New start new Coop?

Hi all,

It's been 9 years since I posted on here but It's great to see the community is still strong and the forum is doing well! This post will hopefully serve as a diary of getting back into a coop which has been under my nose for years but had forgotten about.

Very short back story:-

2006 bought Yellow 20vt from guy at work, engine was damaged and needed replacing got a nearly new engine from Rog at Poweritalia, had a great time with the car, kept it standard but made it reliable as things broke on it and went on a few road trips and at least one meet up at the grasshopper inn with the south east coop community with my dad, I kept the car until 2010 when I had to sell, new baby and job that required a 100 mile round commute with liftshare passengers so the coop had to go. Rog bought it and broke it for parts, a sad day indeed.....

...Fast forward to this week, I had been always keeping an eye on the diminishing amount of coop's on the road and wondering if my chances of getting back in one was going to happen when I remembered a mutual friend from back in the day had bought a coop for his wife in around the year 2000. I got chatting with him and it turns out he still has it!

The converstation was brief but suddently the pieces fell into place in my head, this could be the coop that I could actually buy now that my son is a car lover at the age of 9 my wife always missed my old coop, I now am in the position to buy one so I decided to ask him a bit more about it today. It was hard to hear because it was the end of my sons sports day and the plan is for me to view it next week.

These are the very limited facts I know so far:-

1997 20VT portofino blue
He purchased it at 3 years old circa 2000
All jobs done recently were coolant hose of death and full cambelt change
Garaged for all it's life but not been driven for the last 2 years just kept ticking over started now and then.
The only issue he said being that the alternator is behaving erratically and intermittantly charges.

Told you the facts were limited! He hasn't put it up for sale but if I make an offer I would be able to secure it.

I will be checking everything in the buyers guide and going in with my eyes open this time, I need to be relistic about what I should be offering him if there are jobs to be done especially with it sitting in the garage.

I will update the thread as soon as I know more, he has promised to send me a photo which I will put up as soon as I get it, and based on that the plan will be to view next week.

Thanks for listening!

Austin

Welcome back. I remember you from your name :-)
I am just a lurker now but I think I will one day own another Coupe, just can't justify going back up to 4 cars.
Good luck with the purchase!

Some lurk indeed

Welcome back, although you will find it a lot quieter than those days. 2010 was when you sold up, same year I bought my present one, which is now undergoing serious restoration to give it a healthy and MOT-worthy future for a start....and a certain visual spruce-up to boot.

You can't go wrong with the buyers' guide, and it has to be said that corrosion issues are hitting 'em all, but if you have the will (and some dosh) then you'll be back in a coop soon and loving every minute!

Get some pics going please

@Mark_S Thanks mate, I just hope that this one pans out

@Edinburgh

The guy said he needed to take some stuff out of the garage before he took any photos's so hopefully a photo or two at the weekend

Just out of interest, is changing an alternator a pig on these cars? It was the one thing I never had to change on my previous one

With A/C or without A/C? If you have A/C you need to move the A/C compressor out of the way so that you can reach the alternator. You need a "sawn-off allen key" to undo the belt tensioner, and removal of the water cooler pipe under the alternator can be a real pain (restricted access) but otherwise not too bad, there's a How To somewhere I think? Aha, here

Edit: Oh, the How To says to drain the A/C refrigerant, but there's no need, the compressor can be swung out of the way, have a read here instead

Cheers DaveG, Now I remember why I loved this forum, so much friendly advice!

I am yet to find out anymore details as to whether it's an air-con model yet, in a way i'm hoping it's not now

Austin

......Well that was over before it began, It was originally his wife's car and she doesn't want to sell it now even though it's sitting in the garage gathering dust

Oh well back to the drawing board

I guess your offer wasn't high enough?

No it's not mine,

just first one I saw on t' interweb today.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classi...;make=FIAT&sort=sponsored&page=1

I guess I am trying to say - you clearly like coops. And they are out there.

Have a word with one of the specialists (Think Rog of Power Italia is now a BMW devotee- but may still do coupe work) on here- they usually know where good cars are.

There must be something nice you can pick up!

Regards and good luck with the search.

MM

Hi there,

I can confirm that Roger (and Daryll) does still do work on coupes, I was there today for an interim service, MOT and a new Auxillary belt, oh and an A/C regas which saw temperatures of 5.2deg C at the vents!

I was talking to Roger about how often he see's coupes these days and he said he still has a collection of regulars and doesn't go a week without seeing one. So he might be able to put you in touch with someone who would be willing to sell one.

My old gal 20yrs old with 164k on the clock passed with no advisories which means I am forced to keep it for another year!

Thank you,
Dan

@DaveG It didn't even get as far as an offers unfortunately!

@Master_Mariner That looks like a pretty good example, I will be enquiring!

@danb052k Rog used to look after mine and he did a bit of work on my BMW as well, very trustworthy guy, I'm drop him a line cheers.

You could do worse than look at what has just arrived in the for sale section, hard to get better history than that. Failing that there is similar priced one on Fleabay with 51k.
Neither anything to do with me!
I spent about 4mths looking to come back into coop ownership before I found mine.

***UPDATE***

I have secured and will be going to buy tomorrow (subject to everything being as described)................. a 1998 Unmodified Broom Yellow 20v N/A with Aircon and Leather interior! and the all Important Red Key

Owned by a family for 11 years and garaged overnight, Recent Cambelt and Clutch change. I spoke with the owner over the phone and went through a lot of questions which were all answered, Mechanically it sounds good, the problems which were mentioned being: Lacquer starting to peel on the rear bumper, indicator not self cancelling, air con needs a re-gas. MOT history looks good (no mention of corrosion in adversaries)

The Price £900.

It's a 200 mile round trip but hopefully worth it.

I wasn't fussed about getting a turbo as I have already had one and would just like to pootle about with a nice standard car the 20v noise, I can do little jobs on it and I still have Power Italia down the road for the bigger ones! I'm also happy it's yellow as I had yellow previously.

I will update and maybe start a thread with new pics if it all goes through, wish me luck!

Excellent news ...looking forward to reading about it when you get it back ... just a quick one about rust .. when I bought mine it had nothing noted on the (fairly recent) MOT about rust and I had given it a look over underneath but only really looked at the sills... not knowing much about coupes at the time I assumed it to be 'rust free' at that point .... but I ended up having to have a over a grands worth of underside restoration almost straight away. The fact this one has been garaged for 11 years is a great sign that you most likely wont have to worry about rust problems but it pays to check. Most of my issues were evident in the boot... id looked in the boot but not pulled up the linings on the wheel arches... had I done that i'd have clearly been able to see the road under the car through the holes! check out the front and rear subframes, the sills, the arches on the rear, the boot area and the area where the rear shocks mount to the car... have a look at the pics of mine for examples of where you should be looking: https://www.facebook.com/pg/fiatcou...d=1521007501327424&ref=page_internal

Hi Williamsdad,

Thanks for your advice, it was on my mind to check for rust as much as possible, some of your pictures are scary! I wonder why they didn't pick it up on the MOT?

This the one on Ebay? at Cirencester? looks ok, bit of rust around the arches, free leaves in rear footwell!

That's it, hopefully not to bad but it's a project to sort stuff out at weekends

Congratulations & all that soon to be Coop owner Nine hundred smackers does not sound a lot, but you're not going to come across the problems that we turbo drivers have..... Hope you don't find too much tin worm especially up in the towers. You really have to get right under & up there to see what's going on.

Are you handy with the spanners? & will you be tackling the jobs or just some? Hope you have an easy ride.....

So I'm back after 300 mile round trip and am the proud owner of a Yellow 20V! It was a long drive with the M25 being it's usual slow self, finally arrived just outside Cirencester at midday,

the coop was parked up so I had a chance to have a look before I met the owner and went for a test drive.

It drove brilliantly on the 130 miles back through b roads a roads motorway, I loved every minute of it! The engine noise the willingness of the engine to pull smoothly. Obviously not as rapid as the turbo I had before but very linear and lovely sound makes you want to drop a gear to hear the engine howl

The good:-

The engine, started on the button was very smooth while I was waiting for it to warm up then once warm pulled well with a lovely 5 cyl sound (god I've missed that sound)
The cambelt and clutch done in the last 3000 miles
Everything works inside, lights, blower, windows, wing mirrors in all directions.
Tyres are good.
Leather seats in good condition with minimal wear on drivers bolster
Good oil pressure
Good temperatures on water and oil

The Bad:-
There is laquer peel on the rear bumper, I can see some rust in the rear arches which will need to be dealt
a small dent in the door some other odd bits of discolouration around the paintwork.
The interior centre console is sticky and looks like it's been rubbed down with something to get the rubber off in places.

That's all I can think of now as I'm a bit tired from the over excitement of today but I will be thoroughly checking for rust in other places. As Williams dad above pointed out he had lots of rust even though the not have him a clean bill of health.

The plan is tackle as much as I can myself but help from a friend who has a scrapping business with a two post lift and poweritalia for servicing.

All in all I enjoyed driving an N/A much more than I thought I would and it's a good compromise.

I'm 41 but feel like I've jumped back 12 years to when I had my other coop.

Some pictures my wife took as I arrived home are below

That's brilliant. I'm envious. The five pot sound is lovely.
Get an angle grinder and flap wheel/ sanding disk to attack the rust back to bare metal then paint it.
I drove from Hereford to Tenby today and the cars on the road are sooo mundane compared to the Coupe.
Keep us posted on your work.

Great result!

I know what you mean about the "12 years younger" bit......mind you some of us need that more than others

Have fun with the fettling..

Brilliant news that you have found another - and yellow at that!

Everything you mention is well tackable-in stages. Have a good look all over for the rust first....obviously a service in due course as a welcome home present to your new car!

Regards

Thanks all!

I did another 160 mile round trip to see our friends for a bar-b-que in the coop yesterday, pleased to say it didn't miss a beat.

It's clear to see in certain lights that the Yellow has faded over the whole car except for the bumpers, also I found that there was a tiny bit of black electrical tape hiding an airbag warning light! I sent a message to the owner who had been honest up to this point asking about it and it was something her husband had done because he'd replaced the clock spring in the steering wheel and didn't have the facility to reset the air bag at his garage, so covered it up and forgot about it! (It passed a subsequent MOT like this in January) So i'll be looking to get this done once we come back from our holiday next week, followed by a inspection of any hidden rust.

Cheers!