fiat spider

Well, after looking around on eBay for replacement glass for the clock, I decided to head out to home depot to do-it-myself. $15 plus shipping plus a week wait is too much, I need it now and I can do it myself for cheaper. Try $2.75. Bought a small square of Lexan XR-20, a bitchin material that is not glass, but super clear and very pretty. It's also nearly indestrucible, has a low refractive index and is UV filtered. In the store, I was confused because I thought that all the sheets were 1) scratched and 2) tinted green. Turns out that green tint is a protective film that peels off. Duh. Also picked up a new bit for my dremel, to get the job done. It was pretty hard to cut the stuff with the Dremel, I had to make a practice cut or two and screwed up the first one, but it turned out alirght in the end. I made a rough circle with the router-type drill bit and then rounded it out with the sander. It looks a *lot* better than the yellow plastic one that was there before. Oh yeah, it took me an hour or so with 3 different screw drivers (tiny, small, medium) to successfully get the face off without damaging it to bad. I also managed to coat the face with the same flat black paint I used on the rest of them. I think the result isn't too shabby. You can see in the pic that the Lexan has less reflection than the glass lenses.

The dash cap had been sitting all night, so I went down and checked it out. Tight as could be, an excellent fit. I cleaned off the excess expoxy and sanded the edges just a tad to make it less abrasive when installing. Later, I re-assembled the gauge cluster, re-installed the dash and put it all back together. Minus the center panel, it looks like crap and needs more work. Apparently it was originally chromed plastic and someone painted it black. The black paint has messed up the chrome and it started to peel and bubble. I tried to peel it off but with no luck. This part may need to be replaced completely.

Getting the wiring back together was the hardest part, with the speedo taking the cake. There is just enough slack for it to attach to the back when it's installed, so the extra inch or so needed when installing is just not there. I don't know how I got it out. But I managed to fiddle around till I got it back in. It looks *so much better* than it did!

Tracy joined me in the garage while I worked tonight. She has a bunch of boxes of her stuff that she was going thru and sorting out for the move. As we were finishing up, I noticed she had uncovered something in the corner. Holey shit, it's a set of spare lenses...replacements for the broken tail light!! WTF? All this time I thought I had dreamt that the previous owner gave me extra lenses. I've been looking for replacement lenses for 2 years, nobody has them, or they cost too much when they do. All this time they were buried under Tracy's old clothes. WOW! Happy Birthday to me again!

My carbs arrived! They're so pretty! But, Bruce forgot to put a gasket in the order (or I forgot to ask) so I can't install them until I get one. Oh well, I don't have time to do it this week anyhow. It will be easier to do once I get the car over to my new, bigger, garage.

Yay!

But because I also recieved the dash cap, I decided to put it on as well. First, I did a test fit. You can see the preview "before" and "after" pics, it is gonna look great! You have to prep the dash and cap with a good cleaning and then a sanding, to rough them up a bit so the expoxy will stick. I did it in reverse order, sanding, then cleaning (windex)...can't imagine why you wouldn't want to clean up the dust from the sanding. It fit very well and didn't need any trimming at all. I set it up, squirted on the expoxy (only on the edges and around the vents) like the directions said, and then piled it up with weights and clamps to keep it together throughout the night.

While that was sitting, I cleaned and polished the wood trim. After all the years I spent cleaning wood with furniture polish as a child, this was easy. I have found that if you clean the wood real good, spray on a thick layer of furniture polish and let it absorb for a few hours, you get a brilliant shine very easily. It will soak into the wood and then sweat a little back out, at which point you get out the towels and brush it off. I think that it worked rather well.

Just got a call from Joel at Carnutz. He has 20 65mm 12x1.25 bolts in his hands and is shipping them out today. Sweet!

So the radiator arrived. Damn, it's nice to have new parts. I was so excited after talking to Tyler today to hear that a package had arrived at his house. But it was just the radiator and a note that says the carbs would be in next week. Bummer, I really wanted to install those this weekend. I also ordered a dash cap. $80 or so isn't bad compared to like $260 for a new dash. Sounds like I need to sand down any bumps on my current dash and use filler to fill in the big cracks. So maybe I'll do that this weekend.

Arne got his engine. He is so excited that I'm excited for him. How cool to have a big 80's 3.2L motor in a 69 Porsche!

Neil sent a story to the motorsports list today about a guy that had a bad motorcycle accident. His hands were destroyed and his life pretty much ruined. So bad that he took his own life. Reading it threw me for a loop and I composed an almost equally bad e-mail to the motorsports list in response. Damn emotions. I tell ya what tho, that little voice in my head that tells me not to do things that could kill me sure is a lot louder now. And I hope that posting stuff like that conveys to other people how important it is if you want to lead a healthy, normal life.

So I've been so excited about my carbs and wanting to work on the car that I went out tonight lookin for something to do and ended up removing the dash, upper and lower consoles and a bunch of deteriorating junk. I also figured out that my tranny is totally fine, it shifts great. It's the shifter mechanism that has funkyness. So I would like to get that figured out before Monterey if possible. Might have to wait tho. I want to get a big shop vac and vaccum all the *crap* out of the car. It was filled with leaves, dirt, pine needles, rotting insulation and other junk. Once the interior is clean, I can feel better about my little car. I'd like to try my hand at restoring the dash but that might be a tad aggressive. We'll see. It might be hard enought just getting it all back together.

Pics of my work here. Feels good to be working on the car again. Ran across another parts site: Spider Point.

Well, after months of looping, I ordered the carbs from Bruce. I can't wait for them to get here. Twin Webber 40IDF's with manifold, air cleaners and gaskets. Also ordered a radiator. Sorry Eddy. The advice I've had says that once a stock Fiat radiator goes bad, don't try to fix it, it'll just keep breaking. So, bought that too. Wasn't as expensive as I thought. So, my order was a little more than the original price of the car. But, whatever, it was so cheap to begin with, that's hardly a good argument. I'd pay far more for one single small part for my RX-8 and not blink an eye.

So here's what I bought:

http://www.fiatparts.com/carbs.htm

Here are a few nice cars and owners that are inspiring:

Scott Reed's 1975 Spider
Rick Rosella's Fiat Spider 124
Jerry Aquino - 1972 GTV 2000

Who knows, maybe I'll treat myself to a set of Panasports on my birthday. :)

An earlier quote from Bruce:

A 1608 comes stock with a 28/36 I believe which is about the same as a 1800
with 32/32. so 40's should be fine. I tell supplier what car they are going
on and they set up for it. 40's do take a little fine tuning but I am told
that's the "fun" of it.

Talked to earlier today. He said that the dual carbs are made to fit the car and should have no problem with fitment. They have a vaccum port on the manifold for the brake booster so that is also not a problem. Clearance is also good since these are nearly identical to the factory option that Fiat had in the 60's and 70's. He has to order them from his distributers so it takes 4-5 days to get to him and a few more to get to me. Yay.

He also said his radiators were about $300 and were aftermarket, not 30 year old 'new' radiators. They do not have plastic tops, they are all metal. I like that. I think.