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Barchetta Dave-M's "B"

Introduction

Thought I would share a few photos on my removal of the interior of my B.
Hearing stories on this forum of rust lurking under the rubber matting I thought I had best check my car. Also wanted to investigate the smell of petrol that seems to be a common problem.

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Driver's side inner sill area, small amount of surface rust. Looks bad in photo but treated with cure rust and eventually it will be wax oiled. Note also the aperture into the sill cavity. This was sealed but I have removed to inspect and to wax oil.
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Same on the passenger side, no rust but treated anway.
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Removed the rubber bungs under the seat area, these had started to rust, so treated.
Removed the petrol tank, to find the leak but also to check the rear arches.
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Bad news rust is very evident, thought it was a small amount but the screwdriver revealed more. Main reason for this I think is that the filler pipe has a foam sleave wrapped around it, this was quite damp, so somehow water was getting onto this foam.the foam sits on the inner arch.
Is that daylight I can see? Ouch! Still, at least the floor pan looks OK.

I'm now frightened to investigate mine too closely...
 
Unfortunately yes it is daylight, a bit of a shock but I was looking for the rust bug, at least it is easy to get to in order to repair. Regarding the floor pan, I was dreading the removal of the matting but thankfully nothing too bad, just preventative work.
The bigger task is replacing the steering rack, took me ages to remove it was a right pig. I did a fair amount of cussing. That is away for a refurbishment as it had a leak on the seal of the splined input shaft.
 
Hi Steve, before I stripped out the tank I gave the car a run, focusing my attention to the seal on the fuel pump and the two one way valves (8) on the top of the tank. I placed tissue around those areas to help detect any leaks, no evidence around the pump but the one way valve (8) nearest the fuel filler did have a leak, but only very slight. Not sure if it is the seal or the pipe that attaches to the valve. Not really looked at the tank since I have removed but will check the condition of the seals. I do suspect that it's the hose clips, so will replace all of them.
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Yesterday received back my refurbished steering rack, at a cost of£178 not cheep but not many options. Decided not to get a secondhand one as I just don't want to tackle this job again any time soon, a new one is silly money from Fiat. Took me about 4 hours to remove most of this time spent jiggling and manoeuvring the rack from the car. So was not looking forward to replacing back. But replacement whent quite well, mainly because once the rack is removed you can see what restricted removal, gear linkage was the main obstacle along with the hydraulic pipes.
Anyway a few pictures of my refurbished rack, incidentally the second picture is where my rack leaked new seals now and also a new input shaft.
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Hi Dave,
My steering rack has also a leak,
so i tried to remove a steering rack from a donor car,
but i forgot the pin in the red circle.
Was it easy to remove it? or you had to push it from under the car?
 

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Hi
You have circled the mounting location. Do you mean the pivot pin for the gear selector arm?
If so I did not remove it from the rack.
Regarding the removal of the rack from the car, the method is to remove from below the car. To aid removal the Cat section of the exhaust is removed, also the rear engine/ gearbox mount.Support the engine. on a jack then lower the rear of the engine to give more room to manoeuvre the rack, at some point I also raised the rear of the engine to again manoeuvre the rack from the car. The rack is first pushed to the passenger side then lowered from the middle of the underside.
Hope this explains.
 
Hi Dave. To be honest, I don't think it's as bad as what most of us would expect! You did say you were seeking a possible petrol leak! Did you discover anything? Steve


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Hi Steve.
I have finally got around to the fuel smell issue, after removing the tank I cleaned off the tank removing all the grim that had collected on the tank, plugged all the pipe work exits, put new pipe fasteners onto the fuel filler and breather pipe, then put about a gallon of fuel into the tank. gave the tank a good shake then placed it upside down on trestles, had a few goes of this as I was unsure if i was getting seepage or not. But my conclusion is that both of the Valves are leaking or rather the rubber seals that the valves are located in, only very slight but enough. My thoughts are that as the tank is pressurised its the petrol fumes that are escaping . looking on Eper the parts are order-able so on Monday i will be making inquiries regarding the availability before I attempt removal.
 
Mot time today, don't expect any issues but you never know.:)
Also asked the mechanic to investigate a noise that I have on start up, sound to me like a water pump bearing, but the mechanic thinks not. I have removed the ancillary belt to eliminate the steering pump and alternator, and still get the noise. Annoying as I only had a new timing belt last year, should have done the water pump as a matter of course :(. Other possibilities are the fixed timing belt bearing or the adjusting bearing.
Regarding the petrol smell, done quite a few miles since I had the petrol tank out. And I can report that I have no petrol smells, this is endorsed by my wife who always complained about it.
My issue was the rubber connecting pipe to the breather was leaking, replaced the rubber pipe, but also replaced all of the metal clips with jubilee clips
 
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Sounds like a good fix for the petrol smell. I'm about to replace my fuel pump, to see if that will cure what I suspect is fuel starvation. Do you know if the gasket is re-usable?
 
Do you know if the gasket is re-usable?

Don't know Gareth, decided not to undo the pump as I had no evidence of a leak in that area. I suspect that this area would need to be resealed with care, easy to distort the rim of the pump aperture unless clamped down in a sequence. I bought some sealer just incase I needed it.Permatex Aviation form-a-gasket, liquid sealant, really thick goopy. stuff.
 
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That's rotten luck - especially with such a low mileage on them.

My MOTs up this week, but I can't even get it to the nearest MOT station without it conking out :(
 
New rear shocks installed, so now have a nice new MOT certificate. Still can't believe that the old ones had failed. Also the horrible noise that I was getting on start up, well I was convinced is was a water pump bearing or the cam belt adjusting bearing that was howling, the sound disappeared after about a minute or so. Turns out I had a split in the exhaust manifold, welded up now, horid noise, no more.
 
The Barchetta going of for some work before it's MOT re-test. Failed first time for several issues, main one is the uneven braking on the rear. This has been a real pain to sort. Hopefully the new master cylinder and brake compensator valves will have sorted the issue. Also the CV rubbers were showing excessive wear. Letting the garage do those before it's retest.
 

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Inspired by this thread.
https://www.fiatforum.com/barchetta/461907-dynamic-air-induction.html
I decided to bring forward the installation of my ITG Maxogen induction housing.
My existing K&N filter suffered from the under bonnet heat, despite my poor attempt at directing a whiff of cool air in its visinity. But in order to make room for the housing, the battery had to be moved, to do this I've made an aluminium battery tray, moving it back towards the brake master cylinder.I have an air scoop funneling cold air from the lower front grill up to the right angle intake of the filter housing.
Been on a couple of runs out, and although it may be in my head. The B does seem more responsive on acceleration.
 

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