I've often promised some pictures of my car on here but I've not been in a position to get any pictures until recently and then it came as a bit of a shock (to me at least) how much work was needed to get it looking fresh again.

As already mentioned a lot of my parts have been stolen recently and rather than just abandon the whole project I've decided to get on with it (it had been left with a friend to get it all together).



As you can see it isn't pretty but it turned out to be almost entirely superficial and the car is as solid as ever - it just needs cleaning, treating and painting.

I spent my free evenings over the last few weeks tackling all the rust I can get at and most recently actually fitting the panels for the front end - a job that has been put off for about 5 years. Another job that had been given to someone else to do and had been messed up. Thankfully they did all the necessary welding and it was only the attachment of the panels that started to go wrong and was thankfully caught before the panels were ruined.



The panels didn't quite line up on the body right and the fancy dzus fasteners were incorrect for the panel depth. I had to fork out for some new fasteners but now the whole lot is positively, mechanically fitted except for the bonnet which needs me to scratch my head a little more before I get on with it.

The front end is 3 panels that bolt together to make a single piece that can then be fitted or removed with relative ease (it is still a 2 man job but it only takes about 30 seconds to completely remove and only slightly longer to refit). The big issue is a lack of guiding points so you have to wiggle it around to get the fasteners lined up. I'm thinking of adding a pair of short pegs that are normally used as bonnet pins to take the hard work out of the job as I've been left with two holes in the nose that were cut for fasteners but lack the space behind them to work correctly.

The big headache is the cost - I have pretty much nothing to spend on the parts so I'm having to make do and use low cost improvisation where possible until I can scratch a more meaningful budget together.

I'll post more when I make a little more progress and/or get some more cleanup done!

A little more progress - I missed a few spots with the rust treatment so I have to wait another day before I can finish priming the front.


This is the one piece front end off the car. Even without the bonnet holding it all together it is still pretty rigid and easy enough to remove from the car - even single handed but easier with two or even three people.


On the car it looks better and with the new fasteners in place is solid enough that I'm quite happy with the fit - just need to finish painting the supports and fit the rubber strip to get the whole lot properly solid.


The back end is looking much better too but still much to be done.

Next task is to finish the paint on the front and then jack the car up to do the underside and make sure that is clean and prepared too!

looking good, nice to see it taking a bit off shape

sorry to hear about the stolen parts, real bummer

can't wait to see it actually done and taring around a track! ad roads too?

Good luck jimbro

Glad you have not had the wheels nicked because they are very cool

shaun said:

Good luck jimbro

Glad you have not had the wheels nicked because they are very cool

Click to expand...

Ditto.

I never had an X1/9 but did consider one but got hooked on Lancia Beta coupes. Mate had a Lancia Spyder but ended up buying a 127 Sport like myself when we went up in the 'years'. Another mate had a 128 3P which he loved during our 'up and down' sega. The only think that remember about the X1/9s was that it was either a 4 speed 1.3 or a 5 speed 1.5 ? and that they were an easy car to spin. Reckon your motor will handle and have the 'go' when the job is done. I'll check back on your progress. Best of luck.

The wheels are the ones that came with the car - along with a second set of white 5-spokes, so one set for wets and another for slicks.

The original X1/9 is beautifully balanced but of course (for those that only had FWD fiats) is easier to spin thanks to the layout and RWD. In the real world what it meant was that cornering speeds were higher and four wheel drifts, flicking the car through tight bends with no real steering input, were quite possible.

The downside is you had to maintain the brakes and suspension to levels that most Fiat owners weren't (and largely still aren't) familiar with. A good X1/9 will lap shorter (more corners, less straights) tracks faster than most cars of that era and still faster than most cars today with significantly more power and supposedly better handling. Doing this is the wet though is a fairly traumatic experience that requires incredible delicacy and finesse as the car is set to pivot around the driver and it is easy for the relatively heavy rear of the car to lose grip.

My car has substantially better grip even on a wet surface and put it on slicks and you find the cornering capabilities to be just ludicrous provided you don't go silly (been there done that). The brakes are pretty substantial too - the fronts are proper Tarox racing calipers (a little on the chunky side) that completely fill the wheels. I could probably do with replacing them with something more recent but I'm stuck with them for now. The rears use Uno Turbo front calipers to allow for the use of vented discs and to get away from the awful sliding arrangement originally used. This means no handbrake of course but that went in the bin years ago...

Wahey! It is coming back to life! Glad to see you resurrecting the car, it is one mental machine and quite possibly the fastest one in the UK?

Are you going to use a 1400 Uno motor again? Or maybe go down a different path this time?