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

ThePog · November 24, 2024

That first box looked pretty good.

But I ended up breaking a bit of the casing in my efforts to get the seriously rusty bit of clutch shaft out. You can probably spot the bit in this pic, it probably would be ok but still.

So I decided to use the other casing which was a lot cleaner anyway, but this meant dismantling the second box. This was kindof good as it gave me context to decide that the first box was indeed a goodun.

The second one was still pretty good, but it had the keyed shaft that was broken on the one in the car (altho not broken) but the nice box is obviously a later revision as it had a spline rather than a keyway.

So I dragged my parts washer out from the depths of the container and cleaned/dried off/inspected everything.

Now I just need to find some axle seals and it can go back together.

Oh and sort the diff as well, but if I use the good box diff I will need to fix the endfloat situation, probably.

ThePog · November 30, 2024

Had a spare minute so I thought I would have a hack at a fuel return/restrictor.

Found some brass hex, put some detail into it including a 1.5mm hole and some probably correctly tapped holes, surely BSP and NPT are the same?

I checked the resulting pressure but the needle wobbles all over the place from the pulsing of the pump, averaged out it looks like 3.5 or 4 psi, vs 4.5 to 5psi previously.

Ill take it for a spin later and see what the AFR's are doing, then maybe start opening up that hole. I kindof need a way to damp the pressure fluctuations first to get an accurate reading.

ThePog · November 30, 2024

I probably forgot to say I am doing this because the idle circuit (that controls up to about 3000rpm) is running pretty rich, ie about 10 or 11 to 1. I spoke to Murray...? at Weber Specialties who was prepared to talk about Fiats in general and X1/9's in particular for a looong time.

I wanted to source some smaller idle jets but he said that the 45's in it were as low as I should go and that the 5psi the pump was putting out should really be cut down to 2.5psi for the DCNF's.

The return line wasnt connected so I reasoned that a restricted return should lower the pressure appropriately.

I guess we will see.

ThePog · December 2, 2024

Pulled the drivetrain out tonight and pulled the sump off to take a look.

I hope my engine stand won't buckle under the strain lols

I can't see any wrong in there, the sump is 100% perfectly clear of debris. And everything looks great, no missing chunks of piston or the like.

There is however a noticable variation in turning resistance with the plugs out, I am suspecting a slightly bent valve or broken valve spring.

I am waiting for a new head gasket and bolts before I get too carried away.

Also: so many gearboxes, this isnt even all of them, I have 2 more.

ThePog · December 3, 2024

Opened things up a bit more, tbh it looks pretty good. Altho number 2 is slightly browner than the rest in the head.

The cam spins nice and free so its not that, but the with the head off rotating the crank is still ever so slight weirdly variable in turning force. The bores look basically perfect so maybe that means the crank might be bent? Rings broken?Time will tell I guess.

ThePog · December 5, 2024

Bottom end is mint, bearings are perfect still and without the pistons in the crank spins freely.

Ill take the head to Mean Machine tomorrow to get it looked over, see what they have to say.

ThePog · December 5, 2024

Engine shop mans keen eye pointed this out

On the lighter coloured cylinder too, so could well just be the head gasket.

They are going to check it and give it a skim.

There is a certain amount of scum that forms in the header tank, not much so I thought it was just clag from its long park up getting blown out, but maybe not..

ThePog · December 11, 2024

So I have been attempting to get the box back together, but it has taken 3 attempts so far;

#1 - all the clusters back together, everything inserted and getting to put 5th gear on when I realised I was so intently following the written writup on Xweb that I had forgotten to put the actual gearshifting mech in because it wasnt part of the writup. Sigh, gently pull it apart and scrape off all the blue gasket poo.

#2 - everything back together again but realising the there was some burring in one of the the detent ball holes and the now impossible to get out ball bearing was moving neither forwards nor backwards. Sigh, gently pull it apart, extract the ball and then scrape off all the blue gasket poo.

#3 - slowly and methodically reassemble it all again, barely even referring to the writup cos there is now an element of familiarity with the process.

I am still waiting for some axle seals, but apart from that its all done.

Like the old box it has a tapered drain plug in a straight tapped hole, I think I will make a straight plug up so I dont split the case.

Anyway there are very few pics of all this as it required much concentration.

ThePog · December 17, 2024

I am waiting for the head to get sorted plus the gaskets etc to arrive so thought I would sort the final iteration of the center console in the meantime.

So I tweaked it a bit to get an existing screw hole to line up and set to it, a 14 hr and then a 17.5 hr print...

I made some detail to bolt it together;

I printed it from ABS with glass fibre and it came out super nice. The texture is good and it didnt warp at all, probably helped by the fibre reinforcement.

It feels as strong as fuck too.

ThePog · December 21, 2024

Got the head back, all looked good they said, but they gave it a skim on general principle.

The haynes manual said the tappet clearances should be 0.4mm inlet, 0.5mm exhaust, this seemed a lot and when I did a check they were less than half of that. Odd.

The design is robust but quite a pain to change the clearances on as it has a seperate cambox cover with shims sitting on top of the cam follower bucket. So to adjust clearances you need to set it all up and torque the box on. Check the clearances and then calculate the required shim thicknesses. Then disassemble it all, swap out the shims etc etc. There is a tool to compress the valves without dissasembly but I would need to make one and I CBF.

So when the gasket set arrived I set it all up, torqued it and checked the clearances which were all bang on 0.15mm inlet and 0.25mm exhaust. That was a lot of shim difference. The boys at Mean Machine suggested that I look up what the cam datasheet said and lo!, that said (more or less) 0.15/0.25.

So I left it all as is.

Then I set to bolting the bitch back together and getting the box back on after fitting the new axle seals.

I also decided to put a cambelt guard on as now the fuel return line was sitting 15mm away from the cam pulley.

Unfortunately none of the guards I had would fit a tipo engine, so I made them two part and called it good.

Tomorrow I'll fill the tranny, bolt the crossmember on and chuck it in, then hope I havent fucked anything up.

ThePog · December 22, 2024

Well this was todays effort

And buttoned up after a few hours....

It started just fine and appeared to have gears so after tea I took it for a quick spin, but it is good news and bad news.

The good news is that the vibration appears to be gone and it is running well....

The bad news is that the gearbox is not super happy, it does have all the gears but its a little bit crunchy into third. But this is kindof expected for these boxes and it is a bit better than the old one. But this one is additionally crunchy down into second, plus as a bonus 5th has a high pitched whine that is almost a whistle. I guess I may have fucked something up or missed some wear :-(

I have a backup plan to just fix the issues with the old one if this one doesn't sort itself out with a bit of use, but its just a bit boring to have to swap it out.

Ah well.

In other news I got an oil filled pressure gauge off AliX and this has fixed the needle wobble, it is showing just over 2psi so I'll narrow the return hole a little bit to bring the pressure up slightly.

ThePog · December 22, 2024

As it's kindof the hols for me I figured I may as well implement my gearbox backup plan, there will be family stuff today, but later this arvo I'll take a situational.

Edit; did the deed. The old box casing was still leaking a bit even after Alex welded it, but this was probably my hacked bung design IRL. Then there was the broken keyway situation, so I swapped those bits out of the second spare box. The non broken gear cluster had different bearings but they swapped over fine.

I might check the diff backlash but maybe Ill just send it.

ThePog · December 26, 2024

Yea so I smashed things out a bit today, basically it is all back in now with a bit more shit to bolt on, which I will sort tomorrow.

I then have to wait for either the new valve shims I ordered to arrive from the UK, or to take out the shims and get them thinned at Mean Machine, or for some GC to send me what I need somehow.

But all of that is at absolute minimum a few days after the 6th so I guess I will be focused on other things.

Anyway it was 10 mins to swap the boxes once it was all out.

I pulled off that exhaust wrap, it was pretty shitty anyway and mostly fell off. I was getting bored of it getting me itchy everytime I touched it. During the action I stupidly lay down underneath where I had removed it all from the engine while bolting things on and now the crack of my arse itches. What a twat.

I also printed some carb plugs which I thought was better than draping a rag over them.

So let me know if you have some Fiat shims, 33mm diameter;

3.50/3.50/3.65/3.75

Pretty please.

ThePog · December 27, 2024

All back together although with some mishaps...

I grabbed a nut to clamp down the alternator battery terminal post and it had a burr in it. This meant I twisted the whole post around a bit, and when I connected the battery there was a dead short causing many sparks etc.

I immediately suspected the terminal stud and sure enough when I dismantled the alternator it had munted the plastic and was contacting the alt case.

And here is why a 3D printer is absolutely the best tool when you have a shitty old car;

5 mins modelling, 15 mins printing in ASA, jobs a goodun.

ThePog · December 30, 2024

So the valve clearances need adjusting which means sourcing the correct thickness shims. I have ordered some from the UK but also someone from Akl is theoretically sending me something.

I did take some to the engine shop in the hope someone was there over the break and would trim them down for me. There was, but the GC who helped me out without actually needing to had not previously used the machine and they didn't come out parallel :-(

In the meantime I found one that I got from @ynot was the right thickness for one position so I thought I may as well swap it out, this highlighted the fact the shim tool I borrowed from him absolutely did not fit.

So I drew it up in cad and printed some modified versions to get an idea of better fitment;

I did print one out of ABS-GF but it was too thin at the tip to work. So on to steel;

And after some time with power and hand tools;

I then did some budget heat treatment on the tip with a blowtorch and a bucket of water in the hope it might last a bit longer

And it appears to work....

ThePog · January 3

Ah so the shims arrived today from one of the guys I got a gearbox from in Akl, sweet I will bang those in.

I had become less enamoured with my shim tool which seemed to be carving off wee bits of steel from itself while in use, so I figured I would just pull the whole cambox, swap the shims and make sure no slivers of wrong were hiding in there.

This I did, got it back together, took it for a test drive then decided to check the timing, at which point I saw quite a bit of oil loitering around. Further inspection showed this to be coming from the cambox gasket, and I recalled one bolt took a bit to start when I was reassembling.

And this is the unfortunate situation I found;

What a useless cunt.

I have ordered a couple of spares from the uk just in case I cant get anything here, they were £3.50 each so better to have them on the way.

So disappointing, but at least I know what to look out for next time...

ThePog · January 7

That GC in Aucks who sent me the shims also just sent me a gasket, I will send one of the Eurosport ones back when they arrive as it came out of a full set.

That arrived today so I chucked it all back together. This time with a bit of poo to hold the gasket in place.

A week or so ago, during one of the brief windows where it was running, I checked the fuel pressure situation and smalled down the restrictor hole to 1mm by soldering it up and redrilling. This didn't have a lot of effect, and I would need to start modding things to take jets with smaller holes if I was to take that further. Just out of interest I crimped off the return so I could see what the baseline pressure was and the new non bouncy and hence actually readable gauge was saying 3psi.

So tonight I just blocked the return off, 3psi is close enough for me, after all it has been working just fine with that...

I just went for a quick spin to check no oil was pissing out, which it wasnt, and will wait til tomorrow to recheck the clearances etc.

I have also ordered new spark plugs and will try to find a set of spark leads, although finding some with a right angle connector at the plug is proving difficult, it will work with straight ones but right angles will have better clearance.

I need 3x at 300mm and 1x at 400mm if anyone knows a good supplier.

Its also now even dirtier than it was, a situation unlikely to change any time soon.

ThePog · January 9

Yea so I checked the clearances last night and still wasnt happy, so I pulled it all again and swapped around what I had, but this left two shims I needed 0.05 taken off.

So today with a rare sense of adventure I braved the outside world, as I had collated enough things to collect for my projects and also had a client to visit. So on the way I went to Mean Machine and they happily skimmed them down while I waited, sweet.

I chucked it all together tonight and I am now pretty happy with the clearances.

I also went to an auto electric store and grabbed some new spark leads and fittings to replace the wrong cap on an end of each.

I realised that I didnt have a correct crimp so naturally I printed something. It ended up not quite enough due to flex in the plastic, but close enough to fix with a set of pliers.

I also dropped the radiator from the green meanie off to the rad shop to get a price to recore it, but $690 was a bit steep. Ill look for one from the states probably. Thats just for insurance...

That's all.

ThePog · January 14

All is back together and seems well. I have not given it the big one yet but given a couple of healthy bursts.

The gearbox drain plug is still dripping ever so slightly, this is sort of expected as I made a new drain plug that clamped a copper washer against the outer casing and that was still the cast surface. So tonight I decided to make a tool to face the housing so there was a better sealing surface.

It had to spin to cut and I didnt want this to spinning to munter the drain threads so I grabbed one of my previous bung attempts and created a hex on it for installation and removal. This functions as the guide.