1976 body with 1970 parts...is it possible?

[ICESKATER1611]

I have a 1970 that has some pretty good rust on the rockers. And by pretty good rust i mean they are like gone. the quotes i received are totally out of my price range at this time.

Does anyone know if i was able to obtain a 1976 body would all the other parts of my current 1970 fit...ie seats, engine/tranny, ect? The parts of my car are OK just the body is crap.

Any thoughts would be helpful!!

Thanks!

[18Fiatsandcounting]

The seats from your '70 spider will definitely fit in the '76, and after racking my brain for any possible issues, I believe the engine and transmission will fit just fine as well. There might be some minor issues like exhaust header pipes being different, but any good muffler shop should be able to resolve these.

There might be some electrical wiring and emission control plumbing issues, as the '70 engine won't have all the items that the '76 body is expecting. For example, if your '70 distributor is down near the oil filter on the driver's side, the '76 body will be expecting the distributor up on the rear of the exhaust camshaft housing. There might be some emission control plumbing on the '76 that will have nowhere to be connected on the '70 engine, but you can probably sort that out. Stuff like that.

Edit: Is the '70 body totally shot, or just the rocker panels? You can get new rocker panels for $100 or so each, and I've seen "blanks" on eBay for around $50 each (the "blanks" are sized and formed correctly but would need holes drilled, trimming, priming, painting, etc.).

-Bryan

[samakijoe]

Your not giving us much info to work with here. Are you: single, young, old, rich, poor graduate student, know which end of a
screw driver to hold, etc? Well you get the idea here.

As to the issue of rust in the car.
Rusty rockers panels are like looking at an iceberg from the deck of a ship, there's a whole lot more you can not see from up here...

Given that, my first answer would be to send the car to the local auto recycler and start over. A good/couple place(s) to start would be this site and the one called BAT "Bringatrailer.com). This site has a lot of info on what it takes to restore a car of this vintage. (short answer: lots) The talking heads on the BAT site sometimes know what they are saying and sometimes not. Sometimes they just want to see their submission on the net but really have nothing to say of any value But you can always learn something about the car (Fiat 124 ) in the auction. I suggest you do not jump in until you comfortable. I have had a couple of great buys (and sales there) there but you have to be careful. There are ways to do a little research on the submitter (to asses credibility) making comment as well as the sellers (to asses all the other issues). take some time to learn the site.

[ICESKATER1611]

The seats from your '70 spider will definitely fit in the '76, and after racking my brain for any possible issues, I believe the engine and transmission will fit just fine as well. There might be some minor issues like exhaust header pipes being different, but any good muffler shop should be able to resolve these.

There might be some electrical wiring and emission control plumbing issues, as the '70 engine won't have all the items that the '76 body is expecting. For example, if your '70 distributor is down near the oil filter on the driver's side, the '76 body will be expecting the distributor up on the rear of the exhaust camshaft housing. There might be some emission control plumbing on the '76 that will have nowhere to be connected on the '70 engine, but you can probably sort that out. Stuff like that.

Edit: Is the '70 body totally shot, or just the rocker panels? You can get new rocker panels for $100 or so each, and I've seen "blanks" on eBay for around $50 each (the "blanks" are sized and formed correctly but would need holes drilled, trimming, priming, painting, etc.).

-Bryan

Brian had a couple of shops look at it. Rockers shock towers and front floors as. Body work I have zero knowledge of but between myself and another we can handle the guts of the car. Had a neighbor who does body work but moved!

[DieselSpider]

If it just the decorative rocker panels those go on with a few screws and one nut while the structural rockers are welded in. Rocker panels are no big deal on a 124 Spider. Shock towers are often fairly easily replaced by someone with even modest welding skills as are the floor panels and a $89 Harbor Freight wire feed welder works just fine for that purpose.

I just went through mine and ended up repairing the rockers since the ends were still good so I stitch welded in new sheet metal in the middles. I did not buy any new parts and used a $25 sheet of metal and some scraps from a previous project where I made a metal drawer and got it all done for about $200 including the cost of the welder. Shock towers were OK on mine but it did need some work on the floor pans.

My welding is not pristine so I did use a small can of Bondo to fare things out but as the expression goes putty and paint make it what it ain't.

Once you get past the initial fear you may find body work is not that hard to do. If you do not get it fared out correctly on the first try that's just an opportunity to continue your education.

As long as the main structure is mostly intact I would not worry too much about the rockers and floor pans. The shock towers may require some assistance depending on how bad they are but are not an insurmountable issue.