General Fiat 500F rejuvenation

[1500500]

You know, it doesn't look half-bad in 2 tone, black and yellow. :idea:

I seem to recall taxis in some country or other used this combination?
(might have been black roof over yellow?).

Al.

Maybe I should start up a Classic Fiat Uber enterprise so people can ride in style. Use the 500 for single passengers. The 850 for two and the 1500 for 3. Hmmmm ?

 

[1500500]

Now I'm tempted to go matte black with red wheels . And two straight through exhaust pipes to top it off....
And I'll remove the springs because they just hold the car up too high and i'll replace them with wood ?

 

[1500500]

Home from the panel shop. Good to have the little beast here again. Where to start next... Tidy up the boot or tidy the benches?

 

[fiat500]

Looks very familiar.

 

[1500500]

Decided to clean up the car a bit. See what I need to do.
I cant decide the best way to remove the paint in here. Any suggestions welcome. I'm leaning towards taking it to a master blaster. Sand or Soda....?? Any experience with soda blasting pros and cons also welcome.

 

[1500500]

Trying on another door and bonnet to see if they fit better than my yellow ones. Again if anyone has experience with soda blasting I'd like to hear about it...

 

[fiat500]

I'm only adding my suggestion since no-one's replied.
I always go the analogue route. So scraping, stripper, degreaser, wire -brush in drill and my old favourite.... phosphoric acid worked for me
Actually less messing about in the long run and rust has stayed away.

 

[the hobbler]

Morning Geoff;
After all your in-house wrangling over the final colour for your car (which I expect the daughters to win--they usually do!) have you ever thought of leaving it as per your latest photo--blue/black/yellow---sort of keeps everybody happy then!

 

[1500500]

Hi Tom It's funny you mentioned the colour. It would certainly get the car back on the road a lot faster to go with the multicolour look but I think I have won. Half an hour ago when we arrived home I showed the girls the car with the blue bonnet and door

I only discovered a few days ago that the bonnet has antique ivory on the inside so I showed my daughters and they both agreed it's a good colour. And to bring our car back to the original colour is a good idea.

So the decision is made.

Peter - The yellow paint it quite thin so I might just try some paint stripper inside the boot and see how I go,

I'd better start cooking their dinner now?

 

[stevehg]

Decided to clean up the car a bit. See what I need to do.
I cant decide the best way to remove the paint in here. Any suggestions welcome. I'm leaning towards taking it to a master blaster. Sand or Soda....?? Any experience with soda blasting pros and cons also welcome.

Sorry, I've only just seen this. I have previous personal experience with sand blasting, and I've just looked into soda blasting for my next project, as all of the outer panels on the range rover classic are an aluminium alloy, birmabright.

So the main pros of soda appear to be that it's great for paint removal without generating any heat distortion on thin panels or surface damage to soft metals like aluminium or plastics. It also won't affect any chrome, rubber trim or glass left in situ. It leaves a protective coating on the surface, that will give a few weeks of protection in dry storage before you need to prime. It's safer to use and easier to clean up than sand.

Cons, are it won't remove any seam sealers, decent fillers or heavy rust - you'll need a harder medium for this. It's residue coating needs to be washed off before priming. It creates a lot of dust, although I can't believe it's any worse than the mess sand blasting creates. It's also one time use only, as it works by exploding on impact, however, personally when I've sand blasted it's created so much mess with the aggregate, that you have to be committed to strain it out and reuse. It needs a higher pressure and greater flow from your compressor.

If you are having it blasted by someone else, most of the pros/cons won't make a difference, apart from soda will be a bit more expensive. Although the soda will be better for the thin panels used on the 500.

Given where you need to clean up, and that it's now that it's all enclosed in again with the front panel and wings, I'd say that it will be easier to have it blasted than stripping.

I'm planning to buy a soda blaster and do it myself, as in addition to bodywork, I want to use it on the top tailgate with glass in situ, the diff and axle housings, as it doesn't damage the flange facings, and to clean up the engine, gearbox and transfer box. So for me it makes sense to buy a unit.

I hope this helps.

Steve

 

[1500500]

Thanks Steve
I had not really thought about blasting myself but looked up the blasting guns here and they are not too expensive
The cost of a big tub of soda is not bad either.

I might do a combination of stripper on the easy to access parts on the outside of the car and soda blast away the rest.

At least I won't be charged for the labour that way.

I will see if I have time to do something on the weekend.

 

[Paolo66]

The reason I went down the shot blasting route was to sort out difficult areas such as the front area. The time it saves is huge and rubbing down that area with all its bumps and crevices takes ages

 

[1500500]

Well today and yesterday I started removing the interior.

I decided not to do any blasting until the inside was stripped out.

This is the first time I have looked under the carpet... The floor looked good from the outside so I hoped for the best, and was very happy with what I found.

[/url]Fiat 500 F by geoffjessica, on Flickr[/IMG]

Fiat 500 F by geoffjessica, on Flickr

Fiat 500 F by geoffjessica, on Flickr

Fiat 500 F by geoffjessica, on Flickr
Look at all of that rust!

Fiat 500 F by geoffjessica, on Flickr

Fiat 500 F by geoffjessica, on Flickr

I also decided to remove the rear glass. I was struggling at first then decided to use a few scrapers to lift the seal. This worked a treat.

Fiat 500 F by geoffjessica, on Flickr

Fiat 500 F by geoffjessica, on Flickr

Fiat 500 F by geoffjessica, on Flickr

Fiat 500 F by geoffjessica, on Flickr

Fiat 500 F by geoffjessica, on Flickr

 

[fiat500]

"Look at all of that rust!"

Oh dear, what a mess.

As Crocodile Dundee might have said, "Hah hah hah. That’s not rust!"

Seriously though...really nice to see.

 

[1500500]

I thought that would get a bit of a laugh.

Did a little bit more late last night. 1130 pm Put the garbage out, pop into garage, remove sun visors and windscreen....

 

[1500500]

Another midnight mad dash - 20 minutes and the sunroof was off the car...

[/url]Fiat 500 F by geoffjessica, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url]Fiat 500 F by geoffjessica, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url]Fiat 500 F by geoffjessica, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[fiat500]

It must be really boring restoring a car that is so clean of rust.

I like your style; that's just like me..grabbing odd bits of time when you can.

 

[AndrewHarvey]

I have the same time problem:
Demanding job 65 miles from home
Home with 6 young children
Multiple projects
Limited funds

 

[El cargador]

Hi i recently came across some videos on you tube about soda blasting as i needed to clean the carb and did'nt want hours of scrubbing with a toothbrush so i made one,using a 10mm plastic tube,an airgun slotted into the tube about 8cm from the outlet and a very high pressure(i used my mates commercial workshop) this was the result

 

[El cargador]

Me too, all i had to do to mine was a bit under the seat rail,but then it has been sat in the sun all it's life,and she's 99.99% finished