The number plate lights on the 1100D are a sight to behold in my opinion.
BHPian vishy76 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
They say no news on ownership threads generally means good news. However, this is far from the truth for the President. Whenever I am posting something on the thread, it is generally because there’s no work left to be done on the car. However, whenever I am away from the thread, it is mostly because I am busy wrenching away.
A couple of updates have already been posted in the form of the clutch+gearbox overhaul and the oil pump change. Apart from this, ace mechanic and my mentor Harshad bhai came down and tuned the car for me. However, barring these, there are a few minor updates too which don’t deserve a separate thread.
Water pump change
After a spirited drive on a May evening, the water pump decided to give up. I could clearly see water dripping from the weep hole onto the block below. Before the leak worsened and caused overheating, I decided to swap it out for a new unit.
I have had a Meko make pump lying around with me since I bought the car. I thought I was in luck since I didn’t have to wait for a new one to arrive. However, I couldn’t have been more wrong. The following things needed to come off for the water pump to be removed:
- Radiator (with both hoses)
- Radiator side panels
- Fan belt
- Fan pulley & fan itself (mounts on the pump)
The pump is held onto the head by 3 13mm bolts, all of which are of varying length. It is advisable to make a note of which bolt belongs where. More importantly, there is always a chance that the bolts might snap while loosening and get stuck inside the head. In order to mitigate this, I brought the engine up to temp, sprayed liberal amounts of WD40 and then broke them loose, even though this meant dealing with dangerously hot water when draining the radiator itself.
Although the bolts didn’t break, I decided to swap them out for new ones. Bought new TVS (grade 8.8) bolts with spring washers. Installed the pump with the gasket, and just when I was refilling coolant, I noticed a stream of water from under the pump. Further investigation revealed the new pump was just vomiting coolant from the weep hole. I didn’t have much of a choice. Dismantled everything, ordered a new TVS (Sundaram fasteners) pump from down south and called it a day since I had to leave for Bombay the same night.
The new Meko pump vs the old. Couldn’t see any branding on the old pump. Lots of corossion on the impeller and internals. Quite sure the internal seal has given up:
The point on the head where the pump mounts. Quite a bit of corossion in the coolant galleries inside, although I have seen far worse than this on quite a few other cars:
The (defective) Meko pump installed. The threading on the pump discharge is for a thermostat valve. Unfortunately, you don’t get these locally nowadays:
Blocked the pump cavity off after removing the Meko pump, inserted all bolts where they should go so as to not misplace them and called it a day:
Came back a week later and installed the new pump. The gasket was of better quality (though I still applied some gasket maker on it) and I also applied copper grease on the bolts to prevent them from seizing inside the head or stripping threads.
Most importantly, I tightened all the bolts using a ring spanner in a criss-cross pattern. It is advisable to not over-tighten these since the head is aluminium. Overtightening carbon steel bolts in a soft aluminium head can easily damage threading inside the aluminium.
The pump gasket was made of the same asbestos type sheet I use to make my own gaskets. Still applied some anabond on the outer edges before install on both sides:
The TVS pump in place. Far better quality than the Meko pump:
This time, everything went according to plan. There are no more leaks now from the cooling system and I am at peace knowing the water pump, which can be a failure point on these in peak summers, stands fixed.
Number plate lights
The number plate lights on the 1100D are a sight to behold in my opinion. Unfortunately, the ones on my car were just that, a sight to behold, since they never worked. An electrician in Bombay told me there was too much corrosion in the bulb holders for them to work again, and since the holders aren’t available separately, they were scrap. Transplanting internals from another set of lights was also impossible, since these aluminium lights don’t share internals with the Sweet Trade lights found on most Padminis.
Since the gearbox overhaul was taking quite long, I decided to remove the lights and take them home. I first started with the basics. The lights get power from a bullet connector and ground from the mounting studs. I checked for power on the car’s wiring using a multimeter and it was present.
So I turned my attention to the lights. I opened them, sanded the contact points of the bulb holder and dipped the internals in a highly concentrated Harpic solution to get rid of corrosion. I then again cleaned them using water and dried them. A lot of corrosion was found where the bullet connector from the car’s wiring harness plugs into the light. That was cleaned. The studs and mounting bolts/washers themselves were also cleaned since these ground the lights to the car’s body. I checked the lights using the car’s battery and they worked!
Finally, before install, the bullet connector terminal was sanded and the area where the light is secured to the boot was also cleaned and paint sanded down to ensure the lights get a good ground. After 2 years, I finally had the original number plate lights working perfectly. Couldn’t be happier!
Number plate restoration
I have always had a fascination for white fonts on black background number plates. In fact, I distinctly remember walking into a number plate shop in Opera House which made these in May of 2023, 2 months after I had bought the car. I was quoted a sum of Rs. 8,000 for a pair of brass font plates. As inviting as the plates looked, yours truly was a college student with more important stuff to spend on. I had to resist the temptation.
Mercifully though, I did find a set of NOS President wheelcaps only a few kilometers away in Chor Bazaar. I picked them up without a second thought. Despite this finding (which seemed impossible before), the urge to have a nice set of brass font plates stayed.
Fast forward to Feb, 2025. My friend Onkar (who I am quite sure is well known now) was assisting me in installing the gearbox. He had one look at the plates and reckoned he could restore them. Onkar had a clearer picture of how they should look in his head than I ever did. We eventually figured out that these were quite nice plates (possibly expensive too for the time), made of aluminium with stamped lettering. Only downside? Some idiot had painted them to have black fonts on white background, possibly when the car was given an overcoat 10-15 years back.
After a couple of days, I received pics of the rear plate and I was astonished. It didn’t look anywhere close to what we removed from the car. The front was finished a while later. Although Onkar tried his best, the front plate had taken a bit too much abuse on the bottom lip. The aluminium had corroded. All said and done however, the final result was far far better than anything I ever imagined would be possible with these plates.
The plates were first stripped off their old paint completely and brought to a very smooth finish:
Then came the tricky part. Painting the background black while leaving the letters in aluminium. Onkar did a fantastic job here. Post this, the plates were given a lick of clear coat:
Horn ring
Most car enthusiasts have fetishes. Some are obsessed with alloys, others with fancy grilles while some are originality addicts. My obsession when it came to the Fiat? Steering horn rings. I always wanted one for my car, but the insanely high prices quoted by stockists kept me at bay.
I would often call Harshad bhai and ask him what he could do about this. In his typical calm voice, he would say “Mil Jaayegi Horn Ring. App Thoda Wait Karo. Jaldbaazi mein jyaada paisa mat do uska” (I will find one for you. Wait it out. Don’t pay through your nose in desperation). As always, he turned out to be a man of his word. And in no time, I was the owner of 3 horn rings! One of which I had always dreamt of having in my car. I am yet to wire up a second horn to the ring. For now, I have disconnected the horn from the button and wired it to the ring. When time and finances permit though, I am going to wire up a pair of Jalwa horns to the OE button.
Good times
After all this work, I decided to take the car on a short hop to Anand, some 30-40 km from Baroda one way. I took the state highway one morning and enjoyed the drive so much that I decided to do another one, this time via the National Highway.
The car performed flawlessly. It’s a different feeling when the project car you toiled away on for months finally comes together and runs. Is it perfect? Nope. There are obviously loose ends to tie even now, but when I look back at the first time I took the wheel in March, 2023, we have come a long long way. The President has shaped me as an enthusiast (and a DIYer) in a way no other car ever would have. Considering the fact that I didn’t even know where the fuel pump was on the first day of ownership, I have learnt a fair bit. And best of all, I have met many awesome folks along the way including mechanics like Ketan bhai & Harshad bhai who I otherwise would have never met. The car has seen me through some terrible times and I have only grown closer to it.
Some parting shots for your viewing pleasure. The number plates have never caused an issue legally. The car is anyway 50+ years old at this point. Most cops assume I don’t even have valid papers (although all of that is perfectly in order).
A short video of the drive towards Anand, after exiting Vasad toll on NH-48
https://youtube.com/shorts/WSSxs7BunU8
Stands proudly in a shed I built specifically for it. All the chrome bits have been taken off before monsoon:
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