1958 Fiat 500 Nuova America

i was thinking just a thick ali plate with an entry radius, like this

OK, so the engine is in.

Next was the wiring.

I expected that to be pretty easy, I got the "good loom, it came with a wiring diagram, etc.

But the closest to A Nuova I could get was for a D, which one model newer.

So there were differences, specially where it routes through the car.

Also, the supplied diagram was worthless ( tiny print in Italian, printed with a machine that must have been running out of ink )

I had other diagrams in my own workshop manuals, but not all the wire colors matched to those of the loom.

Plus the mods I had to make for the electric oil and fuel pumps, the full dash with tach temp gauge, etc, and the Alt instead of a Generator.

So I cut the loom apart where it goes through the front bulkhead, and redid it one wire at a time.






So that's done ( forgot to take an After pic, I'll post that later )


Hooked up the starter, which is a cool cable operated deal with a little lever on the center tunnel.
The cable pulls the bendix into the flywheel, and at the end of the stroke an electrical contact is made to turn the starter.

I cranked it over without sparkplugs in it to see if it would build oilpressure quickly.

It didnt.

Tried to feed some oil into the oil pressure sender hole.

Still no.

Ok, I screwed up.

The oilpump is in line with the cam, so its placed high.

No way was it going to prime itself, I should have packed it with grease when I switched cams.

But then I realised I have the Electrical oilpump already plumbed in and hooked up.

All I had to do was make a little adaptor to go from -8 to a small size that could screw onto the oil pressure sender hole.







That worked so perfectly that I'm thinking about buying another one of those pumps to pressurise any new engine, so it doesn't get a kick in the teeth on first startup.

Did a rough baseline alignment on the suspension, bled the brakes, ran it trough the gears.

Pops out of 3rd and wont go into 4th.


Weird...

I ran this gearbox in the yellow 500, and I don't remember a problem...

So box back out.

I have another Fiat 126 box, but its not as nice as the one in the car.

Just a grubby old used one, but that will do for now.

Halfshafts are custom length, so they have to be swapped.

Which means splitting the case.

I open up the gearbox I had in the car, and to my surprise, the near NOS latemodel Gearbox wasnt.


It was a lot better than that.

It is a near new latemodel case, but it has a close ratio straight cut dogbox gearset in it...

And the gears look like they are brand new.

( how did I not know that?
Yeah, they can be loud enough to drown out straight cut gears... )

OK, totally crazy and overkill for the street, and yeah, we're repairing that one...

Found a problem with the shift fork rails ( specially the 3rd-4th one ), and some crucial nuts on the in and output shafts were not torqued right ( if it wasnt for cotterpins they would have made a bid for freedom... )

So thats where its at.

It gets all gears on the bench, ready to go back in and try again...

Pic of the repro's.

just read this impressive metal skills on a very interesting vehicle love it my uncle had 3 500s including an estate cant spell g......d....a in the late 60s wonderful sunroof open driving as a small boy.

I had to shorten one of the sides to get it to sit square on the roof and for the latches to work.






Then I made the edge where the header meets the front of the roof follow the shape of the roof better.






And I rounded off the corners.

Its not as tight and flat as I would like it, but I think its OK for now.

Some time in the future, when we can again, I'll drive it to a real upholsterer and see if he can steam some of the creases out...

The mounting kit I got with the roof included a panel to cover the parcel shelf.

But it is covered in ivory vinyl, which makes sense because the original seats would have had a ivory back rest top.



My seats are all black, so that had to change.


Also, the early Nuova's didn't have a back seat.

Some ( or all? ) had sort of a bean bag which really wasn't a good place to sit, or to transport things.




And besides having little practical use that I could see, it looked horrible.

So that wasn't happening either.

I made a platform out of plywood to line up with the original brackets, and to clean the area up.

I absolutely hate the glorified cardboard that is normally used for doorcards, etc.

It is heavy, distorts with the slightest bit of moisture, and has just enough structural integrity to survive being mounted ( once, after that all bets are off)

So I use aluminum sheet instead.

Parcel shelf.






And rear seat ( if it had one ) backrest/ rear bulkhead, both with a thin layer of high density foam glued to it.






Covered in black vinyl.
















In the last pic the side cards ( part of a regular set you can buy )are also in, the rear wheel wells are covered in black vinyl, and the latch on the parcel shelf is mounted ( this attaches to a leather strap that holds the roof canvas in place when it is down.

brilliant,the approch you have taken to this is great, i wish a car like that would last here more than 3.25 mins be fore compleatly turning to a pile of flakes and rust dust.
Dan