Another BIS - To Spain!

[stuey]

Great work and good luck with the trip!

[Gadge]

This is turning out to be a fantastic project  you have the stance just right with those wheels, is it the tried and tested Abarth Spring and 165/55/13 set up or something new?

[jonny126]

Thanks guys! Yeah it sits well. The front spring is a re-tempered one I bought off ebay, http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fiat-126-Classic-500-Modified-Lowerering-Front-Leaf-Spring-LOW-/172184834012?fits=Car+Make%3AFiat%7CModel%3A126&hash=item2817040fdc:g:iRgAAOSwgQ9V6-YI

It obviously didn't cost that much of course! But the tyres are 165/55 R13 on a 5J. Really nice profile to be honest. The wheels are going to be a gunmetal grey. It'll just be a rattle can for now, until I can afford to powder coat them properly.

I'll be re-bleeding the brakes at the weekend, and then another test drive. I'v booked the 10th off in anticipation of imminent MOT ha ha! We shall see. I did notice when I did a short drive by vid, that the rear brake lights light up one after the other, so I'll clean up the contacts/check the bulbs etc too.

And I need to sort paint out. Again it'll be rattle can for now, just to get it vaguely presentable, but it might come out ok.

[Geemccaw]

Cars looking awesome! Was going to go for the same front lowering spring but they seem to be out of stock. Will have to go for the medium one instead. How's the drivability now? And did it settle much lower at all? 😁

[jonny126]

Cars looking awesome! Was going to go for the same front lowering spring but they seem to be out of stock. Will have to go for the medium one instead. How's the drivability now? And did it settle much lower at all? 😁

Hey thanks! Drivability seems fine to be honest. It hasn't settled anymore, so it sits well. I need to put some shorter bump stops in it though!

I only know how it drives as I went to go to the MOT today. I got a few miles away, and then coolant went absolutely everywhere. Still, it did drive quite well!

On the hard shoulder of the M48. Waiting for the 4th emergency service . . .
It's sooooo tiny. Got to kill time somehow. Take pictures!
A friend of mine I hadn't seen in around 4 years spotted me the other way, turned round and came back to see if I was ok. He approved of the BIS despite the breakdown.
Sad car is sad
So, upon diagnosis, it seems the head gasket has gone. Upon reflection, it may well have been "gone" for some time, given as every time I've tried to start him up, it takes a good while, I just thought it was an "hasn't started in a while" thing. The coolant bellows out of the filler cap when running, and it smelt very fumy so yeah. Oh well, not too bad a job to do. I searched on here about head gaskets and oddly a post I put on Gadge's  thread said that I'd replace the HG so serves me right for not doing so!

I'm on Axel Gerstl now ordering new seals and gaskets for everything. Seeing as the engine now has to come out I may as well sort everything out. I'll also get some de-scaler and run it through the rad to eliminate all potential problems.

For head torques, I've found a post that states 2 stages: 25nm then 49 nm. Is this correct? Also, is this the "wait a few minutes, re-torque" or is this a "run engine until warm, loosen and re-torque"? With a head skim, is it necessary for me to remove the valves?

On the up side, I bought some NOS shelf speakers for it, and I'll put in a cassette head unit with a hidden aux for period correct look, with added modern flare. They are VERY nice.

Anyway once I've got everything together, plus some time free I'll fix him up.

[jonny126]

Got the engine out at the weekend. Not good news, I'm amazed it ran as happy as it did to be honest! Proper gunky inside. All of the water ways were blocked, and the outlet from the head though the carb mount and to the rad was blocked from start to end. No wonder it overheated. Oh well. I've ordered a new head with the bigger inlet valves, as judging by the original head, it's toast. I'm not even going to bother skimming it, lord knows what the water ways I can't see are like.

Once the new head turns up I'll lob it back together, in the meantime I can strip the rest of the engine and replace the gaskets on everything.

[Gadge]

Whoa!  that's well gunked up! That red crusty stuff is a result of the incorrect anti freeze mixture (or no antifreeze at all!) corroding the steel liners and the head studs. You'll need to really flush the whole system out, I mean the block, radiator and heater matrix should really by back flushed out with a hose. Even remove the radiator if need be as you'll need to get it ALL out or it'll happen again. Also remove the thermostat as that'll be gunked up too. A BIS cooling system needs to be tip top or it'll blow again

[drcdb15]

I've never used it myself (yet, but giving it serious consideration) but wonder if once this engine has had the thorough clean through that Gadge rightly strongly recommends, it might benefit from being cooled with Evans Waterless coolant? AIUI this is a blend of glycols, so in crude terms it's wholly anti-freeze without any water. Has anyone on here any experience of it? And how much does it cost?

[Gadge]

I use it in mine drcdb15 and it's fantastic stuff (if a little pricey) you first need to drain your old water out and fill the system with prep fluid and run it for a week or so with this in. Prep fluid has chemicals in it that water some how "sticks" to so in theory when you drain in out it removes all traces of water from the system (waterless coolant needs to be 98% water free to work properly I believe) once this has been drained you then pour in the waterless.

It takes a little faffing about to do cleaning all the old stuff out but it's well worth it. It runs up to temp perfectly as water would be because it doesn't boil or expand at 100 degrees there's absolutely NO pressure in the system so when you squeeze the hoses they are soft as if they were cool so there's no pressure on the seals and gaskets again because it doesn't contain oxygen you won't get pockets of steam building up in the system if the temp gets up to 100 degrees.

Price for 5 litres of prep is around £45 and the same for 5 litres of waterless so nearly £100 for a coolant change but it has a lifetime date on it so you can drain it out and re use it again - indeed that's all I do if I drain the system I just pour it back in. It's fantastic stuff

[Madd]

I liked your project and Im waiting for more

But front panel from Elegant 

[jonny126]

Whoa!  that's well gunked up! That red crusty stuff is a result of the incorrect anti freeze mixture (or no antifreeze at all!) corroding the steel liners and the head studs. You'll need to really flush the whole system out, I mean the block, radiator and heater matrix should really by back flushed out with a hose. Even remove the radiator if need be as you'll need to get it ALL out or it'll happen again. Also remove the thermostat as that'll be gunked up too. A BIS cooling system needs to be tip top or it'll blow again

Yeah, thought I'd done a good enough job flushing stuff out, but I was so wring! I wonder if the new coolant circulating round has dislodged gunk and subsequently blocked some paths, but I'll be sure to check every one of them now! I'll be soaking what I can in a descaler so hopefully that'll help. I'll remove the heater matrix too and flush that out and the heater pipes. It hasn't had coolant in it since we got the car, as I knew it shouldn't sit in there for too long. Obviously that's what's happened before we got it and we just didn't know. I'll certainly try the waterless coolant, sounds very beneficial, not just for the Fiat!

And Madd, yeah the front end is wrong I know. This was all I could find though! It looks ok to me, and once it's painted it'll look fine.

[andyzeetec]

Great interesting read.  If you haven't done already you might want to check the 3 way water junction as they block aswell. Checkout pic of mine which I had to replace in the end, thanks to Gadge who had a new one spare.

http://club126uk.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=8961.msg65922#msg65922

[jonny126]

Great interesting read.  If you haven't done already you might want to check the 3 way water junction as they block aswell. Checkout pic of mine which I had to replace in the end, thanks to Gadge who had a new one spare.

http://club126uk.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=8961.msg65922#msg65922

Yeash! I'm lucky enough that mine isn't anywhere near like that. Not really gunked up at all. The thermostat I replaced before I ran the engine so that's fine. I will check it opens though first, or I'll just take it out.

[jonny126]

The new head turned up a little while ago so I built that up with the new valves, valve springs etc. Got the gasket kit too so popped the copper gasket on. Massive thanks to dadandlad for the torque specs for the head bolts!

I didn't spruce anything up mainly because I wanted to get it running again! Note the replacement outlet for the head on the carb mount, as the 90 degree bend out of that to the Y junction on the engine was utterly borked. Fresh engine and gearbox oil, and it runs again. Still takes a while to start up, so I'm wondering if the carb is leaking air somewhere, new gasket kit on it's way to hopefully solve that. I also need to get the rad re-cored, as its weeping from somewhere. Once that's done, then it's MOT attempt 2.

[jonny126]

Me and the missus spent a weekend in London, and I spotted this 650 air cooled popping and banging round London's central streets. Very loud! I was a bit enthusiastic, and very supportive, which apparently isn't "done" in London. Oh well who cares, it was awesome!