New to Fiat in Oakland, CA

[gobaers]

Hello,

Through an interesting process of a friend of a friend, a lien sale, and some other craziness, the fates have seen fit to bestow upon me a 1980 Fiat Spider 2000, CS0 FI.

She's in OK shape, but will need some TLC in order to go from:

Fix It Again Tony
to
Fine Italian Automobile Technology

I've been lurking in these forums looking for tips, and they've been invaluable. Thank you to the forum moderators and contributors.

Being a younger guy, in my 30s, I've never really had chance to get down and dirty with the mechanics of a car; I'm enjoying learning about it! I'm currently trying to pass the dreaded California smog test. Tasks include:

Oil,Filter Change
Replace Air Filter
Replace Air Intake Assembly
Replace Exhaust Manifold Gasket
Adjust Engine Timing
(and hopefully not) Replace Catalytic Converter
(and really hopefully not) Replace Header Gasket

Wish me luck, I'm going to need it.


gobaers AKA Chang

(BTW, it's white. So pretty!)

[RRoller123]

Welcome aboard!

[124JOE]

hello and welcome
hows the smog stuff on her?
run it by a good mecanic before test

[2ndwind]

Congrats and good luck. Fortunately, the FI cars have far less smog crap on them.

Consider replacing the guibo soon. Lots of posts on this.

[gobaers]

hello and welcome
hows the smog stuff on her?
run it by a good mecanic before test

Knowing nothing about it, I just had it tested to see where my starting point is. It was not good, levels were almost double across the board. Also, there are other issues with the car that need to be addressed before it can pass.

I'm going to change the air filter, replace the air intake duct (which was noted on the test), take it into a shop to have it tuned for timing, and hope for the best.

On the exhaust side, it looks like a mess down there. There are missing bolts on the manifold, so I'm going to replace the exhaust gasket, as well as the manifold/cat gasket to seal up any exhaust leaks. Really, really hoping the seal on the head gasket is intact. Not sure what to expect, considering it smells when the engine is running.

A work in progress, that's for sure!

[gobaers]

Congrats and good luck. Fortunately, the FI cars have far less smog crap on them.

Consider replacing the guibo soon. Lots of posts on this.

Thanks Steve.

What would replacing the guibo do? Is it likely to be worn? Also, is it something that I might be able to handle myself?

I'll take a look at the driveshaft for some perspective.

[narfire]

Hi there. This is a great place for valuable information about these cars and on occasion other stuff as well

Congrats on the purchase of a great little car. As you will notice they might be considered old school in that there is nowhere to plug in a diagnostic thingy.
I see you have a list of things to replace and as mentioned do replace the rubber flex disk. It connects the driveline out of the trans to the drive shaft. These will crack with time and if or when they let go it usually is with disasterous results, especially at speed. The other is the timing belt itself. Change that out , note the milage and you will have a piece of mind about new parts being installed. On a fuel injected engine , no gasket between the manifold and pipes, just manifold and head. There is an O2 sensor that might you might think of replacing, might help in passing smog down there. If it is shot not a real big deal, the engine does run but defalts to a middle of the road setting. Pop the top of the distributor as well and have a look at the pickup and the wires comming out. They get brittle with time and break leaving you stranded. Look into getting a manual as well and a set of metric wrenches and a 6 pack of instalation fluid and you'll be good to fix dang near anything on the car.
Chris

[124JOE]

yes when you own a fiat you need to tinker on them just to keep it up or things will fall apart
just having love for the car shows in it after a few years it will glow "if your into it"

keep posting

[gobaers]

Thanks for the tips, guys. Still waiting for some parts to arrive before I really take things apart. I'll post when I've made a little progress.

[gobaers]

An update,

Took advantage of the nice weather yesterday to replace the exhaust manifold gasket. The old gasket looked awful, barely anything left of it. Also, two of the four bolts between the manifold and block were not attached. As it, one of these has missing threads.

The good news is I got it off, cleaned the engine and manifold off to get a smooth surface, and got it reattached with new bolts and nuts. It's running very smoothly! So, newly confident, I went back to the smog shop to have it retested.

It passed the low speed test, but the high speed test was a fail due to high NO emissions. Pretty sure that this has to do with the O2 sensor, which is completely shot. I assume that without a working O2 sensor, the mixture remains very rich at higher RPMs?

Also, I'm thinking about changing the timing belt after I'm done with the smog stuff. Is this something that a newbie can handle, or should I look into finding a shop? I sense the potential for danger here.

[narfire]

I'm not familiar with the smog tests, but as mentioned if the o2 sensor is pooched, the computer kinda defalts to a middle of the road setting and perhaps could then be a bit rich at higher rpms.

The timing belt is doable, but perhaps if there is a bit of trepidation, have the shop do it but with you watching so next time you can see them get the engine to TDC to start the evolution, back the tenson bearing off and replace if it is suspect, and put the belt on without moving the crank and cam wheels and then dial in the timing. Piece of piss right
Chris

[gobaers]

Well, I've never been one to back down from a mechanical challege, so I think I'll just go over the timing belt documentation five times and give it a go.

BTW, here she is. Needs a new cover, and I need to scrape off the sticker on the windshield:

[124JOE]

this may help you its a copy of our motors set up for timing
just be sure the#6 gear is at 1oclock position

theres a line i drew on it for without the cover
this pic came as a pic of the tool but as the deck hight changed they droped the tool"dont offer"

you can right click and copy this pic to your pics for easy viewing