Sunbeam's 1973 Fiat 125

[Sunbeam]

In the finest O.S. tradition I spent all day cobbling together a rubbish broken exhaust from bits of other rubbish broken exhausts. Step 1 was to trim the mangled collector back to sound, round steel.

There was only just enough meat left. Then it needed a bit of pipe added which I chopped off another rotten downpipe that came with a spare engine.

Fizz fizz fizz

Next problem, the flange that bolts to the manifold was actually warped and also very thin. I addressed this by chopping the much thicker flange off the spare broken downpipe and welded it to the existing flange. This gives a nice thick flange that is hopefully less prone to distortion and also lowers the whole lot by 5mm which is winning.

The biggest headache was extracting the mangled remains of the collector pipe out of the slip join in the main pipe. Took about an hour and a half but got there in the end. I’ve hung the whole system back on and hooray! it fits at least 3% better! Well worth half a day of work. Also, it now clears the bell housing by at least 1mm. I’ll check for leaks when (if) a waterpump pulley ever turns up.

[Sunbeam]

A water pump pulley turned up. It is the wrong one, made for an 1800. It fits well enough to run the engine, it just pushes the belt alignment out by about a belt width. Good enough for tutuing about with. The correct one is apparently on the way with a return courier bag for the wrong one, so can’t complain too hard. Anyway, noisy tappet was very apparent so while I still had the shim kit I went over them all again. Success! Quiet tappets, good oil flow etc. I got the boss to help me bleed the brakes which took ages. No end of air bubbles but we got there in the end using nearly a litre of fluid! One thing confused me though, it has a dual remote reservoir as it’s a dual circuit master. The fluid only went down in the rear reservoir for all 4 brakes?….They seem to be working well though. There was a horror moment when I walked into the shed this morning and found a large puddle of water under the car. It was dripping down the bell housing area so I immediately thought the worst and assumed the steel water jacket cover was leaking which is only accessible by splitting the engine and gearbox. Big whew when I saw it was the heater return line on the firewall! All fixed now. Then I took it for a hoon to get the fluids hot. Goes well, clutch is all good (higher pedal effort than I remember but it’s a new cable so might loosen up?) Brakes as I said work nicely, but there is a horrible driveline vibration that starts up at around 70k’s. Almost certainly the driveshaft which I have maybe put back on 180 degrees out…Finished the day by putting his face back on.

 I have no high beams and a blinker repeater is out, so plenty to sort yet.

[Sunbeam]

I’ve had some frustrating times trying to decipher why I have a misaligned water pump pulley

As far as I can tell, the pulley seems to be correct for a 1608cc twin cam. So where does that leave me? The hub height of the water pump must be wrong? The only thing left for me to do is seek out a club member who is doing up a 124BC with the original 1608 and see if he’ll let me come over and measure/compare some things.

In happier news after saving up for a few months this turned up in the post

Wow, it’s so light and so small compared to the factory bus wheel! What I wasn’t prepared for was the highly polished almost chrome-like spokes. I swear in the pictures it looked like a satin finish, so it was almost a bit of a downer, but I think it’s fine.

Sadly, what is NOT fine is the boss kit I bought ages ago. It will not engage with the self cancel mechanism, there is no way to fit the horn button, and the steering wheel nut will only engage half the threads before the hub bottoms out.  The following picture is only an illusion…

Sigh… more money to spend!!

[Sunbeam]

Went for another drive this morning. Driveshaft vibration is still present despite carefully shimming the centre bearing. The thermostat is not opening so it made boiling noises and had a spew. The temp gauge didn’t go over half though…

[Sunbeam]

Re-torqued the head, re-did a ticky tappet (still ticks…grrr) and then put the bonnet back on. Looks like a proper car again. I need to sort the rear wheel clearance so I can go for a decent drive. Here’s some overexposed late afternoon potato pics.

Front springs have settled well. What say you?

[Sunbeam]

Thermostat sorted. High beams have been found! It was an easy fix, another case of where did the panel beater tuck that earth wire…

On the to-do list: Take the driveshaft somewhere for a balance, sort an electric fan, sort alternator wiring mod (from external regulator to internally regulated alternator) and gain more clearance for the back tyres. The tyres are clearing the lip on the guard but now touching the outboard skin of the wheel tub with kids in the back.

Probably won’t get done for 6 weeks now as we’re off on holidays soon.

PFT 2.5 years ago 

[Sunbeam]

Drama.

 

We returned from holidays and have been “enjoying” winter again. I decided to tidy up a few jobs…

1. I was having trouble with the boss kit I bought because the adapter to momo bolt pattern was pants. I then bought a fiat 124 boss kit which I was lead to believe would work. It did not, leaving a huge gap between the steering column surround and the steering wheel boss. I then bought an 850 boss kit which I cross referenced to 125’s. This was much better but I had to trim it!

I took about 10mm off. Now the wheel is fitted and the horn is working, but annoyingly the self cancel mechanism isn’t, and it’s not the fault of the boss kit. 
 

2. Before we went away, I drained the water from the cooling system and refilled it with proper coolant, took it for a hoon to circulate, no leaks noted, job done. Nope, came back to it leaking from every single hose connection and the rear water jacket cover. The hoses are no problem, resealed and now coolant tight. The water jacket cover however is going to be a pain. At very best it’s a gearbox out job and the clutch and flywheel need to come off. At worst it could be an engine out job.

3. I’ve completed one step for removing the box anyway because I took the driveshaft out to take it into town for balancing. Except it cannot be balanced because the front tripod/slip yoke is flogged out. I received a quote to repair which involves cutting off the slip stub and welding a new one on, and obtaining a new tripod. The cost is similar to having a custom driveshaft built which floored me, but after a week of ruminating I have authorised the work against my dutch judgement. Before I did this, I decided to pull the driveshaft from my parts wreck in the hope that it would be better and solve my problems, but no. The first thing I noticed is that the front half of the shaft was way too short…what the? And the yoke was just as floppy. The riddle was solved when I pulled the gearbox while I was under there. I don’t know why I never noticed but the gearbox looks nothing like a 124 box, and in the light of day once I dragged it out I recognised it immediately. It’s a late 131 sport box, one of the strongest of all Fiat rear wheel drive gearboxes. This made me happy. I don’t know what to do with it, but it’s going in the hoard and no hasty decisions will be made.

 

[Sunbeam]

I was very excited to see this book come up on the Tard while I was away. Quite expensive but they don’t surface every day. BUY NOW!

Factory workshop manual! Super detailed beautiful illustrations.

[Sunbeam]

I’m glad I have a hoist! With little wiggle room to get the gearbox out it’s nice to do it standing up instead of groveling on the concrete underneath the car.

The leak was obvious. 

Will be using rtv this time, no gasket.

With it apart I’m lead to think (dangerous) is it 5 speed time?

[Sunbeam]

 

The reason I bought the parts car was for the 5 speed transmission tunnel. 

 

It’s been modified with an axe.

 

[Sunbeam]

To address the tyre clearance issue I sent the rims off to Elite wheels and they took 3mm off the mounting face.

Still clears vital components on the rear, though I can’t check running clearance yet because the car is immobile. I also had 2.5mm skimmed off the disc hat so the rear wheels are now tucked 5.5mm further inboard. The fronts however don’t clear the calipers no more! It’s less than 1mm, so I put the stock spacers back on and it’s happy days. 
I sealed the water jacket cover with red rtv and today I put the gearbox back in (4 speed). What a mission! With the new engine mounts the engine sits just a fraction high and you can barely get the input spigot to line up with the spigot bearing because the bell housing at that point is jammed in the tunnel. Then the drama of re fitting the starter! There is little room and I couldn’t back the starter out enough to slide the nose into the hole, the back was jamming on the fuel pump. So I took the fuel pump off but then had to remove the oil filter so my hands could achieve the angle required to refit the pump! All up 2 hours of knuckle grazing.

[Sunbeam]

After nearly two months the driveshaft is done. Shiny:

looks new, but then it should for the price of the job.

My wallet:

Installed and hooned. Success I’d say. But now the exhaust is leaking and the voltage regulator is only intermittently working. 
Getting close!

 

[Sunbeam]

I can’t catch a break on this thing. I had a WOF booked, so I had to quickly fix the exhaust leak. It turns out there were two leaks, a small one at the manifold flange and a larger one at the first slip joint. I reached in to undo the flange nuts and 3 were easy and one was not. SNAP… Broken stud!! WOF booking cancelled. Did I mention I like my hoist? 10 minutes to achieve this:

Removing the manifold takes a bit longer. Firstly you to drain the cooling system. For the umpteenth time… because the pipe off the back of the water pump has to come off to get to the last manifold nut. Then if you remove the battery and turn it just so you can slip it out past the brake master cylinder. 
The plan of attack is to soak in crc for a day and then attempt stud removal. I’ll replace all 4 while I’m this deep. Before I wind in new studs I might get the sealing surfaces planed to ensure flatness. Then the universe, I think, is telling me just to replace the whole janky drinking straw sized exhaust system while I’m at it. It won’t be cheap because the downpipe will need to be remade as well. The lesson,dear reader, is don’t waste your time and effort on something you know needs replacing to hasten the point at which you can go for a hoon. 100% I will ignore my own advice in the future.

[Sunbeam]

The pipes are bent up so I have been mucking around with fitting them up. I’m hitting a wall with the secondaries, I can’t make them fit. 

 

Look how far apart the ends are. They are supposed to come together to weld into a collector. Also they should be on the same plane in the vertical sense but…

There are other problems too. I can’t lay them as per the factory ones due to slightly different bend angles so I’m simultaneously hitting the bell housing and the chassis rail. Tell me, am I unreasonable in expecting to be able to fit up the pipes with minor trimming? This part of the job (bending 2x pipes and laser cut flange ran to $215+GST. They had my original as a pattern and supposedly use 3D scanning. At this rate I will need to cut them at nearly every bend and add or subtract sections. What would you recommend?

[Sunbeam]

Rage quit. I could NOT make them fit properly, plus I wound up with a pinhole inaccessible by welder. Also my ocd can’t cope with the franken-look bits and pieces all welded together so I’m going to start again. Will have to be after new year at this rate. How annoying is it to spend hours on something which then becomes scrap metal? Maybe I can chop it up and use a couple of bends to fix up the old one…. Oh well, off to the beach.

[Sunbeam]

Merry new year. 
So…. No, I can’t rescue it.

I started with this bit

which became this

which fit here

which meant I had to lengthen the inner pipe

so far so good. Side profile, the end needs more up:

So I gave it a tweak which then meant the inside pipe did’nt fit and no amount of faffing about could get the angles right and I ran out of both bends and patience. I then cut it up and threw it in the scrap bin and ordered a new one from Britannia. About the same price as bending the new one and laser cut flange. Shipping hurt a bit though and I’m sure being a mass produced aftermarket part it won’t be quite as nice but I’ll find out soon.

Meanwhile I managed to cobble the old exhaust back together without leaks and went for a hoon.

[Sunbeam]

Did a couple more things this afternoon after work. I borrowed the fixed fan off the 1500 while I decide how to proceed with an electric fan. She’s tight down there…

Then I flung the boot linings back in.

And then I went for a drive to a place…

And got a special sticker for my troubles…

CLEAN SHEET!! First WOF in 15 years. I’m feeling pleased with myself and am looking forward to a celebratory beer with dinner.

 

[Sunbeam]

Maiden voyage beyond the end of the road today, I decided to take it to work, a distance approximately 5 times further than I have ever driven it. Some observations:

It needs a 5th gear

The tyre roar is harsh, possibly a consequence of polyurethane bushes?

A rear wheel bearing is noisy

The wheel alignment is terrible (expected)

I drove home at night, the low beam is pants, high beam is good (need to relay the low beams)

It looks comically tiny parked next to the corollas and swifts in the carpark.

I like quarterlights as they are excellent wind deflectors with the window open.

90 km round trip acheived with no broken things!

[Sunbeam]

There is still an issue of tyre rub when loaded so I put some ballast in the back (wife and kids) and tried to find the pain points. It looks like it’s rubbing on part of the arch lip, so more trimming required. Previously I had thought it was only in the inner guard where it was touching as I had put a guide coat in there and found a high spot that the tyre polished off. I made the high spot lower with a hammer and it doesn’t appear to touch there anymore. I marked out the lip with tape and then used a flap disc which made very short work of trimming.

Anyone with half a brain would say “why not just use the correct wheels and tyres” well, I have a WHOLE brain buddy, and the correct course of action is obviously  to cut up your car until the phat wheel/tyre combo fits!

*UPDATE on alternator light shenanigans. Since the Fiat uses a relay to power the bulb, and it’s a normally open jobby, wouldn’t a normally closed relay correct my back to front light situation? I dropped by the local auto sparky with my hypothesis and he agreed. So 5 minutes later the relay was swapped out and voila, it works proper.

 

[Sunbeam]

Another job ticked off.

Was miles out. Doesn’t necessarily feel heaps better but good to know it’s correct now.