General Franko the 1971 500L

[Franko500]

Amazingly enough Peter it's not too bad. The inner B pillar is the worst part as it is only held in place by 2 spot welds on the bottom. As long as the floor isn't removed or too corroded the shell doesn't move much.
You just have to have a lot of vice grips to hold all the panels in place to make sure everything lines up before welding anything in place.
Oh and the key thing is not to move the car, and have it sitting evenly or on all 4 wheels to stop the shell from twisting.

 

[Vitesse]

Have you finished fitting the engine yet?

Yeah engine is fully back in Sean you may have read my grief I had with the release bearing, it meant I had to remove the gearbox and left the engine in place to swap bearings over.

Fingers crossed tomorrow should be the grand start-up, I am going to film it for austerity.

 

[fiat500]

Yeah engine is fully back in Sean you may have read my grief I had with the release bearing, it meant I had to remove the gearbox and left the engine in place to swap bearings over.

Fingers crossed tomorrow should be the grand start-up, I am going to film it for austerity.

Posterity? I hope.

 

[Vitesse]

Posterity? I hope.

Yep there's my English language letting me down. Mind you the car is treating me with austerity at the moment:bang:

 

[Franko500]

Just in case you thought I had given up! Think again..
I have been quite busy upsetting the neighbours with plenty of banging & grinding.
This side has definitely gone a bit easier, maybe because this time I knew what I was doing and also didn't need to repair quite so much of the inner wing. I made a new sill reinforcer panel, cleaned all the surface rust back to bare metal and renewed the lower inner A post section.
The inner sill is now in, and the outer arch, which seems to line up better than the other side. The 1/4 and outer sill are all cut, cleaned up and ready to weld in place.

This evening I spent an hour or so renewing the lower 5" of roof rail.
Hopefully tomorrow I will get it all welded up.

Had a major set back the other day, I mentioned earlier that after changing the mig wire reel my welder started playing up. Well problem solved! all of a sudden the weld went really bad as if it had no gas coming through. After inspection I found the regulator was playing up. As soon as I touched it, the guage went up to 5 psi. Then when I pulled the trigger it went to 0. Down to Halfords, bought a new regulator, reel of wire & gas (just in case). Wow, where I was welding on max setting, I can now weld the same thickness on the lowest setting.
I worked it out, my snap-on welder is 24 years old now, that's the first thing I have changed in all that time. I wondered if I should write to Snap-on, im sure they gave a life time guarantee with all there tools!


It sure makes welding easier, and I am not getting quite so many burns.


Just in case you wondered why I have added a photo of the rear panel? just a note for anyone buying one and cant understand why the engine lid wont shut? the top flange, where the 2 skins are spot welded is too wide. I had to grind this back by nearly 4mm to the same size as the old one. The lid now opens and closes lovely!

 

[fiat500]

Sean, I don't think anyone following your restoration is going to think you've given up!
There might be faults in that rear panel but amazing piece of metal to be able to buy new.
At least it bolts on.
Does your welder use disposable bottles because that must cost a fortune!
I assume you have a front end to replace looming ahead.
Keep up the postings....it's very interesting.

 

[Vitesse]

Decent progress Sean. I only had to replace two panels that one and the bonnet. The only problem I had with it was the spot welds were a bit rough, so I had to grind them down to tidy them up a bit. I think the manufacturers of the panel are probably inconsistent with where the hinges are welded on. In fact Fiat were as well, as on my original panel one hinge was welded about 5mm different to the other.

 

[Franko500]

Yes I am using disposable bottles. I have just started my 3rd bottle. Keep meaning to look into converting over to a large bottle but just never got round to it.
I use a spot welder wherever possible that cuts down on the gas quite a bit. And keeps joints looking more original.
There's a fair bit of playing around on the new panels to get them fitting properly & some dressing up required ready for refinishing. But over all I am quite impressed.
1/4 is all welded on, just the outer sill to do now. Had some others duties to do first before allowed in the garage.

 

[Franko500]

Hoorah!,
outer sill all welded in place, and door gaps looking good.
Door catches & rubbers all in place and door shutting lovely.
Next stage is the roof (maybe)

 

[fiat500]

Very neat alignments there. Better than those you see on nearly every Ebay "restored"car.

 

[Vitesse]

Your passenger door, which is my drivers door is a better fit than mine, I am jealous Sean.

On the roof I assume it is a bit rotten where the sunroof bolts on? Judging from your previous question to me.

What about the floor pans do they need replacing, I would imagine that is a yes, knowing where they rot.

What's left metal wise after that? Front end?

Tony

 

[Franko500]

Thanks for your nice comments!
Yes Tony, still a fair bit to go...
Floor pans are both being replaced. They didn't have any large holes as such but they were very corroded where they meet the sills. Also where the car has been clearly exposed to the rain with the sun roof missing there is corrosion to the centre tunnel which should prove to be fun!
No point messing around, I am going to take the whole thing out, repair the tunnel section, and fit 2 new floor pans.
I haven't welded the sills to the floor yet, so it wont take much to remove the floor now.
Following my recent questions about your roof, yes I have some refabricating to do. see image.
I will either be doing this next or move onto the front end.
That will include 2 new outer arches, f/wings, inner & outer f/panel & bonnet, plus repair the nsf inner wheel arch from a poor previous repair.
Oh and I think I might repair/replace the OS door post.
Then the only thing left is the repairs around the front screen aperture.


So should have it all done by next week

 

[Franko500]

So, I decided to bite the bullet and go for the one piece of this vehicle I have not been looking forward to ...... THE ROOF

I chose this 500 over the other 3 that were available as this had the best roof out of all them. The others basically needed a new roof. In England they aren't easy to come by, although I recently have seen a few available in Italy for 300 Euros.


So first off, how bad is it? well not that bad really. Just heavy corrosion around the roof rail holes, plus a few extra holes that have been drilled which clearly let more water in causing corrosion on the inner wing.
I cleaned the paint off, and removed all surface rust. There is some pitting on the roof skin, but I am going to treat this and live with it, that way I wont damage the inside of the roof panel that you see.
The main section where the studs go through went into holes and is paper thin. After a bit of bending I tried a sample to get the shape required and made up a length of metal (cut from a door skin) to the required shape.
I then set about with the angle grinder to remove the coroded section with minimal distortion. The inner rail wasn't bad, managed to clean it up with some wire brushes in a drill, then give a coat of weld through primer.
With the new panel trimmed to fit the hole, I set to with the mig welder.
Carefully tacking it in place, using the lowest setting I could, until it was all lined up. I then turned the power up a setting as I needed to get some penetration. I welded one spot at a time, then moved along an inch until the end. Then walked away for 5 minutes to allow it to cool, then completed another load of welds. Carried out this process until it was all welded. It didn't look pretty but it was welded and obtained minimal distortion. There is nothing worse than welding on the edge of a flat panel, too much heat and the whole thing can distort casuing major work to try and straighten it.
Anyhoo, I gave it a good grind up & hey presto! one section completed subject to some rust killer & a skim of filler.


Just need to do the other half which isn't quite so bad and then weld up a few unwanted holes and drill the new ones. I made a template before I started so I know where the originals were.
It took about 3hrs all in all, but I am quite pleased with it

 

[fiat500]

That looks a very tidy repair from here.
I am sure that the the thin strip of foam thst was laid between the folding roof and the paintwork must have kept moisture here all the time. Your car might have had a bit more moisture than usual Sean.
One of the better areas on my car so this ks what it should look like.

DSC_6145

 

[Franko500]

As they say in Essex, "Well Jel"
Tony added some photos of his roof earlier, that was in really nice condition also. I don't think there is a part of my car that wasn't corroded.

But hey, its on its way back to life.

 

[Vitesse]

Nice repair because that actually looked a lot worse than what was underneath. Interestingly enough I would imagine that Peter's was as it came out of the factory with the strip of foam all the way across. Mine had foam strips only in the gaps between the holes and well away from the holes themselves. Which is how I put it back together when I fitted the sunroof. Obviously somebody in the past recognised the potential for it to corrode and changed it?

 

[Franko500]

Progress update:
ns roof section now completed. I have carried out a similar repair to the os section and then re-drilled all the holes for the sunroof rail. There were 4 holes in the roof at each end where self tappers had been used, no wonder it leaked. These are now all welded up and ground off ready for the new fixing. I haven't made my mind up which method to use yet for securing the new rail.
The final rust has had a good soaking in rust killer for 48 hours and cleaned up quite well. I mig welded the worst of the rust divots and ground them off.
If I do get the shell blasted, this should get rid of anything I have missed.
Quick coat of etch primer to stop any surface rust and its looking good, well a lot better than before. It will just need a skim of filler to tidy it all up.

I carried out a repair to the os roof rail as well. No messing about here. Cut the corroded section out, made a new section & spot welded a thin section to it that will take the place of the roof flange. Slotted this into the gap between the roof and the side frame. A fair bit of mig welding on a low setting and then a good 10 minutes grinding.
Its amazing how some of the smaller areas take longer than replacing a panel. Although in this case I had no choice as there are no repair panels for these parts. Strange really, they make a replacement panel for the rail under the roof skin on the back of the sun roof (Which is the only panel on my car not needing replacing), but not the roof panel section.
Until next time my 500 friends!

 

[fiat500]

Sean, you should have done all this last year so that I could have learned from you. Your spot welder would have helped me. We must be a very elite group who have tackled this job.
Looking very good. I should have primed all my work as I went along as you do.

 

[Vitesse]

Very neat work Sean. Coming along great.

Tony

 

[Franko500]

Surprise! I have finished Franko




only joking, but heres a nice video of another Turquoise blue 500