600 (Classic) 1960 600 EV conversion

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While I wait for the spring spacers, I am getting after some details like the steering wheel and trim bits. I watched a great video on how to refinish a steering wheel and basically followed that process. First, clean it up and scrap out any loose junk in the broken plastic. Second, fill the gaps with a 2-part epoxy filler. Third, sand. Lastly, paint. Simple, right? Well... here are my progress pics.

After filling with the Oatey Fix-it-stick:

Sanded and ready for paint:

And after priming and painting:

I was excited how it turned out. Then I flipped it over. There is a reason i paid someone to paint my car... I seem to be bad at it. The clear coat can clearly said "2-3 light coats a few minutes apart". I swear I was doing light coats... but upon flipping the wheel over the next day... runs galore. Sheesh. I have some wet sanding and respraying in my future.

In better news, I cleaned up the badges and trim and started preparing them to put back on the car. I repainted the Abarth badge that came on the car and the Fiat emblem on the hood; they both looked tired. When I was doing body work on the car, I closed up all the trim holes in the doors and hood. I had planned to use molding tape instead. Then i saw @Bounding Bambino thread on using magnets to hold the trim on. I considered this but decided against it for fear of the magnets attracting debris and eventually messing up the paint. So, back to my original plan, which requires filling the inside of all the trim bits with epoxy so the tape has something to grab. I filled the hood trim, side trim and the nose trim. Here is a pic of the nose trim after filling the inside cavity with epoxy:

Then I put molding tape on it and stick it to the car. Easy-peasy. Here is how the nose turned out:

I think I am going to leave off the smaller trim bits above and below the mustache for now. I like how clean this looks.

And finally, here is the back:

Its really coming together!

 

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Here are a couple of short videos of some first test drives:

 

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Hello all... I have been zipping all over town in this little blue gem. It now has 199 miles on it and its a hoot. I have been shaking it down, working through issues and continuing to add finishing touches. With a few of those finishing touches, I now consider the outside of the car complete. I also have been working on interior bits, continuing to tune the brakes, brake pressure regen mapping, accelerator mapping, charging, etc... First up, the outside finishing touches, such as the mirrors, trim, and wheels/tires. As it goes on this project, the side view mirrors (specifically suicide door mirrors) did not fit on my doors. Why? no idea, but its a bummer. The door frame was too wide.

as you can see, the channel in the mirror is smaller than the frame. So, what to do? Well, I cut up the mirrors and drilled holes in the door frames to mount the mirrors. Not what I wanted to do, but I was desperate to get mirrors on the car, and not only for the cute factor, but also cuz I really use them!

I bolted them to the frame, but also put molding tape under them to keep water out. They are quite secure now, but unmovable, so I have to be ok with their position (which I am, though the passenger side requires I move my head to make use of it).

Next up is the belt line trim and the white walls. The trim is easy enough and just required some care in making sure it was in the right spot, that the car was properly cleaned for the tape, and pressing it into position. More controversially, I also added white wall stickers to the tires. I saw and have read that the snap-on style white walls suck, so I avoided them and went with the permanent style that gets applied with glue. The procedure is straightforward, but time consuming. In the end, I love them, but they took some getting used to...

I choose the size because of the tires on the car (Firestone F-560's). They have a radial feature outside of the firestone logos and tire info that seemed like a natural location to end the white wall. I did not expect them to be so bold. When they were first completed, I thought I had made a terrible mistake... but they have grown on me and more people like them than not (I have been taking a poll). So, I am fully embracing the silliness of them and really leaning into the toy-ness of this car. It has a backup bell after all, right? In the end, it may not matter much. I suspect i will be going through these tires quickly given the glorious acceleration in 1st gear. More on that later.

As for the interior, I added the convenience shelf under the dash, finished up the doors and center console. Then I got after the horn. Making a center horn button work with a removable steering wheel is not straight forward.

The doors needed plastic lining, as I had mentioned earlier. A tremendous amount of water gets into the doors, especially during a wash. I wanted to keep the door cards from getting soaked every time, and I really don't want a bunch of water getting into the car, especially given the battery locations. So, I lined the doors with plastic before using velcro to attach the door cards. Velcro? yes... it's an experiment that is working out so far. I did my best to make the plastic curtain complete, so all the water drains out the bottom of the door, through the drain holes. After washing it this weekend, I can attest it works:

and with the finished door cards:

Next up is the center console. I finally got all the aluminum knobs and sst fasteners to finish it out. I love it:

the seat heaters are fully functional, and are quite lovely. Those big wires are for them and I am not sure how best to hide them. In reality, they are not as noticeable as the picture suggests. You may also notice the carpet and center console vinyl. Both turned out nice:

The black wire and box thing is actually the GPS antenna for my speedometer driver. Under the dash, there is a box with a motor in it, designed specifically to drive old timey speedometers. One just runs a speedo cable from the box to the back of the speedometer, calibrate the box for your specific speedometer, and off you go. Its quiet and accurate. It has provisions for a GPS antenna (see above) or using a VSS (vehicle speed sensor). I have been working on getting a VSS sensor system in this car without success so far. More on that later.

The convenience shelf was easy enough. It consists of a wooden dowel (closet rod, actually) wrapped in vinyl. My awesome neighbor has an amazing woodshop, and he was kind enough to run a relief cut down the length of the dowel for the shelf on his amazeballs table saw. The ABS shelf I made slips right into the groove. Like this:

I added some left over carpet to it for extra luxury. I cut a relief in the shelf for the steering shaft and the future heater tube. I didn't even have to fasten them together. The cut was precise enough, it was a perfect press fit with the vinyl in place:

I also attempted to seal up the boot lid louvers. I did this with some left over weather stripping and a piece of ABS that attaches to the same bolts that hold on the license plate. So far it keeps water out only OK:

but the fiat now hauls groceries like a champ!

the finished trunk is certainly nice enough. I added a basket to the motor cover, so its at least somewhat useful, and I turned it into a "hood" of sorts so I can check to make sure the motor is still there:

The Fiat makes everyone smile. I am a bit weird in that I really feel like inanimate objects, like the wee fiat, have souls. This little fiat has been fighting me during this entire project. I feel it has finally started to relax and embrace the change. The corvair cooperated nicely during the entire EV conversion process. Maybe the fiat has finally learned a bit from its big brother.

 

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And a 1st gear pull:


Makes me giggle every time.