Before I describe the current car, I must express my thanks to all who have posted extremely helpful information for those like me who who have a car that when you ask a mechanic or need parts you get the answer "what's one of those", "never heard of it" or "not listed in my catalog or computer". I confess I came across the board when researching for radiator hoses & this is where I found the part numbers I needed. So thanks again.
My car, as introduced, is an 81 2 liter, fuel injected, pretty much in original form & has done in the region of 150k miles. The body color is red & has the original paintwork, except for the trunk lid (boot as we say in England), which has been repainted following a supermarket incident involving the original owner. Unfortunately, time probably has taken its toll & you can just see the different paintwork. Otherwise bodywork is fine. Mechanically its possibly better than what you would expect on a 30 year old, 150k miler, the engine runs well & doesn't seem to use oil. The f.i. system seems to behave itself now, having had one or two new bits added. Had a hell of a scare when an injection hose split while driving, squirting fuel over the alternator - fortunately didn't catch fire. The cause was the regulator which had seized, resulting in high fuel pressure when decellerating or idling. In fact, when I bought the car, it was running rich on idle & the problem was not diagnosed by the so called bosch injection specialists - almost a year later the hose split. The only major area of concern I have is the transmission, which the previous owner had rebuilt & I have my doubts (judging from the comments in the cars file) that the shop didn't know too much about this fiat box & I suspected that they made the mistake of using EP oil - so the first thing done was to replace with ZC90. I only know too well about the transmission from experiences 30 years ago. Thats a separate story.
The car originally came from San Diego (CA) where it seems to have regularly commuted up & down Interstate 5. It was then bought by a Portugese fellow & he shipped it to Germany in the mid 90's. I bought it from him just over 4 years ago & it now lives in England. I was hoping to be able to spend time with it, but a major house renovation project got in the way, both time & cash wise. Having taken a pause from (re)construction work, I am now trying to catch up on a few bits & pieces with the car - replacing the water pump at the moment & looking into a new top. I don't have any recent photos to share & the car is not photogenic at present, but here's a couple taken just after I drove the car back from Germany. If I've followed the instructions correctly the link is
If this doesn't work then would appreciate someone putting me straight - my computer skills are not as good my my kids & they are not here at the moment to sort me out.
So thanks for allowing me on board - hopefully I will be able to contribute something as well as picking up the useful advice.
Colin
