Fiat 124 Spider Interior Restoration Part I - Carpet

The interior of the Spider is in average condition for a thirty year old Fiat, yeah that bad. Part of my rolling restoration plan is to re-do the interior from the ground up. Literally, starting with the floors. Unfortunately since this requires taking out the seats, consoles, carpet, insulation, and then scraping, begging-off and chemical-bombarding the rubber liner that has become part of the floor...this will need to be done over the course of a 'free' weekend (not many of those on my calendar).

Then I will POR-15 the floors, replace the wool insulation with foil-lined foam (home ducting type) and of course the carpet.The OEM carpet was a corn-row type that is, amazingly, common stock at home depot and Lowes. Becca and I picked out a lighter color than the car shipped with. We think it will give the car less of a 'old-dark-dirty' look.

Here is the test fitting of the driver side floor carpet.

This weekend I removed most the insulation and rubber from the immediate area, however I will need to strip the interior floorboards using a wire brush and solvent before I can start POR'ing and insulating. Good news is that no rust whatsoever found in the floor panels so far. (shocking)

Fiat 124 Spider Abarth-type bumper conversion

Like all post 1974 classic roadsters, my Spider is (was) afflicted with rather substaincial double chrome bar bumpers. The front bumper does a particuarly good job of spoiling the Pinninfarina styling. Remembering a couple cars back ( a Jeep Wrangler 'TJ') I remembered its bumper overriders (the rubber blocks bolted to the Jeep's rain gutter...er' I mean bumper) and thought they would look pretty good bolted to the end of my Fiat's bumper shocks. I think I was right.



This is what remains of my trusty dremel. It caught a-flame while I was using the cutting wheel to extend the 10mph bumper shock bracket to accommodate the Jeep TJ bumper over-riders I purchased off Ebay.








Here is the modified bracket.











Note that after burning up my dremel I used the proper, if noisy, tool for the job (angle grinder).

Fiat 124 Spider - Thermostat Repair

This was the first and most critical 'driveability' repair I completed with our 'new' 1977 Fiat Spider.

Symptoms: Starting to Overheat after 5-8 miles of highway driving.

Observations: Lower radiator hose cool to touch, while upper is too hot. Electric Fan does not cycle. Tested Termostat in boiling water, works ok.

Prognossis: Thermostat is not opening properly due to air being trapped in lower thermo-body.

Repair Action: Drilled small-ish hole in high point of lower Thermostat Body chamber. This should allow any air to escape to upper hose and be bled off from there.


Update: This has restored normal function to the cooling system. Both lower and upper are now hot when temp reads 90 deg C. Temp has remained normal for two weeks of daily driving. Have run wire for fan-override toggle switch should fan fail to cycle.