71 Fiat 850 sedan the redux

OHSCrifle wrote: Would love to hear the story about where you found that engine.

Surprisingly uninteresting story. My boss used to campaign a Fiat 600 in SOVREN vintage racing.

He sold it two years ago and since the car had a PBS headed 1080cc 115hp motor the buyer wasn't interested in the 75hp backup engine. We both forgot about the motor that was in a blue Rubbermaid tub on a rack with 8 other fiat motors. And while I was looking for the correct valve cover for an early Abarth 750 I was reminded of its existence and made an easy deal for it.

I've seen that car before. Nice looker to. To NOHOME How did Jason deal with the need to shrink the tin as he worked the dent out? Read the book, The Key to Metal Bumping By Frank T. Sargent, It has the old school technics that show how to remove these types of dents with very minimal filler if any when properly done. Man I need to make a trip down south and check this and Burrito's cars out. That GT looked almost as bad as the bondo I found on my 124 spider rear quarters. I quit measuring when I got up to 1 1/4 thick in one spot. It's all ground off now and headed into the frame shop Friday to get put back to where it should have been in the first place. Keep up the good work.

Oh hey guys, remember this project?

I had started in on the floor repairs and was frustrated by the limited access afforded by the lift so the suspension came off and I mounted it to the rotisserie.

Access is now much better

You can see in the first pic the rear floor is already out. Lots more to do though.

Yesss!!!

I love this (and all of the Fiat threads).

Rotisseries are so damn cool. I can imagine it makes it super easy to do a floor with.

This is my favorite build here, among the dozens of other amazing builds.

My dream is to one day put a classic Italian body over a tube frame for the ultimate classy sleeper. I m looking at this for body motivation lol.

Lets talk about a really great tool

The "crud thug" by snap-on

This thing made mercifully short work of this usually grueling task.

http://vid459.photobucket.com/albums/qq313/ditch_digger/fiat/20160103_150343_zpslrv7u0fb.mp4

It's a damn undercoating eraser. With two hands and a little more pressure it is more aggressive and works much faster.

So yeah. Now I can see the extent of rot and it isn't that bad. Full panels in the rear footwells and just some patches up front

driver side inner rocker I had to remove. The passenger side will most likely need the same

So next step is rear footwell replacement.

That seems pretty fixable, and the Crud Thug is clearly an awesome tool. I'd be going around the shop looking for other stuff I could debride with it.

What happened to that bit of the floor pan to get it dented like that? Almost looks like a jacking accident.

Jacking errors in its past, the ridiculously low ride height I have had it at, road debris...ect

It is all easy fixes. I am pleased.

The replacement rears will be flat. No need for the extra inch of footroom on this car. I doubt the rear seat will ever see another ass.

Extra bracing is on the checklist. When bertone made the convertible versions they added an x brace to stiffen it all up

I plan on building some version of that.

Ok Mr Balls just checking to see if you've gotten anymore done on this since the last posting.(:D. Headed down to Eugene for the Prefontane Classic at the end May. How close are you from there or Portland. Stopping for the night on Saturday in Portland for the nice Sunday cruise home. Wouldn't mind checking it out if you're close by and had the time.

I am in Eugene. Come stop by the shop.

Patching floors on the Fiat this weekend.

Sounds good will hit you up closer to the date on location.

Great to see progress on this, undeniably cool, little car.

Jumper K., very cool. Looking forward to seeing your progress on such a rare ride.

This is such a great project that I was super excited to see the thread get bumped. Any updates?

I suspect based on how fast he works Jason has probably broken into your shop and fixed it with his bare hands and teeth while you slept.

Jason the paint guy has disappeared as painters are known to do . That left the shop in a bind where we have had to hire and fire a handful of replacements. I have spent the last few months with home repairs and remodels, got sidetracked with the shop Fiat 126 project for another few months and the 850 has been blocked in by a trailer and half a dozen cars making access to it a half day affair

I have 11 months to finish it so we can use it as the fun, travel to events at Monterey car week next year. I have a wedding this weekend so after that I am pulling it out and placing it in the shop so it will stare at me and guilt me into getting real work done.

In the mean time. A teaser of the new wheels

14"X7.5" steelies.

Man I should have widened my steelies when I had the chance. Then again, my winter tires are only 155 width...

Show us the shop 126!

Jumper K. Balls wrote: Jason the paint guy has disappeared as painters are known to do

What is it with paint guys? As a group, they seem to be some of the most unreliable people I have ever met. Could it be the fumes?

In reply to NOHOME:

Ours always came back when he ran out of coke money.

Wall-e wrote: In reply to NOHOME: Ours always came back when he ran out of coke money.

My point exactly....this seems to be industry acceptable behavior.

They're artists. No matter the amount of work under it the paint is the first thing people see. Think of them as the lead guitarist of a metal band. And subsequently prone to E36 M3 behavior. People put up with it because a brilliant paint job can make or break a car.

Quick rundown of wheel widening.

I have always loved the deep dish steel wheel look the Abarth OT1000 cars had.

I also really like the mid 80's VW 12 hole wheels and those are cheap and easy to find.

My lathe is too small to do this so I had to improvise. This was the whole setup. It is not fancy. Just a flat plate, an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel and a quick bracket

turn on grinder, push wheel into it and rotate.

Took about 2 minutes per wheel.

I had the guys at the steel yard shear some 0.100" steel into strips. I tipped the kid a tenner and told him to try as hard as he could to make them parallel. He did a very good job.

Those strips went into the slip roller until they were rings just under the size I needed. From there it was clamps and tacks until they were in place and a cut to clear up the overhang.

all together, just tacked.

And from there I took it to the tire shop I work with and had them put it on the balancer to check for trueness. It was as good or better as any diamond racing wheel according to him. Which is faint praise but it is quite true and only a quarter ounce out of balance. Where it was out was on the backside which was from the VW factory or 20 years of driving. Not due to what I did.

Next step is to finish welding them, paint them and get tires mounted so I can start flaring the body to accept 7.25's where 3.5's were factory. The Panasports I used to run were only 6" wide.

Wow that worked very well - nice job!!

In reply to Jumper K. Balls:

Between you and RadCapz (and others of course), I have learned so many cool ways to do things. Thanks for posting this!

I have stacks of steel TR6 wheels to experiment on. Thanks for sharing this.