1978 Fiat 124 Restoration -- I hope

[wajulia]

Hello All.
I am about to start a 1978 Fiat 124 Spider. Why -- it was my first ever car in the early 80's. I always loved the way it drove, A true 70's two seater sports car. I bought it a few years ago -- not much money in it, and now I have the time (and a little money) to put it together. Before this I did my 1981 Corvette (Body on) and a 1975 Goldwing (every bolt including the motor). I believe I have the skills to accomplish this except perhaps for welding, but I am sure I will be pretty good at it by the end of this project.

I have created one of these message boards for each one. I find it is a great way for me to evaluate where I am, and with the help of so many great people, figure out where I am going. I promise that I will follow this to the end. And right now I am not sure the end is a restored car or a bunch of parts. And lots of pictures.

A little about the car. It has been painted twice. A very bad red paint over an equally bad yellow paint over the original blue. The blue is under the carpets, so I think it is the original. The last paint was a very bad red, with lots of fiberglass and bondo. The car is also a girlfriend special. EVERY wire under the hood has been cut. I can not think of anything other than a women scorn that would cause that.

Rust:
You can see through the floors to the ground on both sides. I can also see bad fiberglass work in the wheel wells. And I know there is lots of bondo around the wheel arches. Other than that it seems like surface rust, but this is my greatest fear. Is there enough metal to work with.

Electrical:
Not only is it a girlfriend special, but there are lots of wires under the dash that seem to have mismatched connectors and splices. I think the car is certainly due for an entire wiring loom, but I do not see where there are any available for the FIAT

Engine/Drivetrain:
It was not running when I got it. All I know is that it can be turned over by hand. Other than that it looks like all the parts are there. I probably wont even go there until I make a decision on the body

Interior:
Nothing can be saved. All the plastic is cracked and broken. There may be a few gauges that can be saved.

Strategy:
1) Disassemble everything. I plan to pull the engine and drivetrain, suspension and interior
2) Inspect the damage. Start stripping to raw metal starting with the critical areas -- floor boards, rockers, wheel wells and wheel arches. Then decide if I will continue
3) Disassemble the engine and have a look. See if it is rebuildable.
4) If by some miracle I everything checks out well enough to continue -- make a plan to build it back up!!!

Let me know what you think! And I promise that the future posts will not be so long.

[Nut124]

Ambitious plan!

Been there, done that.

I could have bought a nice looking, good running car for a fraction of what I spent restoring mine.

[18Fiatsandcounting]

Strategy:
1) Disassemble everything. I plan to pull the engine and drivetrain, suspension and interior
2) Inspect the damage. Start stripping to raw metal starting with the critical areas -- floor boards, rockers, wheel wells and wheel arches. Then decide if I will continue
3) Disassemble the engine and have a look. See if it is rebuildable.
4) If by some miracle I everything checks out well enough to continue -- make a plan to build it back up!!!

Let me know what you think!

Good luck with it! If it were me, I'd assess the extent of the rust before doing much of anything else. Rusted floor pans and wheel arches can be fixed, but if the front shock towers, or the center tunnel and outer rocker "tubes" are fatal, that makes things tougher. Being a convertible, the integrity of the center and outer structural members are critical.

For me, I like totally disassembling a car, as long as I have time and the space to work on it. Two reasons: One, you really get to understand how these cars are put together, and Two, you really see all the issues in your car and what the previous owner might have done. In other words, you get to know your car inside and out. More work and more expensive, yes, but you are ahead of those folks who buy a fully restored spider and just drive it without actually knowing what's inside.

-Bryan

[wajulia]

Nut124 -- I certainly understand that this car cannot be restored for a profit. For me it is the journey. I love restoring cars and I wanted to do a car that did not cost me a lot of money up front and I would have fun with when I am done. I tend to never sell things I restore -- so being upside down never comes to the forefront. That said, I do not want to throw money away, so if I do not think I can get this running without herculean effort I will scrap it.

[wajulia]

18 Fiats
Thanks for the good advice. I will focus on uncovering the rocker boxes then I will look closely at all the shock towers. My initial look at the rocker boxes is they are quite solid. I do not see anything other than some surface rust around the floorboard holes. That may be hopeful thinking. I will get to the rusty parts with a wire brush as soon as possible.

[wajulia]

I have been working on getting the interior disassembled. So far I have gotten the Convertible top, seats, seatbelts, center console out. I will go for the dash next. There seems to be no doubt the original color was blue.

The rust seems to be just the two outside corners of the tub. Everything behind that is quite solid. As far as I can see the rocker boxes are also solid.

I see the seat brackets are attached to the floorboards (and maybe a cross member under the car). Do you have to remove the seat brackets, replace the floor and then put the seat brackets back in?

Also -- I was shocked to find the gas lines going down the drivers side. Is that the stock location??

I think the pictures make it look worse than it is because I have not yet cleaned up the years of dirt and debris. I will start taking out the old carpet and give it a good vacuum and then get some better pictures up.



Passenger side



Drivers Side -- notice the gas lines

[18Fiatsandcounting]

Also -- I was shocked to find the gas lines going down the drivers side. Is that the stock location??

Yes, it is. Early cars had the fuel lines going up through the transmission and driveshaft tunnel, but that switched to the driver's side floorpan in later years. Not sure what year the changeover occurred. The larger line is the fuel supply, and the smaller line is either the fuel return or the vapor line from the tank (I forget which).

As for the rust, well, I have seen worse. You can buy new floor pans and seat support rails, but I'd get it all cleaned up and see where you're at. Either knowing how to weld or knowing someone who can, will be crucial at some point.

-Bryan

[wajulia]

Thanks 18Fiat. Gas in the people compartment is a bit disconcerting -- but old truck used to have the entire gas tank there. I bet there is a reason they don't do that anymore.

My plan right now is to fully gut the interior, clean it up and do a detailed inspection. I am doing some travel so I might not get back to it for a few weeks, but expect a lot of pictures

As for welding -- I can make two pieces of metal stick together, but it isn't pretty. My plan is to get much better over the course of this project

[DustyDave]

Wishing you the best on your project! I am 4.5 years into restoring my ‘78 Spider. It is in the paint shop now for exterior paint only, as the engine still installed and running since year 3. All this to encourage you on this journey, it can be done. And like you, the journey along the way to know your car inside and out is the value of the money spent. Enjoy and I look forward to hearing more!
David

[wajulia]

I have been quiet for a while. You may notice in the background that the garage looks sort of new. I am building it around the car. Some exciting thing happened on the garage, mainly ELECTRICITY. Now I can see what I am doing!

I am posting some more pictures of the rust in the floor. I cleaned it up and all the interior is gone. It is about as bad as I thought. All the floorboards need to be replaced, but the rocker boxes look pretty good. The one side looks like it might have some scaley rust, but it does not really look that bad up close. Focusing on getting the dash out next, then I will probably look at the engine transmission. Lastly the suspension.

[18Fiatsandcounting]

Well, it looks fixable but you do have some repair work ahead of you. If you haven't already, carefully check the fuel lines on the left of the driver area. With that much rust on the floorboard, the fuel lines could have corrosion issues as well. If you search on this forum, you'll find that a smell of gas in the passenger compartment is sometimes traced to these fuel lines having pinholes.

-Bryan

[wajulia]

Sorry about such a long time between posts. I have been working on the garage and the car a little. As you can see the interior is almost empty. I am working at coaxing the wiring harness out. It is slow and tedious work. I dont want to damage it. I do not see any replacement wiring looms, so I assume that the harness has to be restored and repaired. Let me know if there is someone who makes replacements. I could really use them in the engine compartment.

[wajulia]

I pulled the engine and transmission this weekend. I made the gantry in the picture. It worked pretty well. We got the engine and transmission out in about an hour. As soon as I get the interior completely gutted I will begin to get all of the engine compartment disassembled.

[wajulia]

I already mentioned that there were a lot of wires cut in the engine bay. (Looked like a girlfriend revenge to me). After we removed the transmission I saw all of the wires on the side of the transmission that were just dangling. Can anyone assist in identifying all of them?

[DustyDave]

https://www.njfiats.org/Joomla/index.ph ... g-diagrams

This link NJFIATS has lots of manuals, including full wire diagrams that are very accurate by year. Mine is a’78 as well and matched my car very well. I didn’t rebuild my entire harness, but I did do some mods including adding an electric fuel pump… very helpful!

I hope this helps! And good luck! I like the engine hoist in the new garage, very nice!
Thanks,
David