ThePogs Fiat X1/9 - in, out, back in again.

[ThePog]

Well it's started, I spent a couple of evenings mapping what the various switch and plug connectors do. I was helped pretty significantly by the laminated wiring diagrams that came with the car. Doing this bit is so satisfying, I like how it gives a shape to what is needed and actually makes interpreting the wiring diagrams so much easier.

Then a couple of night later;

 

I need more coloured wire and a shitload of Deutsch connectors.

The headlight and hazard switches have some truly funky shit going on.

I ended up having to swap out and repin the new loom flasher relay for the old X one, the new one was a two pin and the old one was a 3 pin. With the switch madness I had to replicate the original flasher/hazard circuit otherwise I couldnt get the indicator lights to work properly, mostly because there is only one instrument cluster light for either direction.

 

Anyway I have since moved all that to a bigger table and cranked into it.

I currently have the key working and switching a main relay to power on the other relay circuits, the indicator stuff working and the heater fan.

Next is the wipers, then the lights.

I'll need to get it in the car to check lengths then I can actually terminate everything properly.

Fun fun fun...

[ThePog]

I bought another container to improve my storage situation, this meant I could move the X to the new one to give me a bit of room to move around it. Things were a bit tight on the other one with that shelving. I took the opportunity to take a few pics and analyse the state of play;

 

Mmm crusty.

There is evidence some welding has taken place but I'll strip that POR15 off to see what shenanigans are going on.

All tucked up again

 

[ThePog]

Also the wiring situation is starting to vaguely look like its under control.

 

I whipped the windscreen wiper motor out while I had access, wiring this is next on the list.

I currently have relays running the main and acc power off the key so it sees no load, running lights, instrument lights, hi and lo beam lights wired up to the relays, indicators and hazards, heater blower and horn up to the relay. Its coming along nicely.

[ThePog]

Pretty much done, the Fiat fusebox is mounted on a handy drop down tray, I managed to mount everything on without too much bother.

 

'Finished' that is apart from the things like the headlamp and pod motor wires that I will run once I have it in the car so I dont waste wire.

And the brake circuit.

And indicator wires.

And the running lights.

And all the shit in the engine bay; starter/fuel pump/coil pack/sensors/etc.

So probably not all done in the slightest.

[ThePog]

Righto, time to thread dredge

I decided it was time to smash this out.

Some things were unbolted and I got to seeing if it was possible to replicate 40 year old italian paint with some cans of brunox, custom colour and matt clear coat. 

'Kinda' is the answer.

This is what it looked like, although I did wire brush it and wiped it with prepsol.

 

One coat of Brunox

 

Two coats of Brunox

 

Some colour;

 

No clear on that yet but I kindof sorted the boot as a test, this went well apart from I needed to scuff up the clear to get it looking shitty enough, it might need a bit more loving.

 

So yea roast the fuck out of my sad efforts in the discussion, even though you and I both know I am a massive useless dickhead when it comes to paint.

It least it will be mostly the same shade of blue at the end.

[ThePog]

Spent an hour with the wire brush on the front of it, this was like an archeological dig to uncover a special world of poor decisions and welding fuckery.

Further digging on this spot tells me the windscreen will need to come out, this area and the same on the other side was there when I first had it, but the new layer of bog hadn't really solved the issue;

 

This had bog all over it for no real reason, there is a dent but no attempt had been made to pull it out;

 

Im going to cut out all those patches and do them again, but this time with feeling.

[ThePog]

Cracking on

 

I tried the thing where you weld little patches at a time all over the place and hose it down with air to keep the distortion down, however my enthusiasm got the better of me in that vertical run. Good enough though and way better than what was/wasnt there.

[ThePog]

Got some use out of my stupidly big and chunky ramps, its not a bad working height.

Fixed this little bit of ugly in the frunk.

Apart from the windscreen area thats all the hard stuff done.

[ThePog]

Also I am hoping to troll this tedious imgur fucker for a bit longer

 

[ThePog]

I now know exactly what it is like to be mansplained to.

[ThePog]

There appears to be some sort of weird pagan festival going on that my family expects me to participate in, but even so I have managed to get the windscreen out and cleaned up, with the expected level of ugly sitting in there.

 

Yesterday I also managed a difficult bit of the passenger door, with some pretend pressed sections and a hem detail that I'm quite pleased with;

 

[ThePog]

Paganism appears finished, the family went out for the day and must have felt that it would be painful to me to waste a day sitting around on my arse and so didnt invite me along. My wife is very understanding.

Some wirebrushing revealed even more lovely holes;

 

Ran out of brunox, just as well I have the wiring to get through if I run out of welding to do.....

[ThePog]

Daily update. This relentless shit is probably getting boring, but its for me not you so you can just bear with me or not.

Today I made a front lip and grille carrier as the original is too rough to even bother fitting up.

 

Its kinda rough in the finish department but frankly I dont give a shit as long as it performs the functions required.

I found some stainless mesh, I'll see what I can do with that.

[ThePog]

Got to the point of getting a bit of colour onto the front end after a chunk of fettling. I am clearly going to run out of colour before I'm done but we will see how well I can blend it in to the bits that are still there.

 

[ThePog]

Got some matt clear on it and kindof reassembled the front and various bits like the wiper mech. Bear in mind there is no wiring loom in there so it is not all that.

Still it looks pretty great.

 

[ThePog]

Did this bit. This bit is supposedly where it got a nudge and there was half a tin of bog on there.

It was weird because under the bog there was like a 5mm push in that basically wasnt even worth worrying about, but also a 'welded' patch that essentially came off with a screwdriver, and a strip of holes under the back sill that had been completely ignored.

Commence sorting;

Smashed some more black on those two rims while I was waiting for coats to dry, plus pottered with some other stuff.

The tyres are the same ones that were on it when I sold it so I think it will be getting some new feet. Any suggestions in a 175/70-13 ?

 

[ThePog]

Did the other side, pretty much the same deal so imagine those pics mirrored.

For a break I decided to start in with the wiring install. If you remember this is pretty much where I got to;

 

Then it immediately turned to madness

 

Then after a couple of days effort rerouting and reterminating it got much tidier

 

Working on the front of the car wiring now, and I'm probably going to have to drop the engine to do it justice in the engine bay and back of the car. Thats fine cos I want to sort a couple of things on the engine/clutch/gearbox.

[ThePog]

Lols 

I finished wiring up the front end except for the final wrap and decided to hook up a battery to see if what i had done actually worked. It all does except for the headlight pod motors, these start continuously popping up and down as soon as the key is on.

This is undesirable, troubleshooting commences tomorrow...

[ThePog]

Yea so I did a bit of head scratching and asked the internet, this rather unusually resulted in an actually useful answer from a proper barry.

It turns out that what I took to be an earth wire on the motor that didnt appear to be connected to anything was a signal return from the switching/diode setup on the back of the pod motor.

With some extra direction from Barry and setting up a test rig on the bench I soon got the result I was after. 

I then had to ransack the old loom for some relay plugs to make up a little sub loom that sits in the headlight pocket, there is heaps of room so should be fine.

 

And with some hours tidying and wrapping the front loom we have this sequence of exciting light based goodness;

 

Next is looking at why the washer isnt pumping.

Then maybe tomorrow I'll drop the engine....

[ThePog]

Yea so this got the backburner big time as the next day from that ^ I wound up in hospital and spent 8 days there. This is a tedious story where my partially removed gall bladder decided to spontaneously weld itself back together, make gallstones that happily blocked my bile duct, which basically meant my liver was pumping bile into the wrong bit of my insides. I turned very yellow until they flew me to chch on the flying doctor plane (this was actually pretty awesome) and reamed me out. I still have a drain in and hopefully will be getting surgery mid Feb to sort the rest of it. This is all very very boring, I would not recommend in any way. -43/10

So many wasted shed hours.

But in the meantime I have been slowly picking away at things, nothing too serious tho.

Splashed out on some new hoops, Goodride something's at $80 a corner fitted. They may not stay but will be an improvement on the tyres that were there, these were the same ones it had when I sold it.

 

Then I installed the heater and dash, this hurt me and I probably shouldn't have done it. @HumberSS has found a heater mech out of an NA MX5 for me so I should be able to hack that in there.

There is a wrecker in chch who quoted $260 plus shipping for an original heater mech, which is more than a 1/3rd the cost of the entire car so they can get fucked.

I had to draw up and print a vent that was missing, some previous owner decided to bin all the heater gubbins and had weirdly blocked off the screen vents which wasnt particularly solid thinking.

I also spent a bit of time rerouting and extending the control cables as the heater is out of an earlier car.

I bought a cheap AFR off AliX a while ago so I mounted this while I was at it.

The seatbelts were pretty toast and of different makes. I had bought some cheap seatbelts off FB, but when I picked them up the tags were unconvincing;

So when I got flown to Christchurch to talk to the surgeon last Wednesday I (again probably stupidly given my state of health) grabbed a lime scooter over lunch and made my way to NZ Seatbelts and picked up some proper ones. These got fitted up;

 

Now I just have to look wistfully at this and hope that in a month or so I will be fit enough be able to drop it so I can finally sort the wiring;