Fiat Coupe Forum
- Founded by Kayjey & James Northam
- Funded by the Club for the benefit of all owners
Fiat Coupe Club UK
join the club
Fiat Coupe Forum
 
» Announced
    Posting images


» Related sites
    Main club site
    fiatcoupe.net


» External data
    owners listed
 
Who's Online Now
3 registered members (ExCoupe, szkom, barchetta_ms), 343 guests, and 3 spiders.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Forum Statistics
Forums69
Topics113,543
Posts1,340,442
Members1,785
Most Online731
Jan 14th, 2020
Top Posters(All Time)
barnacle 33,522
stan 32,122
Theresa 23,296
PeteP 21,482
bockers 21,070
JimO 17,917
Nigel 17,366
Edinburgh 16,662
RSS Feeds
Club Events
Club Information
Track Events
Rolling Road/RWYB
Social Events
Non-UK Events
Coupé Related Chat
Coupé Spotting
Coupé News/Press
Buying/Selling Advice
Insuring a Coupé
Basic FAQ's
How to Guides
Forum Issues
Technical Problems
General Maintenance
Styling
Tuning
Handling
ICE and Alarm
Coupés for Sale
Coupés Wanted
Parts for Sale
Parts Wanted
Group Buys
Business Forum
Other Vehicles for Sale/Wanted
Other Items for Sale/Wanted
Haggling/Offers
Ebay links
Other Cars
Other Websites
General Chat
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Willis: 1995 FIAT Coupe 16V Turbo Project... #1027921
28/04/2010 13:20
28/04/2010 13:20

F
FLD_WILLIS
Unregistered
FLD_WILLIS
Unregistered
F



Hello,

I've been on the forum here for about three months now so I thought it was about time I started a bit of a project thread.

I did have a 2001 FIAT Seicento Sporting that I'd built into a Hillclimb/Trackday weapon over the space of a year, but having only one seat and a rollcage made it less than ideal for carting the missus around in. I wanted to stick with FIAT and wanted something bigger but didn't want the usual Punto that every other young lad drives. I put the Seicento up on Pistonheads and recieved an email a few days later from a lad called Julian (I think he's on here somewhere) offering to swap me one of his three Coupe's for my Little Beast. The Coupe 16V Turbo had covered only 55,000Miles with the last 316 of these taking two years to tot up, it had began life as a 2.0 16V but had been subject to a 16V Turbo engine conversion by Motormech around six years ago. I jumped at the chance and here we are today...

Old ''Little Beast'' Seicento;

click to enlarge

New ''Francesca'' Coupe 16V Turbo;

click to enlarge

Current Spec. for the Coupe is as follows;

Engine;

K&N Filter
NGK Race Plugs
Evolution Cars EVO Chip
NXS Manual Boost Controller
Longlife Custom Stainless Decat System

Chassis;

Eibach Pro -30mm Springs
Sparco Adjustable Front Upper Strut Brace
17x7.5 RSW Custom Gunmetal 5 Spoke Wheels
205/40/R17 Yoko' Parada Spec 2 Tyres Coming Soon
Black Diamond 12 Groove Discs & Predator Pads Coming Soon

At the start of March she went off to local old boy Tony Selby (62 years young, absolute genius, doctor of engineering) to have a major service and some nice new belts. It was the first chance I'd had to get her up on a ramp and have a proper poke around too since picking her up. Obviously a fifteen year old car is never going to be in ''perfect'' condition unless it's been owned by Chris Evans, but we were pleasantly surprised with the lack of rot and blemishes. We did notice that there was some surface rust on the rear subframe as well as on the slam panel and front chassis legs, which has now actually been treated and sprayed by myself... It's just abit of a quick fix for now to stop the rot developing any further, but the summer will see some more in-depth work go into this.

Mechanically, the car felt fine to drive although there was some unwanted noise coming from the rear end. This turned out to be the fault of two fully shot Rear Bearings. It seems I'd been lucky up in the Lakes over Valentine's Weekend as the N/S bearing had become very stiff and the O/S side was drier than Ghandi's flip-flops. Both CV Boots had slight cracks too but weren't leaking too badly. I always thought the Brakes could do with more bite and on inspection we found that all four Discs are slightly corroded and all four sets of Pads have suffered some abuse and could do with changing.... Oh and she'd developed a problem with starting, in that she didn't. So, she hadn't been looked after quite as well as I'd been told by the previous owner.

Over the previous few weeks, the Clutch had been getting closer and closer to the carpet too so we decided to order a new one... This didn't exactly go to plan. We ordered a 16V Turbo Clutch, which was too big for the Flywheel, strange. What we needed was a 16V NA Clutch. It seems that the Flywheel had been swapped at some point to that of a 16V NA, either that or the Coupe is still running it's original Gearbox setup. The only worry I have is that my car is significantly more powerful than a standard NA but after looking into the Clutch specs., we should be ok as long as I don't go too mad... Problem solved. That was until we got her back on the floor and realised that the Clutch Master Cylinder had died too, a part of the Pushrod that acts to return the pedal had snapped. Typically, FIAT don't sell this part seperately, so a complete new Master Cylinder was ordered.

So, work carried out so far;

New Clutch
New Oil Filter
New CV Boot x 2
New Starter Motor
New Clutch Master Cylinder
Motul INUGEL Expert Coolant
New Rear Hubs & Bearings x 2
Millers Oils SSX 10W40 Semi-Synthetic Engine Oil
Millers Oils CRX 75W140 NT Fully-Synthetic Gearbox Oil
New Cambelt, Auxillary Belts, Balance Shaft Belts & All Tensioners


Basically, we changed anything that could develop into a bigger, more expenisve problem and left the smaller problems for later in the summer once I've saved up a bit. The money I had earmarked for Pads, Discs & Tyres went on other various bits but hopefully I'll be getting that little lot sorted by the end of May. I'm enjoying Coupe ownership at the moment and I'm hoping to bring the car up to as good a condition as possible by refreshing everything underneath and giving the body lots of love and maybe even a respray at some point.

A few concerns I do have however is that the Oil Cooler & Intercooler are not bracketed to the car at all and are being held in place by their pipes... Also, the Fan is being held to the radiator by just one bolt and two Cable Ties. This is a recent discovery and so far my quick fix Cable Ties are doing the job. However I will be rectifying this properly soon...

Re: Willis: 1995 FIAT Coupe 16V Turbo Project... [Re: ] #1029691
02/05/2010 14:49
02/05/2010 14:49

F
FLD_WILLIS
Unregistered
FLD_WILLIS
Unregistered
F



Along came Wednesday and my fiancee's (Caroline) first visit to the ante-natal unit... But no, we have a poorly Coupe, again. So the 10 week appointment is now two weeks late, needless to say this is of course my fault thanks to what I like to call ''Womens Logic''.

The problem is Clutch related. Again. I depressed the Clutch and when I let my foot off, the pedal stayed in the carpet. A bit of investigation pointed to either a burst hose somewhere or a failure of the Slave Cylinder as there was a small pool of fluid on the driveway and the gearbox casing was wet too.

So Francesca has gone back to Tony Selby to think about what she's doing to my bank balance and have yet another part of the Clutch system replaced... She'll be like a new car by the end of the summer!!! smile


Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.1
(Release build 20190129)
PHP: 7.3.33 Page Time: 0.016s Queries: 15 (0.005s) Memory: 0.7485 MB (Peak: 0.8085 MB) Data Comp: Off Server Time: 2024-03-29 10:36:13 UTC