Josh's FIAT 1500 Cabrio

Other Car Restoration Websites

Dodge Turbine Charger [New]

66 GTO Restoration Pages [New]

Gary’s ‘64 Chevy Impala [New]

BMW K100 restoration project [New]

WWII Jeep Restoration [New]

1951 Studebaker Champion Business Coupe [New]

Makela Auto Tuning - several interesting projects, historic racers [New]

My Lamborghini Diablo Replica Build Diary [New]

Iso Rivolta [New]

(miura)

Here’s a collection of other car restoration projects on the web. I’ve tried to focus on sites that are either actively being updated or completed projects which are particularly interesting to me.

Mopar

Sandy’s Garage: Current Project- 1970 HEMI Road Runner (Sandy Reda)
1970 Dodge Challenger Restoration
My 1949 Plymouth Restoration (Paul Schettner)
Brent’s Charger Restore
Chris’ 1969 Dodge Charger R/T
1969 Dodge Charger R/T (69hemi.com) (Jet Townsend)
Kerry’s ‘57 Imperial Restoration (Kerry Pinkerton)
Dodge Coronet ‘57 (Christian Zappa)
1957 Chrysler Windor 4D Sedan (Finland)
1963 Dodge Dart
1970 Plymouth Road Runner
51 Plymouth
Dodge M37 Truck

Rust To Rod: The 34 Plymouth Project

Other / Unsorted

Project Morris (1960 Morris Minor-based street rod) (Bradley Miller)
1934 Diamond T
projectdelorean.com (Steve Stankiewicz)
projectvixen.com (Delorean) (Dave Stragand)
Rolls Royce Phantom III Engine Rebuild (Stephe Boddice)
DP1 (Dennis Palatov)
Kaiser Bill’s 1952 Henry J
Pete’s McLaren M6GT/R Project (Replica)
Pete’s Cobra Project
Toystar MR2 (Northstar V8-powered 1987 MR2)
Rambler American Restoration (Matt Haas)
John’s FFR Cobra Build Page
MY427SC FFR Build
The Shuffleton Factory Five Racing Cobra Website
UK Cobra 427 Replica (John Tisbury)
Paul Kust’s Automobile Restoration Home Pages
The Kimini 2.2 Home-built, carbon shell, mid-engine Mini.
Diary of an Edsel Restoration
GraberCars
BMW R69S Motorcycle (Marc Hyman)
Chevy Powered Datsuns
K9 RDJ - Fiat 126 based Road-Legal Buggy (Dave Jones)
1949 Hudson Commodore 8
Classic1800.com (Volvo 1800 Series)
Ed’s Edsel Restoration Site
School Bus Conversion Project
Two guys, a dog, and a repair shop (Edsel Restoration)
1968 Datsun 2000 Roadster (mydatsonroadster.com)
“Salt Bullet” Bonneville Car
Jack’s WebPage (Divco Trucks)

[Posted to info at 22:46 09/17/2009] [permanent link] -- Comments

9/17/2009: Where Have I been?

Well, the 1500 project has been on hold for about a year. It’s been a combination of things taking up my time. Most significantly, though, it’s been a purchase I made last winter.. I was frankly getting tired of the slow progress on the 1500, and I wanted something that I could actually drive. I’ve always been a fan of the FIAT Dino Spider, and when I happened upon this 1967 on ebay, and I couldn’t resist the opportunity.

A few weeks ago I finally got it together and took it to the Lime Rock Festival:

I should confess that those are carefully chosen photos. The paint is actually nowhere near as nice as it appears in them :)

This car is an early model, with a number of unique features that were only seen in the first 500 or so cars.

However, at some point in the history of this car, it was rebuilt with a lot of components from a later car. I received it with a later dashboard, wiring harness, and some other things.

The dash looked particularly bad, with the aftermarket steering wheel and a crudely made center console panel trying to match the wood dash.

It was high on my list of things to fix. I was lucky enough to find an early dash and steering wheel, as well as most of the center console parts I need, and am slowly putting the car back to something like its original spec. It will never be totally original, but on the surface, it’s going to be pretty close.

Some of the work i’ve done over the last 9 months:

adjusted wheel bearings, bled brakes
overhauled wiring (replaced some melted wires and bad splices, undid a bunch of stupid hacks and generally got it back to its stock configuration)
located correct dashboard
located correct steering wheel
located correct center console plastic (the one in the car had been hacked up)
located correct ashtray
located correct FIAT knock-off wheel centers
rebuilt heater controls
corrected shifter (was missing the extension)
replaced oil pan (cracked)
repaired exhaust leaks at headers (incorrect size clamps were installed)
replaced exhaust hangers
replaced plugs and wires
replaced all 3 carburetor tops (existing ones were warped, causing an air leak)
cleaned and balanced carburetors
refurbished air cleaner and chokes (re-plated, powder coated)
located correct fuel filter and bracket
corrected fuel line routing
located and installed correct low-beam headlights (the car had 4 high beams installed when I got it!)
corrected tail lights (they were installed backwards)
Lots of other little things i’m forgetting..

There are always more things to do, of course, but all I have planned for this season is some distributor work and perhaps getting the heater box and control cables back into the car.

The Dino is going off for winter storage fairly soon, and then i’m going to focus on the 1500 again for a while. I really want to get the metalwork done so that I can send it out for body and paint.

Hopefully you’ll see some 1500 updates here soon.

[Posted to General Commentary at 22:45 09/17/2009] [permanent link] -- Comments

Six Laws of Italian Sports Cars

As the owner of an Italian vehicle, you have undoubtedly found that, from time to time, the thing defies all known laws of Physics. Distinguished researchers from all over the world have spent entire lives trying to understand such phenomena. Recently, the Six Laws of Italian Sports Cars were discovered, thus reducing most owners’ dependency on sorcerers and prayer to keep such cars running.

Careless application of these laws to any individual car may fix the problems of the moment, but cause hives or allergies in said owners.

THE LAW OF PLEASING DESIGN WHERE IT REALLY DOESN’T MATTER
“The inside of cam covers or other relatively innocuous areas, shall be laced with buttresses, cross-bracing and all manner of esoteric stiffness-with-lightness design, while something like connecting rods shall self-destruct at redline plus 1 rpm due to a basic lack of strength.” An example of this Law is the stunningly beautiful Lamborghini or Ferrari V12s of the late 1960s. They were famous for wearing out all four camshafts in 10,000 miles or less. The cam’s metal appeared to be recycled coathangers, which coincidentally are still in short supply in Italy.

THE LAW OF NON-FUNCTIONAL APPARATUS
“All Italian Sports Cars, regardless of age, shall have at least one system or component which does not work, and cannot be repaired. Such a part shall never be mentioned in the Official Shop Manual, although there may be an out-of-focus picture shown.” It goes without saying that such parts should never under any circumstances be removed, lest the natural balance of the car be upset.

THE LAW OF ELECTRICAL CHAOS
“All Italian Sports Cars shall be wired at the Factory by a cross-eyed, colour-blind worker, using whatever supplies are within reach. All wires shall change colour-code at least once between energy source and component. All grounds shall be partially insulated.” This tends to guarantee that the owner of such vehicles will eventually be intimately familiar with its electrical system, since he will need to trace out each wire, then rewrite his Official Schematic, which will differ from all others in at least one area.

THE LAW OF PERSONAL ABUSE
“The more an Italian car breaks down, the more endearing it becomes to its increasingly irrational owner.” For example, you purchase an Italian Sports car, for all the money you ever hoped to earn, and receive a ticket for air pollution on the way home from the dealer due to the vast clouds of smoke that follow you. Several return trips to said dealer, accompanied by your rapidly dwindling cash reserves, cures the smoking. But now, the engine sounds like a food processor full of ball-bearings. After replacing every component in the car, including the radio speakers, the noise vanishes and is replaced by an odour reminiscent of a major fire in a goat-hair mattress factory. You still keep trying, God help you.

THE LAW OF UNAVAILABLE PARTS
“All parts of an Italian sports car shall be made of a material that is available in inverse proportion to its operating half-life.” Thus, the speedometer hold-down screws are made of grade 8 cold rolled steel, while the valves are of fabricated Unobtanium, made only at midnight by an old man with a pointy hat covered with moons and stars. Such parts will be backordered during the design phase of the car, and will remain so forever. Bribes, pleading and threats will be ignored.

THE LAW OF CRYPTIC INSTRUCTIONS
“Any official publications dealing with repair, maintenance or operations of an Italian sports car shall be written such that every fourth word is incomprehensible to the average owner. In the event that a random sentence is understandable, the information contained therein shall be wrong.” This is also known as flat-tyre English, where a sentence flows along nicely, then - Kaboom!

(Source: http://www.shorey.net/ItalianCars/SixLawsofItalianSportsCars.htm, and probably others)

[Posted to info at 12:17 01/16/2009] [permanent link] -- Comments

Hose Detailing

This should be a complete list of every hose in the 1500 cabriolet. I will try to update this with photos and sources as time goes on.

P/N	Carries	Descr	ID	OD	Length	Type	Clamp Style	Clamp P/N
4102823	Air	Air Cleaner Filter to Carb Hose					Strap (9mm)	1/02923/90
4113775	Air	Oil Pan to Breather					Strap	1/21706/90
4113774	Air	Oil Breather to Air Cleaner					none
1/90531/80	Air	Manifold to Air Cleaner	7mm	12mm		Cavis B	None
905209	Coolant	Heater Drain
4066564	Coolant	Water pump to Thermostat Housing					Strap (9mm *)	1/02906/90
4073996	Coolant	Water pump to heater return hard line					Strap	1/21706/90, 1/21708/90
4075850	Coolant	Heater Core to heater return hard line					Strap (9mm *)	1/02906/90
4102502	Coolant	Upper Radiator Hose					Strap (9mm **)	1/02912/90
4104270	Coolant	Heater Core to heater valve					Strap (9mm *)	1/02906/90
4171300	Coolant	Lower Radiator Hose (two-piece, bottom)					Strap (9mm **)
1/01365/80	Coolant	Lower Radiator Hose (two-piece, top)					Strap (9mm **)	1/02912/90
4114361	Coolant	Lower Radiator Hose (one-piece)					Strap (9mm **)	1/02912/90
7769	Coolant	Intake to heater return hard line					Strap (9mm ) (5mm *)	1/02906/90
1/90529/80	Coolant	Radiator Overflow	4mm	6mm	550mm	Cavis A	None	n/a
4054294	Fuel	Gas Filler	50mm	58mm	80mm	Black Rubber (reinforced)	Strap (9mm)	1/02914/90
4054296	Fuel	Gas Tank (Vent)	15	19	80	Black Rubber	none	n/a
1/90529/80	Fuel	Gas Tank (Overflow to Filler)	4mm	6mm		Cavis A	None	n/a
1/90531/80	Fuel	Hard Fuel line to Fuel Pump	7mm	12mm		Cavis B	FI style	1/01685/90
1/90531/80	Fuel	Hard Fuel line to Gas Tank	7mm	12mm	255mm	Cavis B	FI style	1/01685/90
1/90531/80	Fuel	Fuel Pump to Carb	7mm	12mm	350mm	Cavis B	FI style	1/01685/90
1087252	Oil	Block to Oil Pressure Line					FI style	1/01685/90
4113774	Oil	Oil Breather to Oil Pan
4115134	Vacuum	Intake to Brake Booster					Strap (9mm)	1/02906/90
1/90530/80	Vacuum	Vacuum Advance Hose	5mm	9mm	350mm	Rubber
1/90528/80	Washer	Windshield Washer "T" to nozzles	2mm	3.8mm	420mm	Cavis A	None	n/a
1/90529/80	Washer	Windshield Washer Bag to Pump	4mm	6mm		Cavis A	None	n/a
1/90529/80	Washer	Windshield Washer Pump to "T"	4mm	6mm	85mm	Cavis A	None	n/a

* - size of clamp is implied by its part number being the same as another which I did measure directly.
** - size of clamp is guessed from photo reference

[Posted to info at 20:38 11/25/2008] [permanent link] -- Comments

11/25/2008: Gas Tank Sealed

Several weeks ago, I sent a gas tank off to Gas Tank Renu’s Albany Location. It arrived back today.. It wasn’t cheap, and it’s not exactly pretty, but it’s guaranteed for life to never fail. And together with the stainless fuel line that I had bent up (along with the brake lines) by Classic Tube, there’s just nothing that can rust and crud up my carburetor in the future.

The Renu process involves cutting holes in the tank to access all of its nooks and crannies, sandblasting it inside and out to remove all rust, and then sealing it, inside and out, with a brushed on PVC coating, which is baked on. This sandwiches the metal in a thick plastic coating, which has a lumpy and bumpy appearance.

In the case of this tank, the guy at the renu shop told me that something like 5 holes had to be cut out to get at all its sections. While he was in there, he also knocked out a number of dents, restoring the tank to its original shape. He also replaced a fuel sender stud that i’d snapped off and freed up the drain plug, which someone had soldered shut at some point in the past.

I am sure that this tank will last forever now, though I do wish it were smoother looking. Oh well- it’s a good trade-off.

While I’m thinking about it, I decided to work out a few other related parts, like the fuel sender, gasket, and hoses. I actually have several fuel tank senders, and need to pick one out..

From left to right..

my original sender. It’s pretty much rusted out.
Another used sender from one of my gas tanks. It’s identical to the original one, but has a plastic float instead of cork.
A NOS replacement. Cork float as original, but the electrical connections are spade instead of bullet connectors.
Current replacement. Not exactly as original, outlet comes out at a different angle and the float is flipped around.

I think I will use the cool NOS one, but I do need to do some research on how the shellac on cork floats hold up with modern gas formulations.

I’m also getting new hoses for the fuel filler and vent lines. For the vent line, I am using 5/8” (16.0 mm) SAE30R7 fuel line (Gates part# 27008).

The filler hose is more challenging. It’s 50mm, which is between 1 7/8 and 2 inches. 2 inch hose is kind of loose, so I’m trying to find the right metric stuff.

[Posted to Work Log at 20:38 11/25/2008] [permanent link] -- Comments

6/15/2008: Metalfinishing Videos

I happened upon these videos on youtube. The technique this guy is demonstrating is the same as what I have used on my car.

To learn more about this stuff, visit www.metalmeet.com or purchase the professionally produced video put out by Wray Schelin . It’s well worth it. Wray also offers one-on-one classes.

I also came across a video on lead work. My car was built by with a lot of lead filler, so I might actually do some of this later on. My understanding is that it works better than plastic fillers on areas that might flex or where you need a lot of build-up.

[Posted to General Commentary at 20:28 06/15/2008] [permanent link] -- Comments

6/1/2008: Leaf Springs

As I mentioned in the previous post, I needed to have the bushings pressed out of the leaf spring brackets to mount the rotisserie there, so I decided to go ahead and have the bushings pressed out of the leaf springs as well.

I opened the phone book and found a local shop that specializes in springs, Super Spring & Brake Co., Inc. They pushed out all the bushings in a few minutes for me. It pays to find the experts. These sorts of specialty shops can be hard to find.. they’re rarely on the internet, and often only have cryptic phone book listings, relying a lot on word of mouth. But they’re worth looking for!

The old rear bushings came out clean enough to read the original part number:

U 497a / RIV - Made In Italy

The front ones are harder to make out, but I think I could probably do it.

I asked for the shop’s opinion of the springs. They said that since there was no real rust putting where the leaves overlap or on the sides, that it wasn’t necessary to disassemble them for complete inspection at this time. So i’ll just clean and paint them, and if the car rides too low, we’ll deal with it then.

Also once the car was on its side, I was able to get the rear shocks and swaybar loose. The swaybar was particularly tricky, since it uses steel bolts through aluminum brackets, into blind captured nuts buried in a box section of the car. If you snap those off, it’s a real pain in the neck to repair them.

Two of the four bolts came out easy.. the other two were extremely corroded in place. With a lot of coaxing, heat, and penetrating oil, I got one of them out. The other one snapped off (at the bolt end, not where it goes into the body.

Fortunately, once the other 3 bolts were out, I was able to turn the whole bracket around 360 degrees and unthread it from the body. Then I took the bracket to a vise and drove out the jammed bolt remains. Victory! These bolts will all be replaced anyway- the main thing was to not damage the hidden captured nuts they thread into.

[Posted to Work Log at 18:12 06/01/2008] [permanent link] -- Comments

6/1/2008: Mounting the Body to the Rotisserie

I’ve always known that I’d like to get the car on a rotisserie so that the underside can be thoroughly cleaned and painted and to make repairs easier.

I’ve been looking for a good deal on one, and last summer I came across one for sale locally on craigslist. It’s a heavy duty model 4000 pound model from Accessible Systems. It’s made of thick steel, and the only thing wrong with it when I got it was surface rust. I sanded it down and painted it in rustoleum at that time. I also cleaned up the hydraulic ram cylinders (which were rusty and pitted from being left outside) at that time. They still work fine, and can be replaced easily if they start leaking.

So for the last year this thing has been taking up a big section of my garage. After I found that the floor repair was dragging on because I was dreading working under the car, I finally decided to get moving with getting the car mounted on the rotiserie.

Some time back, a fellow member of the fiatcabrios mailing list, David Nicholson, had posted these pictures of how his car was mounted to a rotisserie.

I copied his basic design for my car, since it looked perfect.

The first step was to remove the front and rear suspension from my car, so that it was just a bare body shell. Several weeks ago, I went around loosening, oiling, and re-tightening all the subframe and rear suspension bolts, so I knew there would be no major problems when the time came.

So it was a simple task to remove them when I went to drop out the front subframe for real.

First step was to remove disconnect the tie rods and center steering arm. Pickle fork plus BFH.

Then I jacked the car as high as I could, and supported the body on jackstands placed under the body, rather than the subframe. I loosened all the bolts, leaving a few in the back until I could get the front 4 bolts completely loose.

Two of them were stuck in their sleeves where they pass through the subframe in the front corner of the car. I hammered on them a little with no luck, so I decided to just cut off that end of the subframe with a sawzall. It was no good anyway. After doing this, i removed the remaining bolts and lowered the subframe out of the car and onto a furniture dolly. I was able to slide it out sideways with no problems.

I think it’s obvious why this subframe is being replaced!

Once the subframe was out, I had no problem getting those remaining two bolts (and bit of subframe) off the car with a little assistence from an air chisel.

The next step was to remove the rear end. I first disconnected the shocks and sway bar from the axle (leaving them connected to the body, since they’d be easier to remove later)

I unbolted all the nuts and bolts on the front and rear leaf spring brackets, and planned to just lower the axle down on a jack. Well, no luck. It easily came down in the rear, but it turns out that the front brackets are not only bolted to the body with 4 bolts, but also welded, for some reason. I don’t know why the bolts are even there.

So, change of plans. I had to remove the large bolts (through the spring eyes and these brackets instead. One came out pretty simply with the impact wrench. The other.. did not. It was seized to the inner steel sleeve of the bushing, and once the rubber tore, it would just spin all day, but never move. I had no choice but to break out the sawzall again and cut the bolt off.

Once that was done, the rear end came out easily:

Here are the brackets I made to hang the car. The front brackets are 3/16” wall thickness 2x2 tubing, welded to 1/4” plates with bolt holes. These bolt around a larger piece of 3x3x1/8” tubing, with 3/16” plates on both ends, drilled to match the subframe bolt pattern. (I used my new subframe as a template, so this was easy to prepare in advance).

I had them welded by a local welding shop (Standard Welding) because I didn’t trust my 110v MIG welder on such thick metal. (with good reason.. even with flux core wire, it has a lot of trouble penetrating more than 1/8”)

The rear brackets go under the rear valance of the car and connect to the leaf spring shackle mounts. I had the bushings pressed out of these mounts and then bought some 1 inch steel sleeves at a local hardware store, and cut them to size. I used 2x2x1/8” tubing to make a simple right angle piece. Since this material was thinner, I welded it myself. So far the car hasn’t fallen off the rotisserie, so I guess it penetrated ok.

Rear Bracket

Rear Brackets on Car

As everyone always warns you, it’s critical to brace the door openings on a convertible. My door braces are thick angle iron welded to plates that fit the original mounting holes for the upper hinge and striker plate. I didn’t bother reinforcing from one side of the car to the other, the way David did. I didn’t happen to have a long enough piece of steel around, and I felt that it was strong enough without it. Maybe I was wrong :)

Here’s the car on the rotisserie:

Normally, you should try to balance the car so that it will stay in any position it’s left in without being locked in place.

I couldn’t completely balance because of the relative height of the rear brackets (which go underneath the valance) and the front ones (which are at grille height). The rotisserie lets you adjust the center rotation relative to the mounting point, but still I was at its limit in both directions and the car still isn’t balanced enough to stay where it’s positioned if you let go of it.

I suppose next time I’d make the rear brackets with two more pieces so that they go back up before connecting to the rotisserie, but I think that’s more complexity than I need.

I was able to get it balanced well enough that it’s not particularly unstable, and since due to my low ceilinged garage, I also can’t rotate the car completely over anyway, it’s perfectly fine.

I opted to rotate it as far as I can, and then use a safety chain so there’s no way it can fall, regardless.

[Posted to Work Log at 16:55 06/01/2008] [permanent link] -- Comments

5/31/2008: Floor Repair, Part 3

The rear corner of the driveshaft tunnel was pretty rusty, and once I started looking closer, I found it was paper-thin and perforated by rust in spots. I decided to patch it, which required pretty extensive surgery. Here’s the sequence of events (done very slowly over the last few months, mostly because working on my back on the floor really is no fun.. more on that in the next post.)

I’m very happy with the results. It should be stronger and certainly looks pretty good (not that anyone will ever see it once the floors are in!)

[Posted to Work Log at 18:22 05/31/2008] [permanent link] -- Comments

2/2/2008: Sheetmetal Welding Tips

Plug Welding

Well, lately i’ve been doing a lot of plug welding. These welds are used in place of the original factory spot welds when replacing a panel (since I don’t have a spot welder).

Here’s a handy video I came across illustrating one way of doing a plug weld with a MIG welder. This technique works well for me as well.

In addition, I very much recommend this web page: Plug Welds and MIG Spot Welding. Really, the whole site is worth spending an evening reading. Great stuff.

My own observations on plug welding, thus far:

The welder should be set fairly hot, and the metal needs to be good and clean. I found it easiest to tune the settings on a piece of scrap of the same thickness. Focus on the back of the weld to make sure you have thorough penetration of the base metal.
Clamp well.. make sure the two panels are very tightly clamped together. Use a clamp on each side if you need to.
Hole size does matter. If the holes are too small, it will be very hard to get good penetration, because the weld pool will not be large enough to really melt into the base metal. I have an air powered punch/flange tool, but the holes it makes are far too small. I still use it to start with, but then enlarge the holes to 5/16” with a hand drill and unibit.
When going around the edge of the hole, make sure you get right up to the edge. If there’s any doubt, swirl around the circle again while it’s still molten- make sure that it’s fully connected to that top panel all the way around.

Butt Welding

There are plenty of tutorials out there (especially on metalmeet.com) about how to do a seamless butt weld. With a MIG welder, you basically want to fit the seam pretty tight.. leave a slight gap, but no more than 1/32” or so.

You often see advice to leave a wider gap for MIG than you would with TIG.. this is kind of bogus advise in my opinion. It leaves room for more shrinking and distortion, but it makes it harder to see it as it’s happening (and correct it). So I feel that a tighter joint is a better way to go.

Clamp it along the seam (it’s good to have lots of vice grip panel clamps!) and then start tacking it. Tack once every inch, but make sure you stretch each tack on dolly (grinding first if necessary) to undo any shrinking due to the heat. It’s pretty obvious where this is needed if you fit the seam tightly- it will start to pull together. stretch it, only in the HAZ (areas where the metal is discolored from the heat) to restore the even gap.

Once the whole seam is tacked every inch, go back and start put another tack mid-way between each of those tacks, and repeat until it’s filled in. Then flatten the welds with a grinder so they’re almost even with the base metal, and go back with the hammer and dolly and stretch the HAZ again until it’s even.

Here’s a video of this being done (by someone a lot more skilled than I am) with TIG.. Ignore the background noise..

For more tips, check out these MetalMeet threads. I think you’ll need to register there to see them though.. It’s totally worth it.

[Posted to General Commentary at 21:23 02/02/2008] [permanent link] -- Comments

1/6/2008: Metalwork 10: A new year, and still more rust repair..

This entry will focus on the repair of the rust spot at the bottom. I actually did this work gradually, during the period from August to early January, but decided to save it for one post.

Looks minor, but once I started looking, I found that there was a larger area where rust was developing, and a large dent. I kept cutting until the metal was nice and solid.

There is an inner and an outer layer to this area of the car. This inner layer patch was made in two pieces, and as you can see, both have to have complex twists. It was very challenging to make, and took me about 3 attempts to get right.

Once I got it to fit, it was tacked and butt-welded into place:

This panel was shaped on my english wheel, using a the “go cart slick” technique to form the curve from top to bottom. This works by using a rubber wheel to press the metal down against the curved lower anvil, imparting that curve to the panel. This is different from the normal usage of an english wheel, where your goal is to sandwich the panel between two hard metal wheels and squeeze it to thin and stretch the metal, which adds shape.

Using the soft upper wheel causes the panel to bend (in arrangement), rather than being squeezed and changing the surface area (shape) of the panel.

The result is somewhat like a slip roll, but you can put a side-to-side bend into a panel of any length, as long as you can move the panel back and forth in parallel straight lines.

The curved lip for the edge was formed using the tipping wheel i’ve described before, and then fine adjusted the curviture by tweaking that lip with my shrinker-stretcher.

The lip at the bottom was bent on a small benchtop sheet metal brake.

It took many hours to fine tune the patch and the opening in the car, to get a perfect fit and butt-weld it into place:

The inner and outer layers don’t contact each other completely, so a small patch was needed to fill the gap:

Just a little more grinding to do, and a small hole that needs to be filled, and then I can finally call this patch “done”.

[Posted to Work Log at 23:07 01/06/2008] [permanent link] -- Comments

1/6/2008: Floor Repair, Part 2

In preparation for the new floor panel, I had to repair a rusty area of the crossmember the floor attaches to:

I cut out the bottom few inches, and then flanged the edge with a flanging tool.

I punched holes in the new patch I made, then clamped it in place.

I then tacked and then both plug welded and welded the seam, to make sure this thing is good and strong.

Well, to be honest, I did it twice. The first time I welded this on, I screwed up and it ended up crooked, and the plug welds weren’t as strong as I wanted. I cut it off and re-did the welds, with larger holes and a hotter welder setting. Worked a lot better this time- you can see that the plug welds got good penetration through the panel underneath:

I ground down the welds, and it’s pretty invisible now. Not that it matters much, since this is all covered by both a rubber mat and the front seat.

I’ll re-drill the hole for the seat adjuster once I have the seat rails in place, for positioning reference.

I also need to seam seal and paint the inside of the cross member before closing it up with the new floor panel.

[Posted to Work Log at 23:05 01/06/2008] [permanent link] -- Comments

12/12/2007: New Brake Lines

The brake lines on this car are not exactly an off the shelf item, and they aren’t very easy to duplicate. A mixture of double-flare and bubble flare, metric and SAE threads are found throughout the car, since the braking system is made of a combination of fiat and girling pieces.

About a month ago, I sent all of the brake and fuel lines from my car to Classic Tube to be duplicated in stainless steel.

They arrived recently, and look great. I’ve laid them out next to the originals to double-check the bends, and so far everything looks great. I’ll post pictures once I start to install them on the subframe and the car.

[Posted to Work Log at 00:00 12/12/2007] [permanent link] -- Comments

Parts Vendors

The following companies appear to sell parts for the 1500:

In the U.S.

C. Obert & Co.
The main place to go for parts for older FIATs. Chris carries an extensive inventory for 1500s, fully indexed by FIAT part numbers, and downloadable as searchable PDFs.
Fun Imported Autos & Toys
While their website mostly lists parts for newer FIATs, Danny also carries many parts for my car. Since I live nearby, this is very convenient!
Re-Originals
Re-Originals specializes in reproduction rubber parts for a variety of vintage italian cars, including the 1500 cabriolet. I haven’t bought anything from them yet, but they’re well-regarded. Some items are pricey, but that’s about what you’d expect.

In Europe

Automobilia.nl (Netherlands)
An ebay seller with a number of interesting NOS bits for old FIATs. I’ve bought at least one item from them. Very easy to deal with and shipping (at least for small items) is quite reasonable.
Theo Van den Berg Fiat-OSCA-Ricambi (ebay shop) (Netherlands)
Theo’s been cornering the market on fiat cabrio parts lately. I’ve bought a few items from him, and it’s gone fine. He’s also quite active on the fiatcabrios mailing list.
italparts (Netherlands)
Autostoria.fr (France)
A variety of parts, including some body panels. It appears that they will ship to the US.
Biondi Lamierati (Italy)
This guy makes some nice looking reproduction body panels for the 1500, including rocker panels and floors. Unfortunately, they’re rather expensive.
Autoricambi Sassi (Italy)
Epocamania (Italy)
Axel Augustin (Germany)
Linearossa GmbH (German)
(also has an ebay shop)
Theo Van den Berg Fiat-OSCA-Ricambi (ebay shop) (Netherlands)
Theo’s been cornering the market on fiat cabrio parts lately. I’ve bought a few items from him, and it’s gone fine. He’s also quite active on the fiatcabrios mailing list.
Elvezio Esposito (Italy)
Sells Upholstery, Seals, and Carpets for the fiat cabriolets (and lots of other cars).

General Italian Car Parts

The following companies seem to manufacture some of the parts we see through other vendors in the US. These are only guesses on my part. I haven’t dealt with any of these folks yet myself, but some of them may be suitable targets for a ‘group buy’ to get a good deal on some particular item.

Franco Ragni (Italy)
Manufacturer of badges for italian cars, probably the original source of the reproduction badges sold by all the vendors.
Parabrezze Sicurvetro (Finland)
Antti Wihanto’s company, they manufacture windshields for the fiat cabrios and other italian cars, including one-offs.
Cicognani (Italy)
Manufacturer of rubber trim and weatherstrips.
Flamigni Raoul (Italy)
Another manufacturer of rubber trim and weatherstrips. No website.

[Posted to info at 18:05 12/07/2007] [permanent link] -- Comments

12/5/2007: Exhaust Manifold Done

I had broken off two studs on the exhaust manifold when I originally took it off the car. A few months ago, it was sent out to a machinist to have those drilled out and the gasket surfaces levelled.

I then brought it to a local company, Central Connectict Coatings, for ceramic coating in a “cast iron gray” color. It looks pretty nice now!

Nothing can be done about the rust pitting, of course, but at least now it should stay this color instead of rusting again. And this type of coating also helps control under-hood heat.

For reference, the new studs I matched up with the originals I had were Dorman part 675-332.. 40 mm long: “A” thread 21mm long, “B” thread 10mm long, shoulder length 9mm. Anything in this general ballpark should work.

I also had them powder coat the front exhaust pipe (a NOS ANSA part I’d bought on ebay a while back) in a satin silver color. This isn’t the same sort of ceramic coating, but still it should last longer than paint.

I also bought the rest of the exhaust system from Theo, and the rubber hangers and bushings from other vendors.

At this point, I have the whole exhaust system basically ready to install, once the car is ready for it. Until then, it’s living in a spare bedroom in my house!

I am still looking for a few parts, but I don’t expect them to be that hard to come up with. Specifically, part 4130153 (the clamp that goes between the front pipe and the bracket on the transmission) and 9 of 4112294, a little washer sort of thing that goes on the rubber exhaust mounts. If anyone reading this has any of these around, let me know.

[Posted to Work Log at 23:34 12/05/2007] [permanent link] -- Comments

12/5/2007: Driveshaft Done

Picking up the story of the driveshaft, which I removed 4 years ago!…

I cleaned it up by wire brushing and cleaning with naval jelly. I painted the pices in Eastwood’s “rust encapsulator” and “extreme chassic black”. This new ‘extreme’ paint formulation is supposed to be more durable than their regular chassis paint, but it is very important to spray thin coats, 24 hours apart. If you put too much paint on at once, it will take at least a week to fully dry. I found that one out the hard way..

I installed a new carrier bearing and holder. These are the same as used on a 124, so widely available from any supplier. I got mine up the street at Fun Imported.

Then I went to change out the u-joints and made a mistake. I pressed one of the u-joints too far, and it popped through. I tried to push it back the other way, and managed to put a deep groove into the yoke. Real deep. Like, “ruined driveshaft” deep..

So, after cutting out the u-joint to hide my shame, I took it and my only spare driveshaft to a real driveshaft shop (Overland Driveshaft Service) and asked them to clean up my mess.

The simplest fix was to take the back shaft from my other driveshaft and replace its u-joints, then balance it as an assembly with my original front shaft, since I’d already put the new carrier bearing on it.

I then re-painted the other driveshaft half, and it almost looks like I didn’t screw up:

As you can see, I also replaced the flex disc (“Giubo”) with a new old stock pirelli part, exactly like the one that came in the car. It seems to be of much higher quality than an aftermarket one I had bought from a european supplier some time ago. I decided to not use that one because it had some fine cracks and just looked cheaply made.

I also found a proper set of bolts (3 long ones for the transmission side, and 3 shorter ones for the driveshaft side) on one of my spare transmissions. I cleaned them up and had them, along with the other driveshaft bolts, re-plated in zinc.

Here’s the new carrier bearing, replated bolts, and new u-joint:

[Posted to Work Log at 23:25 12/05/2007] [permanent link] -- Comments

Brake Booster Notes

FIAT used a 7” Girling Mk2A Brake Servo in the cabriolets.

This booster (in various forms) was widely used in other european cars of the same era, including:

Many british cars (Rover, Aston-Martin DB5, Lotus Elan, Sunbeam Alpine/Tiger)
Alfa 2600
Volvo P1800
Lamborghini 350,400,3500GT, Espada, Islero, Jarama, Miura
Maserati Mexico, Mistral, 3500

Reference Information

An excellent article: Servo Assistance (Practical Classics Magazine, January 1994)
Booster Rebuilding the Girling Brake Booster Assembly by Jack Riddell of the Vintage Lamborghini mailing list
Instructions from a rebuild kit.
Rebuilding The Girling Mk2 Servo
Brake Servos - As New
Tiger Brake Tech Tips

Parts and Rebuilding Services

Conversion Kits

The Girling MkIIb is fairly old technology, and will require periodic rebuilding. Due to the wide number of applications of this booster, conversion kits to Lockheed or PBR units are available. One of these kits might be applicable to the FIAT. If anyone has tried this, please let me know so I can post more information.

[Posted to info at 13:51 09/17/2007] [permanent link] -- Comments

7/29/2007: Battery Box 2

I had originally planned on repairing the existing battery box, making a new bottom for it and patching the side that was most rusted.

However, a while back I came across a brand new replacement box in a batch of parts I purchased. So I decided to just use that instead.

To remove the old one, I bent up the edges and used a drill and air chisel to cut the spot welds:

Here’s the old and new box side by side:

You can see that there are some slight differences, but it’s close enough to be well worth using.

I had to fabricate a small patch to replace one rusted area that the box attached to:

I’ll weld the new box in after I finish a few other things on the car.

[Posted to Work Log at 00:00 07/29/2007] [permanent link] -- Comments

7/24/2007: Floor Repair, Part 1

I’ve known for a while that I would need to replace some portions of the floor of my car. Most of the rust damage was under the seats, and was rust from the top down. Undercoating protected the bottom quite well, but standing water from a leaky top must have slowly done a job on the top surface of the floor.

I cut out the piece I wanted to replace in several stages over about a week:

Seat Rails Removed

A hole!

Here you can see why I had to cut across the fronts of the seat rails, rather than drilling out the spot welds attaching them to the crossmmeber:

Strangely enough, they spot welded these rails on the inside, so they can’t be easily cut off without taking much more of the car apart.

In my case, the seat rails were in need of repair anyway, so I plan on just making new ones later. I took lots of measurements before I cut the old ones out.

You can also see that the bottom of that cross member is pretty rusty and thin- I’ll need to patch that.

At this point you may wonder why I cut that section out- it doesn’t really look that bad! Well, if you look closer, you may be able to see how thin the metal was through much of this section:

Since this is expected to keep my butt off the road, I’d rather make sure it’s solid now!

Making a perfect replacement for this panel is a beyond what I can do with the tools I have. Therefore, I have sent the original panel out to a shop that will hopefully do this for me. I’ll probably have both sides made, since they are mirror images.

I’ll post more later, once I hear back from them. If this works out, the same shop will be able to make more of this panel for anyone who needs one.

[Posted to Work Log at 00:00 07/24/2007] [permanent link] -- Comments

4/1/2007: Metalwork 9: Progress

So just to recap..

The back of my car had a large, but difficult to photograph, dent.

got a rear clip from a parts car

but the bottom was full of bondo and fiberglass

so I spliced together the bottom of my original panel with the top of the other..

initial fitting

So, in April, I finished welding in the large panel on the back of the car:

Painted inner panel

Clamping it in Place


Seams tacked every inch or so

Welds Finished and Ground

I found that the flexible-edge 2” sanding discs available through mcmaster carr do a very nice job on grinding these welds.

I also finished this patch on the side of the car. I’d been working off and on on this one for quite a while.

I decided to do this patch because there was a crease that went along the side of the car, through this area near the wheel. I couldn’t adequately straighten it, because it was impossible to get good access behind it.

cut out damaged area

hand-formed patch

The patch was first shaped on a beater bag with a plastic mallet. I then fine-tuned the shape and put the crease in by hammering on a post dolly in a vise. I used the post dolly and a slapper to planish out all the low spots and get the thing pretty smooth.

I got to a certain point with it where it was very close, but not quite perfect. The patch was sitting a little too flat on the car at the wheel edge, and the crease was slightly off center on the bottom, not matching up with the body line as well as I would like.

I put the patch aside for several months, and then took another stab at it. Before starting over, I decided to see if I could fix the patch I’d formed initially. I used a new tool, a bead roller equipped with a tipping wheel attachment. The bead roller is a harbor freight unit I reinforced for strength, and the tipping wheel attachment came from Hoosier Pattern. (they sell them on ebay).

A Tipping Wheel

A tipping wheel is designed for putting a curved bend into a panel. It’s basically a steel wheel with a somewhat sharp edge, kind of like a large pizza cutter, that is pressed into a plastic lower wheel with a groove in it. As the top wheel pushes the metal into the groove, it forms a “V”. You can steer the panel as you go through the roller to make this line curve.

By running this over the body line on the patch a few times, and working it some more on the post dolly, it was able to straighten the line into perfection.

The other problem, the patch being too flat in the vertical dimension, was solved by using a shrinker-stretcher to fine tune the flange that wraps into the wheel well. Once this was done, the patch fit perfect and I welded it in:

Hard to see now, huh?

[Posted to Work Log at 00:00 04/01/2007] [permanent link] -- Comments

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Josh's FIAT 1500 Cabrio

A log of the restoration of a 1966 FIAT 1500 Cabriolet.

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