare plug in one of the leads before it started working again. I suppose the fuel level might be a red herring, and the coil might be getting too hot and failing.. but it's a nasty little thing with a custom molded 4 pin connector on it. When I have the opportunity to play again, without being in the middle of three lanes of traffic into Bristol street in a thunder storm (tonight) with irate taxi driver up my exhaust pipe, I'll see if I can check the coil. It may be the Hall effect device in the distributor. If it would stay broken I could (probably) sort it out. The other more worrying possibility is the ECU shutting the show down because of a problem I'm not aware of. Oh, for a set of points

Well, the cry of "Oh, for a set of points ! " wasn't far off the mark. Managed to get it to misbehave at home, and got the scope on the coil primary waveform (via a thin piece of wire pushed into the socket, then remade the connector). I'm surprised it ran at all: no regular switching. Anyway, as it's Sunday and everywhere is shut I took the electronic distributor to bits. The module which does the business has 5 small terminals on it - 2 in one connector for the Hall-effect device, and the other 3 are power, earth, and coil in another connector. Cleaned all the gunk out, wet and dried the pins, cleaned up the earth lead which is screwed to the distributor body (also the earth for the heatsink/case which is a separate metal strip held down by a screw and the heatsink/case). Applied some "petroleum jelly" to the pins to keep the moisture and corrosion out, and reassembled it all. Nice waveform on the scope now, and it's going much better too. It is so different that the tick-over was too fast - and only came good on resetting the ECU. It remains to be seen if the cutting out has stopped.

Update The messing with the distributor didn't sort it completely. Ended up with another distributor (from a Y10). It's been over a week now, and not cut out. Fingers crossed. P.S. the ignition on this version is essentially separate from the ECU - it does what it does like a set of points - the only ECU involvement is a feed to know engine speed. r Yes, but... if your car manufacturer has gone down the Catalyser route to meet exhaust emission regs. from 1993, (which I think they all did) the ECU needs information about engine speed ( and exhaust gasses, and inlet temperature, and coolant temperature, and throttle position, and (optionally) vacuum in inlet manifold, and probably something else I've forgotten ;) ). However, it causes a smile to watch the throttle depress itself in readiness for a cold start :) and the electronic distributor is a good thing to put on an old Panda, as it stays in adjustment, and you don't need to replace the points (at huge cost), but I'm not sure if there's one which fits the 903 engine ;) Anyway, the choice of engine management was made by SWMBO, it's just my job to keep it going.. B) Regards

Lights won't flash

Wonder if you guys can help me please? Until a few days ago, I could flash my lights, but now, it's packed-up and I don't know what I need to repair or replace. I know the bulbs are fine because when I push the stalk down they come on, but when I pull it towards me, they won't flash ;) Is it one of the relays near the fuses? The green Haynes book hasn't been helpful, btw. Thanks, My interpretation of Haynes is that there's a pair of light blue / yellow wires off the ignition switch which are the +12 for the headlamps. The switched supply goes via the lightswitch, becomes green /yellow which goes to the dip/main selection. The flash supply stays light blue / yellow and goes via a connector block under the speedo area into the same dip/main flash switch. The output from this switch goes via fuse 5 or 6 depending on which lamp it goes to, regardless of it being flash or main beam (same wire from switch, as shown in Haynes). Looks like either the connector under the speedo (un-pop the tray for access). Or the switch... I've had the same problem in the past, it was the dipswitch / flasher unit contacts that didn't meet when flashed. To test, remove the steering wheel and you can see if the contacts touch. I seem to remember putting a spot of solder on the contacts as a temporary repair, but you will probably need to replace the unit. By the looks of it, my Dad and I also reckon it's the switch. This is a complete unit unfortunately (all three stalks) and is 57.48 from Fiat [:0] So we're going to try our best and repair my current one.

Brake Lights

brake lights fine without the headlights on, with the headlights on the brake lights (and the rear lights) light up all the time! I've checked the earth bolt near the near side rear light, and all the lamp connections, but am completely puzzled...;)

definitely sounds earth related - you checked the earth for the headlights? As the brake light is fine until the headlights are on I would think that the headlights have the problem rather than the brake lights If you're _absolutely_ certain about the earth in the boot, check the one in the front which I think is on the inner wing, UK passenger side. (Lots of black wires - maybe a bolt, maybe Lucar (spade) connectors too.) It's a big bolt on mine - in an area which corrodes. You might find the headlights are getting their earth through the rears.. Come back with more details - particularly Trev-m's comment about other lights with brakes. Lift the bonnet and unplug the spades from the earthing block on the inside front wing (one at a time) then cleaning the part the spade clips on to. Use emery paper to shift corrosion, then replace the spade connector. Do this for all of them and see if that's cured it. I've had a few problems with mine, and that fixed it. Suggest problem with earth is at the back, in the light units themselves, if you are sure that the rear earth is OK. For some reason the tail light filaments cannot find earth so they are routing through the stop filaments as well. Remove all bulbs in the rear light units, clean up the bulb sockets and the spring links, unplug clean and refit the circuit board connections, then clean up the bases of the bulbs and swap them from side to side on refitting. This is also a good time to clean up the earth points under the bonnet as already mentioned. BTW after cleaning any connectors or earth points I usually smear some Vaseline on them to prevent further corrosion :)

Firing order for fire engines

If this is the FIRE type engine, the firing order is 1-3-4-2 and this will be found printed on the cylinder head casting, carb side. Examination of the distributor cap will show each outlet numbered to the required cylinder. (This assumes that the cam shaft is correctly set and not 180 deg about) Rgds,

How much can the gearbox take?

Well, I suppose the answer is - how long do you want it to last FWIW I understand the Lancia Y10 turbo used the same gearbox. It had 85 BHP Depending on the engine management, or not :-), it might be easier to drop in an 1108 or 1242 FIRE engine. Do something about the brakes if you do

I'll answer this myself about 150hp for a while. Believe it or not it's not the gearbox that failed on me but rather the differential. It does seem to groan a bit more with the extra power applied especially when we step on it up steep hills. The case itself is also prone to cracking when constantly used to speed/power shifting.

Timming belt

The Timing belts are relatively easy. The only difficult part is getting the crankshaft bolt loose. 1)Remove alternator drive belt. 2)Remove timing belt cover. All 10mm bolts and some are hidden behind a plastic cover on the front of the engine. 3)Loosen the crankshaft bolt depending on the model of the car. If there are 3 bolts around the crankshaft bolt, remove those and not the crankshaft bolt. 4)Behind the cover you will see your timing belt. 5)Align the marks on the crank and cam shafts. The will be a line on a tooth of the camshaft, align this with the very top of the rocker box cover. ONLY TURN THE CRANKSHAFT AND NOT THE CAMSHAFT. 6)Use a bit of white paint or tippex to mark a tooth on the pulleys with a solid part of the engine. These are to make sure nothing moves when you remove the belt. 7)Slacken off the belt tensioner and slide the belt off the pulleys. 8)Put a mark on a tooth of the new belt and one on the old one. And lay them on top of each other so that the marks line up and go around the belt. If the lines do not line up (2 or 3 teeth away) it is the wrong belt. If they line up, it is the correct belt. 9)Refit the old belt, being very careful to try and not move the pulleys. Also make sure the slack in the belt is on the tensioner side of the engine and not the exhaust side. The belt should be pretty tight on the exhaust side of the engine. 10)Push the tensioner towards the belt to tighten the slack out if it and tighten the tensioner bolt. 11)Use a spanner to turn the engine over once and make sure your marks align once you have. If they have, the belt is on correctly. 12)To check the tension of the belt is correct. Put your finger and thumb on the belt and you should be able to twist it through 90 degrees at the longest point between two pulleys. Now just replace your timing belt cover and your lower fan belt pulley. Replace your fan belt. Start your engine, it should start fine. NOTE: IF YOUR ENGINE IS VERY HARD TO TURN OR STOPS WHEN YOU TURN IT BY HAND, DO NOT TURN IT ANY FURTHER. TURN IT BACK AND CHECK EVERYTHING AGAIN.

Note: Most of this information has been collected from Fiat Forum and from personal experience, there may be some that is relevant to other engines and cars. If anyone would like to help me with this FAQ please shoot me an email or find me on one of the forums :-).

I am still waiting for a response for a complete record of the Panda section from Fiat Forum so I can complete this FAQ offline. It's been seven months and still no answer. (Maybe it's not possible)

This was compiled from saved posts I had on my computer (text only saves), if you want credit for some info posted send me an email with a link to the original post and I'll be glad to place your name up.

Courtesy of:

Myself

Copyright Nelson 2004-2009, no part of this page can be used without the author's permission.
Last revised: 2009-11-15.