Here is a comparison between the original template (that brown board on the right) and the template I made. As you can see, the original boards only covered up the spare tire hole. This template gives more coverage and should allow people to make themselves a nice upholstered bottom board or rest their factory run on top.
The final file with all the tweaking will be available for download. I'm sorry I do not have templates for the "wings." I had no need for those. At a later date I may make a set, just so I can post some download files. When the files are ready you will see a "downloads" in the right blog column. Hope they help.
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Today I ordered rear springs for the Fiat. I'm excited to get it done and nervous to replace them on my own. There are plenty of successful tutorials over at fiatspider.com While I'm waiting I plan on finally fixing up the trunk. I have one wooden side, the bottom rug and back rug. I'm not thrilled with the fit do the stock wood that I have so I think I will make a full custom floor panel, split in two like the original. If it goes well I will make a digital file for folks to print out. Just a quick update.
I was able to find some hoses to put on the car this week. I went down to the local mom and pop parts store and we scrounged around. They ended up ordering me a flex hose with wire in it for the bottom hose. This should keep it from collapsing in the future. I also may have found the culprit for the collapsing. Not only were my hoses pretty worn, but there was an acorn on the top side of my thermostat. Hopefully there aren't more. If you followed this thread from the beginning, you know I really had my work cut out for me. I had a pile of 'constant torque' hose clamps from the PO (aka UNCLE) and I need three more to finish up my hoses, then I filler her up and burp her again. I hope to order some shocks for the rear on Thursday and see how that helps out the ride. One is seized, as many of you already know. After that is all said and done, I have a bunch of work to do on my daily drivers and then hopefully I scrape some money away for some front end work. Not much has happened for my Spider in the past year or so. Funds have been short and there are issues I'd like to resolve with the car before returning it to the road.
One of my biggest problems with the car right now is the suspension. On of the rear struts seems to be ceased. All of the corners of the car bounce freely with the exception of the rear passenger side. This leaves me with two options. I can compress all the springs and replace the struts or I can replace the springs and struts at the same time. Unfortunately this opens up even more possible problems. Do my A-arms need to be rebuilt? After taking off the springs, will I want to put them back on withour replacing other parts that require the springs removed. Another thing I am considering is how these alterations will effect ride height. Do I really care how high the car sits? Not particularly, but this model year and beyond were raised in the US to meet DOT standards. So, a slightly lower ride will probably have a nice feel and be more visually appealing. I prefer to do that without cutting. Currently, my immediate plan is to try and save enough money to take care of the springs and shocks. Possibly just the shocks. We'll see what the plan ends up requiring. Here are the springs I'm looking at. Currently $179 KYB shocks are $30 each Koni shocks are $135 each (but would be nice) I decided to take the Fiat out for a drive today. I tend to warm the car up because the cold start doesn't work. My method is to warm up the car and then unplug the cold start. That way, if I stall while the engine is warm it will start up again. I learned the hard way that if the car is warm and my cold start is firing, the engine floods and I can't drive the car. This solves the problem.
As I cleaned up the garage with the car running (and the doors open of course) I heard a loud BANG and was hit by little pieces of plastic and the car shut down. When I looked at the engine I saw that my distributor had exploded!! Someone on www.fiatspider.com was kind enough to ship me a distributor, but it was the wrong size. A few short days later my parents kindly purchased me a new distributor and rotor and she was back on the road. Make sure you keep an eye on your rotor mounting screws! Well, it turns out that I wasn't having a problem with my inline fuse after all. The inline fuse that I thought was the problem actually ran my cigarette lighter. That still needs to be fixed. It's a simple fix. I just need to buy the correct lighter. I can wait. I broke down again. This time in my garage. I decided I'd take my father out for a drive, his first time, in the Fiat. I warmed up the car on this cold November day so I'd be sure the car wouldn't stall. I shut the car down, had some lunch and got ready to head out. With the key in the ignition I went to start her up. The engine turned over and over and over but didn't kick on. There was a smell of gas in the air. I wasn't happy. There was no ride that day. An hour and a half after having the start issue and after my father had headed home for the day, I tried to start the car. It revved right up! I immediately thought of the cold start valve (aka: The Fifth Injector). A gassy smell? Not starting when hot? I believed that the injector was firing with the warm engine and flooding it out. Time to test. I did this test three days in a row. Warmed up the car, shut if off and let it sit for a few minutes. Try to start. No luck. I opened the hood, pulled the wire to the cold start and tried to start again. Fired up after a few turn overs. Yay! Now I need to trouble shoot my thermo time switch, wiring and injector. Since it's not firing when I unplug the wire I'm going to assume it's the thermo time switch. Sadly, thermo time switches aren't cheap. I think that is why the previous owner was wiring in some sort of kill switch. Sorry I haven't updated in a while. Things have been crazy. I managed to get the Fiat registered and on the road. There is still a lot of work to do, but I'm learning to drive standard. I was about to take my fourth short trip on the road to practice driving the car when I ran into a problem... I backed the Fiat out of the garage and onto the lawn and it stalled. I stall a lot. Not a big problem. The problem came when the car wouldn't start. Turned over fine, but it just wouldn't start. So I checked for spark, air and gas. Everything was workin. I had spark, I could run the fuel pump and there were no air issues. HOWEVER! I did not think that maybe the injectors weren't opening. They weren't. I checked my wiring diagrams from Artigue and found that there is an inline fuse under the dash that leads to the injectors. With fingers crossed I removed the fues from it's red sleeve. It was blown. I took out my trusty multimeter and checked the side with the two black wires. I had power. Then I tested the other side for ground continuity. It's touching ground somewhere. I followed the red wire up to.... well... here's the picture. This is not a new nest. It's old. From when the car was kept outside under a tarp at my uncle's. There is nothing fresh about it. I'm hoping I can deal with this issue without removing the dash. Maybe just the instrument cluster. Who knows. I'll find out shortly. Until then, here is a thread where I'm discussing the issue. So if you are in a similar situation, enjoy that discussion. I will report back with updates. Hopefully shortly.
The video says it all. We drove her down to inspection and she rolled right through. My second section of exhaust had rotted out. The resonator bottom fell apart and every time I started up the car another piece would fall off! My options were to cut out the section and add in some straight pipe or buy a new bolt in unit. While the cost differed greatly, I decided I didn't want to spend an entire day fiddling with metal work. So I placed an order with Auto Racambi. I had been spraying PB Blast all over the bolts on the exhaust and other random places just in case I needed to remove parts. It helped greatly. I decided the removing the section before the part came was best. That way I could immediately put in the new section upon arrival. I started by removing the bolts to the C clamp. That came off easy. If it hadn't I would have just used a cut off wheel. Next up were the four bolts attaching the catalytic converter. The two bottom bolts came off like a charm. Fiat had installed clips to hold the bolt while you turn the nut. It's a great concept unless the tabs are old and don't hold the bolt. There's little room for tools on that side, so the last two bolts were easily cut away with a cutoff wheel attached to an angle grinder. The only thing left to do was to wiggle the section back and forth until it came free of the muffler. Auto Racambi was FAST with the delivery. It went in easy in reverse order. I used four stainless bolts to fasten the section. The hardest part was wiggling the new section into the muffler pipe. I don't think this project even took two hours and it was much easier than trying to tack in new pipe and welding. I have been short on time and funds recently and haven't been able to work on the Fiat. Sunshine shows up in New England and so do piles of chores and other related events. I did manage to get all my lights working and I'm just about ready to pass inspection. I need to address an issue with my resonator, which has a hole blown in it. I can't pass inspection with damage to my exhaust. I will be slicing it off at some point and installing a straight pipe until I can afford to have some fun with the exhaust. I also need to finish installing the carpeting and console before I bolt in the seats. The problems I'm having with the console are installing the radio and buying bits of hardware to attach everything. I'm hoping to get the console and radio squared away this week. We'll see. I need to purchase a cage to install the radio. Once the console is in, I can install the seats and more than likely get it on the road. Easier said then done. Stay tuned...
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