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

[ThePog]

Well its a month later and I am getting back on form, hence this effort today;

Plenty of room to finish off the wiring now.

There was a minor mishap during engagements, now I need to figure out which Fiat Uno that distributor is off.

 

I'll give the donk a clean up, new oils and filter, new plugs etc.

Might drop the sump to see the state of play. For some reason it has way more oil than it actually needs, not sure why.

[ThePog]

Did a chunk of the back end wiring today, not much to see as I have tried to keep things tidy so it pretty much blends in.

 

I tried to fit a new power plant, amazing that for the size this unit only makes one pogpower.

 

 

[ThePog]

Mostly finished up the tail light wiring tonight, brake lights and everything work, yay!

 

Also I pulled the gearbox to inspect the clutch, it still looks brand new apart from surface rust. I will take it to the clutch man tomorrow to see if it cant be tweaked for a bit more clamping force.

 

If anyone has a suggestion to improve this then let me know 

[ThePog]

Clutch cover is away getting stiffer springs put in.

I have ordered many specific X1/9 bits from a UK company that pretty much only do X's and Lancia Montecarlo's. So many little things that I was going to have to fudge and now won't have to, so thats nice.

In the last couple of days I slapped the last of the paint on so it is (mostly) one colour, and this evening has been all about bolting shit back on. Quite a few little trim bits seem to be missing but nothing to prevent function or legality so far.

 

Nice from far, far from nice.

[ThePog]

Bolted more shit on.

I thought I had better reassemble the doors and check their function before chucking them on, and shortly I noticed that this little tit on the door latch had broken off, which would mean I would have to unlock the passenger side and reach over to unlock the drivers.

See that tit on the diecast part? This actuates the lock from the door key;

Commence bodging

And it worked! I was quietly pleased with that as those latches are pretty much unobtainium these days 

Then I realised that I was trying to use the passenger latch in the drivers side, so that was all a waste of time. Except that the boot and engine cover latch levers are in the shut off of the passenger door.

So actually it will be pretty useful to be able unlock the passenger side to get to those. I seem to recall this not working previously.

So fuck all left to do really;

Windscreen

Box on and engine in

Final wiring connections in the engine bay once the engine is in

Passenger door

Boot and engine cover

Carb tune

I am assuming the brakes will probably need rebuilding, we will just have to see.

And whatever other fuckery arises.

[ThePog]

I modelled and printed some door card clips which as always gives me the deepest pleasure. These worked pretty well after some tweaks.

These are not exact copies and are designed so they are easier to print, but functionally they are sweet.

The drivers side window winder mech was deeply wrong, the wire tension adjustment was maxed out, hacked and the maxed out again, but the wire was still as loose as fuck and while it kindof worked it made horrible grindy noises.

This came from the barrel where the wire was straddling grooves cos it was so loose. It was all down in a difficult to reach place, and those mechanisms are notoriously cunty to pull out and put back.

Amazing that I got a bollock into that shot as well.

The passenger side was sweet and the wire connection looks like this;

After a bit of thought and dicking around trying to take slack out of the wire a genius idea came to me;

I routed the wire like that through both lift points, which took up enough slack that I could tension the mech properly.

Another 1/4 hr of contortion with a torch, phone and screwdriver and I had the wire slipped back into its rightful track.

It works perfectly again, yay!

[ThePog]

Some bits from the UK arrived surprisingly quickly, a sump and tappet cover gasket, a boot for the gearshift, suspension bushes etc;

 

I made a battery bracket to suit the most likely battery I found in my stash of many;

All those untidy wires are not part of the car you will be pleased to know.

I also printed some things;

Cos that link for the lock on the passenger side has gone walkies somewhere.

And over the last couple of weeks I have been designing and iterating a set of heater controls that I think actually should work.

 

Cool beans.

Also I wired up the clock. It works all nice.

The clutch couldnt get uprated cos they couldn't find the parts to do it and additionally the man said it looked like that cover springs had been over extended, this might mean it was slipping due to wrong adjustment, so I will order a new standard clutch and see what happens.

Also I found another X1/9, and have spoken to the owner, so there might be a very small Nelson X1/9 owners club.

[ThePog]

Pulled the tappet cover and sump, all looks well;

 

Printed a new faceplate for the heater mech with the knobs set back a few mm as the cables were pulling it a bit, plus I printed a white insert for the indication to make it tidier, this just got coloured in with permanent marker for the red and blue bits;

 

Clutch arrived;

 

Also my younger self had bodged something for the top engine mount as the original one didnt work with the new engine, this was an unconvincing effort. So I spent some time with the lathe and the welder and made something much nicer with replaceable standard bushings;

 

[ThePog]

Just glued the windscreen in cos I am too cheap to pay someone to do it. I should have done so.

 

The experience is best described by this convo with @HumberSS

[ThePog]

Bright and early this morning, firstly time to pour some liquid money into the box once the engine is kindof level. 3.2 liters of Redline MTL which all the cool kids say is the only shit to use in an X1/9 box. At $200 for 4x bottles it fucking better be.

 

Then on to the main event;

Then after half an hour of wiggling and jiggling, angling and dangling etc

 

Then the rest of the day bolting shit back on;

 

Just the driveshafts and some oil and it might be time for a skid. But thats tomorrow's effort.

[ThePog]

Driveshafts in

Oil in

Coolant in

Popping and banging when I try to start it

Realising the plug leads are 180deg out

Boom

 

 

Then realising the fuel pump is leaking like a sieve and it is a $14 AliX special so not unexpected.

Then finding the original Facet pump and checking it works, it does

Then realising you have no fittings to make it work so no driving

 

[ThePog]

Then I remembered the shitty fuel pump that I hacked into my ride-on a couple of years ago cos it was way too much money to buy OEM;

 

Then naturally this;

 

 

Dunno what the crackly business is, nevertheless it sounds glorious.

[ThePog]

I spent some time dicking round with the airbox as I didn't like the long studs coming up off the carbs, plus the carbs themselves seem to be mounted in a slightly different position and the airbox really didnt like sitting down in place.

So I made a new baseplate that fitted nice and put some 16mm tube in there so the screws could clamp it directly through the baseplate.

Its a bit cleaner looking too...

 

Then I glued the windshield trim on with some extra and probably non standard fixing methodologies;

I am missing the joiner bits but I might just poo the gap up for now once its cured in place.

A new and marginally sexier fuel pump arrived and got placed;

 

Ooh and here is my sexy top link what I made in place;

 

So just the rear valance to make, plus probably a heat shield for the alternator as its still close regardless of the wrap.

And the alternator light doesnt work for some reason.

And I found another sneaky little rust hole in the drivers floor. I should have noticed it as there was a 20mm stalactite of bog hanging down underneath, but obviously I didnt up til now. There is an argument for step drilling it out to 25mm and calling it a drain hole, but I will make a closer investigation.

Oh and I bolted most of the rest of the bits back on;

 

[ThePog]

Fixed the rust hole, no pics cos boring.

Made a heatshield for the alternator, first drilling and tapping some brass hex to stand it off, then some CAD, then some shiny so it reflects heat;

 

Then I grabbed the pretty non functional catch can that I made for the truck, modified it so the wire wool was less in quantity and right before the outlet rather than at the inlet, which is why I suspected it didnt work well, then gave it some chode so it would fit in the engine bay;

 

Went and filled it with some 95 as it was pretty low and it definitely needs some time spent on tuning, the low throttle popping and banging sounds good but the afr tells me its not right.

Man it feels good to drive tho, the combo of the gogo and the noise is pretty great. If anything it sounds better now the air filter is on, a really purposeful growl.

[ThePog]

Yea so today I fixed a couple of issues with the windscreen washer, firstly trying to get the aftermarket nozzles to actually fire at the screen, then fixing the washer tank which for some reason is about 8 litres, most of which got dumped into the frunk overnight due to a crack. This I filled up with poo and hoped for the best. Then I addressed the extreme force needed to make the washer run, which meant pulling the stalks off and doing an excellent bodge which you dont need to know about in case my good name as an engineer is ruined, suffice to say they work perfectly now.

Then with the few hours still left in the day I made a rear valance thing, although the mesh looks pretty sparse irl so I might smash something slightly denser on there;

 

And I think thats pretty much it, I'll book a wof for next and see how that goes....

[ThePog]

The wof this week is off the cards. I thought I had better check why the handbrake was so pathetic and discovered that both rear calipers were basically seized. I thought the brakes were not as good, now I know why. 

I may as well rebuild all the calipers and if my visa can take the punishment I might get new discs and pads as well, I might have to sell some shit

So I to feel like I had achieved something I messed with wiring of the fuel sensing relay to try to make it work. @h4nd had given me a dose of RTFM so I reworked the wiring to suit, but now it doesn't work at all. I checked many things but no go. There is a good chance I toasted it when I wired it up wrong. I might just wire a normal relay up to and use the alternator as the signal wire.

I also poo'd up the washer tank some more as it was still leaking, tomorrow morning may tell me some things;

 

Then I decided to move the afr meter to somewhere where I could actually see it when driving.

 

Basically lots of tinkering with shit and avoiding jobs around the house that I should be doing.

 

Oh and yesterday I tuned/balanced  the carbs a bit, hopefully it will run a little better.

And also I noticed the gearbox drain plug was leaking....

Cool cool 

[ThePog]

Yea the brakes.

I ordered the whole shebang, good old Brian at The Italian Job hasnt invoiced me yet so no idea what the damage is, but fuck it it needed to happen really.

I pulled all the calipers and gave them a cursory clean up;

The rears had a bit of pitting but not so much that I thought it worth replacing, I may order some pistons anyway for just in case. This is the worst of it;

 

Then the bits didnt arrive til Saturday morning, but it was exciting when they did;

 

I had already decided to spend some time giving the truck some new oil and filters, so I cracked on with that.

After I drained the oil I did get distracted by that Honda S800, which ended up being a bad plan as when I got back I missed the quite important service stage where you put the sump plug back in before washing out the engine with 10 liters of pristine Delo 400MGX and dumping it onto the garage floor

Fuckety fuck fuck. And fuck.

Anyway after I had flagellated myself for a while I cleaned things up then went back to the X, at each corner replacing the seals and discs etc and bolting it all back together;

 

Then today I enlisted the wife to help bleed the brakes, which I had to do many times as a lot of quite ugly fluid kept coming out. After that I took it for a gentle test drive which was pretty meh, then I bled them again and they came up mint.

So hopefully a wof this week maybe....

[ThePog]

Took it for a WOF, WOF not achieved.

However there was nothing show stoppy in there.

A wheel bearing with too much play, a steering tie rod end, and the right rear brake had a lot of fluid around. This one was a little weird when we first bled it, it wasnt passing fluid initially but then it came free. It might be the handbrake adjustment playing up. It might just be all the fluid used during bleeding, anyway I'll have a looksee.

And the low beams were not working, but I am pretty sure its the switch playing up.

So overall nothing bad or even unexpected.

And just look at that awesome wedgyness;

[ThePog]

The bits I need for that Wof have arrived, the wheel bearing might be a mission, but we will see.

In the meantime I have been hoovering/relearning what I need to know about DCNF carbs and have had some useful and enlightening conversations, some of which can be found in my DCNF thread..

I also decided to replace the expensive oil in the tranny with fresh expensive oil. Mostly cos I drained it all out to put a bit of sealant on the drain plug as it was dripping a tad. When it came out it was kindof murky which I guess is the new oil washing out and interacting with the old. So I did that and it resulted in a pretty significant drip from the drain plug regardless of my sealing efforts.

I did a wee bit of investigation, which has had this slightly annoying result;

I have a spare box which I stripped enough to get that housing off, pretty much for practice but to see if I could just use that. But unfortunately they are different.

This might mean enlisting @yoeddynz in some dirty welding duties if I cant find someone slightly closer.

If it welds ok I will tap it out with a parallel thread rather than taper and machine a flat face so it can use a washer for sealing.

[ThePog]

And more bad news

 

Might be time to find another box