Now that I've caught up with the Jag thread I figured it was the Fiat's turn next. The story with this one starts in an eerily similar way...
Way back in 2012 I bought an X1/9 for the princely sum of £330...and it was worth about that at that point. Rust-bucket, non-runner. Still, it's a damn cool car. Got it running (fuel pump diaphragm dead and filter clogged), and pulled the bumpers off (20kg they weigh combined!).
Then, Christmas Eve 2012 rolls around and brings with it a really nasty storm. No power for a week. Trees down everywhere...including this one:
Ah.
That's not good.
You can just about see the poor little Fiat poking through the branches at the back. A little (lot) of hacking tree limbs out the way and we get close enough to see this:
Yeah. That's not buffing out.
Struts pushed through their towers on 3/4 corners. Windscreen and surround destroyed. Not a panel without a significant dent.
Bother.
Here's a pic halfway through chainsawing it up that shows the sheer scale of the tree down.
It eventually went for free to an X1/9 breaker so hopefully bits of it live on in other cars, but since then I've always rather fancied another X1/9.
Fast forward to October 2017 and me, some mates and a load of people from another forum (Oppositelock if anyone knows it) had a 'Europpomeet' trip planned where we'd head to Wales and spend a week bombing around the Brecon Beacons and Snowdonia. As I do every year, I said 'this is the year the Spit will be finished, I'll take it to Wales!'.
Meanwhile, January rolls around and the enormity of the filling job on the Spitfire is starting to become apparent. Meanwhile, something rather interesting pops up on eBay...
Sweet Mary Mother of Motors it's an X1/9 with an Uno Turbo engine and a ducktail! £3500 as well. I'd seen it sell for £5000 a week or so earlier but the guy was a timewaster and the seller needed it shifted for a house move. No time to lose.
So, a day before we're off on a family holiday I flexed what pitiful financial muscle I had at the time, reorganised some loans and scratched together £3500. Collared a mate to take me down to Worthing to pick it up, and bought it there and then.
First time the planets had aligned properly to actually buy one of my dream cars, and shortly following a breakup with a reasonably long-term girlfriend, so this cheered me up immensely
Had a little trouble getting it back though. Ran fine when the PO was giving me a run round the block, but halfway back it decided it wanted to run really badly. Bucked and stuttered under acceleration, and died if you weren’t keeping the revs up. This was compounded by a known starting issue where the starter motor clicks but doesn’t want to engage. Managed to get it back eventually though.
Turns out the idle adjustment screw on the inlet manifold had come loose causing a boost leak. Luckily it was sitting obligingly on the exhast heatshield and replacing that brought the idle back and improved running immensely. Still bucked very occasionally, which was a combination of the factory boost sensor cutting ignition at .7 bar and an aftermarket bleed valve causing it to exceed that on occasion. Disconnected the boost cut (a commonly done mod as the stock management is good to 1 bar, but 80s UK insurance companies threw a wobbly at a 130bhp hatchback so it was restricted to 0.7). Tweaked the bleed valve so it wouldn't exceed 1 bar and it ran fine!
Took it out for a spin with my mate's turbo MX-5 for some glamour shots
Couple of things I wanted done before the big trip to Wales. Standard seats and seatbelts went in to replace the godawful buckets and harnesses (in hindsight they weren't that bad, but the PO was much taller than I am so the mounting position was out of whack). Also fitted an oil cooler as a bit of research uncovered the fact that the oil temps in UT-swapped X1/9s are basically freely climbing as there's not much airflow around the engine. Took a few trials and errors, but got there eventually.
View through the back of the car:
Had to spin around and up over the engine. The original oil filter was way too tall, but luckily the oil filter from my old Alfa 156 V6 fit perfectly and had the same threads and OD. Don't worry, I sorted out the chafing issues on the coolant hoses. I've yet to buy a modified car where the PO cared as much about chafing on pipes as I do (or at all, TBH)!
Right! One week to go til the Wales trip. List of things done:
- Full suspension bush change, all wheel bearings and coilovers changed on my sister’s MX-5 done.
- Bled the oil cooler and sorted some ill-fitting front coolant hoses on the X1/9, discovering a water leak in the process.
- Oil change, ignition leads, fuel filter, delrin door bushes and a mirror blank plate for my mate’s turbo 5.
Oh, and did I mention I was also lending my Citroen BX NA Diesel I'd initially bought for £255 to a Dutch guy for the trip? That needed some work.
That ding on the front wing was caused by me rolling into the back of a tractor-mounted log splitter I'd made because the screen was iced up and the heater blower had packed up (it cleared up after a little bit of driving, but couldn't get it clear from a standstill).
My mate managed to diagnose an issue with the fan transistor through the Citroen's barmy wiring (electricity's still largely witchcraft to me, but I'm getting better), and I pulled the ding out a little.
Still to do:
-Replace some leaky coolant pipes and bleed the system on the X1/9, as well as perished fuel rail hose and injector o rings. Ideally a lower mount for the oil cooler too.
-Fix broken transistor on the Citroen, replace front wheel bearings, and fix anything else I’ve missed (turned out that I'd missed some knackered CV joints so driveshafts too).
We also had a third mate who was planning on coming, but had the side seals blow on his RX8. What does he buy? A Midget that used to run! Went down to pick that up on my home-made caravan-chassis trailer.
Worked pretty much flat out on all of that. Replaced everything in the Citroen. Sorted the Fiat at 1am the night before we were planning to leave (except the lower bracket for the oil cooler). Nearly managed to get the Midget running. We narrowed the issue down to dodgy points, but the replacement set we had didn't fix it. We got halfway through installing a Lumenition kit I had for the Spitfire before we ran out of time (fixed it in the end, but only after we'd returned). Luckily, the MG F was running and on the road so lent that to my mate now I had the Fiat sorted
Mate's turbo 5 and my F off to the left, German chappy's BRZ, my X1/9, my sister's MX-5 and my little Citroen driven by the Dutchman off to the right!
That's probably enough for now, but stick with. The Wales trip was a proper adventure, and we'll learn that my luck with X1/9s doesn't change a great deal...
Way back in 2012 I bought an X1/9 for the princely sum of £330...and it was worth about that at that point. Rust-bucket, non-runner. Still, it's a damn cool car. Got it running (fuel pump diaphragm dead and filter clogged), and pulled the bumpers off (20kg they weigh combined!).
Then, Christmas Eve 2012 rolls around and brings with it a really nasty storm. No power for a week. Trees down everywhere...including this one:
Ah.
That's not good.
You can just about see the poor little Fiat poking through the branches at the back. A little (lot) of hacking tree limbs out the way and we get close enough to see this:
Yeah. That's not buffing out.
Struts pushed through their towers on 3/4 corners. Windscreen and surround destroyed. Not a panel without a significant dent.
Bother.
Here's a pic halfway through chainsawing it up that shows the sheer scale of the tree down.
It eventually went for free to an X1/9 breaker so hopefully bits of it live on in other cars, but since then I've always rather fancied another X1/9.
Fast forward to October 2017 and me, some mates and a load of people from another forum (Oppositelock if anyone knows it) had a 'Europpomeet' trip planned where we'd head to Wales and spend a week bombing around the Brecon Beacons and Snowdonia. As I do every year, I said 'this is the year the Spit will be finished, I'll take it to Wales!'.
Meanwhile, January rolls around and the enormity of the filling job on the Spitfire is starting to become apparent. Meanwhile, something rather interesting pops up on eBay...
Sweet Mary Mother of Motors it's an X1/9 with an Uno Turbo engine and a ducktail! £3500 as well. I'd seen it sell for £5000 a week or so earlier but the guy was a timewaster and the seller needed it shifted for a house move. No time to lose.
So, a day before we're off on a family holiday I flexed what pitiful financial muscle I had at the time, reorganised some loans and scratched together £3500. Collared a mate to take me down to Worthing to pick it up, and bought it there and then.
First time the planets had aligned properly to actually buy one of my dream cars, and shortly following a breakup with a reasonably long-term girlfriend, so this cheered me up immensely
Had a little trouble getting it back though. Ran fine when the PO was giving me a run round the block, but halfway back it decided it wanted to run really badly. Bucked and stuttered under acceleration, and died if you weren’t keeping the revs up. This was compounded by a known starting issue where the starter motor clicks but doesn’t want to engage. Managed to get it back eventually though.
Turns out the idle adjustment screw on the inlet manifold had come loose causing a boost leak. Luckily it was sitting obligingly on the exhast heatshield and replacing that brought the idle back and improved running immensely. Still bucked very occasionally, which was a combination of the factory boost sensor cutting ignition at .7 bar and an aftermarket bleed valve causing it to exceed that on occasion. Disconnected the boost cut (a commonly done mod as the stock management is good to 1 bar, but 80s UK insurance companies threw a wobbly at a 130bhp hatchback so it was restricted to 0.7). Tweaked the bleed valve so it wouldn't exceed 1 bar and it ran fine!
Took it out for a spin with my mate's turbo MX-5 for some glamour shots
Couple of things I wanted done before the big trip to Wales. Standard seats and seatbelts went in to replace the godawful buckets and harnesses (in hindsight they weren't that bad, but the PO was much taller than I am so the mounting position was out of whack). Also fitted an oil cooler as a bit of research uncovered the fact that the oil temps in UT-swapped X1/9s are basically freely climbing as there's not much airflow around the engine. Took a few trials and errors, but got there eventually.
View through the back of the car:
Had to spin around and up over the engine. The original oil filter was way too tall, but luckily the oil filter from my old Alfa 156 V6 fit perfectly and had the same threads and OD. Don't worry, I sorted out the chafing issues on the coolant hoses. I've yet to buy a modified car where the PO cared as much about chafing on pipes as I do (or at all, TBH)!
Right! One week to go til the Wales trip. List of things done:
- Full suspension bush change, all wheel bearings and coilovers changed on my sister’s MX-5 done.
- Bled the oil cooler and sorted some ill-fitting front coolant hoses on the X1/9, discovering a water leak in the process.
- Oil change, ignition leads, fuel filter, delrin door bushes and a mirror blank plate for my mate’s turbo 5.
Oh, and did I mention I was also lending my Citroen BX NA Diesel I'd initially bought for £255 to a Dutch guy for the trip? That needed some work.
That ding on the front wing was caused by me rolling into the back of a tractor-mounted log splitter I'd made because the screen was iced up and the heater blower had packed up (it cleared up after a little bit of driving, but couldn't get it clear from a standstill).
My mate managed to diagnose an issue with the fan transistor through the Citroen's barmy wiring (electricity's still largely witchcraft to me, but I'm getting better), and I pulled the ding out a little.
Still to do:
-Replace some leaky coolant pipes and bleed the system on the X1/9, as well as perished fuel rail hose and injector o rings. Ideally a lower mount for the oil cooler too.
-Fix broken transistor on the Citroen, replace front wheel bearings, and fix anything else I’ve missed (turned out that I'd missed some knackered CV joints so driveshafts too).
We also had a third mate who was planning on coming, but had the side seals blow on his RX8. What does he buy? A Midget that used to run! Went down to pick that up on my home-made caravan-chassis trailer.
Worked pretty much flat out on all of that. Replaced everything in the Citroen. Sorted the Fiat at 1am the night before we were planning to leave (except the lower bracket for the oil cooler). Nearly managed to get the Midget running. We narrowed the issue down to dodgy points, but the replacement set we had didn't fix it. We got halfway through installing a Lumenition kit I had for the Spitfire before we ran out of time (fixed it in the end, but only after we'd returned). Luckily, the MG F was running and on the road so lent that to my mate now I had the Fiat sorted
Mate's turbo 5 and my F off to the left, German chappy's BRZ, my X1/9, my sister's MX-5 and my little Citroen driven by the Dutchman off to the right!
That's probably enough for now, but stick with. The Wales trip was a proper adventure, and we'll learn that my luck with X1/9s doesn't change a great deal...
