This is Juppy. He's a MK2 4x4 Panda.  He belonged to my friend Jim until now (August 07) when Jim decided to finally sell him to me. Juppy's very well known in Fiat Panda circles, yes Pandas have their own little community. I've been keeping Juppy on the road for Jim for a few years now so we start his history from work carried out up to the present.  Juppy as he was in his prime.

You can see Fred the bear looking out. He's Juppy's mechanic.

He's been well used over the years and travelled about. Here he is passing Big Ben.

Juppy arrives at my house for work to be done on his sills for the Mot. Sylvia the Panda was already there after just having sill work done as well.

 

Front inner arches neeeded a little patching so it's up on the jack to start with.

Drivers side inner arch needed a couple of little patches to the edges. I seam sealed the area after welding.

Passenger side was pretty much gone in the same areas.

 

Sills were the next thing to do and after a quick look I realised it wasn't going to be a 5 minute job. So space was cleared in the garage and passenger side jacked up. Bits were falling off before I even touched anything.  

The next 3 photos show what I was greeted with.

Needles to say there was a lot of grinding to be done and Juppy was looking a bit smokey from the experience.

 

It took about 3 hours It took about 3 hours to get the passenger side  welded up. The entire sill had to be done.

The rear passenger side inner arch was a bit tricky. You can't see from the photo but I had to weld right up the side of the suspension mount and there wasn't much room. I the photo below you can see a new piece of straight metal jutting out. This is were the sill should have gone out to and I had to make a full new piece up. 

New metal now fitted in. Not pretty but once the weld is ground smooth it will look like new.

Sill all welded and then covered in copious amounts of stone guard.  

Exactly the same thing had to be done on the drivers side. It was well worth it and after all the welding was completed the entire underneath was covered in 3 seperate coats of stone guard.

Jim discovered more rust under the air vents below the windscreen. He removed the screen and the vent.

To reveal this.

From the inside.

So Juppy was put on a trailer and brought back up to my house for more TLC.

Once he arrived it was out with the grinder again. This is how much had to take out to make sure I was back to good metal. 

All back together again. You can see a little of the rust eater dripping down below the vent. I sort of overdid with the stuff but wanted to make sure it doesn't return. 

Jim asked me to fit a new roof to Juppy. This is something I had never did before but said I'd have a go at it. It was a very easy job to do. The roof is only held on by 2 rails that are pop riveted to the roof through the cloth. There are the arms of course and they are just held on with 10mm nuts. The hardest thing I found was getting the right size rivets and they have to be thick but small in length as they have to stop short of the inner roof strengthener cross bar. You can just about make out the holes in the roof were the rivets go.

   

Once the roof bars were off I painted them in hammerite as they were looking a bit tired.  These are the bars that sandwitch the cloth to the roof.

New roof now fitted. It was easy enough to do but I had to run round a bit to find the right size of self tappers. They are thick and quite stubby. I forgot to get their exact size though.

Roof from the outside. Looks good and tight.

Juppy's back for more work. Little bits of rust on the door frame.


22/09/07. We're now bang up to date. Jim who owned Juppy and named him so has decided to pass him on to me as he has enough Pandas on the go. Jim left Juppy up to my house today so I will be trying to get him (Juppy not Jim) back on the road as soon as I can. Juppy has been sitting for a while now and his windscreen got damaged while out so he needs a new one along with some more welding to the seat belt mounts. I arrived home from work and Jim had left Juppy up to the house with a cover on him.

I wasn't prepared for the shock ! when I took the cover off. Juppy's not looking anything like the last time I seen him

All of the inside is out and needs put back in, Oh and I found the bonnet inside to. Windscreens not going to be much use now. It broke when it was being taken out to sort out the rust on the scuttle vents.  

The engine had the carb removed and it was donated to Sylvia the World traveling Panda for her Istanbul trip. The carb you see is a different one and the threads appear to be damaged so it's going to be fun fitting it back on.  It looks like I've a lot of work ahead of me. The boot lock is missing, as said the interior needs found and put back in, Drivers window glass is out along with rear side glass. New windscreen needs found and I'm sure other little things will come to light to. On the plus side the body and paint are still in excellent condition and should polish up well. 

The carb on Juppy looks like it's seen better days so my mate Alan from Cumbria sent me a brand new one over to put on. I hope to get it on soon to at least get Juppy started.

Had a bit of spare time this morning so got the old carb off. New and old together.

It was dry outside so I got the cover off Juppy and fitted the new carb. I would have tried to get him running but the battery is totally dead.

While I was at it I put the bonnet and grill back on. Got the wiper motor back in to.  He looks a little better now but there's a lot of little bits missing that I'm going to have to source.

My mate Jim brought me up seats to go into Juppy as the ones that had been in him were used to keep another Panda going.

They are not the same as the original seats but I think once everything is matched up it will give the car an updated look. I'm hoping some of our Panda friends from the Fiat Forum will come to our rescue for door cards and dash. The seats are a bit dirty from sitting about so out with the steam cleaner to spruce them up.

Juppy now in the garage, meets Wee Gem for the first time. I can get the little bit of welding that needs done, done now.

Did a bit of poking and the hole isn't as bad as it could have been. awkward little corner to work at but I will be able to put in new metal ok.

Got the hole welded up and seam sealed. Also painted rust eater along all the edges to make sure nothing else comes through. 

Once I checked there was nothing else doing welding wise I got the rear seat and the nice clean carpet back in. (Ok it's not perfect but it's the best I could get it). A few little bits are missing to finish the inside off but it won't take long to sort these out. "I hope"! 

14/12. Since fitting the new carb Juppy he wouldn't start, but I poured about a teaspoon ful of petrol into the carb this morning and off he went straight away. He is going so well I used him to get this blue Panda started so I could get it into the garage to change it's springs.

30/12. Took the towbar off the MK1 Panda and put it onto to Juppy today as it will come in handy for towing the little trailer I have around.

 

I got the towbar on pretty quickly so since I had a spare radio  I put it in to. I just need a few liitle things to complete Juppy then I can get him mot'd. 

26/01/08. While sifting through all the bills belonging to Juppy I came across photos of Juppy when his owner in England Richard B restored him from a bit of a reck to be honest. He obviously seen the potential in Juppy and followed this through to what Juppy is today.  The photos were scanned in so the quality is not first class but gives you an idea of the amount of work Richard carried out. 

I can only assume this is the first show Juppy attended once the restoration was finished. Richard did one very good job.

Another photo of Juppy after Richard had the restoration finished. He really did do a remarkable job. The car was like new. 

25/02. Carrying on Richard work and after a lot of polishing and fettling. I think I now have Juppys body finished. I may take the wheel trims off and finish the wheels as in the photo above. I think he is now looking like his old self. All I need now for the interior is door cards that match the seats and that would be the inside done to.

 As a final touch I had these Panda headlight protectors hiding away in the attic. I was keeping them for the MK1 Panda but I think they would be more fitting on Juppy.

And fitted.

01/03. My good mate Steve did a deal with me for an original Panda Sisely Bullbar. It needs stripped and re-painted but will have to wait until I get the Coupe on the road, which I hope won't take more than a week.

22/03. right now that I've got a few other things out of the way I turned my attention to Juppy leaking gearbox oil all over the place. On close inspection it appears to be nothing more than the wrong driveshaft boot has been fitted. The boot is very lose on the shaft. 

The best way I've found to replace the boot is by removing the shaft and to do that the brake hub has to come off. First with the car on the ground losen the center nut that holds the shaft to the hub. Then with the car jacked up and secured with axle stands remove the wheel. remove the brake caliper (2 17mm bolts and 1 nut) One of the bolts is a double ender thread and sits well in so remember. Once the caliper is off undo the 17mm nut/bolt holding the bottom arm on and then take the 13m bolt and 17mm nut/bolt holding the anti roll bar on. When you've done this remove the nut for the shaft which you losened earlier. It just a case then of undoing the 19mm nut/bolts that hold the damper to the hub plate and sliding the lot off. As you can see from the photo I removed the hub and lower wishbone together as I didn't want to run the risk of damaging the bottom ball joint.  

It's just a matter of pulling the driveshaft out. Now as the driveshaft boot is different from a CV boot the harley splicer needs to be removed to get the old one off and to fit the new one. It's held on with a circlip. This can bee seen in the photo.

It's very easy to remove if you hae a circlip remover, but be carefull it doesn't take off across the room if it slips off the pliers. Once the clips off the splicer just slides off with a little gentle tap. I used a rubber hammer to prevent any sort of damage.

  

It's just a case then of sliding the old boot off, the new one on and putting the splicer and clip back on.

  

To put the shaft back in everything is the reverse of when you took it all off...

 It's funny how when you set out to do one job you end up doing another. I noticed the front passenger side brake pipe wasn't in the best of health and the inner wing could do with underseal. I'll deal with the brake pipe first.

 

I took it off and made up a new one. The only way I could get the new one screwed back onto the master cylinder was to remove the brake fluid bottle first. I'll treat the wing next.

26/03. Gave Juppy his 106,533mile servise today. Changed the oil, oil filter, gearbox oil and plugs. Well 3 of the plugs. The 4th one seems to be smaller than the other 3 and I dont' have a socket that fits! I need to speak to Jim the last owner.  

I also got the inner arch sprayed with waxoil. This photo has the plastic arch protector fitted back on afterwards. You can see the nice new brake pipe just sticking out.

 

My daughter made me a Panda for the Panda. I will proudly hang it in the car.

29/03. Stripped the bull bar of all it's damaged plastic coating and primed it for re-painting. 

31/03. Bullbar now painted satin black.

02/04. Got the bullbar on, once I went and got new bolts. Thats the outside finished although I may take the wheel trims off and paint the wheels as I think the car looks more rugged (for want of a better word).

12/04. I got Juppy out of the garage today for the first since getting all the work finished. He really is looking well and the paint is still like new. I am going to take the wheel trims off though and paint the wheels to have Jupy looking like he does in Richards photo of him after the first restoration.

15/04. Juppy's new cover arrived today.

I think it suits him. It'll at least keep him clean in the garage.

16/04. Jim who used to own Juppy left me a good used radiator at the house today for Juppy. I was telling him last week that the one in the car looks like it is starting to leak a little. Very kind of him. I'll see if I get a chance next week to fit it. I'll give it a cleanup before putting it in.

18/04. I got a set of switches for Juppy today. I don't need them but at 99p on Ebay I couldn't pass them by and I'll aways have them in case something goes wrong.

24/04. I'd forgotten that I had a set of spot lamps and only found them this morning. So cleaned them up and fitted them. I'll wire them up at some point.

29/05. Painted the scuttle panel as it was looking a little scruffy.

04/06. Juppy goes for mot tomorrow.

 So I checked everything over to make sure all was ok. Everything was right up until I checked the washers and then put the wiper on to clear the water away. The wiper fell off! arm and all. Thinking I hadn't put it back on properly after painting the scuttle panel I put it back on, flicked the switch,,,,,and,,,,,,,,it fell off again. The splines of the motor were completely gone so the wiper had nothing to grab onto. So it was a case of climbing into the attic to get the wiper motor from Wee Gem and to swap the motors over.  

Motor out.

  

The 2 motors to be swapped over. Oh and Jim who used to own Juppy then decided to tell me he had swapped the broken motor off Sylvia as it was broken. Ta Jim!

   

05/06. Mot day. Washed Juppy again  and checked everything again and off we went.

He failed! On 1 faulty rear brake cylinder. It must have decided to give up on the way over and just wouldn't pull enough to make the brakes equalise effeciently. It was out by 27%. The Mot tester done everything he could think of to get it to work but Juppy was having none of it. So on the way home I called into the motor factors and got 2 new rear cylinders. I'll fit them in the morning all being well.    

06/06. On taking the drums off I was greated to both brake cylinders in a poor state. The drivers side was ceased solid and the passengers side had only one part working.

 Fitted the new cylinders but as usual things weren't straight forward. I couldn't get the pipes out of the cylinders as they had ceased solid. I ended up having to reniew all the rear piping and nipples. Well another job out of the way I suppose.

 

My helpers legs are now long enough to pump the peddle so Rebekah was drafted in to assist. Unfortunately after putting a full pint of new fluid through the system we still couldn't get a decent peddle which makes me think now that the master cylinder is on it's way out. I'm going to have to replace it next week if I can get a new one because the peddles to soft to pass an MOT and to soft to drive the car safely in my eyes.  

12/06. My new master cylinder arrived.

And was promplty fitted. But I still can't get a decent brake. The pedal feels sort of hard until I start the car and it goes to the floor. I really hope the servo hasn't gone now. I'll give the brakes another bleed over the weekend incase there's still air in the system.

18/06. I'm still not getting a decent brake as the pedal is travelling to far for my liking so I got a new set of flexi brake hoses in case one of them is starting to go.

I got them fitted but still thought the pedal was going down more than it should. So I phoned my mate Alan in Cumbria who knows all about Pandas. He measured the distance his cars pedal travels and it's the same as mine so all's ok now.

19/06. I bought a new heater matrix for Juppy for the winter to keep me warm. I don't know if the one in the car is still in good shape but I'll change them over at some point.  

 

23/06. Well all the hard work has paid off. Juppy passed his mot with no concerns. I'll be driving him until I get the Alfa on the road but must say the 135 tyres that he's wearing are very entertaining on bends. I may change them.

08/07. While trying to figure out why juppy has a hesitation when running at a steady 60 mph on the motorway, I found that a screw nail had been pushed up the pipe for the advance that's attatched to the distributor. I removed it and tweaked the timing and fueling a little and it made a real difference. I'm going to get someone to set the timing up properly as there is still the tiniest hesitation still.

11/07. The replacement servo came today thanks to Chris from the Fiat Forum. I'll get it on first chance I get and we'll see if it improves the pedal any.

18/07. Put the servo on today. It's a straight forward job really and should take no more than about 20 mins. First thing to do is disconnect it from the pedal box inside the car. There's a little plate covering it that's helo on with 2 6mm bolts. You only need to take the front one which is at the bottom on the left hand side off as the plate will tilt down so you can get at the circlip that hold the servo onto the arm.

Next disconnect the master cylinder from the servo. If your lucky enough, and I was,  you will have enough play in the brake pipes to do this because if you don't you'll have to disconnect the pipes which as you know means a lot of bleeding brakes.

Then you need to take the 3 13mm nuts off the servo to get it out. One is on the servo side at the top and the other 2 have to be taken off from inside the car. Putting it all back together is just the reverse of above. 

02/08. In my quest to make Juppy's brake pedal feel a little better, (I still think the pedal goes down to far) I bought a new set of brake discs for him. They are only £10 for dear sake.

Now to fit them. It's a 20 minute job per side. You'll need the following to do the job. 19mm spanner, 17mm spanner, 12mm spanner, 19mm and 17mm sockets, a strong ratchet and a hammer if your calipers have been on a long time. First Job is to remove the caliper. t's held with 2 17mm bolts and a 17mm nut. Bottom one is a bolt so no problem there. Top one though is a bit different. It's actually a double ended thread bolt. There is an "L" shaped bracket that is attatched to both the cailper top bolt and the 19mm suspension arm bolt. You need to remove the 19mm nut and push the bolt back a bit to get the bracket off. Then once you have the 17mmnut off at the top of the cailper you can get the bracket off. Once this is done you can then get at the double end thread bolt. Once this is removed the capiler can be pulled off the disc and left to hang out of the way..

Now it's only a matter of removing the 12mm stud nut and ordinary nut from the front of the disc. You can see from the above photo I already have them off. After that the disc should almost fall of and the new one just set on and bolt the 2 bolts back on to hold it. (Bolts can be seen in the photo below). 

Then if your lucky like I was you can get the caliper back on without to much effort. Bolting back on is just the reverse of taking it off.

 

My next job of the day was a new interior, or more specifically new door cards and dash from a Sisely. As the seats had been changed a while back they didn't match the original cards and to be honest the cards were really showing signs of age. Ebay came to the rescue and a full set of grey cards and dash came my way.

I fitted the door and quarter panel cards today. Straight away they brightened the inside up. I will fit the dash when I get more time because the instrument binicle has to come out to do it and I'm not sure how long it will take.

 

06/08. Juppy's been wandering a little more than Pandas should since I fitted the new brake discs so I took him to have his tracking done at Canavan tyres (my mate owns it). 3 degrees out. All sorted after 10 mins.

09/08. Juppy's exhaust manifold has been blowing out for a while now (you can see on the very left were) and I knew taking it off could cause trouble. I was right because when I took it off today one of the bolts for the down pipe sheared. Luckily though Chris, one of my friends from the Fiat Forum had already sent me a really good one and it was only a matter of swapping them. Took about 30 mins to do. 

19/09. Got up this morning and decided it was time to get the grey dash put into Juppy. First thing to do was give it a good cleaning.

The old dash.

 

To get the dash out the intrument binnacle has to come out. Not as straight forward as you'd think for a Panda. The front cover has to come off first and is held on by screws underneath and at either side. Once this is off I found it easier to remove the clock and the switch block seperately and also the heater controls. The pod is only held in with a screw at either side and once these are out you can get behind to release the speedo cable and pull the electric blocks out, there are only 3 of them.

With the pod out of the way you can then take out the 2 8mm nuts that hold the back housing. There are 2 screws underneath as well so don't forget about them. Oh and I found taking the radio consol out easier to do by dropping the cloth of the dash first as it's only held in with 2 screws. 

The vents above the dash have to come out so I found it best to take off the top side plastic trim as well. Just makes things easier to do.

You then end up with this once everything is removed. The cloth part clips over the top of the bulkhead panel just below the vents.

Now I have to come clean here and admit that I cut the cloth in 2 places so I could get it round the steering column to get it off. The reason I ended up doing this was because I couldn't get the steering wheel off! Behind the soft horn press there is a hard plastic plate held on by 2 7mm bolts. The big nut to take the steering wheel off is behind this plate. however I just couldn't get the 2 7mm bolts to release. They have a very shallow head and nothing I have could get a good enough grip, and there's no room for Grips to take hold. The photos not very clear but they are on the outer edges of the plate.

Neeldess to say I had to do the same thing with the new dash. However I made sure I cut it were it will never be seen and once on you would never know. So everythings back on and the whole job took 2 hours. The result speaks for itself and to me gives the car a new brightness to it. Oh nearly forgot. While I had the dash out I cleaned all the bulbs and replaced 2 that had blown. There may be an easier way to do it but I found this my easy way.

04/01/2009. On the way home from work tonight the headlight switch decided it didn't really want to work anymore and I had to hold it on all the way home. That was fun. I looked round the house for the spare one I bought from Ebay but I've put it away for safe keeping  so well I can't find it.  I've bid for another one on Ebay but as it will be 3 days before the auction ends I will have to see if I can get the old one working. 2009 is starting well. The Coupes not going and now Juppy's paying games.

05/01. Took the switch block out and took the headlight switch apart. It has partially melted inside so I worked on it a bit to get it to work. I've now setting for the sidelights at the mo but it will have to do for a couple of days. I also ordered a new headlight switch off Fiat just to be sure.

06/01. The new switch block arrived today so was put straight in.

18/01. Just in case anyone was thinking that Juppy sits in the garage with a warm blanket over him, it's not the case. I've been using him regularily in the poor weather as there has been a threat of snow.

20/01. On the way home from work last night Juppy decided to snap the exhaust at the back box. This seems to be a common fault with Pandas because I've had to fix the rear box a few times on Sylvia, Juppy's sister  He could do with more underseal by the look of him to.

So off came the exhaust,

 and out came the welder.  I will treat him to a new back box once I get the Coupe sorted.

21/01. I spent all of £3 and bought a piece of alloy tubing for beneath the airbox. Juppys been dying in the early morning cold and damp when he gets about 20 miles into the journey to work and it can only be the carb icing up. It's amazing the difference that little bit of pipe has made to how smoothly Juppy now runs. I can't reccomend highly enough putting one on if your car hasn't one.

09.02. It snowed on Juppy today. I was for taking him to work but I think his nose was out of joint about the Multipla getting attention and decided to lock one of his front brakes on so I had to take the Coupe. I'll free them up tomorrow.

  

17/03. Right, been putting this off long enough now and as I want to use Juppy this year for the shows it's time I sorted out the wheels. I want to go back to painted steel wheels rather than the wheel trims so off the wheels came this morning.

 

Wheels were in a bit of a state so I had to rub them down using a wire wheel on the drill.

Once all the rubbing down was sorted I got a coat of zinc primer on and then 2 coats of proper primer.

And while the wheels were drying I took the opportunity to paint the rear hubs. I might buy a new set of front calipers as they are cheap and would look nice. I'll see how I get on.

20/03. Got the wheels finished but I realised I had no centre caps! didn't even have a clue were to go to get them. However Allen and Jon, 2 friends from the Fiatforum, a great comunity dedicated to all things Fiat, came to the rescue straight away and sent me me a set over. "Thank you guys".

I got them on and although Juppy's not been cleaned up yet, he's now looking the way I want him. Iv'e only a few silly things to sort now and Juppys ready for this years shows.

04/04. Since I'm trying to get Juppy looking his best for this years shows, I've decided to tidy up as much of the engine bay as I can get at without taking the engine out. In the photo I've already given the rocker cover a coat of paint.

08/04. Took the electric fan out to give it a good cleaning and a repaint. Unfortunately I never took a photo of it before cleaning.

 

11/04. After a bit of polish and a few things painted I think I've got Juppy's engine bay as good as I'm going to get it without taking the engine out. As I said above, once I get some of the other cars sorted I plan to do just that. Oh and I bought paint for the front panel as you can see it's letting the car down. I hope to sort this by the end of the week. 

 

12/04. With the engine bay now completed it's time to start on the underneath. And after using Juppy most of the winter he is definately in need of a bit of attention in this area.      

Out with the scraper and a good wire brush to get as much of the old stone guard off as possible. Things aren't as bad as they look!

16/04. The weather was warm today so I took the chance to get the front panel ready for painting. Rubbed down the iffy areas and treated them with rust eater first. 

Next everything taped up to prevent overspray.

After 2 coats of zinc primer and 2 coats of standard primer the panels ready for paint. It's going to be water base so I hope the colour matches.

19/04. It was very warm today so I was able to get the front panel painted. I always worry about drying time with the water based paint but it dried very quickly. I'm glad I got the panel done because it was the one thing that was letting the car down.

Since I had spare primer left over I used it on the jack.

 

And got it finished to.

The sound deadening felt under the bonnet was looking a bit tired so I got stuck into it with a bottle of stuff you use for the bumpers. It has a black pigment in it and seemed to work a treat.

After. Oh and the bonnet inside was cleaned at his point to.

And I got the underneath finished to. As you can see I painted the rear axle, suspension and the shocks got a new lick of paint to.

  

  

21/04. Finished tidying the front suspension today.

Underneathe the front all now done. At some point I'll take the sump protector off and straighten it.

25/04. I think I'm finally finished and Juppy is looking the best I've seen him in a very long time. The only thing really left is I'd like to try to track down an original radio as I think it would be a lovely finishing touch. 

04/05. I've been itching to get Juppy out to a show to see how he would be welcomed and there was one at Dundrod on today. The weather wasn't great and it wasn't a big show but he had a few people having a nosey. He actually looks a bit lost in the photo.

06/05. This came up on Ebay and I couldn't say no to it. It's an instruction plate that goes inside the car on how to oerate the 4wd. I know it's for a Sisley but couldn't pass it up as I think it will suit the car.

30/05. Juppy's new fuel pump arrived this morning. I hope to get him back on the road during the week.

02/06. Got the pump and Juppy started straight away. Juppy also hit another milestone today.

05/06. Ok I've decided to try to sort the soft brake pedal out  for once and for all. Firstly I drained all the brake fluid out as I'm going to replace it with dot 5.

I then replaced the rear brake cylinders with smaller diameter ones. this should help the pedal a little. I still wasn't getting a decent brake. Then I sat down and read through an old Fiat Panda dealer workshop manual only to discover that there is an adjuster inside the servo which lets you extend the pedal. So the master cylinder has to be taken off the servo first. It's only held on with 2 13mm nuts. You have to pull the master away from the servo so be careful you don't pull the brake pipes enough that you bend them. You don't need to drain the brake fluid by the way. Once the servo centre is exposed you can see the adjuster in the middle. See photo below.

The adjuster just pulls out as it is just held in with a rubber diaphram. Again you need to be gentle pulling it out.

The adjuster will probably be ceased solid, I had to use a little heat on the 8mm nut end to get it to release. Needless to say take your time freeing it up as the last thing you want to do is ring the nut off.

Once lose I extended it a few turns and trial fitted to see if it worked. Once I screwed the master cylinder on the front brakes locked and the pedal was rock hard. So I took my time and kept adjusting the nut a turn at a time, yes you do need to take the master cylinder off each time but believe me it's well worth it because you end up with a great pedal. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I'd realised I could do this a while back. It's done now, took about 30 minutes and for the first time ever Juppy has a decent brake.

07/06. Got the trailer sorted and as the brakes are now sorted on the car I put the lot together today for a trial run.

Actually if I'm honest things didn't go to plan. The brakes locked on solid after I got no more than a mile from the house. I had tightened the servo up to much and once the brakes warmed up they locked. I ended up have to release the servo at the side of the road and screw the adjuster in a little. All appears to be fine now and Juppy is more then capable of towing the 500.

13/06. It was off today to the Ballymena fest show and shine show. Juppy pulled the 500 with no problems at all, cruising at 50 mph happily. When I arrived and got the cars sorted it actually wasn't long before interest gathered.

I was taken by surprise at the amount of interest people had in Juppy throughout the day but that was nothing when my amazement when my name was called out to tell me Juppy had came runner in the show and shine group he was in.

A very proud me. All the work over the past few weeks has paid off. Not bad for a little car used most of the winter and with 111,000 miles under his wheels.

17/06. Although Juppy's mot's not up until the 22nd I got a date for today to put him through so I could get it out of the way due to having a lot on over the next couple of weeks. I took a chance and did nothing apart from give him a clean but straight away noticed I've put one of the brake back plates on the wrong way round. I'll have to sort this but didn't have time before the mot. So I pointed it out to the tester. He was happy enough that I sort it.

So far so good and up onto the ramp to be checked.

The tester called me over while the car was on the ramp. He was with another 2 testers and they were all looking at the underneath. Dreading the worst I went over only for him to ask if I wanted to take a photo of the underneath while he had the car on the ramp. Top man, I didn't need to be asked twice. Oh and Juppy passed another mot  

20/06. With everything sorted on Juppy now I'm just looking for little things that can be improved. One of those things was his gear lever, there's a little play in the little plastic bushes. I checked out the bushes and they are the same setup as the Fiat 127. This ment I can use the same method on Juppy as I did on the Sport. If you know anyone who is getting a new washing machine or tumble dryer get the plastic bits with the bolts on them used to hold the tumbler as part of the packaging so the tumbler doesn't move. The rod and bushes are held on with a circlip that just pops off.

The original washers look like this once they are out. Sort of jumped ahead a little with the photo as the piece I made out of the retainer is in the photo to.  

 

I then trial fitted the plastic bit to be sure I was right. It was a perfect fit. Then all you do is cut it to the right size and grind it down to fit onto the rod of the gearbox. I have a bench grinder which does help a lot and makes the job a lot quicker. Job done the gear lever now has no play in it at all. 

29/08. All Ireland Italian gathering was today at Cultra Transport Museum. So Juppy made his way to it. I would have liked to take the 500 to but it was blocked in by work going on on the lancia in the garage so I had to leave it behind. Turned out to be an excellent day.

02/11. I have very VERY reluctantly came to a decision and decided to sell Juppy on to a new owner. Due to a family illness my time to work on the cars is getting less and less. This means I'm going to cut back and slim down the Maranello House stable. I know I'll regret this decision deeply.

24/12/09. Sold Juppy today, but I'm happy as he's away to a good home.