My timing belt and bearing are sitting on my work bench. My mini van has been distracting me from my Fiat. It required some extensive maintenance. I was just given an early Christmas present. My father ordered up some Master Series Silver rust paint for me. this means I can start cleaning up the floor, sanding it and prepping it for paint. I can also weld through it, so it's time to fix the three spots on the body that need patch and cut out the rear rocker sections and weld in new flanges. I'm eager to get started again. I was moving a quick pace up until now. I'll need to borrow my father-in-laws space heater for the garage while I work. Starting to cool down here in New England.
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It may be hard to tell, but I spent about ten minutes working on the left hand side of that valve cover on the top of this picture. The right hand side is still, nasty dirty and pitty. I left it just to show the contrast. But if you look back at earlier pics of my engine on this blog you'll probably see a noticeable difference. I used various size brass brushes in my Dremel to clear up dirt, grime and to shine up the surface. I'm pretty happy with the speed at which it cleaned off. I used some Brasso Polish afterwards which lifted even more grime up. I think if I slowly work over the whole engine with this technique it will be decent enough for engine viewing at a car show. I'm not looking to win any contests. I just want to have a tidy car. If you're working on a Fiat Spider like I am and don't even know where to start, have I got a treat for you! You are probably looking to find a copy of the shop manual or other various tidbits of information but don't want to shell out $60+ on them. Here is a link to a shop manual. I'm not sure that it's the same photocopies you can get from the various Fiat jobbers, but this has a decent amount of information:
Click here for the service manual password is pdftown.com Direct link to download page Through the www.fiatspider.com forums I have also found this great manual, put together by a Fiat Spider enthusiast, Bradely Artigue. There is some GREAT information in these free documents. Learn more about the author at his website. I simply printed out the documents I needed from these links and dropped them into a three ring binder for easy access. I recommend printing them double sided. Many printers offer this function now a days and they provide detailed instructions. |