dinghyguy's restoration of "Mark"

[Jimb]

LOL....ok, I didn't realize that. Thanks for the enlightenment.

Jim

[dinghyguy]

Sigh. Big sigh......
Get the new bushings in the a arms
Get the arms mounted
Get the springs in (truly bitchy job)
Get the shocks installed
Get the hubs repacked and the brakes remounted
Go back and tighten up the two bolts holding the lower a arm on. 3 no problem then .... snap.

Damn, the pass side rear bolt shears off.
So much for driving it this week. Sigh.
Oh well better in the too small garage than on the road
So went to bar
Tomorrow off comes the steering knuckle, the spring comes out, the shock comes out , and the a arm comes off
Gotta find a bolt then get my friend to bring his welder over etc etc

Good thing I just got a second spider. Too bad the electrics are trash, but hey I can at least sit in the custom leather seats and make vroom vroom noises.

Dinghyguy from the bar

[wetminkey]

I recall just how much fun this job was! I got lucky, though, and nothing broke.
I get to struggle with VW electronics instead of Fiat stuff,...
Best of luck, my friend!
Bar is a good choice,...I'm there now.
Todd.

[narfire]

"Dinghyguy from the bar"

Which bar do you patronize?

I still have a storage locker full of 124 stuff including my 15" Toora wheels with Toyo Proxes mounted.
I don't have time to box and ship, but if you ever come up this way, let me know and I can pop down to the locker so long as you have a pick up and big trailer : ). My 72 is for sale as well. Still need to be finished but I have driven it around the block. The new 32/36 was a nice upgrade.
( looking forward to sailing the Albacore up here this summer)

[dinghyguy]

narfire - enjoy the albacore... and the bar last night was Jack lonsdales.

So got the broken bolt out, it was the one buried in the crossmember.
got it out using a pipe wrench and a jack to torque the bolt and break the welds. Banged the bolt up and down in the hole first and that fatigued the welds a bit. Anyhow got it OUT!!!!
Now having a new bolt made, with a square head on it so hopefully it will not spin in the crossmember when i torque it up with the nut. we shall see.

cheers
dinghyguy with a loose bolt!

[dinghyguy]

Finally got around to putting a post together......with some bad photos from the too small garage.
Starting with the disassembly. The is the spacious side of the garage. Note that using the McPherson strut compressors at less than 180 degrees apart makes the spring go banana shaped as shown in the back of the following photo.

this next photo shows the parts prior to final disassembly and blast cleaning. Most of the parts were dirty, except the left a arm had a big dent in it.

After blasting all the parts were painted on the kitchen counter (where else?) and left to dry. The bores for all the bushings were lightly sanded to remove the paint and the new bushings were pressed in. Oh and the dented a arm was adjusted using a hammers and other tools to be more or less straight and true again.

reassembly was straightforward generally except for two issues:
first the spring compressors had to be at precisely the corrent angle to each other to clear the a-arms and provide enough compression as well. I ended up compressing and decompressing, adjusting and recompressing each spring about 3 times before i was able to get all the bits back together and remove the compressor parts. Definitely an internal compressor would have been so much easier.
I then went around and tightened all the bolts except the pivot bolts for the a arms. SNAP, one bolt broke off as shown below. Also note the dent in the crossmember and that is also the a arm that was dented. Sometime in the past the PO hit something hard! As i noted in a previous post, using a hammer, a pipe wrench and a jack i broke the spot welds hold the bolt in, fished it out and installed a new bolt ($1.25 for the bolt)


Then put it all together again.



Got my three fiat apprentices to sit in the car to load the suspension


Tightened all the pivot bolts up and i was done!


Took the car out on the Easter weekend for a cruise with some coffee and car guys and what a difference. No more clunks over the speed bumps, no looseness in the system, definitely a worthwhile upgrade. It was such a success I think i might even do the rear bushings also! But not until i finish the intake manifold and carb swap plus the electrical rehab on the second fiat i just got....yes now there are two.
cheers
dinghyguy from the too small garage

[RRoller123]

Nice!

[MattiR]

Finally got around to putting a post together......with some bad photos from the too small garage.

dinghyguy from the too small garage

Your project looks good! Nice to see photos.

I was today at tire shop for wheel alignment and it came out that the threads in another bolt (the one which did not snap with you) are useless. That bolt is quite difficult to renew because the head is inside the crossmember. Any good ideas how to fix it?

[dinghyguy]

MattiR:
my bolt was inside the crossmember. I got it out as follows

1- bang the bolt up and then bang it down using up all the vertical clearance in the hole.
2- Repeat about 50 times. When i started it took 2 bangs to go up and 2 bangs to go down. After the 50 times up and down the spot welds were fatigued enough that it only took 1 bang up and 1 down
3 - Then i put a pipe wrench on the bolt and used a jack on the handle to torque the bolt until the spot welds failed.
4 - I used a screwdriver to drive the bolt back until i could fish the bolt out the hole in the crossmember
5 - I used a Dremel grinder to dress up the crossmember where the spot welds were and then installed a new bolt.

hope that helps.
dinghyguy

[MattiR]

MattiR:
my bolt was inside the crossmember. I got it out as follows

1- bang the bolt up and then bang it down using up all the vertical clearance in the hole.
2- Repeat about 50 times. When i started it took 2 bangs to go up and 2 bangs to go down. After the 50 times up and down the spot welds were fatigued enough that it only took 1 bang up and 1 down
3 - Then i put a pipe wrench on the bolt and used a jack on the handle to torque the bolt until the spot welds failed.
4 - I used a screwdriver to drive the bolt back until i could fish the bolt out the hole in the crossmember
5 - I used a Dremel grinder to dress up the crossmember where the spot welds were and then installed a new bolt.

hope that helps.
dinghyguy

Thanks dinghyguy,
Something like that I was expecting.

[dinghyguy]

Time for a short update...…

So i decided the old honda cassette stereo had outlived its usefulness, not to mention that the tinny 4" speakers in the wheel wells had to go as well. Shopping on my local craigslist and facebook market place led me to a brand new kenwood head unit for about 50% of retail (with receipt) and one of the local stores had speakers on sale, so now i had the parts. No big deal right? Just take of the speaker covers (4 screws) take off the trim panels (3 screws) and then undo the 4 screws holding the speaker in and then reverse the process. Hah. The PO had used a sandwich of plywood clamped and silicone and screwed with nuts and bolts over the holes to reduce the diameter for the 4" speakers......there went a couple of hours taking all that stuff apart using small vicegrips to hold the blind nuts, a scraper to get most of the silicone off, a vacuum to clean up the mess etc.
Oh and he didn't use the Fiat speakers wires, oh no, he used short sections of black and red 18ga wire held together with black tape, 4 sections per wire typically. At least i got satisfaction from removing all that.
And then i found he had cut the fiat power window wires and used them for the old door speakers .....and then more of the black and red wire bits. So out with all that mess. At least i found out what the cut wires sticking out by the relay tray were originally for. So i reconnected the passenger side power window wires and tucked them up under the dash in case someone ever decides to put in power windows. I still have not found where he cut them on the drivers side but i am looking...… I also had to modify the fiat speaker wire ends to have the typical big and little connectors which fit modern speakers. More time passed.

Now i was ready to start speaker installation. First i put the trim panel back on, that worked fine . But when i placed the speaker cover on it I found that the round speaker cover was just a bit too big in diameter to site nicely on the square indent in the trim panel. Dig out the chop saw and a little trimming on two sides solved that problem.
Of course new screw holes were required, so out comes the cordless drill. Initial assembly goes fine on the drivers side, but where is the last screw, where is it? Finally i take the speaker out and sure enough the last screw is stuck to the speaker magnet.
Five hours later i finally get both speakers installed properly.

Next day is head unit install. I am thinking this will not be too bad since i was going to use some extra plugs and bits to make the system removable (one plug for speakers and one for power). So a bit of time on the dining room table with my soldering iron, heatshrink and the plugs and i had the unit ready to plug in. But hey current stereos have BAT, IGN and Illumination power connections (ignoring power antennas and other fancy bits) and fiat only provided a brown IGN connection. Not a big deal, but more time as i construct two new wires to go from the fuse panel to the new power plug.
That is when i find out that some time in the past the rad fan circuit got very hot and semi melted the fuse panel.....so now i am looking for a replacement 12 fuse panel. Oh and i also find out that the PO had wired the elec fuel pump he installed in the trunk using one of the power antenna wires to get from dash to trunk and had badly tapped into the ignition switch wiring for the power, but hey he did use a fuse (20A which is too big though). So more work to be corrected.

And then to top it off the single DIN bracket is so loose in the upper console hole that i need to install some mechanical supports to keep the head unit from drooping.
BUT hey the new stereo sounds soo much better, works fine, dims when the lights are turned on, remembers the presets and has Bluetooth.....so a big improvement and only three additional tasks were created
- find and reinstall the drivers side power window wiring back to original
- replace the fuse panel (cleaning up all the contacts as i do it
- redo the fuel pump wiring to free up the power antenna wiring.
Not bad for 8 hours of fiat fun!
Cheers,
dinghyguy in the sunny driveway.

[nelsonj]

Is the radio and wiring all sorted out? I need to put a new stereo in mine. It has a period after-market Bose amp that takes up the entire glove box. The Bose speakers still sound pretty good, but I'd like to get my glove box back...

[grrrdot]

Hi,
So, not sure if this was covered but I think the renewed A-arm is on upside down?
See the two pictures below.

Correct direction:


Picture of re-newed install:

[18Fiatsandcounting]

Yes, the upper A-arm is installed upside down...

-Bryan

[dinghyguy]

Sigh, you are right Bryan,

Time for an update. I have been delayed a bit on the work because I have been driving my other Fiat after soring out the numerous electrical issues in the dash. Having two makes driving one possible almost all the time!

First thanks to Brian for noticing I put the upper arms in upside down….sigh. Even more annoying being that I also had the car aligned, so there goes some money down the drain. Just for anyone's interest, the new bushing and ball joints made a huge improvement, even with the a arms upside down!

So the update includes removing the upper a-arms, flipping the ball joints over and reinstalling the a arms correctly. Note that I did that as follows:
Jack the car up and put jack stands under the lower a arms
Remove the wheels
Undo the three bolts holding the upper ball joint to the a-arm being careful to manage any flop of the spindle brake assembly

Undo the long bolt on the upper arm
Remove the upper arm

swap the a arms side to side, and reinstall everything.

The interesting part of this bit of work was that I did not do anything with the springs or shocks other than letting the load of the car sit on the jack stands under the lower a-arms.

While I had the car up on jack stands I rebuild the rear calipers (see my other post under Maintenance), mostly to make the handbrake mechanism work properly. That work was interesting.

Since I had the car up on jacks I also changed the oil in the differential.

The final upgrade for this session was the installation of the tee in the coolant line from the head to the heater to enable easier burping.

Next action is to adjust the tie rods to get the steering wheel centered and also to check set the toe-in. Never done that but I am planning to use the string method. Suggestions gratefully accepted.

Cheers
Dinghyguy in the too small garage.