azzurro

They did, the top model sedans ran this exact engine, and the standard polish fitted engine was also Fiat derived, but a 30 yo OHV pushrod design at the time. The lada engine was an all new russian design and single OHC

Cheers bro, will probably let one of the other 2 go now, probably the 125 sedan. Cheers bro. Is mesh, Is good. PO reckoned 9 were imported! The hotwires were pretty sweet, but not $1000 sweet, and I have 6 sets of other rims already, lol. Also for the sake of the hotwires, i saved 40% on the purchase price Cheapest maybe, some of the changes would have been more expensive to keep and are illogical, but Communism man. I reckon i will, its Custombuilt/Factory innit mayte... (the top sedan versions came with this exact engine) The original engine is 1481cc this is 1585cc, so 7% increase in engine capacity, but on power, 55.2kw for the late 1500 that this would have come with, vs 90-98hp depending on cams and pistons is 72kw, so a ~30% increase. Yeah, also noone knows what it is, so noone knows what its supposed to have, and its been like that for at least 11 years, maybe more?

Tell my why im a retard here:

INterior is pretty cool, the dash pod is almost exactly like the 2300 but black plastic. Cheap stereo im sure hides some wiring disasters, but allows FM to exit the 4" speakers so it can stay for now. PO was second owner and bought the vehicle with 30,000km, when it was 9 years old. it currently has 90,000kms. Door cards are pretty shot, guy gave me some cool spares, but they are 2x passenger side 125S (gold trim! Lights!) so the drivers side is going to have a couple of extra small holes instead of two massive ones Engine is a 1585cc 132B.000 Block with a 4301155 Head (factory from a 131 Mirafiori 1600) This is bolted to the FSO 5 Speed box using all factory mounts. The Carb is a twin throat Weber 32 DCHE 21 (from a later 125), presumably using the old carb on the newer block so the FSO linkages could be used. The set up it a bit janky tho, so thats on the list. Radiator is a 125 one (FSO one has an offset filler neck and tucks under the closing panel more) with a small pusher fan on the front. Water is gank, but id not use any or overheat so will just clean it out when i do the cambelt and waterpump. Might be a good excuse to get the aluminium RX3 radiator i have cut and shut. Finally whipped the carb off to clean up and investigate the poor starting and flat spots. Im no rocket surgeon but it brobably had a bit of an air leak which is why it run way better with a bit of choke. The accelerator pump 'jet' or valve int eh base of the float chamber was also unseated completely, which would have no doubt contributed to the flat spot. Its so buckled one of the throats is actually flatsided a wee bit, so Ive given it a rough sand on a flat block to flatten it a bit, and cleaned it all out, and will install it with plenty of Hylomar Blue so we will see. I have a spare 34DMS to try as well which ran fine on my old 1608cc. So yeah, pretty stoked so far, shouldn't take too much to get back on the road and utilized

And the rear: Tail gate is rusted on one corner, there is some patches in both the rear quarters, the area in front of the rear wheels have been repaired before on both sides, but otherwise it seems pretty good. all the pinholes will add up tho... Its got a tow bar. rear valance is a bit holey, and its the same on t'other side, and the rear quarter. THe inner tray tin is all removable to reveal, pretty much no rust in a 125 sedan floorpan. THe 125 boot well is covered over, as it the seat (and threaded seat belt holes), Even the 125 sedan vertital mount rear shock tubes are still there, open to the road below, even tho the Pickup has a 2300 style cross member and angled shock arrangement. Factory setup the spare is attached to the side of the tray infront of the rear wheel. The PO had cut the tin and fitted those big gate hinges to put the spare (with 135 width tyre!) under the tray and had the hump in the tonneau removed I will make try to the whole under tray where the 125 seat and passengers feet are into storage compartments. This all water blasted up nice and clean and a lot of mud came out of the wells

took the front end off to tidy it up and remove the lights. One of my favourite jobs is cleaning the muck out from light lenses, seems to make such a big difference to the appearance for the sake of a bucket of soapy water. WHile i had that off it would be rude not to see if the 20 year older italian Fiat 125 chrome grill will fit in the usual spot. It will but it about 20mm wider than the plastic one and covers the edge of the inner light, so yeah, but nah. Car has been sitting around for a while not being driven. Tracing why this side repeater (this one is odd and from a Toyota of some sort) is non operational Deja vu is when they change something in the Matrix But is otherwise pretty straight

And today i had the day off as well (back to werk tomorrow) , so dug right in to see what i had done. So, first things first, RIMZZZ the factory rims with the pastic centres actually looked ok, but they tyres were shit. So 14"x5.5 DELTA AUSTRALIA Meshies, with 185/60 Direzzas Or these 13"x5" Indianapolis with some unused but old and off brand 185/60 Mrs and boy reckon the meshies, i like the 13s but needs to be lower first. I also have some 13" wards, and some 14" steel iron cross and some factory 125 steelies too. Sad. So digging, they guy has a 125S and a 128 Coupe so this truck has been pretty well setup. 125 Sedan Diff (4.1 ratio) in the back (complete with leaking axle seal, but new rear pads). These were factory disc as well, he said the FSO one started making a noise so he swapped it over, and i think the pickup diff is lower geared (like 4.3 ratio) so the swap improved highway comfort too. Still has the factory polonez 5 speed box (halfway between lada and fiat twin cam to suit the 1500 (and 2300!) engines) with the starter is on opposite side to fiat twin cam), The stick is removable! but box it is quiet and smooth. Rear lowered by flipping the ubolts these ride pretty high in the ass usually, and the suspension pretty stiff. Front is apparently stock but has lots of nolathane bushes.

So checked it out, agreed on a price ($1000 less without the hotwires, lewl) and left a deposit a week ago, and yesterday after driving from Palmy to Papsmear i pick up this on probably the rainiest day ever. Here is the traditional first fill up shot. Looking good in Light grey with 80's tastic pink fade graphics and contrasting turquoise rubbing strip, plus red pinstripe Now this is a good time to point out that the vehicle is of questionable road worthiness and legality, and while it runs, it has some quirks. The Mrs was supposed to follow me in the van and we would roill slowly back to Auckland with any mishaps easly resolvable with a support vehicle. THis was the plan but i got lost almost immediately (wrong lane + road works) and she went the Matamata way. in addition to water and oil i also purchased some wiper blades, which turned out was a good call. After only one issue when i couldnt get it to start after stopping and it conked out, (and then it just went) I thankfully made it back to Auckland with pretty much no issues Goes pretty good apart from a hole in the secondary pipes and a maaaassssssiii-i-i-i-i-i-ii-ve flat spot when accelerating, which is a carb fault of some sort, as the engine runs well otherwise.

While on a family jaunt to Papamoa last week, Mr Chris Grant was taking photos of trash on the side of the road, and messaged me some pics: a 1989 Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych (FSO) 125p Pickup, which is a Polish licenced version of a FIAT 125 (Russian Ladas are FIAT 124 based) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polski_Fiat_125p These have 125-eque bodies and the preceeding 1300/1500 model running gear Anyway, i got him to investigate further and he sent me this: Its got a twin cam it instead of the factory 1500 pushrod (same engine as my 2300 with 2 less cylinders) Anyway, seems legit and i ring the guy to organise a viewing the following weekend (on my way to wellington) and if (LOL) i buy it, to collect it on the way home a week later. So thats what happened... discussion \/

I reckon raizer almost likes collecting empty baggies with honda barcodes on em better. this is is gonna be so sweet!

A 131 with a 1600 probably wont have an lsd or the stronger steelcase zf box. Worth grabbing all the same? Most fiat/lada boxes are ally case collotti and should just require a bell housing swap to fit a twink to the lada box. 2l auto would be most likley to have lsd but whole diff is quite different from earlier 124/lada type and has drums and is v heavy. New Lsd centers are avaliable for the factory lada diff.

Well its all relative, but it is only rusty sheet metal. This bit went well for me because the big outer patch fit very nicely nearly first time. Chop it out, CAD it up, birdshit it in, flapwheel it back. All my patches are made with cereal boxes, snips, a vice and hammers. You can do eet!

the valance, the last stop on my round the 125 tour of rust. doesnt look toooo bad, i guess? LOL. Dirt and crap from off the front wheel gets into the upper panel from the bumper irons hole and makes its way to the lower section that has no drain holes of any note, so it rod rots out the front of the control arm mount. Top stuff. pretty happy with the patch i made Also let in a later model radiator vent. My car has never had cooling problems even with the 2 litre engine and a radiator that is a decade over due for a recore, but seems silly not to have extra flow - the big holes end up behind the bumper. Also seems silly cutting out solid metal You can seen the cross-member closing-panel all in above as well, double skinned like factory. pick below is from inside, you can see the curve of the valance panel opening by the bumper holes, so dumb. tac tac tac, grind grind tac, tac, grind, etc, pretty stoked with the patch tbh, always seems to comes out better on the bits no one will see! Thats all the rust on the body (till next time!) so i can start layering on the bog now, and start on patching/swapping the doors around

ladapower is fucken legit. Just dont expect japenese level quality, russian (mostly made in even shittier former russian states) OEM stuff is cheap for a reason (ie buy 2 of most things) rockauto have a lot of parts too, good for name brand tierods and ball joints and things like that, i got a bunch of lemforder bits for my 2300 for buttons.

Hoo boy thats a nice wag! very early one as its a very close copy of the preceeding fiat 124 berlina/familiare before they started making their own improvements. Unsuprising given they were using the old fiat 124 tooling, tho lada parts are probably easier to find (new!) and certainly cheaper tho the bits unique to this old shape are hard to find. Looking forward to the rustoration. @EURON8 to the lada wag thread!

I dont know anything about them but just reading the specs that blue seems like it might be a bit much, you might need to crank the regulator down so much (its a restriction) from the max (14psi) to get near to the ideal 3psi max for your carbs you might be better getting a pump with lower pressure for better flow. (You would also need a seperate pressure gauge to know what you are setting it at). Pretty sure Holley does a specific low pressure carb pump Those box facet style pumps are fine on my set up (i have a malpassi filter king regulator), but other than the twin carbs its pretty close to std. You could go full retard and have your tank setup for future EFI, and just have the mechanical pump draw from the surge tank for now?

something like that would work, i think i used a chisel in the vice, make the divot first and do (rest of) the bend second i wouldnt bother with the top fold could also 'over' bend the fold to like 135deg then clamp it down a bit and put a 45deg bend 2mm or so from there, but you would need a pointy clamp to get in there (not the vice anyway)

back to the middle of this side, i was thinking about how to attack this area while doing the other bits. Annoying design and lots of acute angles bleahhhhhggg oh well, chop chop. You can tell why they always rust here! Right behind the wheel into a tight corner with factory leaks into and around the A pillar. This is was replacement (not new) fender, but i needed to chop a lot out to get at the a pillar properly anyway, and it is sized nicely to the end section of the fender thats not welded. the the 'channel' is actually a hook for the top of the fender as there is no access to weld it, so i could just pull it off once i drilled out some spots where it folds over behind the door recess. I rebuilt this whole area last time, all the rest is still good. looking a the piece from the engine side, the 8mm lip hooks on the channel. Thusly: I put a good bead of seam sealer on both sides before tacking it in, and more on after from under neath. The channel will be filled to just below level with seam sealer too, like the other side (i didnt do this last time) And done. A couple more patches on the front valance to do, then its all filler, no killer

Skip to the front, same gig: Pick the scab: excise the cancer construct new bits glue bits in remove 90% of glue. Tidied up the bits i could reach inside and painted them, + gobs of seam sealer squished though from the wheel side to hopefully reduce the amount of mud and water that this area collects

moar rust :/ started from teh back working my way forward. A lot of bubbles and chips and seam at the base of the C pillar and boot and also boot to valance stripper disced back but no holes, so thats nice, still have to bog it back up again all the same. Anyway thats boring no pics. First holes are in the sill below the rear door, you can just spot a butt weld where i previously replaced the section forward of here: Still nice and solid and clean where i got paint in: This is why you should always do it properly - i tried filling thin spots last time and it doesnt work long term... a bit of CAD and then to the machine shop! And then in lots of time at all, BAM! a bit o primer for appearances sake, tends to catch on fire and contaminate the weld if it gets hot Nice! (this never happens the first go) tack tack tack tack tack tack tack tack tack tack grind then DA, done, and next bit

That escort trailer was mine but someone else built it. Scaff pole welded to the front hubs for the axle. Towed really well. I reckon you would probably be tongue heavy with a )longer wheel base van

You will need to chop out the 4speed tunnell which is park of the linkage and make or find a 5 speed tunnel to fit. The boxes were factory fitted to 2l 124 and 132s and mine has been fine. Maybe its an issue for racing? $20 + postage? Need any other doodads?

Good to see some progress, The Solex is still rolling around in the boot of my 125 if you want it? the Cavis tube is pretty good stuff, so might be wicking from somewhere else? The rubber bungs in the master cylnders never seal properly for me, and the plastic tangs have big mould join edges that stop a good seal and the plastic deforms when you crank the hose clamps up too much trying to stop the leaks. (Or so a friend told me...) Im not too fussed about the (124) 5 speed in mine, 1st is lower and 5th isnt that much higher, but my old 4speed was noisy and notchy and the 2l wont bolt up...

my 2300 has the ol' o'ring as valve stem seal dealio. Cant see them doing anything much tbh, but cant hurt either. The 'solution' is to swap valves and guides for later 1500 (same engine, 2 less cylinders used up till the 1980s in poland) ones that have a modern style valve stem seal (which is basically a stationary o-ring...). I assume there is a similar workaround for the Viva. Its a fair faff and cost for the sake of a wee bit of blue smoke on overrun and some mucky vales, but while you're in there...

they are pretty good tbh, the base plate bolts to the ground and has welded uprights and rachets, all the members clip together and the factory cover ties it all down and in with the rachets, and each end has a fixed cross tie as well. in my application i replaced the factory cover with a tarp and rachet straps to tie it together, no cross tie and inverted the arch to make it taller and narrower. The tarp i got is silver and black so its dark under it, factory cover is white and it was very bright inside. My place gets pretty windy, and its held up fine, curved shape and being open at both ends and the base probably helps spill any wind that does get under it, and so it rocks and creaks a bit but on a relatively sheltered flat site out of the box i wouldnt worry about it structurally at all, . Only thing is the cover (mine was second hand and had been up for 5 years) got a bit perished and would likley rip eventually, but you can buy new ones from them. Given they are supposed to be 'temporary shelters' thats pretty good. Mine is the 'Le Grande Garage' and its massive, ive left off one whole arch section lengthwise and had to narrow it as well. A+ would trade again