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Multipla The Smurf - was The Toad

Introduction

Think this is quite a famous car on here. Originally it was violated by Emdee, who did a build thread here:-

https://www.fiatforum.com/members-motors/274616-toad.html

He bought it as a respectable family car

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After much abuse and going up and down like a whores drawers I bought it looking like this....

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.....on the proviso from our lass that I painted it. Stuck her on the Montana colour chart and she picked this embarrassingly boring shade called True Cyan.

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Nuclear bright.

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I then violated it additionally over the Winter. It went everywhere - through 14 foot snowdrifts, green laning, wading up to the bonnet in water. Never missed a beat.

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Anyway, I eventually got bored of the nosebleeds. Chopped springs and a set of Abarth Claws sorted that out.

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I've done about 14k miles in it now, mainly either ragging the living daylights out of it and/or loaded up with ridiculous amounts of tat. This was a 5.7 V8 engine, large automatic gearbox, big american axle, few wheels and some other bits and bats.

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I also pikey'd in a boost gauge as when I bought it the turbo was whistling.

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And when visiting my daughter in hospital (born 11 weeks premature so gonna be in there for a while) it blended in well with the new cars in the car park.

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Bought some new wheels, 18x7.5jayjays Kei Racing, which will have 225/40 R18 tyres and 30mm spacers.

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And then the clutch went. Well I say went - slowly started slipping more and more. Car never actually broke down but I was really having to grandad it to get anywhere (done 1000-odd miles since it started).

So began plan "Annoy BMW drivers".

- Ported and Rebuilt Head & New Gasket
- New Cambelt/Tensioner/Water Pump
-Welded DMF (or SMF if I can get this Fiat Coupe Turbo one to work) with new but stock clutch (for now, at £65 might aswell see how it copes rather than splashing £300-odd on a uprated one)
-Rebuilt Turbo with 360 degree thrust
-FMIC fitted
-Custom downpipe and bumper exit exhuast
-Custom Remap

That's the plan. I've got all the bits already just need to sling it together, so yesterday I did this

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And today I did this

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Engine is now stripped, head in pieces and having a soak in petrol to clean the carbon buildups off. However when I dropped the gearbox off the engine I discovered it was FUBAR. I don't really want to part with a sizeable chunk of cash for another JTD gearbox that i'm fairly sure will go bang with the power I want to run. I had a Coupe 20vT gearbox sat around doing nothing, so thought i'd try it on assuming it wouldn't fit (googling turns up nothing). So far i've got it bolted to the engine, starter motor fits, the coupe centre driveshaft seems to fit (with new multipla sized support bearing pressed onto coupe shaft), clutch is hydraulic so easy, gear linkage works in the same direction as far as I can see. Just need to fanny about with flywheels and clutches to get a working combo. If it doesn't work it's not cost me anything apart from 12 quid for the bearing, so no big loss, and worth the effort for a stronger box with LSD.

Bye for now.
Nice. Liking the black roof. Amazed the 20vT gearbox even comes near fitting the JTD. Does it look like the output shafts are anything like the same position as on the original box?
 
It's cheaper just to paint it. The entire blue paintjob set me back 28 quid including paint (Montana rattle cans), sandpaper, masking tape and a few newspapers for masking.
 
looking good dude, i remember emdee turning up in this at the 8 ball one evening.... he even had the coupe wheels in the boot lol

liking what you have done to the smurf so far, really like the colour, one question did you drill into the inlet manifold or was the hole already there with a screw init? i have to plumb my boost gauge in and so far have not decided how i am going to do it lol.... looking forward to seeing how this turns out buddy.
 
I drilled into the inlet manifold (unbolt the elbow off the end so you can wipe any swarf out) then drilled a hole down the centre of a stainless M6 bolt (with a hand drill, steady hand ftw) then wound it in and chopped the head off with a hacksaw. Works perfectly, plus its actual manifold pressure so you can spot if it's leaking boost easier.
 
Update time:-

My daughter is home now so not got a great deal of spare time at the moment, but things are slowly progressing. Need it to be finished and reliable before the 28th as i'm chasing on the Trackrod Rally.

No photos of the tear down, but eventually I got the head off (had to buy some ribe sockets) and cleaned the mounting face up, then cleaned the valves up to remove all the carbon deposits and ground them in.

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Went all Primark and got some child labour in on the job. She loves helping me out in the garage, not bad for a 4 year old girl she's handier on the spanners than most home mechanics haha.

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Finished grinding the valves in. It's very important that everything goes back in where it came from so numbering is critical.

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Cleaning all the valve gear

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I then got the die grounder out and opened the ports out, no useable photos of this though as I appear to have put a greasy fingerprint on the lens of my camera phone. This is a shot of me putting the valve gear back in - new stem seals fitted. Head was washed in unleaded petrol - the cheapest and most effective de greaser available.

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Finally after lots of cleaning and degreasing of everything I bolted the engine back together.

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That was that job pretty much done. Next up was the gearbox. The Coupe box needed a bit of extra work to fit that I didn't have time to do (if anybody has a 1.9 JTD engine or bottom end going cheap i'd be very interested, need one to mock the Coupe gearbox up as I would like to use it at some point) so I decided to have a go at refurbing the Multipla gearbox. I've not worked on a FWD gearbox before so it was a bit daunting, but with nothing to lose I cracked on and pulled it to bits.

High tech input shaft locking tool........

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......allowed me to do this. It looks messy but is actually in a fairly logical order.

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Gearbox casing cleaned with unleaded petrol again, and then Wynn's Fuel Injection & Carb cleaner. It's really handy for home de greasing as it's a high pressure jet so it can blast the grime out of the corners.

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After popping the bearing off the input shaft I disassembled all the gears, being careful to put them in order to ease reassembly. I then blew down one of the bearing oilways and this lot shot out. It's little lumps of the silicon sealer they've used to put the box together. No wonder the bearings are cattle trucked.

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Did a quick dry build with the old bearings inplace to check the order of rebuild - couple of bits wrong here.

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And then back together with all new bearings.

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And the casing back on.

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That's as far as the photos go i'm afraid. The gearbox is now completely back together ready to fit to the engine. Will get more photos when I get chance to get back in the garage.










 
Fantastic stuff. I wish I had the time to do that. You've made me come over all jealous (no jealous smilie available, so draw your own one here:

).

Also, the 'thanks' buttons seem to be on holiday, so I can't boost your ego still further right now. Will check back later.

Sealant in the oil ways isn't a great thing to find, especially if it's OEM. What's the condition of the input bearing like?

For the Coupe 'box, what have you found that p1sses on your bonfire?
 
It's not OEM sealant the box has been apart before and they'd put too much on putting it back together. The input shaft had maybe 3 or 4 ball bearings missing. I would have taken a photo but it exploded when I pulled it off the shaft.

The only thing stopping the Coupe box working is the support of the centre driveshaft is about 10mm out of line so it would have destroyed the bearings or the diff. If I can get a JTD block I'll be able to chop the Multipla carrier and modify it to fit, just need the block there to keep it all square.

Think the total cost of refurbishing the box has been about £100 including 30 quids worth of gearbox oil and a new input shaft seal from Fiat.
 
Nice job Smurf' (y)
I'll be doing the same soon, I've bought a S/H box for mine, half the mileage mines done.
I'll be overhauling it ready to swap over before the winter arrives (hopefully).

Are the bearings all standard (i.e. readily and cheaply available) sizes and grades?
 
Nice job Smurf' (y)
I'll be doing the same soon, I've bought a S/H box for mine, half the mileage mines done.
I'll be overhauling it ready to swap over before the winter arrives (hopefully).

Are the bearings all standard (i.e. readily and cheaply available) sizes and grades?

I got all the part numbers off and went to a couple of engineering suppliers to get them. Think it was about 60 quid for them all, whereas Fiat wanted £47+VAT just for the input shaft bearing.
 
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