ThePogs Fiat X1/9 - Paaaarp

[ThePog]

The boss has been away in the UK for a couple of weeks so I have had extra shed time so have been getting through a bit of stuff..

Hacking a stepper motor onto the instrument cluster to drive the speedo, firstly by making a tiny drive adapter then printing a mount;

 

Then making a trigger wheel that needed to be clamped around the driveshaft, so the clamp bolts may as well be the trigger. I will try to use a Safari ABS sensor I had lying around, mostly because it is probably robust enough.

I have six spots on the wheel, hopefully that isn't too much resolution for the Link. I may mount it a bit further away from the exhaust tho.

 

I also started to lay out arrangements for the cooling pipes, I tried to spin the head outlet around into a more convenient position but it was still a bit shit, so i decided I may as well just make what I needed. I also hacked about one of the OEM pipes to achieve the same ends, including some convenient piping to the oil cooler. The main pipes will be running close to the exhaust so I will hard pipe them past that bit.

I have ordered an AliX special bead roller, so I'll get more of this done when that arrives...

 

I'll get a whole lot of those bits zinc plated once I am happy with the layout...

[ThePog]

Been a wee bit busy with other stuff but have squeezed in a few detail tweaks along the way...

A bit of extra loving to the rear engine mount as it was a bit of a cantilever, plus moved my trigger wheel and sensor away from the exhaust;

 

Welded in a wideband nut;

 

Made a supplementary exhaust shield;

 

And made an adaptor so I could run my oil pressure gauge as well as the factory oil pressure switch;

 

I'll chuck it back into the car over the weekend and finalise the water piping and whatever else come to mind.

I am probably going to add a 500ml ish reservoir direct to the fabricated head outlet, this will be the fill point/high point for the cooling system, and run an overflow tank from that. I have bought a solder on brass rad cap thingy. But I will do that when the engine is back in so I can get it sitting nice and upright...

[ThePog]

Chucked the engine back in but I am pretty toast with a flu at the moment so didn't get through as much as I wanted to.

Firstly I hooked up the gearshift properly and things are tight and snickety snick. I slightly shortened the throw of the gearlever and this is noticeable. Nice.

Mostly though I spent the time making a pseudo header tank for the cooling system. I didn't really want to use the tank that came with the Fiat even though it is a pretty stainless one as it would have meant more plumbing, but I talked to @Roman and my radiator man and decided to build a small filler tank at the head outlet. It is definitely the highest point, although my rad man suggested running a bleed line from the rad back to this as well. I will have a look and see how much of a faff this is, but it is a good idea.

 

And after some fitment mods I made the two main coolant pipes down to the hard piping that goes through the tunnel. You can just spy them below the headers. I will probably have to extend my exhaust shield a little bit to protect the right angle hosing going into the hard pipes.

 

I started to look at the heater pipes, these are going to be easy however I could not find any suitable tubing in my stash, so that will be another day.

 

While I was grovelling I took a pic of the 3D printed TPU closure for the shifter cables for your visual enjoyment.

 

[ThePog]

Got this from the wreckers for 20 fucking slaps

 

And had all this stuff bought previously

 

Still feeling very flu-ey but sitting down and Tigging is easy;

 

Still have to sort hangars etc

[ThePog]

I ended up tweaking the layout so the rear box sits higher so the exhaust outlet tucked nicely into its cutout, but this unfortunately meant splitting a join and welding a wedge in there, which given my essentially mediocre TIG skills meant a big patch of ugly. But if it seals thats all that really matters right?

I also grabbed a flexi and some mounts from my exhaust man and did some more messing setting up mounts;

 

In a pretty misguided attempt to make my welding efforts look better I pickled it a bit;

 

 

And that is how it sits; mostly hidden which is probably for the best.