Sunbeam's 1973 Fiat 125

[Sunbeam]

Chur.

[Sunbeam]

Today was a trillion degrees out, so I decided to do some more work in the shed where it was 7 trillion degrees. I dug the 125 out of its corner and I have placed it on the hoist for a big push…

I need to remove the springs so that I can eventually drop them off in town to have the leves reset, and have a new pair of fronts made up according to the 125T recipe. First I had to remove the hand brake cables so I could pull them out of their brackets on the top leaf. Disappointingly this led to the discovery of more brokenness.

Weird because it’s not rusty or chafed, just broken. It almost looks like fatigue damage. Pressing on, the bolts all undid easily and there is no corrosion evident on the bolts or in the bush sleeves at all. The rubber is quite perished however, and not surprisingly since they’re probably the original bushes.

I got the transmission jack in there just to take the load but it wasn’t really needed. The bolts were under minimal tension.

 

The way the leaves are mounted is slightly unconventional. They don’t use U bolts around the axle housing, instead there’s a bracket which also locates the bottom of the shock.

 

Next, the front springs. If you’ve perused @azzurro‘s excellent 125 build thread you may know the front coils are looong. It’s a bit of a palaver to get them out because you have to feed the individual parts of the spring compressor into the spring through the hole in the shock tower recently vacated by the shock absorber, and then assemble it inside the spring and with your 3rd and 4th arms  keep the hooks from popping off until you have cranked sufficient pressure on the thing to hold it all in place. You absolutely have to have the hooks as far apart as you can physically manage because even when the compressor tool bottomed out, I still needed a pry bar to pop it out of place. The difference between the free length and the captive length is around 200mm!! There’s the little bundle of energy..

 

Job done!

 

 

On the shopping list now is spring eye and shackle bushes, new nyloc nuts for reassembly and a new handbrake cable or get the cable remade by the cable barries… I forget the name. Someone?

 

[Sunbeam]

This artefact turned up via ebay

I was excited to smash the buy now when I saw it. I only realised later that I had failed to read the fine print and this boss kit only fits an OBA branded wheel which has 7 holes. A quick search revealed OBA wheels are obsolete but still available, only I don’t like the looks of any of them. The seller of the boss kit did however have a 7 to 6 hole adapter available in both Momo and Nardi pcd so I bought one. I hope it doesn’t look too janky. The boss kit itself is very nicely made though, although it has now cost me more than just buying an expensive one one from Autoricambi. Sigh. I am feeling the win for max old school packaging though.

[Sunbeam]

Engine assembly came to a halt very quickly due to the wrong rod bearings being supplied. Bowden Engine parts to the rescue for a princely $50! Not NOS genuine, but very old Repco with great wax paper packaging!

Number 2 daughter then gave me a hand to put the pistons in.

 

Then it was time to flip it over, torque the caps and fit the crankshaft gallery plugs with a bit of blue loctite. To my horror it appears the engine shop has defiled my engine with imperial plugs! Aaargh, the shame. This mod will cost me horsepower and probably make it leak oil too. 

This operation was not without issues, however. Some way short of the torque wrench going click, the 1/4 inch hex key sheared off and was left flush. My magnet would not retrieve it either! 

The broken end wasnt in super tight, but it wasn’t letting go either. I contemplated welding a wire to it for more pull, but discarded that idea. I couldn’t drill it either because the tool steel is very hard. In the end creativity won again. I heated the crank web with my heat gun, and then blasted the broken hex with contact cleaner. My reasoning was that the rapid evaporation of the solvent sucks a lot of heat out which worked! Cold hex, hot plug and out she popped on the end of my magnet. Whew! I also smashed myself in the nose when the hex driver let go and 2 days later my nose still feels bruised.

 I really want to get the head on because the engine has now been sitting partially assembled in my very drafty dusty shed for over two weeks. This brings me to the next problem. The head dowels were wrecked when they were removed and now I can’t find replacements. I’ve phoned a few outfits but nobody seems that interested in helping/too hard basket. The dowels are quite small at 8mm od and quite short (about 15mm) and they are thin walled and hollow. They need to be hollow as it seems they are located in the oilway… Now I’m not an engineer so I’m just spit ballin here… but is it a dumb idea to cut up an 8mm roll pin and use that as a dowel?

Anyhoo, to plug another hole I offered up the new water pump to the block aaaaand bugger… The impeller fouls the block!

 

Run it and let it create its own clearance? Skim some material off? Get another pump? Advice welcome.

[Sunbeam]

This afternoon I dropped the handbrake cable off at Digger’s Cable and brake in Christchurch. He surely must know what he’s doing because you certainly don’t go there for dynamic customer interaction…

After this I went to Chamberlains to drop off the rear leaf springs, one stock coil and the recipe for the 125T springs. This will be less easy than I thought. The spring specs for the T are quite comprehensive, but the nice man at Chamberlain’s shot me down immediately by saying the spring steel of today is much different, rendering my data sheet next to useless. He said that if I could get an installed length for the stock spring, they can gather test data on the stock spring and their computer will spit out a recipe for a shorter slightly stiffer spring which is what I’m after. Ok….small problem, the car is on a hoist, no engine or springs fitted. Then I had a brainwave. Hoist plus transmission jack plus spirit level plus tape measure! I can replicate the static suspension data from the manual. The manual has a diagram of setup data using special tool A.74.144/1/7 (flash axle stands) which then gives static ride height data. Now, I could jack the front wheel with the transmission jack and using a spirit level and tape measure I could measure the height to “ground” from the sill pinch weld and the bottom of the engine crossmember. Then, locking the lower A arm in place, I took the wheel off and measured the distance between the spring seats and voila! 215mm. Remember the free length is 416mm!!

Setup:

Maximum slam, on the bump stops:

which gave me the opportunity to check for clearance at full lock both ways bearing in mind that’s a 185 tyre and I’ll be running 205s.  Nothing touches, but then I can’t check clearance to the spring either.

[Sunbeam]

Scope creep. It happens to the best of us. I was going to run the steering and front suspension as is with just some new bottom ball joints, but after a close inspection I just couldn’t do it. 

Also, you couldn’t even see the shape of the steering box under all the crud and filth, but you can now!

To get it all apart was a mission. I decided to remove all the bushes as they looked yuck. This took spanners, a heat gun, hole saw, hack saw, sabre saw, hammer and punches and about 5 hours!

And this is a bit baffling, it looks as though some creature has cut into the lower ball joint spindle on the upright…

[Sunbeam]

With the bushes removed, it’s cleanup time. Degreaser, scotchbrite, water blaster. Then I found this under the workbench, I have had it leftover for about 14 years from a bungalow renovation…

Which went into a plastic tub where all the suspension arms and bits and pieces had a bath. The stripper still works! Out of the bath and another water blast…

Soooo much rust under the old paint. I’m glad I’m making the effort. I also bought this

with which I made a 20 litre bath for all the bits to fizz for a day or so

While all this was happening, remember the engine paint saga? Well, over a month later I still can’t get any Ford Grey, so I went blue instead!

Good from far but due to catastrophically lazy masking I shall need to rub a bit off here and there once it’s cured, but 100% better than silver.

 

[Sunbeam]

I got the engine buttoned up today. I was a bit wary of the head gasket. This is how it came out of the packet:

Best mate #1 who is a good mechanic said send it, so I did. When I was torquing the head bolts, one of them didn’t feel great but still made the wrench go click. I did send a thread chaser through first. Then I put the cam boxes on and lined everything up. At this point I became confused (not difficult) because it looked like no1 was at the end of the exhaust stroke. Back to the books…oh that’s how they’re meant to go. The Fiat twin cam isn’t timed with no1 at TDC on compression, but on overlap, so no4 is on compression. Ok, good. Then I threw some oil down the distributor hole and spun the auxiliary shaft pulley with my drill and got the oil pump primed and pushed some oil to the top of the engine. This revealed a fail.

That little gallery plug has failed to seal, so I need to extract it and and find another. These plugs are lens shaped and you put some loctite 515 on the mating surface and then you pop the plug in convex side out and smack it flat with a hammer and drift. You only get one go, and it looks like I stuffed it up somehow. It looks like the edge of the plug snagged on one of those staked bits.  I’ll come back to it. In the mean time I popped the timing belt on with a new tensioner bearing.

Turned it all over a few times, and nothing hit anything, yay!

[Sunbeam]

Submitted for @Adoom’s approval.

[Sunbeam]

Next head scratcher is how to remove this stud so I can replace it. It’s for the top shock mount. I ended up having to split the nut to get it off back in the day. Any ideas?

I also promised to give my mate a hand putting new suspension in his work ute, so I was keen to free up the hoist. I put some blocks between the rear axle and bump stops and just let the front sit on the bumps…

 

The steering is unbelievably light with all new ball joints!

[Sunbeam]

I’m not very good at taking photos of my process of cleaning things up and mostly I think folks might find them boring anyway. Here are some after pics.

Uprights and stub axles

front suspension arms

New handbrake cable inner (thanks Digger)

Leaf spring mounts

And clean cross member. This hole is ready for an engine but the engine’s not quite ready for the hole!

Summary: New ball joints, all new bushes (polyurethane) re-booted tie rod ends and thorough de-scuzzification of components. 

[Sunbeam]

While it’s up in the air, I thought “why not give the underside a clean?” Because it would be a horrible job of course! So I did it anyway. The whole underside has a layer of gravel road dust on it for some reason.

Now it does not. Btw, waterblasting inside the shed doesn’t make as big a mess as you think as long as you’re careful with your aim and you squeegie excess water out the door before it can flow under your workbench/tools/other treasure.

[Sunbeam]

More goodies to pick up!

Custom made coils and reset leaves. 
 

New vs old:

And fronts installed! 

The leaf mounts need cleaning and painting, so aiming to have it on its wheels next week.

[Sunbeam]

Useless update time. It’s on its wheels. What I discovered is that the Fiat 124 shocks are close but not close enough for the rear. The eye sleeve has a 10mm hole in it, not a 12 as I require. The sleeve itself has a wall thickness of just over 4mm, so I thought no problem, just drill it out. Well, even in a vice etc and stepping up in 0.5mm increments, the bush moves around enough that the hole in one side ended up not quite on centre. Close enough for government work though.  Combing through kyb online catalogues though, I have found a couple of very close matches. FB RX7 rears would be perfect, but hardly anyone has any. A 1995 Kia Sportage is also bang on, but maybe too stiff for a light car? And lastly an NA4W Mitsubishi Grandis also fits the bill dimensionally. Leaning towards the Kia as they are readily available (cheap) from Rock Auto. 124 jobbies are in for now. 
Pointless edit:  I rolled her outside and the last couple of years’ worth of shed dirt got washed off too. Now using an indoor cover.

 I’m still waiting on some new gallery plugs. That’s the only thing stopping me from slinging the engine in although I might do the valve clearances on the engine stand too to save my back. I can’t fit my thinnest feeler gauge under any of the tappets, so some big changes required.

[Sunbeam]

Today I thougt I might clean the gearbox so it’s ready to go when the time comes. This culminated in spending 3 hours with Exoff, various scrubbing tools and the water blaster. I guess I had forgotten how truly filthy it was, I mean it would have made a Land Rover blush… Readers may remember I had noticed the crossmember and corresponding point on the chassis were a bit bent. Er, more than a bit it turns out. It’s amazing what you can see when stuff isn’t covered in greasy filth.

Yikes!  Also check out the gearbox mount. It’s about the consistency of cheesecake.

A combination of vice and large hammers got the crossmember straightened. It’s now in the acid bath for superduper cleaning. I made a tool for my slide hammer which in concert with my biggest ball pein carefully straightened the chassis rail. Great success.

And check out my shiny box.

[Sunbeam]

Shim time.

A bit of trial and error since the initial clearances were so tight. I ended up having to do most of them twice. 

[Sunbeam]

Today was a big day in the shed. I put the engine and box back together and I was going to sling them into the car.

Fail.. I could not get sufficient tilt to feed them in. The car was on the hoist and I used a load leveler but I couldn’t get the angle steep enough. I have mentioned before these cars have a very short engine bay and while I am sure it’s theoretically possible, you need to tilt the combo beyond 45 degrees and this requires a lot of clearance under the car and also a high lift from your engine crane. My crane won’t lift high enough either I think. So I put it back on the floor, split the gearbox off and put the engine in. Easy peasy. Then I lifted the car and popped the gearbox on my super duper transmission jack, got it all lined up and FAIL! The bell housing jammed in the transmission tunnel with about 3mm to go. So the engine got lifted again, mounts removed, engine lowered gearbox slid on, engine lifted again, mounts reinstalled phew! 

I can’t fit the manifolds yet because the rubber elbow I ordered for the oil separator doesn’t fit (the joy of aftermarket parts). I need to find an oem one (edit: found several on ebay in Italy, waiting on a postage price) Speaking of garbage aftermarket parts, the new clutch fork boot also doesn’t fit worth a damn.

I have refitted the starter and that’s as far as I got today. When I lowered the car back onto its wheels I was expecting to admire the awesome ride height but it only sagged 10mm! It has gasser spec rake going on. How much do new springs settle? The only weight yet to go back in is the radiator and maniflolds and battery etc and of course the bonnet. I’m not hopeful as my 100kg pushing on the front doesn’t do much either.

eeeew

Rear is spot on but the guards will need rolling. I loaded all my humans into the boot/back seat (almost on the bumps) and the sidewalls just graze the lip. This is without the factory spacer. BTW it’s wearing 205/60s now and they look great.

[Sunbeam]

I worked hard towards firing it up the other day but this didn’t happen because the fuel pump started pissing fuel all over the floor. I’ve ordered another. In other installation related news, the exhaust suddenly doesn’t fit properly anymore. I blame the new engine and gearbox mounts for raising the whole lot up, but principally I blame a previous bodger for WELDING the front slip joint to the downpipe so adjustments are not possible. The whole exhaust wants replacing at some stage anyway because 38mm press bent pipe is not ok, OK?

In other news, this follwed me home on a trailer.

PARTS CAR! She’s a 1969 125 Special hence the stainless wheel arch trims and other bling. The above is its good side… 

bad side:

There are basically no usable body panels. A buddy of mine wants the front cut to use as a pattern for fixing his (apparently really bad with some bits missing so needs a sample to build replacements) The interior is mouldy and yuck but has decent perforated head lining and a cool centre console thing with gauges that only seem to appear in mk1 Specials.

Incredibly the dash top has fewer cracks than some road going 125’s I’ve seen which is some feat for having been parked in a paddock for 10 years.

Plans are to harvest trim, bumpers, door handles and catches, dashboard, window regs, any undamaged glass. All suspension, diff, driveshaft and 5 speed box (there’s no engine) and importantly the transmission tunnel which will aid future 5 speed conversion. The rest minus front cut will be scrapped.

 

[Sunbeam]

Yeeehaw.

No cooling system yet, so a very short blat. Not doctored either, legitimately first crack.

[Sunbeam]

It sounded a bit noisy I think. I pulled the exhaust off again because I wasn’t super happy with how it was fitting. I noticed this.

it’s touching the bellhousing. Not good, and it certainly didn’t touch there originally so I’m a bit baffled as to how this happened. There was clearly exhaust leaking from the engine block side of the flange. This makes sense because the fouling on the bellhousing will stop that side doing up tight. Remember how I said some moron had welded the front slip joint? I decided to unweld it. All the subsequent tricks in the book would not separate the join so I cut it and oh, looky here…

collector side

pipe side:

Great. The exhaust pipe is puny 38mm i.d. pipe (stainless actually!) and this clearly would not fit over the collector. So, of course any sane person would smash the collector pipe into star shaped oblivion until it does fit. Aaaaargh! This will undoubtedly turn into a wallet-rending drama.