Fiat Uno getting ready for summer - passed the MOT and idling problems gone

Local vocational school was a neat find to do some repairs to this little Fiat! Although it took a couple of weeks but the cost was very low and I actually left with a feeling that they really did the job properly. So what was done? The main thing was to solve the emissions problem. It was easily noticeable that something was not right because of quite large amounts of exhaust smoke. After checking the cylinder pressures (they were ok) the culprit was found to be incorrect ignition timing which was checked with a stroboscope. Correct ignition timing also solved those idling problems.

Students in vocational school took the Uno in a yearly inspection for me (same price that I would have paid) and it got passed, so there's over a year of time to do some (hopefully) joyful riding.

Old battery was a bit shady and impossible to mount properly in place. So a new battery manufactured by a polish company called Zap was installed. It is this Silver one.

Fiat Uno - new Zap 53ah battery installed.

Fiat actually recommended to use 30ah batteries with this kind of Uno (EDIT: this information was from the Haynes manual, original Battery capacity at least here is 45ah), but it is appropriate to use a bit stronger battery here where the winters are really cold and the summers, well, not so cold.

While taking picture of a battery I checked the engine oil level which was like that:

Fiat Uno oil dipstick

So the oil level is a bit low. Sadly, I forgot what the oil level was in the last month when I checked it. But there's now a bit of a suspicion that this Fire engine is consuming oil. I'll add it up and check it regularly from now on.

It's been still quite winterish here but it was time to do some leisure-driving with Uno. It is working well for now.

Solving idling problems Part 2

Well, the final diagnosis was that one of the spark plug was broken and shot current to fuel ignition which couldn't return fuel as it should. The reasons for these was that I assembled the fuel return part wrongly and because the car's previous owner had tightened the spark plugs way too tight and therefore one had a crack.
So there was extra fuel on ignition which caught an unfortunate spark from the spark plug. I had previously tried to check the plugs but they were too tight to open. Mechanic told me that he used one meter-length extension arm to loosen the plugs.
Faulty spark plug was the main reason for a twitchy ride. I also replaced the broken vacuum advance unit.

Fiat Uno vacuum advance unit. New one on the right...

But after all this, Fiat still experienced idling problems. The culprit seems to be sometimes working idle control unit. Problem is now evaded by adjusting the idle speed a bit higher than normal. That's done by limiting the movement area of the ignition end of the throttle cable. New replacement idle control unit costs about 100 euros and there are plans to replace it as well.

But after these little experiences this Fiat Uno is working actually quite well! Here's the pic where you can see the current state of the car. Well, it's been washed after this picture was taken.

Fiat Uno 1.1. i.e. S

Fiat Uno idling problems solved in a quite dramatic way part 1

It was time to look a bit more spesifically what might have caused the idling problems and occasional twitching during driving. After removing the air filter box on top of the engine the single point injection is easily accessible. This feels a bit like an old carburetor actually. I've noticed that injection unit was dirty from here and there and decided to clean it a bit.

Fiat Uno Bosch Spi

 It was quite easy to take off. The hardest part was actually to remove the ignition wire. Here's another pic of ignition system:

Bosch Single-point-injection disassembled

The fuel return part I actually didn't manage to open at first. After I continued this operation on a another day it had disassembled itself by the spring that's inside of it. (Above pic that's already removed.) I didn't saw what was the original order of the parts on a fuel return thing so I had to put them by what I thought in a most logical way. Here I made a mistake but we'll get on that later.

After assembling all the parts back and putting ignition unit back in place it was time to try how it works. Well not good. Car didn't start but instead it caught fire. It's a pretty uncanny feeling when you notice the flames coming from the engine compartment. The fire was below the air filter box and I tried to extinguish it by snow (it's pretty snowy here in north at this time of year) but it was real hard. The firemen came and extinguished it absolutely in a proper way, this was an act of assurance because the car was located at that time on a first floor in a building full of people.

That fire was quite a bit of a surprise but after examining the car it didn't cause much damage. Part of the air filter box was melted away and air filter got really dirty. I inhaled a bit of fire gases and felt a bit unwell because of that. Well it was time to take this car to auto repair shop to see what went wrong.