1971 fiat 850t

Again, what a great save...

As far as a engine swap, "I've also been doing research into a potential engine swap and some of the work I'm doing now is with that in mind.", have you seen what scmick has been doing?

Fiat 850's and Simca 1000's are similar enough to compare ( they are both rear engined Dante Giacosa designs from the same era), and scmick has done some interesting swaps (a Simca powered 133, and a Honda powered Simca).

I'm really enjoying this buildthread, and I think a engineswap will bring it to the next level...

Fantastic work and very inspiring! I have a commer van that I thought was rotten. This has given me some confidence. I take my hat off to you!!

Right....it's happened again! Somehow, I've managed to yet again let another excellent thread pass me by....until yesterday. The content is definitely my kind of thing.
I absolutely feel your pain. Your comment about 'being in too deep to stop' I can definitely relate to. It was exactly the same for me with my LT35. There were times where I felt like giving up. Especially when you have the mindset of doing one bit at a time, but every time you focus on that one bit, there's more rust behind that.....and then more rust behind that bit as well! It definitely knocks the wind out of your sails. But....keep going as you are! All the hard work will definitely pay off. You're doing an excellent job so far! Now bookmarked so I don't miss anything.
Dan.

Thanks for the kind words, I've been following your LT thread as I used to drive one of those for work many years ago. Most LT's were horrifically abused as used prices were so low they were practically a throwaway for a good few years.
For reasons I'll never be able to fathom they never got the kudos of the smaller vw vans despite being one of the most spacious for their size.

Good to see one being saved and being saved well at that.

More progress on the 850 to report.

It's really easy to race ahead and start chopping out rust left right snd centre, god knows there's enough of it.
So it becomes important to finish as much as possible in one area before moving on.
In hindsight I should have braced the living curse word out of this thing the second it came off the truck. If it sits straight snd level when the wheels hit the floor it'll be nothing short of a miracle.

As vans these all left the factory with a steel bulkhead spot welded in typical fiat "man falling backwards with a machine gun" approach.
I intend to remove it entirely to make better use of the space inside.
I'm not sure how structural they were then or how structural it has become but I'm leaving as much in for as long as possible.

I have seen on "factory" conversions these little gusset peices so I'll do my best to copy that









The rest of the nearside sill and floor repairs were then fully welded.

The flipside of not rushing is becoming a little too reluctant to start cutting.
I've spent so long welding stuff in, it feels weird to be making big holes again.
That said I no longer need to pick it apart to see how it should look, nor do I need to make a lot of the panels, or so I thought.
First error was the lower inner B post.
I'd not rooled the bead far enough in to take the gusset.
So that had to be re done




Then I could continue across the floor over the main front crossmember.
Fortunately I knew how this went and had a lot of the panels made.
I won't bore you with the commentary as it's the same as before





Out with the old










In with the new











Then it was time to methodically work from front to back







Front sill and inner arch.
At this point I discovered mistake no 2.

I had already made the lower B post repair panel but hadn't been able to access that post until now, where I discovered that they're not the same size.
Of course they're not, one side has a door in it!

So I had to remake that as well



I then made a big hole, cutting out the outer sill, inner sill three inches of floor and a similar amount of side panel in one lump





Once again I have to repair rail ends and more floor as this is the worst side.
The rear inner arch and suspension mount need work on this side too.

Another comedy repair came in the shape of this plate that I suspect had its edges "welded" before being jammed up behind the tank.







Quality peice of work

Just....WOW!!!!
I so wish I had your skills, talent and patience!
You are doing amazing work on that, it probably would have been easier to fabricate a complete 850T from scratch!
My hat is taken off to you.

Progress of sorts.
Despite all the bracing I hate the thought of any car sat for months (or even weeks) with structural metalwork missing.
With that in mind I pressed ahead to at least get the outer sill on

I'd been very careful when fitting the front sill so it came as a suprise when the centre sill wouldn't line up with both the front sill and rear corner.

After several failed attempts I broke out the laser measure and discovered the rear corner isn't straight, probably never was.
It's coming out anyway so it's by far the less of many evils.



All prepped and on it goes





The lower side panel is only in temporary as the rear arch needs to go in first.

Whilst it's not a big milestone it feels like a turning point as that now makes the "shell" structurally solid with the remaining welding (besides the suspension mount) being mostly superficial. In order to do that I need to turn the van around.

I decided early on that the best way forward would be to almost complete the front half of the van, suspension and all.
I welded on the new jacking points so I could swap the lifting points over










These look similar to those fitted to some later (and some earlier) vans but are made from much thicker steel and welded to reinforced crossmembers.
Massive overkill but at least I know even the dumbest tyre monkey won't damage them in the future.

That allowed me to come up with this.


I've screwed some heavy wooden battens to the dollys and drilled some large flat bottomed holes in them.
The axle stands are then placed in the holes and via an adaptor that prevents the axle stands from sliding on the new jacking points.





This is important as it means I can still slide the van across the garage depending on which side I'm working on.
In reality it's just less than a metre but thats enough for me.

I've already had the wheels and drums off so they came off without any issue and then for the first time I began to think about getting the suspension apart.
Sadly the poor welding evident elswhere on the van rears its ugly head once more as what at first appeared to be blobs of manky old grease......




Turn out to be where some genius decided to weld the trunnion cups to the suspension arms, cheers mate.

And with that we quietly close the door and leave it for another day in the hope it was all just a bad dream.