Las vegas to BC Canada 81 Spider

[SpiderJim]

A couple of weeks ago I flew to vegas to pickup another Spider. This is a desert car with no rust. However upon driving it I realized it had a case of desert dry rot in the suspension. So borrowing my friends garage I began a rapid rebuild of most of the car. Rebuilt the entire front and rear suspensions including shocks etc. New drive shaft, timing belt bearing and water pump, distributer etc.... repaired a lot of electrical issues and cleaned all contact points. One strange problem was with the passenger rear light unit. Could not get running lights nor right turn indicator to work yet all wiring checked good. Ended up being the actual bulb holders that are riveted to the circuit board not making ground? So a clean and solder joint did the trick. The seller had told me that he had redone all of the fuel system from tank to injectors and looking under the car it had a new filter pump and fuel lines so I trusted him on this. Two days before leaving after this major overhaul I took it for a test run. After twenty miles or so the fuel pump was getting noisy and the car hiccuped once in a while. So I immediately purchased another pump and headed to my friends house. I replaced the pump and added a hi flow pre-filter seeing that the old pump was full of debris. On testing the car it would hardly run? Yet before it was pretty good. So we figured it must be the filter as everything else was standard parts. After lots of head scratching and changing parts it still would not run. I had filled the tank full when I purchased the car and had only done a few miles so never thought to check fuel level. Also my soon to find out not working fuel gauge was registering a full tank?. I ended up removing the sender unit just to take a look and low and behold I have no gas and was sucking air and debris into the second new pump? It seems that some enterprising person had at some point siphoned off all my gas!!. The tank was also incredibly filthy inside..

So I cleaned it the best I could and filled with gas and bingo she fired up and ran great. By this time I had to leave for the 1500 mile drive to BC Canada. So I hopped in said my good byes and set off for Reno as part of my route North. Everything worked great except for losing my rear right turn signal bulb. I had a trunk full of spare parts and tools so said the hell with it. Because I had not the chance to really clean the tank and was not sure about the pre-filter I stopped every 120 miles or so to keep the tank topped up. I average 70 mph and fuel consumption of between 25 to 30 mpg.

Made it to my home in Canada and immediately pulled the tank and have it hot dipped and treated. Cleaned out the fuel pump and checking everything over realized the PO had put regular fuel lines in and not Fi lines. So I replaced all the lines and added the pre-filter just in case. I also found the filter the PO had put in was backwards!. So now she runs great. Who said that Spiders can not make long trips. I now feel more confident in these cars and thought to share the experience.

[lanciahf]

I always say if a spider can make a 5 mile trip it can make a 300 mile trip.

Great story!

[Jimb]

Hi Jim,
I live in Victoria and go up to Campbell River with work once in a while. I work for VIHA. Plus my sister and brother in law live in C.R.
My 85.5 Pinin Volumex should arrive this week or next. Any Fiat clubs on the Island that you know of?
Cheers,
Jim

[narfire]

Great story. Glad you made it without any nasty issues. Likely the only issue perhaps was getting the ferry at Horseshoe Bay, they had a few breakdowns not long ago. (German made not Italian ).
If your ever in the Okanagan,do look me up,The local watering hole has a nice nut brown ale.

Hi Jim,
My 85.5 Pinin Volumex should arrive this week or next. Any Fiat clubs on the Island that you know of?
Cheers,
Jim

Was this the one for sale in New Zeland?
A club out this way would be nice. A bit spred out though but doable. There are 4 fiats and one Lancia(next year) in this area. A number in Van and several on the rock and one on the little rock of Saltspring.
How does one start?
Chris

[Jimb]

Well, to begin with, we'd need to find out how many are interested...and where potential members reside.

I think it would be great if we had something that developed into a few summer runs, camping trips, golf tournaments or whatever, each year at various locations around the province.
Jim

[launieg]

Count me in for a club. There are quite a few Spiders in Victoria, but only myself and Greg (and him rarely) on this forum I think. Of course, there are others nearby, but not in the GVRD. I should have the Spider back on the road in the Spring, and I love to meet up with likeminded. Jim, I live in Sooke, but I come in to Victoria quite often of course. Would love to see your Volumex when it arrives. Keep me in mind!

[rlux4]

Great story Jim. More stories like yours and our cars may start to get a better reputation for reliability. Once they've been gone through and brought up to snuff like you obviously do, long trips are a breeze. Except maybe in late July going up I-5!
Ron