In the spirit of wachucko's recent threads (great reads!), going to look at some Spider's and posting pictures of cars he looked at... I'd like to do the same!
First, I must admit that I'm somewhat mechanically impaired when it comes to cars - I'm a techie at heart, did plenty of mechanical stuff while I was in the military, but fixing a 5 ton truck is a bit different than looking under the hood of a Fiat. Bear with me.
Second and most important, I live in France. Italian border is about 30 minutes away from me, which may or may not be helpful. The cars might be Italian by design, but most (to my understanding) are US-speced.
The car I'm looking at is a 1981 Fiat 124. Pictures below. A short history of the car:
- Originally bought in the US
- Sold at an auction in NY in 2002/2003
- Imported to the UK after that
- Sold to current owner in 2007 for 3000 GBP (about 4k USD)
- Only 2k miles on it since 2007.
Current owner bought it under the impression it was sound mechanically, which it was not. List of things that he's changed/fixed since buying it:
New gearbox gears
new drive shaft coupling
new gear box mount
new engine mounts
new european shocks
new timing belt
refurbished cylinder head
new brake shoes and hoses
new engine hoses
new gearbox cover and gasket
various new gaskets
new rubber bumperettes front
new clutch
Pics:
Areas of concern for me are:
- Mechanically, it seems ok. Sitting for a month, no oil leaks. After test drive, drain plug came loose and was dripping (see above pic).
- Gearbox / gears were just replaced. During test drive, pulling back into driveway, got stuck in neutral.
- The paint isn't bad (considering), but it's bubbling and some wear / tear / rust around the lights and wheel wells (usually put trim over that area anyway)
- Original color was a dark blue. It's been painted black. Maybe covering some body damage?
- Interior floor. It looks worse than it is (it's not rusted through, but I didnt pull up seats). The horrible rust color is flaky and soft (it chips right off).
- Wiring. Whoever had this before installed a stereo and ripped everything apart. Will need to be cleaned up a lot.
What does everyone think?
Current selling price is 1600 euro (about 2000 USD). He doesn't mind having the wiring fixed before. I'm a bit concerned of the price as well... paying double that before doing all the work? Maybe some major problems that won't be noticeable until I get into the engine.
Thanks in advance everyone!
Jump on in the water's fine - It's not like your spending Ferrari money here. By the way, it will have plenty of wiring problems. Don't worry, you will become a pretty good Fiat electricion in no time at all.
