bluespider262's 1979

[lglade]

Hey Joe (not to be confused with the title to a Jimi Hendrix song), I'd sure like to see a picture or two regarding that home-built soda blaster. I could sure use one and your idea sounds very interesting.

[124JOE]

i seen it on youtube "itchyban"posted it

[bluespider262]

Unfortunately now my spine apparently needs "restoration" too and I need to have surgery to fix an extruded disc L5 S1. Looks like I have to take a break from the Fiat for at least couple of months. The pain is hell and nobody should have to go through this. I count myself lucky in that my docs ordered an MRI within a week of me complaining about it and it was then obvious I had a problem. Some people goof around for 6+ months while their doctors refuse to order an MRI and fiddle around with crap that won't help long term. So I am very thankful I was not in that boat.

GRRRRRR! So much for getting it back on the road by Memorial Day.

I did finish all my floor pan work and the only welding I have left are 5-6 pinholes and some patch pieces on the portions of the seat mounts that were rusted away. So I am 98% of the way there at least.

I don't doubt at all that getting up and down, rolling around on the ground and contorting my body to do the pans, etc. was responsible for me screwing up my back so be careful out there guys. I probably pushed myself more than I should have on the weekends working on the car. I sure felt ragged for a day or two every time I woudld put in a 6-8 hr. Fiat session.

[AriK]

That's quite a monkey wrench tossed into your plans Put the project on the side and i hope you a speedy recovery.

[RRoller123]

Yes a speedy recovery is what we here are wishing for! Good luck with the surgery.

Pete

[bluespider262]

Feeling better and did some work on the spider past two weekends.

Floor pans finished up, two coats of Rust Bullet a and seam sealer. The only panel I bought was the drivers front. Made the rest from a sheet of steel and some 20 gauge 3/4" angles. Worked pretty well and I don't have $300 into body panels. I got one of those lights that go on your mig gun and it made a 1000x difference for me as I could then see what I was doing so the interior turned out better than the bottom as far as weld appearance. All the floor pan rust is gone though. I have a little work to do at the rear of the rockers but shouldn't be bad at all. Saving that for this winter.



Oven cleaner on my cat shields before and after. They were covered in waxy rust proofing, grease, oil, black paint, and sand.





Front suspension reassembly is completed and just needs final torque once on the ground. Also bought new middle and rear exhaust sections because my old chrome tip ansa rusted through and the resonator was packed with rust and crap. Went with the replacement grade ANSA stuff and it fits perfectly and was ~ $100 from JC Whitney w/ 20% off on father's day.

Started the rear shocks on Sunday but won't have them back in until this weekend. Went with KYB GR-2s front and rear. The fronts froze up as soon as I let them fully extend and couldn't get them to budge at all. Rears still seem okay but since I'm in there anyway...

Should have my seats back together too. Had to weld up and reinforce the seams on the backrests but now they are straight and don't flex like they did before.

Also found my brake proportioning valve is frozen so I have one on order from AR along with a new tensioner pulley so I can do the unknown age timing belt soon. It doesn't look bad but why chance it.

My collectors insurance starts on July 1st so hoping it will at least be a driver enough to run errands, etc. by then.

[bluespider262]

Another day another setback. Looks like i'm doing the brake system replacement I was hoping would wait until winter. Snapped a bleeder and rounded the top nut on the stupid proportioning valve above the rear axle. I even used those trick vise grips that never failed me before. Hard lines are just too rusty to probably even reflare. I can probably hack it together but i hear what the fiat is tellIng me about its brake system. Sigh...there goes my console recap and carpet money until next year. Not that I need them in a car that doesn't stop. At some point we run out of parts to replace, right?

[bluespider262]

Well my new hard lines are finally in. I also used this as an opportunity to pull the rear axle out of the car in order to clean it all up and change the pinion seal.

Against my better judgement I bought Cardone loaded calipers for the front, but discovered yesterday the bolt spacing on the brackets were wrong and about 1" too narrow. I think they are actually X1/9 brackets. So those are going back and I'm waiting for some new Centric replacements that were backordered a month ago when I bought all this but are now in stock. One of the Cardones also had a bleeder that was installed with an impact so tight it deformed the seat of the bleeder and I barely got it out without stripping it and had to retap the hole. On a new rebuilt caliper. Absolute crap.

The rear loaded Centric calipers I receive seem to be very nice in comparison. Definitely a better grade bleeder screw and small parts like the sliders and clips and stuff.

My pads and rotors are at least 95% new all around so I'm just going to run them.

I'm going to top it all off with a new timing belt & bearing next weekend while I wait for the front calipers and hopefully I'll be done wrenching in a couple of weeks and get at least a couple of months behind the wheel before the end of car season.

[njoconnor]

Keep plugging away; even Wisconsin gives you some nice fall weeks to run top down! And, at least on mine, the heater is way more than adequate for keeping the cabin warm with the top down.

All the pix show great progress. Maybe Botham next year?

Neil

[bluespider262]

Repainted my rear axle and rear control arms then reinstalled it all this weekend. Getting closer...

[njoconnor]

Isn't it nice to look under the car and see a clean rear axle/suspension? When I finished mine last year, I just looked at it for about 10 minutes.....

Neil

[bluespider262]

Yes I don't miss rust dirt and sand falling in my eyes at all when I'm working under the car.

[bluespider262]

Been a while since my last update but the car is running great now. "New" projects are always touch and go at first when you first get them on the road but the blue spider has really been flawless. The past two weekends I've done 3-5 he trips around se Wisconsin, cruising Milwaukee Lakeshore and a trip through the three twisty "rustic roads" in lake Geneva.

Tech wise I ended up refreshing my guibo, center bearing, and ujoints in April. New tires in may. And I just finished my wideband o2 from the SBC Jeep today so I can have a baseline for rejetting my 32 36. But it runs great now. I thought my heater valve was leaking but ended up just being a loose hose at the firewall thank goodness. Also have had a decent oil leak but finally found it today - fuel pump had one and a half gaskets (...po strikes again) and would leak down across the pan and back onto the exhaust where it goes 2 into 1 after a run. Will find out tomorrow if that did the trick. All the usual suspects were bone dry so this one had me stumped for a couple weeks.

Next up is the interior. My dash is fine, and the upper console actually cleaned up very nice. But my lower looks like a dog chewed on it. So right now I'm running bare floors and no consoles.

My seat rebuilds are working out great once I did another tweak to the release lever on the sliders. Nice and solid now.

Scored the absolute cleanest remote drivers mirror off the eBay for only $25 so finally got rid of the $10 Chinese universal crap I had on there from last year. I Can actually aim it so I can see things behind me now instead of the rear tire. And it looks like brand new and not all beat to hell like the ones on eBay going for 3x that price.

This car handles like it's on rails - such a blast to drive - even if it isn't really that quick.

[bluespider262]

Hi everyone its been a long time since I've updated.

Last year I got back on the car. Finished the floor pans, fixed my busted seat frames, and put in a wideband o2. Then I stopped playing with it and drove it for a few months on the weekend. Only trouble I had was a bad ignition switch which I replaced and added relays to, and my brake light switch had to be replaced towards the end of the summer. I recapped my lower and middle consoles in the fall but havent put them in the car yet. Still need carpet.

This year I got it up on jackstands a few weeks ago for the year's "planned improvements". I'm currently fixing some real minor rust through spots between the crossmember and the trunk. I've also just finished fitting some new rocker covers and just have to paint them now. In case anyone is curious those 40$ rockers you see on the web do work but I had to bend the top lip down another 15 degrees or so and do some cutting at the ends and bottom to make them fit properly. They aren't as good as the stock ones but my vendor of choice seems to be out of stock on better options so for now they will do. The middle rocker panel is very good other than the last six inches on the pass. side. Thank goodness. I bought some of that green goo from Eastwood to spray inside the middle and inside rocker sections so they'll hopefully stay nice for a long time.

Hope to have these things done by memorial day weekend and then spend another summer just enjoying the car. It was running -great- last summer so hopefully my luck will continue.