Steve's '74
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 8:13 pm
I found this car in a basement garage, a house that I did some work on that the owner was selling and needed to get rid of stored items. He wanted $3000 for it. I was interested so asked to test drive it. It hadn't been started in 6 months. It cranked over and started the second try.
The test drive went OK, all I did was drive a few blocks listening for noises. The clutch was terrible, but everything else seemed fine. The car looked nice and straight, the body seams lined up, but it had been painted. A little bit of rust on top of the doors that concerned me, but it looked like a simple project. We settled on $2200 and I drove it away.
That was two years ago. The project has taken a back seat because of my other project, a '64 TBird, was in full throttle. I claimed completion on that a few months ago so work on the Fiat has progressed much quicker. In fact I expect to drive it (no interior) from my friend Mike's shop in Mocksville to my house next week, where I will complete the interior reassembly.
It turns out that the rust was much more pronounced then had been obvious. The cancer was basically stage 2, limited to the shock towers, drivers side floor, and the front inner rockers. The rust on the doors was superficial. Mike's a metal magician and the work was straightforward for him. He's nearly done with final paint, all but the small parts. The color is the original dark blue in a single stage urethane.
I pulled the interior and exterior trim out myself, ordered the obvious parts that I needed then boxed it all up. I'm currently in the process of cleaning the old stuff for round two of ordering.
About a year ago I took two days off from work and overhauled the engine. 56k miles. I did a thorough inspection, finding cross-hatch in all cylinders and no lip at the top of the bores, so I left the rotating assembly intact. One of the cylinder tops was pitted- looked like it swallowed an air cleaner screw (one was missing), but the cylinder itself was undamaged. The valves were all tight so I left the head intact as well. I gave it all a good cleaning, then dried it off with compressed air and brake-clean, reassembled with all new gaskets, new head studs/ nuts, coated all the bare internals with WD-40, masked it off, then primed and painted the exterior. Duplicolor Ford early engine grey matched the original paint well, as far as I can tell.
This week Mike reinstalled the engine and transmission, and I have the seats out to the upholsterer. I'm going with a top grain saddle leather on the bucket seats and backs, the seat sides and the entire rear seat will be black canvas, actually a convertible top fabric. The upholsterer commented that the rear seat fabric would be uncomfortable. My reply was that I wanted to make it look uncomfortable, as I had no intention of ever having rear seat passengers; it was basically an inexpensive package trey. The seat back and rear sides will also be covered in black canvas, as they are dinged up fairly bad. The rear sides that contain the top frame, now tan in color, I figure to paint semi-gloss black. Welting and thread will both be dark blue.
I haven't decided on how to do the dash. My upholstery guy covered my TBird dash, split from sun and age and irreplaceable, in black vinyl with French stitching to work the compound curves. I may do the same thing on the Fiat except with the same canvas. Reproductions are under $300 so that is also in the running.
A friend of mine built the interior wood out of some thin stock he had but I'm not happy with his work. So I will be purchasing a reproduction set. All my gauges are good except the clock lens. I may be installing some custom electronics so a one piece is on my mind as an alternative.
My front bumper appears to have been replaced recently as it looks new. The rears were rusted on top so I masked off the bottom half and painted the top half silver. The plastic energy absorbers were shot so I made a pair from plastic foam lumber. I'm considering conversion to a pre '73 flush system but need to research that out a lot more before I attempt it.
The wheels are OE with 3 of 4 beauty rings dinged up badly and all four center caps. Tires are good too. Vicks has 15" cast aluminum on sale, hard to refuse, and I'll probably end up buying them then sell my old stuff.
The test drive went OK, all I did was drive a few blocks listening for noises. The clutch was terrible, but everything else seemed fine. The car looked nice and straight, the body seams lined up, but it had been painted. A little bit of rust on top of the doors that concerned me, but it looked like a simple project. We settled on $2200 and I drove it away.
That was two years ago. The project has taken a back seat because of my other project, a '64 TBird, was in full throttle. I claimed completion on that a few months ago so work on the Fiat has progressed much quicker. In fact I expect to drive it (no interior) from my friend Mike's shop in Mocksville to my house next week, where I will complete the interior reassembly.
It turns out that the rust was much more pronounced then had been obvious. The cancer was basically stage 2, limited to the shock towers, drivers side floor, and the front inner rockers. The rust on the doors was superficial. Mike's a metal magician and the work was straightforward for him. He's nearly done with final paint, all but the small parts. The color is the original dark blue in a single stage urethane.
I pulled the interior and exterior trim out myself, ordered the obvious parts that I needed then boxed it all up. I'm currently in the process of cleaning the old stuff for round two of ordering.
About a year ago I took two days off from work and overhauled the engine. 56k miles. I did a thorough inspection, finding cross-hatch in all cylinders and no lip at the top of the bores, so I left the rotating assembly intact. One of the cylinder tops was pitted- looked like it swallowed an air cleaner screw (one was missing), but the cylinder itself was undamaged. The valves were all tight so I left the head intact as well. I gave it all a good cleaning, then dried it off with compressed air and brake-clean, reassembled with all new gaskets, new head studs/ nuts, coated all the bare internals with WD-40, masked it off, then primed and painted the exterior. Duplicolor Ford early engine grey matched the original paint well, as far as I can tell.
This week Mike reinstalled the engine and transmission, and I have the seats out to the upholsterer. I'm going with a top grain saddle leather on the bucket seats and backs, the seat sides and the entire rear seat will be black canvas, actually a convertible top fabric. The upholsterer commented that the rear seat fabric would be uncomfortable. My reply was that I wanted to make it look uncomfortable, as I had no intention of ever having rear seat passengers; it was basically an inexpensive package trey. The seat back and rear sides will also be covered in black canvas, as they are dinged up fairly bad. The rear sides that contain the top frame, now tan in color, I figure to paint semi-gloss black. Welting and thread will both be dark blue.
I haven't decided on how to do the dash. My upholstery guy covered my TBird dash, split from sun and age and irreplaceable, in black vinyl with French stitching to work the compound curves. I may do the same thing on the Fiat except with the same canvas. Reproductions are under $300 so that is also in the running.
A friend of mine built the interior wood out of some thin stock he had but I'm not happy with his work. So I will be purchasing a reproduction set. All my gauges are good except the clock lens. I may be installing some custom electronics so a one piece is on my mind as an alternative.
My front bumper appears to have been replaced recently as it looks new. The rears were rusted on top so I masked off the bottom half and painted the top half silver. The plastic energy absorbers were shot so I made a pair from plastic foam lumber. I'm considering conversion to a pre '73 flush system but need to research that out a lot more before I attempt it.
The wheels are OE with 3 of 4 beauty rings dinged up badly and all four center caps. Tires are good too. Vicks has 15" cast aluminum on sale, hard to refuse, and I'll probably end up buying them then sell my old stuff.
