Now that the paint has cured, my custom fuel pump bracket is ready for installation. Now I just need to run the pump under a brass wire wheel to clean it up and install it. After that I will hook up some fuel lines and install the fuel filter. Most of the bolts down here are 6mm, so I think I will pick up a few extras at the hardware store later.
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Today I was able to run down stairs for an hour and quickly use my template bit on my router to get a basic shape for my door card template. I burned through a few spots that will need a little bondo, but I'll be ready to go pretty quick. I may make them in bulk if any of the www.fiatspider.com folks need to buy any. It's coming along pretty nice. I look forward to making some brand new cards. Enjoy the slide show. Not too bad. Do they look factory bought? No. But it doesn't matter they will be under my car under a shield holding a fuel pump. Most importantly I don't want them to rust. I took some one inch steel stock and beat these into shape using a hammer, vice, 2" pipe and various other tools. I used some JB Weld to weld my pulley back onto my drill press because I can't find replacement parts. Works pretty good. In fact, better than before. Yesterday I finally decided to buy some supplies to make the fuel pump bracket that is missing. The only steel I had available is a bit thick for the purpose, but I need to use what I have. My first plan was to buy a piece of exhaust pipe, slice it and weld some mounts to it. That turned out to be too difficult for me to bother and I went with bending the stock I had around a pipe I found laying in my woods. The pipe happened to have the same diameter that I needed to seat my fuel pump! Excellent bit of luck. Here are some shots of the first half of the bracket. I need to make the second half, drill it and then sandblast it. Seeing as my drill press is out of commission at the moment, I'll have to head to my friend's shop to do a bit of drilling. Hopefully it all fits in well. It's not perfect but it will safely hold my fuel pump.
I have a large skill set. I went to art school and worked with metal, wood and glass. After graduating I went to work at companies that build custom waterfalls and stained glass installation and fabrication. Luckily, all of those jobs have allowed me flexibility when I run across problems.
The latest problem I have come across while dealing with my Fiat Spider are the door cards. Under the upholstery on the doors is an 1/8" piece of masonite ( a material easily acquired at your home store ). A few weeks ago I picked up some masonite along with a sheet of MDF to create a template. Two nights ago I stripped the vinyl, foam and hardware from the door card. Today I glued the warped door card to my piece of MDF by spraying it with adhesive and sandwiching it between two hollow core doors (*see notation below). Tonight I will remove the card and MDF from the rig and see if it adhered properly. If so, I will use my saw, drill and router template bit to create a perfect template for additional card creation. Who knows, maybe I'll start selling cards. After the template is made it is relatively easy to replicate the shape. PIcs to come. *Hollow core doors are amazing for the DIY individual. They can become a work space on saw horses, block dust when cutting, make cheap workbench tops, are a flat surface on grass to paint and even for squishing two boards together so they glue up well. If you find any at a yard sale or replace any in your house, be sure to have at least two laying around to help you out. Do you see that big flat ugly brown thing on the lower left? It's held on with three bolt and can easily be throw into my media blasting cabinet and stripped to bare metal. After that, I'll paint it. These are the small jobs I can do while wait for parts in the mail or waiting for financing for the next project. This should dress up the engine nicely. Now I just need to think of a color! I do not have a bracket for the fuel pump, which means I need to head out to various auto parts store or home stores and find a bracket that will hold my pump. I've tried a few auto places already and have not had any luck. The next step will be fabricating one. While I wait to find out what will happen with my fuel pump I can mess around with various bits I have laying around. Today I took five minutes to buff out a portion of the hood. Here's a shot of the progress. The car is covered in a film of years of goo. A small little layer of nastiness that washing didn't take off. The compound unleashed the thin layer of brown and attached it to my buffing pad. It is now drying preparing itself for another round. Possible tonight.
So I need to put my fuel pump and filter back into place and finish running hoses. It turns out that I'm missing a bracket for the fuel pump. I have the shield but nothing to mount the actual pump to the body. I went to my local NAPA and another parts store to find that there are no generic brackets for such a situation. Thanks to the wonderful world of online shopping I can choose from numerous vendors who supply something similar. I'm going to browse the net and see if I can find something in my price range or I'll just fabricate the part myself. It won't be too hard, I just need to buy supplies. As it stands, the car does not run, but it does roll. After chatting with the wife we decided I was going to take care of the majority of the welding body work prior to gassing up the car. Once all my patch panels are in and I replace the rocker mounts I will sand and seal those areas. Once that is complete I will work on starting the car. If the car starts soon I will register it and start driving it as a sort of jalopy while I slowly restore the interior and work my way out. There is no sense putting a nice paint job on the car until I know all the mechanics and electronics work properly. Hopefully this week I will begin welding. I need to go pick up some supplies.
I'm not sure if I've mentioned it in previous posts, but the rocker panels on Fiat Spiders bolt on. In order for these parts to bolt on they need to have a threaded hole just in front of the door as well as a flange with a hole ready to accept a stud. On my car, both flanges had been rotted away. Today I received a package from a member of the www.fiatspider.com forum. The box contained TWO flanges, one for the left and one for the right. I'm very excited. I will be cutting out portions of my car and welding these into place. They will need to be blasted, cleaned up and cut to a proper shape. When I do the job I will be sure to take many "in-progress" images. |