markw's 1973 Fiat 124 Sport Coupe, Round 2

[markw]

I've owned this car for over 20 years now, after buying it off my Dad while it was off the road. We stripped it back to bare metal, rebuilt the 1800 engine, and put it back on the road. Then came an engine swap to a 2L supercharged engine from a Lancia Beta Volumex. It was great to drive, but I have my gripes. Then life moved on and I parked it, as it wasn't the best daily driver at the time. Unfortunately weather triggered rust, it went into a state of disrepair before I found some dry storage. More than a decade later I'm ready to restart the project, with a number of changes. This seems like a good place to document the build for others.

Immediate plans are to strip the exterior of trim, windows etc, pull the engine, strip the interior of the dash, carpet, seats. Then prep the rust affected panels. There is a lot of paint lifting straight off bare metal, so something in the original prep must have gone wrong. Will be addressing that this time around.

Discussion thread here.

[markw]

Minor work stripping parts off to see the extent of the rust. The front and rear skuttle panels will be a challenge:

The fender shows the prep issue with filler/paint lifting from fairly clean metal (and rust subsequently sneaking under). I would love to hear from folks who know panel&paint on what could have caused this:

 

[markw]

Ok finally a moment to continue pulling things off the car #timepoor.

[markw]

Sheesh, a lot of time has passed, and not that much has happened. Stripped to a shell...

[markw]

But I mean really stripped to a shell...

[markw]

Then shipped off to have the paint removed...

[markw]

And if you happen to have a rotisserie not in use in the Auckland region, let me know. I will need to mount this on something when I get the car back.

[markw]

Much work to do...