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.

Fiat Uno fuel filter, wiper motor and other minor things

I've done some minor maintenance with Fiat Uno. Like I mentioned last time, there are problems with idling which I decided to start tackling with changing the fuel filter. It is easily changed after depressurising fuel system by taking out fuel pump relay behind the ignition coil (look at the pic below), or fuel pump fuse which is located in the same place (right one on the pic) and then running the engine until it has run out of gas.

Fiat uno fuel-related relays and fuses. Also showing ignition coil on the right

Fuel filter in Fiat uno is located on the other side of the engine compartment and is easily replaceable. Shown here the new one installed and old one installed no more.

After noticing that air intake to cabin is full of old leaves and dirt I decided that proper thing to do would be to clean it. After all Uno's never had any cabin air filters. Here are the view before cleaning:

Old vacuum cleaner was quite handy here

having removed windscreen wiper and plastics beneath it, the wiper motor was also easily accessible:

Fiat Uno wiper motor

It didn't look like a 20-year old so the guess is that it's been replaced. Also note that clever piece of plastic which is tilted upwards on above picture. It's function is to protect the wiper motor. Anyways I still got the feeling that this construction as a whole in Fiat Uno below the windscreen is not really very water-resistant. Well the wiper motor was ok and it was time to assemble the parts back.

After a test drive the idling problem was still there, so we are moving to our next guesses, those being mainly the ignition coil and vacuum advance unit (attached to distributor). I've also been trying to take out the lambda sensor with no luck yet, it's really stuck on exhaust manifold! Someone has forgotten the copper paste...

Fiat Uno - Rattles in the back

I've decided to write this post in english.
While doing a little test drive with Fiat Uno we noticed rattling noise from the rear right. It was constant while on the move and was not dependent on the surface. After buying the car and driving it to its new home there were quite a lot of different kinds of rattling, mostly coming from the summer-wheels (yes, it's snowy here in the north) bouncing on the boot and on the backseat. After all they are as big as 13"

Well anyways. Shock absorbers felt like working ok when pressing on the corners and everything seemed to be ok on the surface. Taking the right rear wheel out was really much harder than it should have been. I didn't have a proper wrench with a bolt size of 17mm and was forced to use span-length (for our finnish readers, span is "vaaksa") stub-wrench, and the bolts were quite rusty. After taking the bolts off, wheel still sat tight and I had to kick it from under the car to get it off. Are these even the right size of rims?

After taking the wheel off the view was like that:

Fiat Uno right rear shock absorber

Moist in the shock abrsorber is wd-40 water-displacing spray that I used to get the view of connection. (Never actually thought before that wd-40 is a Nasdaq listed company with a market-cap of 831,411,989 USD as of 31. january 2013)

Different view here. Fiat Uno right rear trailing arm on the front, spring on the left, brake drum on the right and fuel hose on the up.

I had a suspicion that the part making the noise could be the upper attachment on the shock absorbers. Still I decided to took shock absorber off and noticed that it was famous Thailand-made KYB. My guess is that it is not the original Fiat Uno shock absorber so we may probably conclude that they have been changed at least once during this Uno's life of 20 years..

Fiat Uno KYB shock absorber

The shock absorber was tested to be fine. I did the test by keeping it on vertical position and fully contracting and extending it several times. It went smooth. After reinstalling the shock absorber I made sure to tighten the upper attachment firmly. It is attached with two nuts and they are easy to operate in a roomy boot (well had to turn backseat a bit, but anyway).

Fiat Uno boot and right rear suspension attachment point.

So then it was time for a test drive and for our delight the rattle was gone. Also gone was idling but we'll leave it for later.

Fiat Uno -kokemus Mission Statement

Hyvä lukija, olen ostanut Fiat Unon.

Miten tähän on tultu? Miksi ostaa kaksikymmentä vuotta vanha Fiat, joita ei nyt ainakaan erityisemmin tunneta kestävyydestään oikeastaan missään suhteessa?
Lyhyesti, Unossa on tunnetta ja luonnetta.
Tämähän on täysin subjektiivinen mielipide ja suurin osa Unoa omistaneista ihmisistä lienee pitänyt ja pitää sitä ensisijaisesti kätevänä välineenä siirtyä paikasta toiseen. Yleensäkin Unon yksinkertaisuuden vuoksi se tuskin koskaan on ollut kenellekään minkäänlainen status-symboli. Tässä vaiheessa tietenkin kuuluu muistuttaa että näkyyhän siinä Unossa Giugiaron kädenjälki, mutta siihenpä se sitten taitaa jäädäkin.

Sinänsä on hyvin mielenkiintoista että euroopassa aikanaan hyvin yleinen auto, jota varsin moni meistä on omistanut, ajanut, tai ainakin nähnyt jokapäiväisessä elämässään (ja täten omannut jonkinlaisen implisiittisen suhteen ja mielipiteen Unoihin), alkaa olemaan jo varsin harvinainen näky liikenteessä. Autojen kohdalla tämä taitaa usein mennä niin että mitä yleisempi ja "tavallisempi" malli on kyseessä, sen nopeammin se painuu historian hämäriin. Erikoisemmat mallit ja merkit jäävät elämään huomattavasti pidemmäksi aikaa ja painuvat paremmin myös (ainakin autoista kiinnostuneiden) ihmisten mieliin vaikka niiden kokonaismäärät liikennekäytössä ovat olleet murto-osia suosituimmista malleista. Toisaalta Unon kyseessä ollessa astetta erikoisemmaksi malliksi voi varmaan laskea jo Tiponkin... Itse asiassa nopeasti ajateltuna poikkeuksen tekee tietysti kaikkien edelleen tuntema kuplavolkkari.

No mutta fokusoidutaanpa taas tämän blogin aiheeseen. Poikkeavana ominaisuutena blogissa lienee se että olen määrittänyt tälle sekä alun että lopun. Tällä hetkellä olet alun lopussa. Varsinainen loppu on ajoitettu syyskuulle 2013, johon saakka seurataan Unon kunnostusta ja käyttöä. Toki on mahdollista että blogi tyssää jopa tätä aiemmin, todennäköisimpinä syinä kiinnostuksen lopahtaminen blogin pitämiseen, Unoon tai Unon totaalinen leviäminen. Katsotaan miten käy, luotto on, tuota noin,
ainakin olemassa.