Sunbeam's 1973 Fiat 125

[Sunbeam]

On 09/01/2025 at 18:06, Sunbeam said:

the aftermarket strikes again! 

 

 

Yeah, that’s a bit short. 
 

Remember this? Time to print a retraction. It was not the fault of the aftermarket, but a brain fart by the supplier who swiftly rectified the error. In the following picture, upper is correct, lower incorrect.

 

With some limited shed time after dinner, I risked further spinal injury to refit the heater. Firstly I wanted to remove the steel heater return pipe so that I could fit a new hose. It’s not possible for me to do this in situ. This however required removal of the alternator and extraction from underneath the car. Et voila

refitted in reverse, and then assembled the heater box with my flash new core.

What a prick to refit. It goes in ok but if it’s not lined up millimetre perfect, the fresh air flap won’t open. Now I have a new heater core and all new hoses associated with the heater. I refilled the coolant for what seems like the 50th time in the last 6 months and ran it up to temp in the workshop. Wow, what heat and fast! No leaks yet, but I need to top up the system post cooldown and then go for a hoon and get it properly hot and up to pressure. If it passes that test I can refit the ductwork and reassemble the lower dash. I probably won’t get around to that until next week because I’m a grownup apparently, with a job.

[Sunbeam]

Change of plan. Starting work late afternoon now, so quickly went for hoon, no leaks! Reassembled interior and a quick wash. I’ll drive it to work and hopefully when I finish at 2am on Sunday there will be no drama.

 

Boy, it looks yellow in photos. 

[Sunbeam]

Been pulling to one side under braking and a lot of brake dust appearing on the right front wheel so I pulled the calipers to clean these wedgy things.

those are what pass for a caliper slide on these old things. I had made the mistake of lightly greasing them when fitting them up 2 years ago and thus there was all sorts of crud glued in there. The Fiat Barries assure me they should be clean and DRY. 
 

 Next, I wanted to adjust the front camber. The old factory data has the tech dial in a smidge of positive camber. That’s well and good for 175 R13s from half a century ago with bus spec ride height. Mine’s lowered to a well laden height and fully laden camber spec is a smidge negative. So I pulled some shims and my rig and trig tells me I’m now about 0.5 degrees negative camber. 

 

Eldest passed her full license test so I told her she was now allowed to drive the Fiat under supervision. She was fizzing hard.

[Sunbeam]

Rock Auto continues to deliver the goods. How’s these for $50 a pop? Filed for future use.

[Sunbeam]

My WOF lapsed in June. By happy coincidence, my procrastination has resulted in being able to take early advantage of TWELVE MONTH WOFs  for vehicles of superior vintage. There was an advisory on the body to diff flexi brake line last time, so today I took a sample into CBC and exactly 120 seconds later they had made me a new hose and I was on my way! While on my run of errands I took my 14 inch Performance challengers to the tyre shop to ditch the 185/55 Linglongs. As we discussed (limited) options of non-Chinesium 185/65’s like Michelin XM2 etc he said hang on I have one set of Dunlop SP sport fm800. Quick google showed they had mostly good reviews and so I scored them for Linglong money. 
I had wanted some hub rings for the challengers and they turned up months ago so today I had to give them a tickle with emery so they fit properly.

 

Then it was time to change the brake hose, bleed the brakes and go for a hoon. Speedo error is now only 5% instead of the 10% I have wth the 205/60/13’s. WOF booked 1st thing tomorrow morning.

 

 

 

[Sunbeam]

Behold, my 52 year old vehicle has a WOF, and I don’t need to go back for a whole year!

[Sunbeam]

Time for an update. I have noticed a return of the woggawoggawogga rear wheel bearing noise, so I have decided to have the bearing replaced. I am assuming it’s the one I didn’t replace last time.

So, while it’s immobile I will address another noise. It started a wheel speed clanking a few months ago and it was starting to drive me nuts. I narrowed it down to the front wheels because it would go away as soon as I touched the brake pedal. The noise was coming from the brake pads. 

 

0.18mm of runout is apparently more than enough. I wonder if track day did this. Luckily I have some spares, so I replaced both front rotors (the other had zero runout)

 

Finally, take a look at the saggy, faded cracked seat which is leaking foam and sticky goo.. They are now at the upholstery shop. Watch this space…

[Sunbeam]

After:

 

It was difficult to get an exact match colour-wise, but in the car it’s pretty good. Of course the only supplier of said vinyl is an angry Greek shark and it was eye wateringly expensive, but ya know YOLO. Final bill was horrific and I don’t want to talk about it anymore…It would have been cheaper to buy an Alfa 156 with tan leather and pilfer the seats. Also, small problem. The driver’s backrest now looks on the piss, it leans outboard. Sigh.

[Sunbeam]

I went to the upholstery shop today and they’re going to adjust the way the trim is stretched over the backrest. We decided the mounts and the frame were straight.

 

It was raining today and I don’t often take it out in the rain (because water soluble) but it’s nice that it doesn’t leak, the heater is good, and the wipers are effective. The stuff we take for granted these days.

[Sunbeam]

Been dailying this for a couple of weeks. It’s not terrible. But boy, old cars are low geared. This thing easily has enough torque to maintain 100 k at 1000-1200 rpm lower.

[Sunbeam]

I wanted the wheel spacers from the parts wreck. Trolley jacks are so yesteryear.