Found this place in a link on the FIAT Forums site, so I'd thought I'd be lazy and basically cut and post my hello post from there
I seem to have been registered here for a year or two, but don't remember doing it, I must have been drunk.
Anyway..
My wife has a 1989 FIAT 126 Bis, the reason we got it was because she wanted a MK1 VW Beetle, but a decent one was at least ?2000 and we couldn't afford it. She then thought about a FIAT 500, but again same price for a good one. I then suggested a 126 as it was basically the same car as a 500, she didn't know what a 126 was, showed her a 126 on the net, she thought it was cute so we went looking for one.
This is where things got tricky, we live in Northern Ireland and there arn't many around. Then 2 turned up the same week in the Belfast Telegraph, both had head gasket failures. Looked at them both, both had been sitting for a year or two, one was white and one pale yellow, went for the pale yellow one just for colour alone, as both were roughly the same condition body wise. Towed the car down using my SAAB 900 I had at the time, very easy to tow the 126 with it as you can imagine
We paid ?300 for the car, ?200 got it on the road and it sailed through it's MOT, actually all the MOT staff came to have a look at it
We sprayed the hub caps black to go for the "Sporting Punto" look and stuck a stereo in it, plus yellow bee fur over the parcel shelf as it was covered in scratches.
Apart from a few faults (broken valve spring and leaking oil pressure sensor) it was pretty much OK until last summer. I even did a Hillclimb in it last Spring and didn't come last
http://www.justgofaster.com/gallery/gallery/justgofaster/public_videos/jiffy.wmvHowever, over the summer it became more and more harder to start and run, and we found oil in the air filter, bottom end of the engine was basically buggered. Went on Ebay and got a spare engine from a looney called Tom Morgan who drove a FIAT 126 to Mongolia for charity
http://www.mongolrally.co.uk/While waiting for the engine to arrive and get fitted, came out one morning and noticed that the ariel had fallen into the wing and left a large hole in it. Looked around the car spotted several bad rust spots, so thought it was time to get the car repsrayed before it was too late. Now, my wife wanted to get it sprayed Panda Pink, and to be honest I was happy enough as being an MX5 owner I'm at one with my feminine side. But the paint guy said there was too much painted metal in the car and to spray it all pink would mean stripping the interior and would cost twice as much. So we decided to keep it in the FIAT family and spray it FIAT Broom yellow.
So, ?590 poorer (we must be mad) the car has a new engine, been resprayed and is going great. Only job left to do is underseal it for the winter, although we're lucky that it's in good nick under there as well.
This is the car as it looks now
More piccies at
http://www.justgofaster.com/gallery/gallery.asp?categoryid=308 Cheers,
Jonathan
