Another BIS - To Spain!

[jonny126]

Hey Ralph nothing yet as just wanted a price at first. I'll let you know as soon as things develop.

Cheers Stuey, not sure at that point its low enough though ha ha!

A little more progress on the fiat. I wired in a rain light to act as a fog light, which I reckon looks pretty cool. I didn't like the standard one and the LEDs are very bright.

Fashioned up a bracket from sheet which'll be neatened up and sprayed, but it seems to work well.







Hoping to do more body work now the welder is all sorted this week and at the weekend. Ive got the doors off in prep for the rest of the wing removal, and then its all buzzy buzzy.

[jonny126]

Did a bit of welding on the jacking points (the only mid chassis sections needing it, surprisingly)




I got the other wing off, nearly chopped off my fingers in the process though. Looks like it was crashed in a previous life, a little wibbly wobbly on the inner panel. It'll need beating back or replacing.


Fanned out the inner wings to get more clearance for the wider wheels. I'll be running smaller lower profile tyres so clearance will increase even more. I'll weld them up once I've sorted the front suspension and put the smaller tyres on.


Also managed to get the rad out and thermostat off. Safe to say the stat is buggered, and the water pump propeller isnt looking great . . .


It still spins though, but its never coming off in one piece, thats for sure!

Managed to snap one of the spades on the back of the fan housing attached to the resistor pack. I assume its to control fan speed? The one to the top left looks like its been missing for a while.


I got the rear plate on with some light up mounting bolts I bought off ebay, as I'm running the car bumperless, so dont have anywhere to mount a number plate light. Also had to cut off some old jubilee clips so will be getting some t-bar clips to replace those.

[gammakeith]

Good progress! If you take out the fan resistor out of the housing all will become clear.  You can easily solder direct to the resistor and feed the wire out through a new drilled hole.  Its what I did before I rewired mine completely.  Basically the fan runs through this resistor when it first trips in (ie low speed) so you need it working

Keith

[Gadge]

Nice work   that thing with the rad fan connector is a common thing. It's happened on all of mine. I have a spare but that's the same except only one has snapped. It's a 2 stage switch to let the fan turn at two speeds via the little coil behind it which acts like a ballast resistor zapping power so it turns slower. I don't use mine fortunately the last owner bypassed it with his own switch with just one speed.

[jonny126]

Awesome guys thanks for the tips.

What's the third top left one for then? (the old broken one).

[gammakeith]

That's the connection that goes to the fan relay at the front. The fan is permanently live and the earth line from the fan connects to one of the two connections on the other side of the resistor.  The second connector on that side goes to the fan switch.  When the "low" side of the fan switch activates it fires the relay at the front so the fan earths via the resistor.  When the "high" side of the fan switch it earths the fan directly so the fan goes faster.    Its a odd design and I rewired mine with twin relays and a fan switch that kicks in about 10 degrees lower!

Keith

[jonny126]

Right, well it should be high time I resurrected this. I finished uni and started a new job, sorted life out etc blah blah and NOW I have bought some replacement panels for the 126. Its been a good year since I touched the Fiat, managed to dig it out beneath the spare parts I've acquired over time.  

Not long ago I won a boot, 2 doors and a bonnet off of ebay for a total of 40 quid. Not too shabby and it'll save me a lot of welding etc. Plans have changed slightly, and I've removed the "fanning" I did and I'm going for far less ridiculous wheels. The wellers were egg shaped, and so are awful to drive on. I'll band the standard steels to 6j I think or try and find some uno turbo wheels. I'll re-weld the innner arch back in (kicking myself as I should have just left it!). Oh well, lesson learned.

I've managed to source a re-tempered spring from Poland which is on, and have started to weld the wings on (tacked at the moment so I can align things first).

Hopefully there'll be a far shorter time between posts now!

In the meantime I'm trying to find replacement bushes for the upper wishbones. I found some which supposedly were correct but they don't fit. The pivot bolt is a good 13.8mm diameter, and all the BIS bushes state 13mm diameter. Also, they have ridges like the 500 versions, but those state an ID of 12mm. I also can't get the sodding bushes out of the wishbone. Any ideas?

[stuey]

nice to see this resurrected!

the bushes are a pig- I used a drill bit to drill the rubber then pulled out the steel centre then hacksawed the outer's until they were weak enough to be chiseled out (without cutting the arms themselves...) the real bitch is getting the new ones back in!

welcome back!

[Gadge]

Hi Jonny welcome back  there's certainly a lesson in cutting panels then rethinking the plan - think first then think again lol. I've done it before in the past. Not sure why your having bush issues? I didn't know there was different sizes. I've just done mine and I bought the ribbed ones you speak of (see below). I'm lucky in that I own a hydraulic press so pushing them out wasn't to much of a problem. The lower ones however are a different story

[jonny126]

Cheers for the reply guys. Glad to see it's not just me then. Yeah I don't know why I'm having trouble sourcing them. If you don't mind Gadge what do your new ones measure up as? Have you got a link of where you got them from?

I have a mate who has a press so might see if I can pop round and use it. Otherwise it'l be a lot of fire, hammering and swearing.

[jonny126]

Well, took me until 2017 to actually get something done! Me and a few friends spent today getting all the panels sorted for the front end. I really have missed a lot out! This is mainly thanks to James as he's persuaded me to drive it around Spain in May! Gave me the kick up the arse needed.

Managed to do the best we could with the cheap re-pro panels. It's not too bad, from a distance. Things need some fetling but that'll be for tomorrow.

You can see how much dust has fallen on the thing since . . .

Happy days. A few things have been done in between too, I've re-built some calipers for the front brake conversion and got some flexi brake lines for the front and rear. I need to make up a short bit of hard line from the RH rear cylinder, but that should be it. New master cylinder is on too.

I found some wheels on ebay which turned out to be Dunlop D1 Style B. Put some tyres on and it's a nice wheel/tyre ratio. I'm surprised how high the front is though considering its a flattened spring and it has chopped down blocks. I'm sure it'll settle so we shall see. Need to chop the rear springs to match too of course. The headlights a loosely in just for the pictures but once I've finished the welding I'll chuck everything on after a quick spray job. For now I just want to get it on the road and use it. I'll spray the wheels too, I'm thinking a gold colour, but that may change. Proper chuffed it has a front end again though. Awesome.

[Gadge]

Where have you been!!  I thought you'd given up 

That's excellent work nice to hear your back on it. I know the feeling of things getting on top of you but keep at it, it's worth it. Tell us more about the drive around Spain! 

[stuey]

I've already said it on RR but fantastic work I had to put a new front end on mine and it's a lot to do!

[jonny126]

Cheers guys. Yeah it feels great to actually make some progress. A little miffed though at the moment as the bonnet doesn't want to line up at all. It seems like one side is lower/shorter than the other now throwing things out. Ergh. I'll have to just fit it the best I can.

On the plus side, the brakes are all bled up with the front disc conversion and new hardlines, and it runs! Had to fiddle with the choke on the carb as it had popped off, couldn't start it for ages then I found it had all come apart. Starts real nice now actually.

Helper wife. This was my view of bleeding the front right brake ha ha!Getting there! Note super scene dog guard in the left window I got from a charity shop!

I've got headlights and tail lights too now, and I've converted the fronts to take H4 bulbs. The front has settled a lot more now, and it's too low, so I've ordered some replacement mounting blocks to get it back to a driveable height for me and the missus. I've spaced out the steering wheel by 50mm too as I'm 6ft2" and clout my knees on the steering wheel without the spacer! Perilously close to MOT now. 

I'm after as well, if anyone has them, the rear parcel shelf rests. I thought I still had the old ones but they've gone walk abouts. . .

Update about the spain trip to follow.

[jonny126]

The brakes are all bled up but there's still some air in there somewhere as it does NOT stop at the moment. Took it for a little spin, just up and down the lane to see how it is. Lovely to drive, bloody tiny! It'll need a new clutch cable, as it's pretty notchy, but it selects all the gears fine and drives good.

I found the parcel shelf trim bits too so a full interior once again. Some pics below of when I took it out of the garage for the first time in god knows how long! Check out how some of the panels actually seem vaguely shiny after a wash. . .

Cute ain't it? Excuse the ductape on the RH headlight, I'm waiting on some plastic clips told it in, as the old ones have crumbled