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500 (Classic) "Sophia's" Restoration

Introduction

I have finally begun the process to start the restoration on my wife's cinquecento "Sophia"

Original Introduction Thread

She is a 1966 F with a 650 motor that has a synchro gearbox, electronic ignition and a dynamo.

When I purchased the car from Bring A Trailer it looked to be in much better condition than when she showed up at our home in December. I knew that I was going to have to do some work to get her to where we wanted to be with the car, but I didn't expect to need to "fix" so much. I'm not necessarily mad about this, as I will be able to learn more about the car as I go through it.
The car was originally blue, but was repainted to green at some point. We plan to bring her back to blue, but not for a few years. I'm certainly in over my head on this, but that's part of the fun!

When I started to look her over, I noticed that the exhaust was severely cracked, the seller stated it was "new"

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Here's how the engine looked after the first test drive. You'll note that the engine is covered in oil, as it turns out, the car has a major oil leak that sprayed over the whole engine from the belt and pullies. I thought we had a fire with all the smoke!

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The wiring is also quite a mess, with lots of splices and things not working as they should. I ordered a new loom and will be rewiring the whole car.

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Gas tank out to begin the wiring removal process. I think I'll repaint it with the colors of the Italian flag

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And now the process of removing the bits from the engine in preparation to pull it out to fix the oil leak, paint shrouds, swap oil pan and rebuild carburetor. I'll be replacing the bonnet, starter and accelerator cables as well.

Interesting "fix" for a shorter starter cable...

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The accelerator cable just runs without a housing for the full length of the car

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Electronic Ignition. If anyone can give pointers on how this needs to be wired into the loom, it would be greatly appreciated.

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Can anyone tell me what this is? Voltage Regulator?

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Air intake hose needs to be replaced...having a hard time finding this part, any leads?

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And here's how she sits for now

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The dynamo does not appear to be working, so I will need to rebuild it. I have a spare so I may send it off for refurbishment.
Here is a photo of the engine without the exhaust system on it. I dont have the tins on it either (wip), but gives you the ideal. The colour i used was Glacier Titanium. Has a very "SEMA show car" look to it.

I can snap some better pics if you want more.

One thing about the air cure cerakote, you really need a good mask for spraying this stuff. The VOC's off of these paints are unlike anything ive used before. Its nasty. I also lightly oven baked it after the coating was applied for about 2hrs @100c.. without that it takes a few days to harden and set.
They also have oven cure coatings but thats more sutied for ultra high temp exhaust and such, i wouldnt dare put aluminum case parts thru those temps.
 

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Here is a photo of the engine without the exhaust system on it. I dont have the tins on it either (wip), but gives you the ideal. The colour i used was Glacier Titanium. Has a very "SEMA show car" look to it.

I can snap some better pics if you want more.

One thing about the air cure cerakote, you really need a good mask for spraying this stuff. The VOC's off of these paints are unlike anything ive used before. Its nasty. I also lightly oven baked it after the coating was applied for about 2hrs @100c.. without that it takes a few days to harden and set.
They also have oven cure coatings but thats more sutied for ultra high temp exhaust and such, i wouldnt dare put aluminum case parts thru those temps.
Looks very good---don't forget to try and build some sort of 'air-barrier' into the tin-ware by the distributor to protect it from the hot 'engine-cooling' air---it will prolong the life of either the condenser/electronic ignition. If it will help you, I will try and find some photos of my method to build a little 'air-dam'. It seems to work as the temperature of the distributor is about 10C cooler (AND under 100C) than the shrouding on the distributor side. That's a mighty meaty looking exhaust!
 
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