It Runs!

It has been painstaking but after going through the entire fuel injection system and most of the electrical I finally got it to run!

getting the engine in the car.

It wasn't too difficult getting the engine and transmission dropped in. It took me about a day. to get it dropped and bolted and I did most of the wiring the following day.

Pink Parts

Since Pam decided she wanted Pink, Pink is what I gave her. I got all of the front suspension put back together and now I am working on the brakes.

I am having a very difficult time getting one of the rear calipers apart so I will try again tomorrow. I have the rest on the rebuilt and it was quite simple.

Fuel Tank

The Fuel Tank was full of varnish because it had fuel in it for about 5 years.

I took it to the local radiator shop and asked them to vat it. They tried but said it could not be saved because it has baffles in it.

I disagree. I CUT IT IN HALF! What did I have to lose.

I looked to see which side the baffles were attached to. thenI drew a line all the way around with a straight edge an cut it with a cut off wheel on a 4" grinder.

once I had it apart I blasted it and poured Muratic acid in it.

DAMN it's looks great.

I Brazed it back together and took it to the radiator shop for a pressure check.

They found several pinholes and soldered it up for me.

It does not look great but it is functional and no one will ever see it.

Front Suspension Parts

I pulled off all of the Brake, suspension and drive line parts. I am stripping and refinishing them.

Everything that can be powder coated will be.

My wife decided she would like some of the accessory parts to be Hot Pink. Unfortunately I had already powdercoated some of them white. So back to the blaster with those parts.

Engine Rebuild

I put in 10:1 compressoin pistons instead of the original 8:1. this should go nicely with the head work I had done. I had several bolts break in the teardown process and I had to tap or helicoil several locations. Luckily the new head bolts torqued with no problem. I powder coated several parts on the engine and the bell housing on the Trans. I also rebuilt the transmission. and bolted it all up with a new clutch and throwout bearing in place.

engine teardown

I pulled the engine apart and discovered the # 2 rod bearing had been spun because the oil pump pickup had broken. Apearantly the previous owner bottomed out so bad that It broke the oil pump. I completely took it apart and got it to the machine shop. I had the head machined and a valve job done.

Through a friend of a friend I got the machine work on the block and crank done by Mike Benard who only does race car engines for a living.

Mike Bored it out .20 over and turned the crank. It looked Brand new when it was done.

I had to do some extensive searching for the auxillary shaft bearings because they are no longer available.

The machine shop pressed in the aux shaft bearings, freeze plugs and the galley plugs.

Fiat Spider Teardown

So never having worked on a Fiat Spider I figured I should probably pay close attention to all of the hoses and wiring and such while I was taking it apart.

That being said I labeled Ziploc baggies and put the nuts, bolts and connectors from every parts I pulled off.

This is a great organizational feat for me. I felt a huge sense of accomplishment just getting the engine and transmission out of the car.

So my first task was to clean up the shop so I could get the car in it.
This took a few days because, lets face it, I'm not the most organized person in the world.

Pam's dream

So I have this wife ,who never asks for much, who has always talked about the good times she and one of her friends had riding around in her friends MG. She also mentioned that she always wanted a small convertible like that.
Since her birthday was right around the corner I figured i would see what I coud do.
Well I found this one very reasonably but it does need a lot of work.

This Blog is about the Fiat restoration