General So, I bought this X1/9 right...

[popsprocket]

Hi everyone,

I thought I would kick off my new (hopefully long-lived) career by saying hello to the X forum.

So, today in fact, I bought my very first car - a 1979 1300 X1/9 for $2700 AUD, it's in pretty good nick, a small amount of rust and despite the fact that it's been sitting for a few years the owner has kept on top of the problems that come from sitting. The engine didn't start but it did turn over willingly and so we (my dad and I) are hoping that a thorough service and a few new parts will solve that problem. The inside has seen better days although it's in fairly good condition apart from some cracking in the seat fabric, but thats waaaay down the list of things to do. It's not road worthied or registered and it could be a few months before that can happen but I have 2 months before uni starts again for the year so I'm probably going to spend as much time as possible working on my new baby .

A bit about me, I'm 18 years old and I live on the southside of Brisbane, Australia. I have no practical mechanical knowledge though I have a fairly decent basic concept of the theoretical workings of an engine. I realise this probably isn't an ideal car but part of buying it was because I want to learn to do my own car work (or at least a decent amount). The other reason being because I am in love with old cars. My dad however is an experienced home-mechanic and owns a Citroen CX 2400 and is willing to teach and help me out with this project.

I think I'll finish with a simple question:
Since it's been at least 5 years since it has had a new cam belt I would like to replace it, what would you expect it to cost me to buy a new belt (not incl. shipping)? It's just I've seen alot of variation and would like to know a rough average because I know some of the parts coming out of Italy are cheap knock-offs that are terrible quality.

Cheers

 

[digger58]

Hi there,
I am also a Francophile, I have had many Citroens..... Visa, BX, Xantia, C5, they are just as quirqy as the 1/9, I have just bought an 1989 X1/9 with 9500 genuine miles, today I changed the cam belt and the aux belt, I think the cam belt was about Euro 10, got it from Eurosport. I also changed the tensioner bearing, got that from my local bearing supplier Euro 9.5. Change all the bits and pieces when you are at it, much cheaper in the long run. Good luck with it,
if you need help just ask.
Tony

 

[turbo_jim]

A cambelt from a reputable supplier in the UK would cost no more than £10. If you bought direct from fiat they may charge slightly more, but not much. I would be very surprised if no parts suppliers in Australia could supply you a belt for a fiat. For example, some fiat belts are identical to those on Vauxhall/Holden engines.

Best of luck with it !

 

[bludvl_x19]

Hi popsprocket!
Good to see you have chosen a beautiflu car to start your driving ownership

Re parts, i use either Fiattorque in Sydney, or Peter Bartold in Melbourne, who races an X1/9. PM me if you want contact details. I havent used any suppliers in Brisvegas, although I am sure that there are some up there.

Enjoy the forum!

 

[popsprocket]

Thanks guys, unfortunately there are no suppliers left in Brisbane that I am aware of, the last one ended up selling his stock to Sydney and Melbourne because he wasn't making enough money from it. It doesn't matter, I'll manage.

 

[Neojames2k]

Hi, if you're looking for a for just a belt it is well worth considering that the cam belt on the X is not unique. I found one for my 1500 engine in the uk for £2 on ebay listed as also fitting the peugeot 505 2.2 gti, i've just done a quick search now and there's loads on the uk site.

cambelt for a 1300 is also the same as:-
peugeot
505 2.0i Sti -eng 53472 79-81
citroen
CX Athena Reflex 2.0 79-83
CX2000 74-79

and many others
I hope this helps with your search
Cheers
Neojames2k

 

[popsprocket]

cambelt for a 1300 is also the same as:-
peugeot
505 2.0i Sti -eng 53472 79-81
citroen
CX Athena Reflex 2.0 79-83
CX2000 74-79

Thanks for that, I'm not sure how much cheaper Peugeot parts will turn out to be but there are suppliers up here in Brisbane so that certainly makes things much easier for the most part.

I have another question, I know this is relative to the state but will it fail road worthy if I take the unsightly bumpers off?

 

[bludvl_x19]

It shouldnt be, but just to be safe, get a hold of the early-model slimline bumpers, they look :yum:

 

[popsprocket]

The car should be towed tomorrow or Friday afternoon (Aus time, then pics before and after its first wash), is there somewhere other than here that I should post a progress thread? If not then I'll just add to this thread slowly.

 

[popsprocket]

So we had it towed back to ours today, the guy was pretty good and cheap enough.

But this is how I bought it, even all that dirt couldn't deter me.

This is how it finished the afternoon, spent about 3 hours getting it to there. There is dirt absolutely everywhere, I only spent about 30 minutes washing the exterior.

I'd be washing it on the front lawn but the brakes don't work (first on the list of things to do) and the engine isn't running so we would be pushing it back up our driveway which isn't desirable at all . This coming weekend/next week I'll be working on getting it as clean as possible, still lots to do but it'll get there. Once it's clean I'll be removing the pinstripe since it's not a look I particularly like.

 

[popsprocket]

So I'm already starting to get better with the car, the electrical's were never going to be a problem though.

I have a relatively short attention span and I haven't gotten around to opening up my left headlight motor to check and see if its the diodes that are causing problems, so I started on the brakes today. Read the Haynes manual last night on how to remove the master cylinder but as with any 30 year old car I unearthed more problems that really should be fixed before continuing, so I've spent most of my day revamping parts with surface corrosion with a nice high gloss enamel. I'll edit in some pictures of the 'working' pose of my X later.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me so far

 

[popsprocket]

So I was fairly busy today in terms of working on the x. After Christmas the family drove down to Canberra for 2 weeks, but my sister and I flew back early for the new years celebrations!

So I hope everyone had a great Christmas and new years.

Down to business: so only the passenger side had carpet when I bought the car as the previous owner was about to redo the carpet and had taken out the drivers side carpets.

It took me about 2 hours on new years day to get the carpet out and clean it up ready for new carpet. I ran into some surface rust but nothing major. After some wire brushing, rust kill, and a new coat of paint (which I hope won't fail me) I was ready to carpet.

Start to finish, the carpeting probably took about 3 hours - it would have taken less but I procrastinated for a while in the middle of the job. A very simple process but I definitely know what I will be doing differently when it comes time for me to carpet the drivers side.

Of course what you are all here for, pictures:

Laid out the new carpet and used the stuff I pulled out as a template, I would have used chalk to mark the lines but I couldn't find any:

Finished product, it's far from perfect but considering I was trying not to use too much glue (as it will be removed within the year) and this was my first attempt at car upholstery I am quite proud:

Finally, I give you my baby minus it's horrible late 80's red pinstripe.

Tips on removing decals:
1. Use a hairdryer or a heat gun (hairdryer works fine), but you only need to heat the sticker for about 20 seconds.
2. Peel slowly, you'll get much larger sections up this way.
3. Buy an actual adhesive remover, I wasn't in the mood to get cleaned up to get one so I used methylated spirits. Now it worked just fine once I had the technique right. You only get about 5 seconds out of each dab of spirits that actually takes adhesive off, so you need to keep loading the cloth up.
4. Paper towel is not abrasive enough and tends to leave fibers on the adhesive making it even harder to remove, a cloth is much better (just a dish cloth).

Before:

After:

Total time to remove both pinstripes: 3 hours (my technique on the first side was so off it took me nearly an hour to remove the adhesive.)

Cheers guys

 

[fordy744]

I have to say i prefer it without the pinstripe too!

oh and I want your wheels:yum:

 

[popsprocket]

So the prognosis for the master cylinder isn't so bright. The bore appears to have small amounts of rust and for an as yet undetermined reason, the reason the brake pedal pushed to the ground is because the piston was stuck in the fully depressed position. Which figures because the explanation we got when I bought it was pretty unlikely.

The clutch slave may still be salvaged it has worse surface rust but its internals are looking much healthier. Still - I will probably just buy both anyway since changing them now beats the hell out of having to pull them out again in the future.

Question: has anyone had a ridiculous amount of trouble getting the cylinders out? Even after completely removing the steering column I ended up having to take out the pedal assembly because I simply could not remove them separately (let alone have room to pull 8" bolts out). Just as well I guess because now I get a chance to clean up and repaint the whole assembly to protect it better.

On a happier note I'm bidding on some interior door handles since the passenger side one had previously been broken and its repair was somewhat unsightly.

 

[popsprocket]

Not happy Jan.

Dad got cocky jacking up the car and didn't believe me when I said I could hear the would (used to spread the weight, that bit of wood) splitting and the car dropped.

In the battle of falling car vs pneumatic car jack, the jack won. I know have a LARGE gouge dent back to bare metal on the right hand side sill and a decent scratch up the driver side door. [Expletive]:bang:

But eventually I stopped being annoyed at him and got the wheels off and have dismantled the brakes. Unfortunately they're going to have to wait til next Monday before I have time to work on them. [Expletive no.2]

 

[Dogdda]

Hey popsprocket,

Yeah getting those cylinders out is a right bitch. I have just replaced the clutch master, though i did not remove the pedal bracket, I worked around it!!

I have a '78 4 spd that has been laid up for 5 yrs (my mums old car) and I am lucky in that it was garaged the entire time and had just been resprayed prior to layup. So far, I've refurbed all 4 brakes, replace the clutch friction plate and release bearing, a little bit of minor electrical work to get the the tail light clusters working and a little bit of friggin' around inside on the heater tap (another bitch of a job). Like yours, my interior is pretty shabby, largely due to a dog chewing on the steering wheel and seats. On eBay, there is fitted carpet available for the X for about $140 AUD, I will be getting one, might be worth a look for you too.

For parts, as bludvl (sic) stated, Fiatorque in Granville, Sydney is excellent. I'm located Mid North Coast NSW.

Best of luck!

 

[popsprocket]

Small update, I have spent a few hours each night working on the brakes and have them fairly cleaned up, but since we currently don't have a lathe I'm going to have to take the discs to a brake specialist to have them wire brushed properly. They're getting close to minimum thickness (0.5mm on each one, or thereabouts) but I'm not too keen on going for new discs just yet there are other more pressing factors (rust).

Re Doggda: Geez, I wish I could accomplish as much as that in one paragraph, I had to start a new thread to get half that much done . I have in fact seen the moulded carpet and WILL be getting one, sadly it's not even in the top 100 of things that need to be done right now so it's a fair way off. I am definitely interested in hearing about the fit if you get one though. Mine was kept under cover but not in a garage so it managed to collect a large amount of airborne junk that it could have done without, and I'm sure rain is to blame for how advanced some of the rust is. I also need to get to my heater soon, the previous owner said the heater valve gets stuck open and has to be manually closed so I'll have to investigate that, mind you in Queensland there isn't a great chance I'll ever need to use it.

Re fiattorque: I found them to be quite expensive actually, they were asking something like $150 for a brake master cylinder and while I feel bad for not supporting the local guys I won't be paying 3x the price I can get one for from the US/Europe.

Glad you got the master cylinder out less eventfully than I did, but then again turns out my pedal assembly needed some surface rust taken care of and a spray paint. It's all shiny and black again now just waiting on new cylinders.

Good luck with yours too.

 

[popsprocket]

Right then, my working week is finally over and I'll get to have a go at my car tomorrow. Disassembled one caliper today and my god I've never been so stumped as removing that piston had me. It should have been easy seeing as you should be able to push it in with the force of the braking system (which admittedly is quite a bit). In the end dad had to help and we used a combination of screwdrivers and multigrip tools to lever the piston out. Didn't damage it too much in the process, nothing problematic.

It cleaned up well, a small amount of surface rust on the inside above the seal, so I should get away with taking care of that without having to buy all new calipers.

Seriously though, if they are all that stuck it's no bloody wonder the brakes were completely shot, pretty useless in that state I'd say!

Should I paint my calipers some ricer colour (red/yellow/body colour) while I have easy to access to them? If not they're going to get a coat of silver brake paint to preserve them and make them SHINY.

 

[Ics19]

Glad to hear you're progressing Pops', shame you've got to resort to the old discs - i think we're probably spoilt in the UK for the relative low price and as a safety item it's always best to replace when on the limit.

Hope you can get some new seals in the calipers - if you can't find them in Aus then they're very light so should be cheap(ish) to ship in - shop around as prices vary greatly for the same parts (!) - looking at ~7 gbp over here for axel kit and maybe 9 for each disc as a comparison.

 

[popsprocket]

Glad to hear you're progressing Pops'

Pop's, I like it

Yeah I know of all things I really shouldn't be half arsing the brakes, I guess I'll just have to measure them again when I've taken the surface rust off and see if I'm pushing my luck on the thickness.

Took the coolant tank out a few minutes ago, there's no coolant in it! It is now blatantly obvious it's actually a good thing that we couldn't get it started as I was buying it.