75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Shows, meets, organized drives, club info
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joelittel
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Your car is a: 1980 Spider 2000 FI
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Re: 75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Postby joelittel » Thu Jun 02, 2016 11:26 pm

Thanks!

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nelsonj
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Re: 75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Postby nelsonj » Fri Jun 03, 2016 1:04 am

Do you have an itinerary yet? I'm in Ventura county and would love to meet up and drive a leg with with you if schedules permit.

Once you have details you should post to see if other Spiders can escort you along the way. Sounds like fun and good luck!
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Simi Valley, California
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Romans 10:9

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Andyblahblah
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Re: 75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Postby Andyblahblah » Mon Jun 06, 2016 5:06 pm

That'd be great!
We should have a schedule later this week. Would love to have some mini-caravans along the way.

Meanwhile, does anyone have the dimensions for the grills of a 75? I'll do a post in another thread, but I'm waterjetting some custom ones and will gladly share the files when they're done.
1975 Fiat Spider
1978 Fiat 128 2D Sedan
1964 GMC Handi-Van
2003 Toyota Tacoma
A bunch o motorcycles

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Andyblahblah
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Re: 75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Postby Andyblahblah » Mon Jun 06, 2016 5:15 pm

Image

Here's the mock up of the grill so far.
1975 Fiat Spider
1978 Fiat 128 2D Sedan
1964 GMC Handi-Van
2003 Toyota Tacoma
A bunch o motorcycles

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lglade
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Re: 75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Postby lglade » Mon Jun 06, 2016 7:42 pm

The new grille looks pretty cool, but keep an eye on your coolant temperature for a while after you install it. If you reduce airflow vis-à-vis the original grille, you may impact the radiator's ability to keep things cool under the hood.
Lloyd Glade- Mukilteo, WA
1984 Pininfarina Spider Azzurra
1962 Fiat 500D - wife's car
2015 Subaru Outback
2017 Ford Focus RS

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Andyblahblah
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Re: 75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Postby Andyblahblah » Mon Jun 13, 2016 8:52 pm

Thanks lglade,
I've opened up the mesh quite a bit - will be cutting them tomorrow and posting pix. Just finished about 20 hours of sanding/bodyfill/sanding/wetsanding hell and will be buffing tomorrow. I'll be so glad when I don't have blue fingernails anymore.

Talked to Joshua from 123D Circuits today, he's helping out with the turn signals and showed me the prototype. Very cool.
Image
Last edited by Andyblahblah on Tue Jun 14, 2016 3:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.
1975 Fiat Spider
1978 Fiat 128 2D Sedan
1964 GMC Handi-Van
2003 Toyota Tacoma
A bunch o motorcycles

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Andyblahblah
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Re: 75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Postby Andyblahblah » Mon Jun 13, 2016 8:52 pm

The turn signals will be 3 concentric rings of LEDs (called NeoPixels) mounted to a custom-created circuit board - it's got a USB that will let me convert the existing signals to a cigarette lighter! I'll be using a cigarette lighter, a USB charger and these tricky bits. More to come.
1975 Fiat Spider
1978 Fiat 128 2D Sedan
1964 GMC Handi-Van
2003 Toyota Tacoma
A bunch o motorcycles

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Andyblahblah
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Re: 75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Postby Andyblahblah » Fri Jun 17, 2016 2:39 am

Update on the grills: had the chance to water jet out the lower grill this week. I think it looks great. Won't be able to do the upper for a couple of weeks, but after looking at the opening again, I may need to tweak the design anyway.

Image
I won't be Abarth-ing it out, but I liked the idea of having a little nod somewhere on the car.

Image

And I let the buffer beat me up for a while and polished the paint. Sorry for the terrible pic, will have some better ones after the rest of the trim gets cleaned up.
Image
1975 Fiat Spider
1978 Fiat 128 2D Sedan
1964 GMC Handi-Van
2003 Toyota Tacoma
A bunch o motorcycles

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Andyblahblah
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Re: 75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Postby Andyblahblah » Tue Jun 21, 2016 4:25 pm

nelsonj wrote:Do you have an itinerary yet? I'm in Ventura county and would love to meet up and drive a leg with with you if schedules permit.

Once you have details you should post to see if other Spiders can escort you along the way. Sounds like fun and good luck!


OKAY - much progress this week on the schedule. Here is the itinerary, based on workshops that we're doing for Tinkercad, 123D Circuits and Fusion 360.

Tuesday 19th - San Diego Fab Lab
Wednesday 20th - San Diego AM - Pasadena PM
Thursday 21st - Long Beach Public Library
Friday 22nd - Orange County-ish area ? Disneyland? Jay Leno's Garage visit?
Saturday 23/Sunday 24 - making our way to San Francisco, then to Boise, ID
Monday 25th - Boise, ID Public library (sounds like it's going to be a big event, the Governors office is organizing)
Tuesday 26th - Bend, OR @ DIY Cave
Wednesday 27th - Portland, OR
Thursday 28th - Portland, OR / Seattle, WA
Friday 29th - Seattle, WA

That's a lot of travel, just typing it is making me tired. We'd love to meet some fellow vintage car guys along the way for milkshakes. I'll have a more definite timeline in the next week or so.
1975 Fiat Spider
1978 Fiat 128 2D Sedan
1964 GMC Handi-Van
2003 Toyota Tacoma
A bunch o motorcycles

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Andyblahblah
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Re: 75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Postby Andyblahblah » Fri Jul 08, 2016 3:30 pm

Got the console model from the Fusion 360 guys and getting ready to make the cardboard mold. Here are some versions, seen in MeshMixer.
Image

Also, I went ahead and 3D printed a small version to get a sense of what it'll look like when finished.

Image

I think we may just do it in carbon fiber - for another $75, why not..?
1975 Fiat Spider
1978 Fiat 128 2D Sedan
1964 GMC Handi-Van
2003 Toyota Tacoma
A bunch o motorcycles

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Andyblahblah
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Re: 75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Postby Andyblahblah » Thu Jul 14, 2016 1:41 am

Got the custom lights installed yesterday. They're actually kinda cool. I wouldn't say they were easy to make - though my friend seemingly did them with relatively little difficulty - they are simple, though. The circuits are printed and the components are just soldered in place. The cool part is that they're set up to be soldered to a bayonet fitting, so they fit into the existing sockets.

Image

Here they are in action:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHz5r8WgA1w/?taken-by=andyblahblah
Sorry, can't figure out how to embed video.
Image
1975 Fiat Spider
1978 Fiat 128 2D Sedan
1964 GMC Handi-Van
2003 Toyota Tacoma
A bunch o motorcycles

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joelittel
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Re: 75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Postby joelittel » Thu Jul 14, 2016 8:57 am

They look great. Nice job.

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RRoller123
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Re: 75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Postby RRoller123 » Sat Jul 16, 2016 12:22 am

VERY clever!
'80 FI Spider 2000
'74 and '79 X1/9 (past)
'75 BMW R75/6
2011 Chevy Malibu (daily driver)
2010 Chevy Silverado 2500HD Ext Cab 4WD/STD BED
2002 Edgewater 175CC 80HP 4-Stroke Yamaha
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2003 Jaguar XKR
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2019 Bianchi Torino Bicycle

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Andyblahblah
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Re: 75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Postby Andyblahblah » Tue Jul 19, 2016 3:11 am

Image

First day out of the shop, so I figured I'd make the test drive to Alice's for a cup of coffee. It ran so well, I just kept going south.

Made it to San Diego last night with no issue, except some wooly steering when I got off the highway. I sprayed lubricant on everything this morning - from throttle cable to steering linkages - and it seemed to appreciate that. We're here another day and head up to Pasadena tomorrow late afternoon, will probably stop at the San Diego Auto Museum.

In LA for 3 days, then headed back up to SF Friday evening/Saturday morning. Then it's northeast on Sunday morning through Reno all the way to Boise, where we'll be for a couple nights before Bend on Tuesday, Portland Wednesday and rolling into Seattle Thursday.

Long way to go yet...

Imageby Jeremy Borkat

Imageby Jeremy Borkat

Imageby Jeremy Borkat
1975 Fiat Spider
1978 Fiat 128 2D Sedan
1964 GMC Handi-Van
2003 Toyota Tacoma
A bunch o motorcycles

calvinconrad
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Your car is a: 1976 spider
Location: Cape Coral FL

Re: 75 Spider West Coast Tour - DIY Spider Bits

Postby calvinconrad » Tue Jul 19, 2016 5:55 pm

your spider is looking pretty sharp.
1976 124


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