fiat before 1.jpg

500 (Classic) 1963 'D' resto with 126

Introduction

Hi all, I have learned a huge amount from threads on this site, so now my own resto is underway I thought I should start my own thread. I don't guarantee I can add an insight, but hopefully I can offer some inspiration!

I've never restored a car before, but have done a few old vespas and recently completed a nut and bolt restoration on an old moto guzzi, so am pretty confident I can have fun with this car and hopefully do a good job.

I bought the car in about October last year through an online auction. It was in a different city so I didn't view it first. A friend had a quick look and I took a bit of a leap of faith. I's a 1963 D model, which has had the rear roof unbolted to make it a "Transformable" of sorts. The existing roof just used the standard roof frame and some extra cross bars. You had to fold it back by hand but it worked well enough. The car ran well and I had a blast driving around for 3 months of summer.

It was pretty obvious the car had rust but I ignored this while I had fun. Earlier this year the car failed its warrant of fitness test so it was time to go and see my mate Dan, who's a panel beater, and figure how bad the rust really was. The pics here show some of what was in the sills and floor. The car had a "makeover" in about 1990, and was probably quite god then, but 22 more years on the road and the rust had slowly done its job. Front panel, battery ray, drivers door, floor, inner and outer sills all needed replacing...

Faced with either a full resto or a trip to the dump I decided to save the car. And so the learning curve stated! I'll post up soon with some pics on whee the panel work has got to so far, some details of the fiat 126 donor I found and some of the work I've done on the rest of the car while the panel gets done.

Cheers Roger
Roger,

My mount measures 53mm - about 10mm lower than yours. The spring is new and like yours is a 'heavy duty' one as I was also concerned about vibration though having said that, my engine doesn't move around very much at all - at least it doesn't when there is no load.

Wheel arch clearances are 42mm (rear) and 61mm (front) with an unladen car and about half a tank of fuel. I also have lowered springs and a reverse eye, 4 leaf, front spring.

I've got to say that your restoration is just spectacular and I have enjoyed every post. This will be the nicest D in the world when you've finished.

Happy New Year,
Chris
 
morning Roger;
try a spacer between the timing-chain cover and the engine mount--people like Leo van der Laan sell them--12mm (but you will need slightly longer bolts)--this will you down to about 52/52mm, pretty close to Bambino's measurement. look on the 'Tuning' part of Leo's website, part numbers 'mg1230' and 'mg1225'---this should sort that problem.
 
Thanks for the speedy replies guys. I can't think why my reinforced spring would be greatly different from yours Chris, but there you have it. A spacer is a good idea too. I'll get a new spring and a spacer and let you know how things go.
Cheers Roger
 
Roger,

I used the original spring in the first instance and did have some clearance issues with the carburettor so I fitted a spacer, but for some odd reason the engine ran really roughly when lowered and slightly angled. I never did get to the bottom of the problem and still don't quite understand why this should have happened. When I fitted the new spring without the spacer the engine ran perfectly again. Bizarre.

From memory I got both the spacer and the spring from Holland. I remember sizing the two springs and the new one was a bit shorter and seemed a lot stiffer, hence the decision to remove the spacer. If I can find the pictures that I took at the time, I'll post a couple of them when I get home tonight.

BTW, where did you get those really nice alloy rims?

Chris
 
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Hi Chris, Given that all other relevant parts of my engine and mounting arrangements are no different from standard I can only blame the spring I have bought. It simply does not compress enough to allow the proper clearance for the alternator belt. Maybe it is made for use with a spacer? I have ordered a spacer, a standard spring and a new reinforced spring (from a different supplier to the current spring) somewhere in that lot will be the answer!

Glad you like the wheels, I can't recall how I came to know about them, they came from a supplier called www.ricambisport.it The company was a joy to deal with. All four wheels cost 600 euro, which I thought was very good value as they appear very well made. The only issue I have found in fitting them is that their thickness means standard length wheel nuts are a tad short. They are enough to hold the wheel in place, but not enough for what i would regard as a safe fixing in the long term. Trouble is I have a very nice set of campagnolo wheel nuts which I really want to use. The solution might be to machine a little off the face of the 126 rear brake drums I am using. Sounds drastic, but in fact they are about 8mm thick so I should be able to skim the face a bit without compromising on their strength and resistance to heat. I'll be looking into this and other options in due course and will post here with results. It's not a priority job right now as I need to get the car ready for a house move (a note to fellow restorers, moving a half assembled car as well as your whole workshop is not advised!)
Cheers Roger
 
Hi Roger,
Hope your move has progressed well- if you are using Fiat 126 Wheel bolts they have a very long hex on them which you could machine the taper further down to increase the available thread.
There is a large variety of different wheel bolts used on a variety of Italian cars- the 1994 on Alfa GTV/Spider with alloy wheels had a nice long bolt that may be suitable, alternatively you could use studs and nuts.
Cheers, Damon
 
Looks awesome Roger. Thanks for the note about steering boxes. Couldn't figure out why mine was leaking. Maybe won't bother now.
Keen to find an FZD carb though. What were they fitted too? 850s maybe?
 
morning Tim;
As far as I know, the FZD was not fitted as 'standard equipment' on any vehicle. They stopped making the carb some years ago which is 1 reason for their (sometimes) eye watering price. 1 possible source might be a classic mini/mini cooper club as they were at one time fitted as a replacement for the SU carbs. Basically, the only way to get 1 of these carbs is to keep a careful eye on e-bay. I am getting involve in trying to fit a HS2 (1-1/4 in) SU carb on a 500 and to get it set up properly---they use the FZD manifold so that bit of the operation is sorted and 1/14in is 31.75mm, very close to the size of the FZD. Another option is the Weber 30DGS carb off the 'Italian only' version of the original Fiat Panda, the 'Panda 30'. Manifolds are available for this carb and being that the Panda 30 had a version of the Fiat 126 engine in it, the jetting is pretty well spot-on. Whichever way you go, keep us advised please; all the best.
 
Hi everyone, thanks for your posts. Sorry not to have posted myself for a while. I have had to move house, which I may have mentioned in a previous post, and that effort, combined with Christmas, some travel for work and a kiwi summer that needed to be enjoyed has slowed progress on a the car quite a bit. Also, I am finding that a myriad of small jobs are taking far longer than expected for a bunch of silly reasons - who ever thought that rigging up the starter cable to fit a 126 gearbox in a D would take longer than rebuilding the gearbox?!

Sorry also Tim that I haven't found a crate of new old stock FZD carbs in a dusty dealers basement - yet. I can update my post on steering boxes though to say that Axel Gerstl now stock the correct lower seal for D model steering boxes, it's not cheap (21 Euro) but at least it's available again after years and years.

Shifting the car was a laugh. I was planning to trailer it, but when the moving van turned up with a tail lift we simply put one guy in the car, rolled the back wheels onto the lift and then had 3 guys lift the front as we raised the lift. So the car travelled in style.

I have been driven mad by rear engine mount springs. In my earlier posts I showed how the spring was not compressing enough to give me any clearance between the rear mount and the fan belt. I was using a so-called "reinforced" spring, so figured maybe it was just too strong. I replaced it with a new, standard, spring, but still had the same problem. Baffled I ordered new springs from 2 other suppliers, working on the theory that perhaps there was a batch of springs out there made to the wrong specs (after all, if they can remake quarterlight window frames with the mounts blatanty in the wrong place then they can do anything). Well that was a waste of time... all I ended up with was six springs, none of which worked!

Infuriated I pulled the spring from my panel beaters 500 to compare. It has the same number of coils and they are the same diameter as the replacement springs, but its free height is quite a bit below the repro ones. (It is third from left in the spring picture below). You can see from the pic of it in the car that it allowed the engine to sit with heaps of space for the fan belt. Either it was made softer or it has sagged over time (or a bit of both) but with seemingly no other option I purchased and fitted a 12mm spacer alongside one of the reinforced springs. At last, problem solved. Well, not quite, you see the curve of the spacer was not the same as the curve between the bolts on the timing cover. This meant that the spacer was fouling on the steel of the rear panel portion of the engine mount where the spring seats. Chris, did you notice this on yours? It looks to be made by the same people from your pictures, and the problem also looks like it is occuring in your pics, although it is hard to tell for sure. Anyway, it was easily fixed by machining the spacer.

Bored yet? I was!

The next problem was to mount the throttle cable for the FZD carb. There is a problem here because I am using an Abarth fan cover, which has no air filter box etc, and also has no mount for the carb activating arm. I had orginally intended to use the mount from the old cover, carefully removed and cleaned up, and then fixed onto the alloy cover. However, my mechanic friend who is helping with the car was rightly horified at this "bodge" and insisted on turning up a nice stainless steel pedestal with a spindle on which to mount the activating arm. Much better! All that's left is to fabricate a bracket to hold the end of the cable.

Speaking of cables, I have also at last found an original alloy starter and choke cable lever set from the early Nouva and D models. These are just so much nicer than the pressed steel used in later cars.

Oh yeah, and i fitted new bumpers. The cost of rechroming in NZ is incredible, and the results are not always long lasting, so I figured I'd buy new bumpers which are advertised as "45 micron" chrome. The pair were cheaper to buy than even rechroming one old bumper so I figured it was worth a try. I'll let you know how long they last.

Still waiting for the auto electrician to complete my new wiring loom, so next job is the windows - which looks fiddly - and to mount the oil cooler radiator. I'll post an update on that job as I know a lot of people are interested in adding one to their car.

Cheers
Roger
 

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Jeez, I just realised it is six months since my last post! I'm embarrassed to say very little progress has been made. Things stalled while I moved house in Feb and then the only stuff I had time for was small, boring jobs like refurbishing the window winders and windscreen wiper gear etc. Hardly very photo friendly. The auto sparkey called and said he was ready to put the loom in the car, so off it went on the back of the truck... that was three months ago! He's building a complete new custom loom with lots of small mods, as well as sorting the rev counter etc, and since he's only working on it between his more lucrative day jobs it's all taking a while. I went to see the car today and despite it being far from finished he reckoned it was not too far off. Here's hoping! More soon.


Cheers
Roger
 

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I know the feeling Roger, i have barely been able to touch mine since i got back from holiday (apart from having it sand blasted). I noticed a rather large hole in the dash, and the mention of a rev counter. What kind of dash are you fitting?
 
evening Roger;
Noted that 1 of the jobs still to be done is to fit an oil-cooler---where are you thinking of fitting it? A colleague of mine has fitted his in the space behind the engine air-intake grill (below the rear window)--plenty of air-flow over it but out of sight.
wink.gif
 
Yeehaa! After being held up for months while the auto electrician worked on the custom loom I finally got my car back last week. Best Christmas present EVER. After mounting the carb and sorting some temporary leads and coil we were FINALLY able to start her up. She started on the 2nd try! A bit of fiddling to get the timing into the right ballpark and she's running well, although I have limited myself to low revs and not more than a minute or so total running because I want to get the engine under load as soon as possible so everything beds in right. The exhaust sounds awesome and the cam is not at all lumpy. The engine balancing obviously paid off too since the engine remains very stable under power - I guess the stronger mounting spring is also playing a role there too.


Next steps are a full check of everything from brakes to wheel nuts and then a brief road test to check clutch and gearbox are working as they should. Wow, nearly three years after I started I can hardly believe this project might actually be finished soon! I've posted a very short video of the engine running on youtube, link listed below. Sorry about the low quality, I'll do something better when I get a chance.


Merry Christmas everyone - I hope you all get some time off to drive/fix your cars!


Cheers
Roger


[ame]http://youtu.be/YjECYY0K34M[/ame]
 
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