Back dating a 1980 Spider

[Spiderbill]

Im new to the form and have searched pretty well for needed data, but still need more information. I'm sorry if this covers old ground.

I just purchased a beautiful rust free '80 spider. My plans are to,as much as possible, to back date the looks to '73. I'd like to replace the bumpers with blades and install period correct turn signals above the front bumper. Lanciahf posted a picture of his conversion on one of the threads and it's exactly what I'm looking for. My guess is that me and a body shop need to become friends. Same issue on the rear.

After the bumpers are gone do I just swap springs for '73 units or is there a better choice? No track driving only street.

Thanks for any and all advice

Bill

[azruss]

I am currently retro-ing an 80 to an earlier look. there are several issues. with bumpers, you are removing piston bumpers and changing to blade brackets. this requires drilling extra mount holes in the trunk and removing the gas tank to do so. It can be done from the outside if you are willing to remove the lt rear rocker. you will be drilling holes in the rear fenders as well for the side bumper bracket. On the front, the bumper holes are too high for a good fit and need to be modified. I'm not convinced the shape of the 80 front fenders are a good match for the wrapped turn signals. others may be able to help on this. Retroing the door handles would be serious work, or just replace the doors with an older style. I stayed with the stock doors. too much work to change and the doors are a bit stronger. Just converting to older springs will get you very close, but the rear axle lower spring bracket is slightly taller on an 80 axles by maybe 1/4-1/2". dont think that is a big worry. The tail light holes varied thru the years as well, so may require some work their as well. I stayed with the 80s taillights as i like the look better. If you are planning to relocate the rear plate and lights, then there are some holes to fill and add. Also if you are going to move the trunk key to center, you have filling and drilling issues there. Finally, there are the outside mirrors. if you want to be absolutely period correct, you will need to change the hood. this may require putting a shorter neck on the radiator. And, or course, you need to get rid of those silly coil horns and get a decent set of Fiamm air horns on there.

[Spiderbill]

Thanks for all the great information. The rear bumper mount sounds like a reasonable amount of work, so ok. Same with the front.

I share your concern about the curve of the later fenders vs the turn signal, but there is the picture posted by Lanciahf, maybe someone has done this. Otherwise what are the options for turn signals?

Side mirrors are on the list and I hope the mounting holes match.

Doors and the rest are just too damn much to worry about.

The car only has 30K miles and is original down to the paint I'd originally hoped all would be reversible. Doesn't seem to be much of a chance for that.

[Ken]

I put early 74 parking lights on my 80, i dont have a front bumper but i droped the lights about an inch lower from stock and they fit fairly close.
Ken

[Spiderbill]

Ken
Thanks for the input

How difficult was it to cut the openings out?

[NJFIAT1981]

Hi Bill,
PM me your email address and I'll send you some pics of my last conversion and the current one in the works. George

[Nev]

Hello from over the pond.
I have a 1980 and I have retro fitted front and rear chrome bumpers (fenders) as well as the shorter springs to get the european ride height. I also retro fitted the front turn signals and side light units from an earlier spider. It is not as difficult as you first imagine if you can find a set of original units.

I managed to get a set of original units from this forum and ordered new lenses with the units. (thank you Csaba at autoricambi) If you look at the unit it is slightly larger than the lense, obvious I know but this can help cut the holes in the body work.
The curve of the lense matches the curve of the light unit and therefore must match the curve of the panel.

Soooo, take the lense on it's own and place against the car. Move it left and right until it is pretty well flush. Now tape it onto the car. Remember at this point that the actual light unit will sit lower than the lense on its own so lower the lense to accomodate the depth of the unit. It is approx 6mm (please don't hold me to that, make the judgement call yourself!). Now take a sharp tool or depending on the colour of your car, use a fine marker pen and draw around the lenses.

I used a dremmel with a cutting disk to cut the shape out. If you cut the shape the approx 2-3mm larger than the lense template you will be 90% there. After cutting the holes, you will have some gaps where the old bumpers mounts and air vents entered the car.

For mounting the bumpers, I used the front brackets suppled by Spiderpoint to mount their Abarth replica bumperettes. Fit these to the car and then take a strip of steel about 1.5 inches wide, 5mm thick and use this to estimate the exit point of a bracket that will attach the bumpers to the Spiderpoint bracket. Sounds complex but is quite simple. I used this metal to create simple 90 bend brackets and mounted the bumpers to these. Once you are happy with this weld plates across the gaps and get the fibre glass and filler out.

At the rear of the car, i discovered a hole inside the boot (trunk) on both sides. I slid another piece of the strip of steel and could see it through these holes. So attached a nut and was able to fasten it from inside the boot. Again this was a simple 90 degree bent piece of steel. The difficulty is the side mounts and to be honest I haven't done the one on the side of the petrol tank. I didn't have time to get the tank out etc but i will now it's becoming winter here in France.

I kept the rear light units, I prefer them to the older units. If you would like to see pics of before and after let me know and I'll figure out how to post them.

Hope this helps a little. The results are worth the work!