azzurro

 OS GC starter pack being delivered to some winner:

• Brand new mini jet boat
• Minter Subaru Brumby
• Project Citroen BX, possibly a turbo or similar high spec based on the rims and spoilers

Bedford flatdeck working hard.

In other BMC news, later that day also spotted while driving from afar/no pic a pus yellow Allegro with offset black racing stripe over the bonnet/roof/boot and a roofrack with a surfboard on it. I cant believe im on tenterhooks when im driving around jonesing for a good photo of an allegro but it was a doozie.

 

Went on a bit of a mission to Invercargill, to amongst other things, pick over this very crusty '76ish 127.

Dude was very accommodating and showed me a couple of his other cars (Holdens), which were very nice, and he will be a good source of possible parts/info for a **possible future project**.

these run a 900cc transverse mounted four pot, and are fwd, so totally unrelated to the van, but i thought there may be few bits worth grabbing.

And so it was.

A few interior bits, like rear vision mirror and visors for the van, the wipers are nice OEM supplier branded and will replace the mismatched aftermarket pair on the 125, horn for the van, a small radiator overflow tank for the van (none from factory, just weekly top-ups!), washer bag, and a single throat air filter housing (van one is missing) and a few other odds and sods. 

Like this pair of pretty good condition seats - mounts have the same basic dimensions and could bolt on with some mods, but are about 50mm higher, so that may rule them out unfortunately

And took the fuel tank and filler as well - i think this will work just fine to get us rolling

And the Air filter fits perfectly on the engine/carb, but it wont fit in the narrow van engine bay in that location, but will give me something to play with that will look and work better than a mad pod filter yo

In other news, while loading the (other) van to head off for new years, a guy who lives around the corner and walks his dogs past our place, said "been meaning to catch you to say hello and ask about that Fiat Van in the driveway, where did you get it?".

Turns out it his old work van! He was the workshop manager at Wiley's Garage in Tapanui (under Mr Falconer, RIP) , and he reckoned he put the Firestone mudflaps on in the very early '70s. 

Van was eventually replaced with a Holden 1 ton, which was an upgrade,  but he said he took it all over southland and it was a pretty flash rig at the time!. Not fast tho!

Anyway, took the scenic way back from Invercargill to pap a shot.

Been thinking about what to do with the exterior, so a subtle Kylie's Garage Ltd logo in the font/style of the building might be the go

 

 

Bolting more stuff on, 

Suspension all back together, didnt need a spring compressor, just jacked up the lower arm till the top kingpin nut poked through, so thats good news for easy future altitude adjustment.

Fiat parts bin allows new top quality russian poly bushes for the front swaybar, for picking up a few extra 10ths around Bathurst.

Also got the steering box and gear shift in as well, got a helper for a couple of weeks

Front half of the gear linkage in, the rod takes a totally bonkers path though the middle of the master cylinder box to a shaft to the other (ie LHD) side where the rear rod takes over.

Fiat first gen Panda linkage bushes and clips are a perfect replacement and will also suit the 2300, and also very cheap so i bought enough for both vehicles

Compared to the madness going on under the floor, the interior is pretty clean.

Pedals back on and first time they are not at floor level.

Ill clean up the accelerator pedal and mount it to the floor repair  panel so it can be driven easily in the meantime.

Dash and column back together, and with a seat, thats pretty much the entire interior, lol

Yay 2022.

Putting stuff back on.

 

First up, hydraulic lines. Usually the first thing installed at the factory for the same reason im doing them first, its much easier with everything out the way.

Also the reason for painting the driver side wheel well and master cylinder mount even tho there is still a big hole in the floor and rust in all the doors.

I had picked up plated cunifer line, 6m of 1/4" (for feed from the reservoirs and the clutch line) and 26m of 3/16" for all the brake lines.

 

This is the brake and clutch master cylinder, where 6 lines, 4x 1/4" (3 inlets and one clutch outlet) and 2x 3/16" (Front and rear brake circuit outlets, which both split off L & R elsewhere):

Woops, wrong photo! 

Here it is:

Basic process was use the original lines as a template to start with (leaving them a bit long both ends) fit up on the van a million times and finally cut to length and flare.

Then cut off the flare, put the line nut on, and flare again...

This is the front brakes, single line from the master then splitting at the T to the right (short) and left (long) 

Feed lines from the reservoirs:

Getting closer...

Now has 

- New Clutch Master

- resleeved Brake Master,

- all new plated cunifer lines

- refurbished OEM line nuts (I got new nuts but they are a bit different and didnt clamp the lines in the fittings, so i couldnt use them)

Still need to clamp these all down but pretty happy:

Other New brake related bits from the fiat parts bin, 

-pressure switch for the brake lights (if the OEM one does not work) and

- clips for the reservoirs:

Reservoirs all fitted up too.

Will put a bubble flare on the feed lines to make a better seal i think.

 

This all ended up taking waaaaaay longer than i thought, and im not quite done yet, but at least its all laid in and plumbed up and i can start putting the suspension back in.

Vajazzled the gubby underparts.

 

Engine Bay:

Stage 1: Get sick of catching sandpaper and fingers in brackets and tabs. Wax and grease remover spayed everywhere

(i wish i liked paint prep better, cause stuff would turn out better, but, well, i just don't)

Stage 2: Get primer mostly where its supposed to go. Lying on my back painting up mostly.

Stage 3: Top Coat. Very happy with the colour

 

Radiator Tunnel/body smuggling area:

Similar scenario as above, but i did my *first welding* on this thing and let in a piece that i cut out with the floor, as it carries a couple of brackets.

Had a few more rounds of hole filling and grinding after this shot.

 

And a bit of a waft over the cargo barrier/battery area - the three brackets are carry the clutch and brake fluid reservoirs which made the whole area pretty rusty

And the in the wheel wells, concentrating on the suspension mounts and brake/clutch pedal and master cylinder mount area.

This photo from before i got into the master cylinder mount area, shows what nice clean metal was hiding under the grubby rust on the frame rails. 

Painted.

Stoked to get to this stage by the end of the 2021.

2022 will be all about putting things back on.

 

Dropped the head off at Rods Engine Services on the recommendation of @nzstato and very happy with ol' mate Rodney's work.

Turned into a bit of a mare but Rodney sorted me out, all for a very reasonable price. 

 

Sidesharn follows:

The first head i dropped off in November was the car one, as they both looked like poop, the van head had some corrosion around the exhaust ports, and the car one didnt.

Rod sucked his teeth, and took the head, as well as a set of nos valves and new valve stems, and would see what he could do with the seats, i said no real rush but i would like to get it before xmas.

he didnt get onto it until mid-December, and unfortunately it turned out the car head was cracked between the valves on 2 of the cylinders.

 

DANG

Not only is it cracked, the surface inside the chambers looks porous and banged up.

"Nevermind!" I said to Rod, i said, "i have another head that might work, or might be just as shit?, we will see!", so dropped the Van head back off the next day, and on initial look he thought this one would be much better.

Got it back only a week later (i think he felt bad about having the cracked for so long and  then ringing me with bad news after about 3 seconds of looking at it!, lol) .

Cam back with a very lightest tickles of a skim (close to the edge of the inlet valves even without any skimming), and he supplied supply and fitted new valve seats, and also fit my supplied new valve guides.

He also resurfaced the NOS valves i left with him to remove the 'nos' surface patina rust).

He also installed them, along with holden o-rings valve stem guides whcih i wasn't expecting as id left the old manky springs and collets etc and had a clean set on the bench waiting, but im not swapping them around now!

All for a very reasonable sum.

Very high recommendations for Rods Engine Services in Fox St, Dunedin, A+ would give head again.

Check out how smooth the casting in the chambers is compared to the car one above!

Side sharn ends.

TLTR:, 'spare' head was total crap, original head from the van that i thought was poop actually turned out to be a minter!

 

This is the exhaust port corrosion that made me initially chose the other head as the first/best candidate.

There was a matching 'outie' of rust on the exhaust manifold which must have been galvanically corroding while it was sitting in mouse piss wet? 

Its all inside the gasket tho, so its not really an issue anyway.

I did a very light 'porting' tho really more of a slight smoothing as the exhaust manifold is a good match to the head already and seems to be made from tool steel and on only had one spare belt for the belt sander, sooo.

 

So, took the jumbo rubbish bag off the already assembled block to jam this back together and gave the gasket surfaces a good wipe down with wax and grease remover

Plonk!

Plus new water pump and thermostat. Water pump takes a late model Fiat 1500 water pump pulley ( as also used on lada ) rather than the heavy fixed fan, ill run an electric one, probably set up as a pusher (not much room in the bay, but lots in the radiator tunnel)

Then installed the Valve gear (the van set was better starting point after sitting both in the Exoff for the last week) so I installed that after selecting the best of the adjustment nuts, tappets and pushrods from from the two sets (plus a couple of NOS bits i already had collected as 2300 spares).

then the inlet and exhaust valves are all adjusted to 0.2mm, which on this engine you have to do when a cylinders valves are 'balanced' (which is about 9deg BTDC on the opposite cylinder) which is basically how you can be 'certain' the cam shaft lobes are pointing directly away the tappets or on the base circle, which can be tricky to find otherwise as these engines dont have many useful timing marks

In fact the FSM book uses a special tool (whcih is just degree wheel) mounted to the flywheel, suggesting proper valve adjustment is an engine out job!).

Got that all done, then install the inlet manifold with rebuilt Solex BIC (i noticed the throttle shaft play is really quite bad tho) and the special 4:1 van exhaust manifold (that kicks the exhaust out a hole in the side of the engine bay into the drivers wheel well!)

Dizzy and the sweet purple solid core wires i got cheap with some other odd fiat stuff from ebay, They have been run on the ute before i switched to electronic ignition 

And checking out all the hoses and stuff to see what i needed and what i dont and can go in the bin or storage.

The car inlet manifold is for a twin downdraft carb, so there is also room for some pretty solid performance gains over the single pumper and skinny runners, and but fitment is likely to be an issue (have found that the Weber DCD of which i have 3 in various states in the stash looks like the best candidate width wise so that may happen sooner than the exhaust, but ill worry about that much later.

The car exhaust manifold is a 4:2 setup with long secondaries in the exhaust pipes, compared to the 4:1 into pea shooter of the van one and would be significantly less restrictive, but it kicks the exhaust forwards towards the generator, and im not sure there is room to scoot the pipes between the engine/generator and the chassis rails.

These vans were originally designed in the early 1950s for a post war design 1100cc engine, but by the mid 1960s they were shoe honing these alloy head 1500cc big boys in which are almost half as big again in displacement, and probably more than half as big externally and so its all a pretty tight squeeze as it is

Need a few bits and pieces like a 11A0955 drive belt, and various hoses, but its basically ready to sling back in the hole, but the hole needs a bit more work first.

 

Xmas day spot

 

Now with everything unbolted or ripped out, access is never going to be this good for sanding and painting.

The engine bay also needs a couple of things tidied up while the engines out of the way, torn brackets and bent panels the like.

The tunnel/coffin from the grille to the radiator is pretty tidy too and just needs a light sanding and metal sealing.

I would also like the van to be drivable while I'm fixing the the rust, and really dont like to bolt clean/new things back onto rusty poopoo. 

So if the drivers side floor can get sort of fixed then the brake and clutch lines, both master cylinders, the pedals, steering, and electrical wiring can be put back on permanently. If i paint the engine bay too, then i dont need to drop that out either, and the driveline will be sorted while i poke at the rust, and it can drive itself onto trailers for taking to inspections or going to get cheeky ice-cream at the beach...

Ive already sanded and rattle can primered the outer ends of the suspension cross member, and shows what a difference a light sand and some primer does, even making it one colour makes it look much less shit (its actually pretty good nick, the brown grease and surface rust just make it look super turbo fucked) , so i foresee some time under here with some sand paper. Too many brackets and stuff for the grinder

Pre choppy (to be fair some bits are turbo fucked as well )

Chop! Nothing of value was lost.

Mostly back to clean metal

First loose toss, figuring out where everything goes and how best to cut both parts for both finished strength and ease of assembly/welding

taptpptptppptapaTPtpTPppatpapptatpaptatpaptpaptaptpapatpatpaptpappatpatppatppapataptapatpptaptptaptapatptapatpatpatptapapt

tappytaptap

Boom!

Cleaned and inspected the seats they came up better than i thought! 

Had some cheap leather cleaner stuff that didnt do anything for the seats in my Forester, but the old vinyl just drank it up.

Drivers needs a new upper and a couple of rubber support straps (still available new - same as 500/600!)

Both seats are front pivot (lol) and only the drivers is adjustable. Such extravagance!

Ill also weld in the 20-30mm strip around the bottom of the wheel cover and side of the engine bay that ive cut off , clean and paint underneath and do the enginebay/tunnel/crossmembers and probably leave the floor panel unattached for now so i can show whats been done and still access the base of the A-Pillar, front sill for further repairs after its more mobile.

 

Couldnt stand it any more and cut some rust out. 

Drivers side floor looks pretty simple, but underneath there is all sort going on. 

The cabin is sparse, minimalist even, the pedals are pretty much just on poles sticking out of the 3 holes in the floor, and all the pedal nonsense and steering linkages and steering box bits are underneath between the front skin and under the floor

This is from underneath with my head in the wheel arch looking towards the front, showing the back of the pedal box and the cross members.

Started with an access hole for the pedal box, which is the chunky trapezoid under the floor by my toe. Didnt take much cutting to join up all the holes.

So i could get to this, which is the pivot shaft for the brake and clutch which was just too tight to remove without anyway to actually grab it (after i pulled the grease nipple right off) and Its blind on the other end. 

Welded some scrap onto it to get it rotating then leverage and it eventually wiggled out.

This is the last untidied part to be removed, every other bolt and nut has been undone at least once.

To the degreaser tank to soak in the exoff for a while and voila

Also tidied and checked the rear brake parts are all present and correct (still need new cylinders and pads, next year maybe), and chucked on the cleaned rear drums and repainted rims and tyres so they are out of the way, and make the van look less of a wreck

Pretty happy with that

 

 

Also tidied up the front suspension arms and that also got a coat with proper 2K paint while i had it out too, instead of Rustoleum in a can. 

Dissassembly

After a soak in the Exoff. Can see the 'spiders' and 'self tapping bushes' from the lower arms in the background which were all in very good nick.

Couple of rounds in the sandblaster/degreaser and phosphoric. Just before hanging them up,

Primer

'satin' Black

And all reassembled with fresh grease etc.

 

In other news,

My man Rod at Rodneys Engine Services rang and said unfortunately, the 'car' head was cracked between a couple of the valves  

I still had the van head that i originally considered but looked way worse, so i dunked it in the Exoff then disassembled it - turned out iunder the rusty springs and baked oil its probably a mech better condition than the other one, so i should have that back before christmas.

 

Im at point where to progress I need to start putting things back on as the shed is getting crammed and everything can be bolted back on , but not keen on bolting clean stuff to things that really need the same treatment.

I want to respray paint the engine bay and where the suspension bolts to, but there is a lot if 'whileiminthereitis', and i hate to do things twice (like remove and reinstall the suspension twice) but not as much as i hate overspray.

Basically there is a lot of things i could do that would be way easier to sort out with the front suspension and steering box out of the way, and ideally just the once like I want to clean up the pedal box and paint it , so i can put my new master in there, and bend up new brake lines, so i mayaswell make a start on repairing the floors around it all so its all painted (at least on the underside in one go,  etc, but not so sure i should start on that without a repair certifier looking first?

 

More Progress

Steering Column now looks a lot better - I was also able to get rid of the ugly clamp thing that someone had made to fix the bowden cable sheath with some super thick heat shrink, so its now back to factree.

 

Figures out the leak is definitely the pitman shaft preload adjuster screw, which is slotted and relies on a thin metal washer and the locking cap to hold the oil in the box. Lol, nope.

I bought a pitman arm puller too, so ill pull the arm and get a new seal ordered for the arm end and put a blob of hylomar blue in the slot to seal that end up too, probably for the first time ever.

Also need to recreate the box end spring mount for the gear selector shaft that a PO chopped up to fit the previous fix.

 

Got some more paint, some primer and some black for the rims which i got blasted and etch primed.

On the way to the blasters

Blasted and etch primed. Very happy with Blasting and Coating Services in Burnside.

Primed the visible bits 

And all tyred up with a matching set of pretty much new 195 14C tyres I got for a hundy off FBM, and the original? spare

Pretty close match to the original tyres for overall size too.

185s would have probably been closer but whatevs, there werent any cheap, good sets around while i was looking. 

 

 

Forward control fire engine