new owner of 1982 Fiat Spider

[aurorajohn]

New member who just purchased an 82 Spider that has been in a garage for 6 years. A mechanic inspection suggested repairs of nearly $5,000. I have some experience working on VWs but none with Fiats. Any suggestions on doing my own repairs and which repairs I should avoid would be appreciated

[wikkid]

Welcome - spend some time browsing and searching through the past threads on here for info on how your various repair tasks would go. You may find that you can do most of the work, depending of course on your inclination, time available, skills, interest, etc., vs. the money to have someone else do it.

Honestly, browsing for an evening on this site, searching for the pertinent topics, will give you a huge insight into how things might go for you.

How bad does the car look - does it even start? Give more info, and a list of the items suggested to you for repair, and others will come along to chime in as well.

[RRoller123]

This is a procedure that I have been developing for a little while on how to post pictures here in the Forum. Hope it is useful, and comments are always welcome.

HOW TO POST PICTURES IN FIATSPIDER.COM REV: B

Well that picture-posting thing sure is confusing. Took me forever to figure it out. Here is what I do:

First, you must post your pictures on photobucket.com or one of the similar competing websites. You can't post pics directly from your computer. So set up a free account there first. The instructions here reference photobucket.com.

Then in your FS.com post, look for the "Img" box at the top of the post, #9 from the left in the row of command icons.

Put the cursor where you want the pic to appear in the post (leave a few spaces after text is a good idea) and click the "Img" button/icon above.

Then go to the photobucket.com site (or competitor) and find your pic. Hover the cursor over the pic and a drop down menu will appear. Then click the "Direct Link" or similar button. In Photobucket, it will respond with a "copied" indication.

Go back to your FS.com post and make sure the cursor is EXACTLY in between the 2 Img boxes: [img](cursor%20in%20here)[/img] then right click and hit "paste" and the web link for the pic will show up in between the 2 img boxes. DON'T hit the IMG button a second time. MOVE your cursor out of the IMG info you just created before you hit enter.

Now when you post the post, the pic will be there!

Remember that if you delete the photobucket "master" pic, it will no longer appear in the posting here on FS.com

Also: there is a size limit to the pictures that can be displayed here, I think it is 750 pixels in width, someone correct me if I am wrong. So you may need to resize (typically downsize) the pics so that they fit properly and all of the pic is displayed and not cropped.

This can be done in MS Office Picture Manager, where your pictures can be cropped and resized. Do this resizing before you load the pictures onto Photobucket or competing site. Remember to resize them to be no more than 750 pixels in width, or they will be truncated.

Another approach, which is what I usually, do is pretty simple but requires some emailing effort. I email the original picture to myself embedded within an AOL email. AOL will automatically prompt you to see if you want the picture "optimized". Say "yes" and send this new pic to yourself. I then save it with a "small" addendum to the picture name and put this optimized picture up on photobucket. It works every single time like a charm.

[narfire]

Hi there. In what town do you park your Fiat? perhaps there might be a current spider owner that is nearby that can give some insight. These cars are actually quite easy to work on, very old school compared to todays cars. Parts ,both new and used are easy to come by and with a few metric tools you are going to find the car easy to sort out...for the most part.
FIAT...fixing it as therapy.
Chris

[divace73]

FIAT...fixing it as therapy.
Chris

Now that I like, my wife simply does not understand...my fiat is my therapy, I don't smoke, don't gamble (okay I do play the odd Lotto once in a while but def not weekly) and only have a drink every now and then but do find it hard to not buy goodies for my fiat.

Welcome Aurorajohn,
like the others have chimed in if it mechanical issue, they are relatively easy to repair on your own. Rust repairs for me are a big cost as I don't have those skills nor tools (Even though sometimes I reckon I could do a better job blindfolded than what some 'professionals' do and charge you big for...)

congratulations!!

[aurorajohn]

Working on a photo to post. Will return