1984 Pininfarina restoration

[Twister]

Well, I've decided to begin to document my latest project. This car has had three previous owners, the last one drove it a few times and parked it for most of eight years. Even though it was parked so long, there are still over 95K miles from the first two owners. The body seems OK, but there is a fair bit of damage from ignorant lift operators who bent the jack points and the "frame rails" just south of the firewall. Because of this I am uncertain of it's ultimate worth as a candidate for a full "stock" restoration. The red paint was courtesy of Earl Scheib (with a second repaint) and shows lots of 80 grit DA swirls; I'm not sure what other sins are buried under it, but the car will return to it's original Azure Blue, sometime in the next 18 months. There is a small crack under the trunk where the exhaust was pushed up and the fuel tank is dented (possibly from a reverse landing in a snowbank when it lived in CO). Just about every seal leaks and every "gasket" in the transmission is 100% blue RTV. The power window motors turn, but lack the power to run the windows up and the A/C is DOA. The car came with about 4" of receipts and best of all a full set of factory service manuals.

This seems the right place for the "before" photo:


The first project was to get the title straightened out; while that was going on I flushed the fuel tank and lines and after a bit of fuss and new spark-plugs I got the car to run well enough to get on/off a trailer. Next I addressed the blue smoke coming out the exhaust. I checked compression on each cylinder and it was excellent, so I removed the head and replaced the valve guide seals and lapped the slightly pitted valves as a temp fix until I can send the engine off for a full rebuild by someone better qualified than myself. Reinstalling the head was semi problematic, with the timing belt being a tremendous pain until I managed to get the various pulleys aligned and then I had problems with overheating from air pockets. Fortunately there is a lot of good info on this site and the addition of a flush tee put an end to that problem. At the same time I also installed a new high flow cat, mid-pipe, and IAP performance tail pipe.

I also discovered someone had used stop leak on the radiator (a cardinal sin) and I found a crack in the filler neck so I wound up having to get the filler replaced, I also had the radiator flushed and pressure checked (they fixed two more leaks). I also replaced all the hoses, the thermostat, and the belts while I was in there…

I drove the car about 50 mile this last week and after the first couple of runs the idle jumped up about 1000 rpm, so I readjusted the idle and ordered new injectors and a filter.

I’ve spent today rebuilding the rear brakes and found out that the last guy assembled them incorrectly with the pistons rotated so the indexing mark was toward the bleeder and they never worked, no pad wear at all and a nice film of rust on the disks. (EDIT: My mistake only one was wrong, and I got both set up backwards--thanks to the manual see below) I also replaced the jacked up sway-bar (see photos), installed the new springs and Koni shocks on the rear of the car.

As soon as I get a bit more fuel line I’ll finish up the fuel filter R&R; then I need to replace the rear brake lines as the fittings would not come apart. Tomorrow I’ll hopefully get the front springs and shocks installed and prep for the Whoa brakes I expect this week. If I find time I’ll get the new injectors installed. Not bad for a weekend, if I get it all done.

Now, if I can only find the correct carpet...


more photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35165757@N ... 476016523/

Before you ask "Beek" has dibs on the old sway bar

[TulsaSpider]

Wow you don't mess about! Good luck and you are in the right place!

[beachboy]

Just a slight caution, The reference mark on the rear piston must be on the same side as the bleed valve. There are warnings and cautions in all the shop manual and books. Problem is that they all use the same drawing which is wrong, it shows it opposite the bleeder thus making them add the cautions.

[Fiat88]

Just a slight caution, The reference mark on the rear piston must be on the same side as the bleed valve. There are warnings and cautions in all the shop manual and books. Problem is that they all use the same drawing which is wrong, it shows it opposite the bleeder thus making them add the cautions.

In reference mark do you mean the inscribed line above the piston face? Like this?

[beachboy]

YES, the thin line is a reference that should be on the bleeder valve side of the piston, just as yours does.

[Twister]

Interesting, my manual (9/82) seems to contradict itself. First it says: Screw piston in all the way in, with mark "A" opposite bleed screw. Then a bit later is says CAUTION: Reference mark "A" must be on side of bleed screw or system cannot be bled properly and brake action will be irregular. The drawing shows reference mark "A" away from the bleed screw. I went with the old two out of three rule, I'll spin them around later in the week when I have the rear wheels off again to install the braided lines (at least it easy enough to fix). Looking further back a few pages there is a photo with the pad off and a note that specifies the reference line should be horizontal and on top with the caliper installed (ie: closest to bleeder). I guess opposite means "next to" in this case.

Anyway, I managed to loose a bunch of the day and only installed the front springs and finished up the fuel filter with new hose. Much of the day was spent breaking loose the brake lines and tweaking the rear sway bar. Forget the line wrenches they just spin on the nut; I wound up learning the hard way to get a good grip with medium vise-grips and then use a wrench on the fitting attached to the rubber line. There appears to be a white powder on the threads, possibly corrosion or perhaps thread locker?

Oh and just for giggles, I pulled the tie rods and center link off to replace them, and guess what: the idler arm is shot... Grrr more parts, more delay.

[BEEK]

corrosion most likely, no thread locker on brake lines. the line in the piston goes up, towards the bleeder side. there is a notch in the piston which allows the air bubbles to come out during bleeding.

[Twister]

good save... thanks all, I appreciate it. For some reason my brain reads opposite as away from, not next too. now I'll probably have to figure another reason the rear brakes were not working. The fluid was pretty black and the seals were toast though.

[BEEK]

when you press the pedal, which is firm , the calipers do not stop the wheels? if so the brake compensator is engaged or is clogged and not allowing fluid to go to the calipers, are you bleeding the brakes with the rear end hanging from the shocks or supported under the differential?

[Twister]

Well... the brake rebuild/upgrade began with a pedal that goes 80% to the floor before pressure builds. The last thing the previous owner did was replace the master cylinder, and I need to double check it yet. All the brake bleeding in the world would not improve it (axle was raised on jack stand and wheels off). To clarify, the axle was on two stands, parallel to the floor, the suspension was loaded, before being removed the tires were barely off the ground, the front end was not raised. I was using a vacuum bleeder. Somehow I am dubious of the benefit of braided lines when the line in question is only 6-8" but that's what folks seem to believe, anyway the lines are old and soft. I'll dig deeper once the new brake lines arrive. Another reason to upgrade: I like better brakes .

[Twister]

Took a few nights off, the steering idler and tie rods arrived today, along with rear diff seals (yet another project). I need to dig through the manual a bit before I get ahead of myself with them though. Also I would like to find a couple of nuts to weld around the middle of the tie rods to make adjusting easier. I did manage to get the front shocks installed. All I can say is thank goodness for 17mm crowsfoot wrenches (and ratcheting box ends). By Friday I should have the steering back together and hopefully the new brakes will arrive by then. Once the front-end is wrapped up I'll jack the rear up again, fix the brake piston orientation and install the new hoses. I'd really like to get it finished up on Saturday so I can take it for a short drive on Sunday. Next week I hope to get the injectors swapped out.

[Twister]

I decided to take it easy tonight, I cleaned up the front fender liners and installed the steering linkages. Tomorrow I will reconnect the stock brakes and bleed the system. The Whoa brakes arrived, but I'm waiting for the longer lug bolts yet. Here's a shot of the carpet I am hoping to find:

[Twister]

This evening I re-installed the stock front brake calipers (I need to get the car to the alignment shop). While the wheel liners were off (removed when I installed the new springs), I tried stripping the red over-spray off them using citri-strip. It took the paint off no problem but the plastic turned gray; just when I decided I'd need to order some plastic dye it went black again (shortly after I neutralized the stripper). Anyhow a quick rinse and wipe down with a plastic cleaner and it looks almost new. I cleaned the garage up a bit while waiting for the stripper to work, and pulled off some loose undercoating I found on the right floorboard, sanded some minor surface rust, primed and then sprayed some new undercoat to hold it temporarily. As near as I can figure there's about 300lbs of undercoat on this car, it must be factory as it's got the original paint on it. I also reinstalled the pan under the front of the engine and took it off the jack stands. It sure looks good with less empty space between the tires and the fender. Tomorrow, I'll get the rear brake lines swapped out and bleed the system and hopefully give it a test drive to the alignment shop. I've decided to hold off on swapping out the front sway-bar until I can fab up some spacers as John Ovington did http://www.ovingtonpaint.com/fiat/id4.html I also want to machine up some new brackets for the outer bushings as the stock ones and a stack of washers is definitely are not satisfactory with the 1" bar bushings.

[Twister]

I got the car rolling this weekend, the alignment is close (I could not get in the shop on Saturday) but it will be corrected Tuesday. I spent most of Saturday and Sunday buffing out the oxidized paint. I also removed the late 80's Clarion stereo and amp to make room for something a little more modern. The 3.5" speaker boxes in the rear are history and may not be replaced. I'll be reading the audio posts again tonight. If I can bring myself to drill holes in the floor pan, I might put together some sort of speaker box for the package shelf, but I don't want to loose the space, so it's not likely.

The Whoa brakes mounted more easily than I expected. I almost messed up the dust shields attempting to "clearance" them per the directions. They did not need any modification to clear the disks, just a little light bending by hand once they were on and there's gobs of room. I did bend the rear a bit to clear the brake caliper, but all it took was a crescent wrench.


I also started prepping the "new" GB injectors; I had read that I'd most likely need longer fuel lines, so I ordered the fuel line kit from Midwest Bayless. I'm glad I did...the lines that came on the injectors were 5/16" dia and about 3/4" short; if what I've read is true the 5/16" line they were equipped with would not have sealed correctly anyway. I hope to tackle replacing the injectors after I get the front brakes sorted later this week. I also have to replace the transmission and differential lubricants before I go more then a few miles as I do not trust the levels, or that the correct fluids were used.

[Twister]

OK here's a couple of questions about lighting:

Q #1: the Pininfarina Owners manual (dated 1984) calls for a 4002 headlight, but the 4002 spec is for 5" diameter, the headlights on my car are 7". Does anyone know which 7" bulb it takes?

A #1: They are H6024 bulbs. I wound up converting to Hella 002395031 Vision Plus 165mm H4 High/Low Beam Conversion Headlamp with 100/55W Halogen Bulbs.

Q #2: The Pininfarina wiring diagram add-in to the fiat shop manual (pg 3) shows two headlight relays (high and low) between the "lighting switch" and the headlights... this does not match up with what most folks cite here on the board. The relays are installed as shown (PG 13) and seem to work in conjunction with the high and low beams. Am I confused or are these really what they appear to be?

A #2: I checked with my meter and yep, there really are relays factory installed as shown in the Pininfarina wiring manual.