fiat spider

Cruised by a few local mechanic shops to see if anybody did engine bay cleaning. Tired of being a walking grease bomb every time I touch the car. Fast Orange sure is great, but it's not enough. Of course, nobody actually cleans engines, and nobody knows of a local do-it-yourself car-wash. Lame. That's what you get for living in California. One guy knew a shop off Dowdy road called "Detail Something..." that does it. I'll find that later.

Stopped by NAPA today to see if they had radiator hoses. Yes, but they sucked. Asked about spark plug wires. Yes, but they sucked. OK, so I'll be gone the next few days so shipping isn't a big deal. Time to order from IAP.

Carb Rebuild Kit
Exhaust Flange Gasket
Valve Cover Gaskets (2)
3 Radiator Hoses
Flush Kit
Radiator Cap
Sprint Sport Air Cleaner (back ordered)
Oil Pan Gasket
Spark Plug Wires
Oil Pressure light sender
Oil Pressure gauge sender
Clutch Cable
2 sets of Euro Fuses

Yay. By the time I get all that stuff installed, the car will be running great. That and some tires should get it ready for Monterey, although I plan on continuing with the restoration until I leave.

I'll be out for a few days. On vacation. So nothing doin' till next week. And my parts should be in by the time I get back so look for a *lot* more then.

The last few days have been good for the car. Been driving it a bit. Think I've put probably 15 miles on since Monday. Tuesday, Neil came over and we took it for a short spin to get Jamba Juice. Then later that day I drove it on a little loop or two, just for kicks.

And then today, Tracy and I took it for a quick trip over to Starbucks. We included a few mile round trip thru Mira Mesa to spend more time in the car. This was her first experience...she wanted to go further until I pointed out it might stall and she'd have to wait by the side of the road for a bit. Heh.

I set the timing later on...it wasn't off very much but at least now I know it's correct. That whole electronic ignition was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Plus now I have a cool timing gun. Started it up, it seems to be starting easier and easier, then took it for another 5-10 mile drive around Miramar, etc. Also found out that while I was jiggling wires, I must have fixed the interior lights. Yay. Now I can drive at night AND see the instrument cluster.

Today was mildly productive. I didn't do a lot of work, but I felt like I made some strides towards the daily driver that I hope my car eventually will become. It was Dave's birthday. I didn't want to drive the car without first fixing the carb leak. There is a brass nipple that has been leaking fuel on the intake manifold. Not good. I don't want a fire. So I spent a few minutes with some 'works on metal!' Krazy Glue and it seemed to fix the problem. I was quite stunned at how well it worked actually. That's good stuff.

Cleaned the car off, put on the air cleaner, threw some tools in the back and made the 2.6 mile drive to the party with hardly an issue. My horn had become disconnected so tapping it only made a slight squawk. And I guess the idle was too low or something because it tried to die on me a few times. It may just need some carb cleaner or to be run a bit. I hope it's not a real problem that can't be fixed.

My timing felt a bit off after the electronic ignition install, so after fixing the idle and re-attaching the horn, I left Dave's and went to Kragen to get a timing light. E-Gad, the cheapest one was $50. Then the dumb shit behind the counter tries to sell me one that was $135. So off to Autozone to pick up one for $30 that's just what I needed.

I am kinda tired of Kragen. The Mira mesa branch is full of pompus idiots. They don't care about the customers and don't know what they sell. At least when the Autozone guys don't know something, they admit it and try to help. Grr.

The drive home was fine, even with 2 stops. I started to set the timing but the exhaust was too hot and I didn't want to burn myself trying to undo the distributor cap bolt. So I'll do that later.

Tomorrow I need to test my temp sensor and fan switch, then order some stuff from IAP. Probably should look at replacing the timing belt while I'm at it.


Tried to install the 2 lenses for the tail lights so I wouldn't get a ticket. But I broke off the bolt when I tried to get it out.

Definitely need to clean the car. Look how dirty it is. And I need to replace the pregnant hoses too. Hope to get it washed tomorrow at one of those places with a pressure washer. And take it for another semi-long drive. Maybe lunch or something.

Saturday I installed the spark plugs. Well, I started Friday night and realized that the spark plug holes were filled with shit stuff so I poured 2 gallons of water all over the top of the engine in an attempt to clean it. It actually worked decently well for the amount of effort. Problem was that they were now filled with water. No problem, put the fan on it and left over night. So Saturday I did get up and install them. Started, it ran ok. Still skipped. Dammit. I was really hoping it was just that easy. No such luck. The plugs were perfect in color and didn't look too eroded.

So then I started on the Electronic Ignition. This installation has been a long time in the making. I bought the thing the same week I got the car, nearly 9 months ago. A CraneCams Fireball XR3000. Pretty sweet, I can do a lot with it, although for the moment, it's just acting pretty basic. It took me all of Saturday to rotate to TDC on cyl 1 (which I really didn't have to do), disassemble the points and condenser and install the shutter and stuff. I ended up dropping a lot of parts in the engine bay and losing a c-clip, having to fashion one from the Home Depot Racing Division parts. That foolishness ate up the remainder of my day. Then on Sunday, after sleeping in quite a bit, I installed the computer, hooked it to the coil and looked over my wiring diagrams a hundred times. I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to fry my new computer. That would suck. The thing that was really bugging me was a missing 'ballast resistor'. The Fireball instructions say that all cars with points have one between ignition and coil positive. I couldn't find one anywhere.

Also used my new temp gauge on the multi-meter to verify the temp is off about 10C on my car. No biggie, it seems to run cooler now with the new ignition. Maybe the dwell was way off.

Rad thing for the day. For over a month now, I've been looking at this wiring diagram wondering what all the Italian words meant. I thought they meant electrical stuff like "ground", "positive", "negative", etc. I thought "viola" meant horn. Makes sense to me, Viola=instrument. Course, it's a string, not a horn. Tracy points out that they're all colors in French. Holy shit. I love that girl. So spending time with Babelfish got me all those answers. Course, the wires aren't the right color, so it doesn't help me much. But still, rad.

Tested it out, cleaned it off, fired it up and it ran on the first try. Wow. Excitement. I took it for a short spin. It started trying to die..idle was off again. Went home, set the idle, went back out. Drove a few
mile loop. The car didn't skip, AT ALL. RAD. Very happy. Very productive.

This week I do all the fluids and gaskets and try to get the damn thing cleaned. Heh.

Fixed the horn and fan. I called Carlos at ITAL Automotive and he said there was no way it was the relay, it had to be the fuses, go check again. So I did, knowing I'd checked it a couple times already. Yanked out the fuse and it fell apart in my hands. I really hate those stupid European fuses.

So, after doing that, I met up with Arne for lunch in his Porsche. We grabbed some IN-N-OUT and watched WRC, discussing the number of eyelid blinks by Peter Solsberg. Or is it Marcus Greunhohlm. Or however it's spelled. Anyway, we went for a drive around the block in the Fiat, a little test. It seemed to be doing really well. Awesome.

So well in fact, that I followed him a third of the way to work (about 2 miles) and did a loop thru the back-roads to get home. It started to get hot and then it started to skip. Died on me once, but I was rolling so I put it back in gear and kept on moving. I got real nervous that I wouldn't get it home. The water temp was reading about 100C, which is 10C more than when it's supposed to blow. But it never has, even when it reached 135C yesterday. I think my temp gauge is off.

So I got it into the garage...pulled in, popped the hood and started checking things out. It ran for a bit, seemed to do ok, then out of nowhere, it died. I tried to re-start and nearly killed my battery in the process. Didn't seem to do any good, it just wouldn't fire back up. So I let it sit for a while. Came back a few hours later, started it and it fired right up. I think I need to stick to the "3 pumps and hold" scheme, it seems to work.

So I started trying to adjust the idle. And killed it again, with no starting as the result. Hmm. I'm fairly sure the carb is doing something funky. I think having it apart for 3 weeks while the steering box was being assembled was bad for it. Maybe it messed something up. So I should probably rebuild it. Adding to list of things to do. (sigh)

So I talked to Carlos again, ordered the other tail-light. He said go to NAPA for radiator hoses, he didn't have any. And to give it a tune up. Points, condenser and spark plugs. So I went and got some spark plugs and a 21mm deep socket from AutoZone. Also got a multi-meter from Radioshack, so I can test stuff. It can test temp too, so that'll help me diagnose my gauge problems. Had to run back out again when I discovered that the 21mm had a 1/2" drive and needed to get a converter to work with my tools.

Pulled out a plug...holy shit it was dirty. Looked down in the hole and good god, it was filled with dirt! I'm lucky a bunch of crap didn't drop into the engine! So I tried my best to clean it with water. Which didn't really work. I think I may need to buy an air compressor just so I can use it to clean shit.

Tomorrow I have an interview, so I probably won't work on the car much. Hopefully Thursday will be a fruitful day.

Installed the seat-belts. Found out that they fit a little funny, but all I needed to do was rotate the mounting bracket and everything lined up. They are red with a very chrome buckle. They stand out a little too much, I think.

Also figured out the lights. Traced the wiring diagram for about an hour to figure itout (it's in Italian). They all work now. It was the fuse-box. I guess that if the fuss aren't in there tight, they don't make a good connection.

Tested out the radiator fan. It works, but it's just not getting juice from the car. Hmm. But everything is hooked up correctly. I really don't want to make it hot just to test it.

The horn seemed to have been disconnected when I replaced the steering box. Hooked it back up, no work. Noticed that the end of the wire I hooked back up had broken off. Fixed it. Still didn't work. Got out my wiring diagram again. Figured out that 'Viola' means 'horn' in Italian, even thou babelfish doesn't know that.

While removing the old seat-belts, I discovered that there is a hole of rust right behind the driver side seat. This will require some repair. I may just buy a metal plate to put there for the moment. At some point, I will order the entire pan for the driver side. That will fix all the rust holes. The rest of the car is in pretty good shape as far as rust goes. I put the back seats back in to make it look a little bit better.

Also spent some time figuring out how the heater works. Next time I have the car fired up, I'll test it out.

Spending time with my wiring diagram paid off as I realized that both the horn and the radiator fan go thru the same relay. Since both are failing, I bet it's that relay. Replacing it tomorrow.