Panther black Puma from Prague

[yippeekiay]

Shame you scratched the steering column shroud - YES...I spotted it!!!!

Otherwise nice job

 

[MerthO]

Damn it, I hoped this would go unnoticed! I unfortunately lost concentration with a file in hand. Luckily it is not so visible, if you don’t look closely. But I have some more work to do!

Shame you scratched the steering column shroud - YES...I spotted it!!!!

Otherwise nice job

 

[MerthO]

Haven’t done much on the Puma lately, but I had the spare wheel tray media blasted and then had it sprayed with black zinc phosphate coating. So now there is no more rusty metal lurking from under the rear bumper!







I have also washed the underbody and wheel wells of the car and treated all the spots, where surface rust started to show, with a wire brush and rust-killer and then sprayed them and other exposed bits of the underbody with underbody wax. I unfortunately forgot to take any photos, so you will have to believe my words, that the car is still luckily pretty rust free. I did this just as a precaution and preparation for the upcoming winter.
EDIT: I found two photos I took of the car on the lift after I washed the underbody and the left front wheel well

 

[Dolomite16v]

Did the same job on my Puma recently, well worth doing

 

[MerthO]

Not much going on with the Puma lately. I have been busy with school and work and I had to do some work on my girlfriend's Skoda Fabia. Also the weather is starting to be a little bit cold to work on the car outside. So at least I took my gear stick and handbrake lever covers to be reupholstered since I have found some tears on them. I am extremely pleased with the result! The guy at the local upholstery shop had a look at the interior to get the right color of the material to match the dashboard. I guess this was one of the last jobs I have done on the car this year, if something urgent doesn't come up (hope not!). Only thing left is switching to winter tires.




Please don't mind the dirty carpets!

 

[yippeekiay]

Nice job

 

[MerthO]

Haven´t given any updates on my Puma for a long time. Since I bought a second car as my daily (2004 Opel Vectra C GTS), I had the Puma decomissioned (I don't know ho to call it in English - I submitted the license plates to the local vehicle register office and then did not have to pay the insurance for the car) and stored her away in the beginning of December. I have put her back on license plates this monday and gave her a quick wash and used her for the whole week. I noticed some minor hiccups, but the car was running perfectly fine...until today.



Today, I took the car for a short trip and it was running perfectly fine. But then I was parking the car at my girlfriend's when I suddenly started smelling petrol. I thought it was just some odor picked up by the aircon....it wasnt, the Puma had pissed herself.
It seems like a line had ruptured, when I started backing up into the parking spot.



View attachment IMG_3639.MOV

I suspect it is a return line, since it is leaking only when the engine is running, it doesn't leak when the key is turned on and the fuel pump is priming, when I shut the car off, it stops.
Unfortunately the leak was too severe and I didn't want to risk it driving home (about 40km). Luckily a friend with a trailer lives nearby and he was so kind to come pick me up immediately.



This was the first time in the five years of Puma ownership, that the Puma left me stranded (I do not count the one time I crashed her in France ). When we got the car home I looked under it and found the potential culprit of the problem....perished lines. This is how the line from the pump to the fuel filter looks like:


I had changed all the lines at the fuel tank about 3 years ago and this is how perished they are now. They are either shitty quality or maybe they are not meant for petrol at all, even though the autoparts store advertised them as petrol lines. And to think that I still hadn't run the car on the E10 petrol that is mandatory here in the Czech Republic since the beginning of the year (i still have E5 with additives in the tank from when I put the car away for winter), I think that would accelerate the process even more. One or the other, I have a fuel lines replacement on my hands. Since I do not daily the Puma anymore I will also refurbish the thank, while I am at it. There is already some surface rust lurking on the welds, so I will strip all of the rust and paint and repaint it. I will also replace the fuel pump, since there is still probably the original one.
At least the car keeps me entertained.

 

[John Woodward]

Poor quality parts, especially fuel hose can cause problems, even using E5 petrol.

 

[red]

Hope you get it back up and running soon!

Here in the UK we don't hand the registration plates in as such, we have something called statutory off road notification "SORN" which is where you don't have to pay the annual vehicle tax because you've declared that the car will not be used.

 

[MerthO]

Poor quality parts, especially fuel hose can cause problems, even using E5 petrol.

I have learnt this the hard way. Colleague of mine has recommended braided fuel lines from Gates, they should be a good quality but still for reasonable price, so I will give them a go.

 

[John Woodward]

I have learnt this the hard way. Colleague of mine has recommended braided fuel lines from Gates, they should be a good quality but still for reasonable price, so I will give them a go.

That sounds good, there is so much rubbish out there, even some branded items are poor.
I was told my someone that a friend ordered a 100 wheel bearings from somewhere in China and they asked what name they'd like on, SKF, Timken etc. could have been used, so just counterfeit part's.

 

[MerthO]

Hope you get it back up and running soon!

Here in the UK we don't hand the registration plates in as such, we have something called statutory off road notification "SORN" which is where you don't have to pay the annual vehicle tax because you've declared that the car will not be used.

Yeah, I believe that the local governing bodies do not have much trust in people not to run the cars even without the vehicle insurance (we do not have to pay vehicle tax as private entities, only businesses have this obligation - for now!), so we have to hand in the license plates with part of the registration documents (so nobody sells the car while it is in "deposit"). If you keep the car in deposit longterm, you have to renew it after some time, otherwise the vehicle register office will scrap the plates with the documentation and then the car cannot be registered ever again (only if it is +30 years old, then it can be re-registered as a classic car) and is only good for scrap. Yeah...our rules for vehicle registration rules are quite complicated.