An exhaustive repair
A 200-mile trip down south results in the Fiat Panda’s exhaust unexpectedly heading south, too
1993 FIAT PANDA 1.1 SELECTA
Readers with long memories may recall that some of the drives from my East Midlands home to see my parents in Bournemouth haven’t always gone smoothly. There was the Vanden Plas Allegro that lost all of its brake fluid, the Mini that blew its cylinder head gasket and the Ford Anglia that fluctuated between three and four cylinders for much of the 190-mile trip. The Panda has now also entered this pantheon of problematic peregrinations.
The little 50bhp Fiat probably isn’t the ideal choice for longer journeys, but its 47mpg-plus fuel consumption does make it the most economical one.
’All was not well, judging by the banging emanating from underneath’
However, upon my most recent arrival in Bournemouth, it was obvious that all was not well, judging from the banging emanating from underneath. A check revealed that the exhaust’s central mounting rubber had gone AWOL, allowing the middle of the pipe to dangle perilously close to the road.
But what to do? I was a couple of hundred miles from home, had no real tools (I really needed a scissor jack to raise the pipe so it could be secured at a less low-slung level) and only a limited amount of time before I had to return to Lincolnshire.
Fortunately, a nearby traditional ironmongers seemed to stock everything. My first thought was to get some wire to hold things in place, but the shop also had very large jubilee hose clips. One of those (£3.40) was just big enough to slip over both mounting hooks. When tightened with the cheap screwdriver that I also bought, it raised the exhaust enough to secure it.
My cheap temporary fix worked well enough to get me back up north (albeit with a lot of vibration from the metal jubilee clip), where a scissor jack and a set of replacement Panda exhaust rubber mountings (bought for a fiver off the internet) returned the Fiat’s nether regions to how they should be. As bodges go, it worked a treat!