Fiat acquisition of Chrysler (in my driveway)

In reply to Mezzanine :

I laid under the car to have a look see and where you mounted your external pump looked like the only reasonable location. There isn’t a whole lot of space anywhere down there and almost none of it is straight.  I considered welding a bung at the bottom of the tank or using a bulkhead fitting but settled on a much more involved solution. 

Yes, things are a bit snug in that engine bay. My throttle body housing is actually cut down some right at that bulged area. I chopped off a vacuum Nipple and plugged the hole by tapping it and adding a countersink bolt. I have since picked up another throttle body from an automatic DOHC Neon (+3mm) and will have a look see about chopping some car away there while the tank is out.  

In reply to TED_fiestaHP :

The pump with hose fittings on both ends is exactly what I going with. And that action is going into the tank through the new addition (subtraction?) on the previous page. 

Neat! What's your confidence level like for getting the new panel to be leak free? Is there a specific fuel-safe gasket material you're using?

In reply to Mezzanine :

Medium confidence, I have only ever made a panel like this in the top of a tank before. It did work. The gasket material is one I have used successfully as a float bowl gasket. We shall see. 

Now things live in here. Panel cut from tank used as pump mount. 

It is hard to take pictures of this but the sender can come out if need be.  Hopefully that will be never. 

And I got to add another bike part; the bracket holding the hose to locate my Hydramat is a universal fit chain guard bracket. I have magnets on 2 corners as well. 

Many bicycle disc brake rotor bolts. They happen to be the right length, have button heads and cost $0.00. Plus they add T25 fancyness for my hatch. 

hopefully this will all work.  I may get a chance to test my custom tank and his weekend. Fingers crossed 

I have been quite busy with many non- Fiat projects lately but the “Extra-terra” just sold so I was able to dedicate an evening to the X1/9 and much goodness ensued. With a Viton seal installed the gas tank did not leak. Win! The correct combination of adapters and fittings allowed the fuel pressure regulator to do its thing and no leaks were happening. My new HF  pressure gauge allowed the fuel pressure to be adjusted to an appropriate amount and some coolant was added to the system until I ran out. 

A friend, former Co-worker, and fellow bicycle frame builder came over and we proceeded to connect masses of multi colored spaghetti to the engine bay.

There was a bit of confusion because of my inaccurate Neon Hotwire notes but after tracing a few wires we were on the right track! 

Top right should be bottom left,  oops.   Any way, we traced a couple of wires and got that all sorted out and made this Frankensteininnin beast run. 

https://youtu.be/qYO-ipRFqgA

It’s been almost an entire year since the Fiat driveline came out so this feels so good!

Sorry about the not embed, not my forte 

Argh! The video was private, fixed I think, sorry about that.  

Awesome, congrats!

Sick!!! I've got to get jamming on ours!

This got chopped out. 

And for whatever reason, the Fiat starter solenoid wire doesn’t have the juice to actually make the starter go so I repurposed the A/C relay to be triggered by the Fiat solenoid wire. I did a similar thing for the other 12v key on systems. So now two Fiat trigger wires are all that is required to run the Neon engine, fuel pump & cooling fan. 

For the first time in ever I am actually enjoying the wiring part of my car project. It is really nice to be splicing soldering and heat shrinking NOT laying half in a vehicle crammed up under the dash. 

Cleaned up a bit more this evening. Pulled apart some connectors and de-pinned some wires that had been previously chopped out. I feel fairly sure that the PCM and relay box are destined to live in the trunk but I filled the empty spaces with some liquid electrical tape anyway. 

Can anyone here help me with a suggestion? I have a fuel Filter issue. I would like to use an OEM filter commonly and cheaply available at parts stores that has 5/16” inlet and outlet for regular hose and can handle EFI fuel pressure. I would prefer to avoid adapters and so far the one I found, e30 BMW, is just too darn big. Please let me know if you have a suggestion. 

You want barbs, or is flare cool? Barbs tend to be tough to find due to the pressures involved with efi.

Flare: gmt400

Barb: miata

An-6 edelbrock makes a cleanable

And to be completely honest, if you have an intank pump or hydramat, an inline fuel filter is pretty much extra weight and failure points.

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

Thanks! I will run it as is, makes things nice and easy. 

Things have been progressing on this project. The wiring is nearly done. Or perhaps I should say “done enough to start and potentially drive.” 

The ECU and relay box have a cozy new home and I re-pinned a Neon plug to allow removal of the  Neon systems without cutting any wires since it looks like there is some trunk rust repair in my future. 

With the wiring at a good stopping point I moved on to the accelerator cable. 

After measuring the cable pull of the pedal and the TB I chopped down the pedal arm to length, welded it back together and added a piece of a bicycle brake lever to pull on the 3500mm stainless MTB cable. I also folded the cotter pin after the picture, just so no one has to feel unsettled. The other end terminates with a pinch bolt style barrel from a dropper post (more bike parts) and has a backup cable stop made from a touring bike cable coupler for my peace of mind. Throttle = sorted. 

Next on sub-project list was clutch. I needed a hose from my Fiat hardline to my pull-slave. The Fiat has a metric bubble flare but it apparently has 1/4”patriotism hardline so a quick cut and a compression fitting with an NPT female gets me into parts store territory. And... I have no picture of this thing. It looks like a hydraulic hose because it is one. I took a video, but I cannot imagine that it is really thrilling for anyone else to watch a clutch slave move a few times.  Oreilley’s made it for me twice because they over crimped it the first time and it made me feel like I was loosing my mind trying to bleed the system with a clogged hose.  

So: It starts and can rev with the long pedal. The clutch can engage and disengage. I have the  shifting rods and cables. The last thing keeping it from moving under its own power is axles. I measured with my dummy axles and have lengths. 

For good or ill, I do plan to weld them. I would love to hear from anyone that has done this successfully. Open to ideas and this is uncharted territory for me. 

Running and driving! More to follow 

GoLucky said:

Running and driving! More to follow 

AWESOME !

You've moved pretty steady on this.  Well done sir!

This Friday I had some free time so I played with the Fiat. It was going really well, one of the rare times when I actually got more accomplished than I expected.  Wiring the fan led to cutting the axles and sleeves which led straight into welding them. Might as well grease up the cv’s and get the boots on. Is it really possible to drive this car? Yep. It is not really done in any sense, no speedo or hood or bulbs on the instrument cluster. Sure, the struts are blown and the swingarm bushings are shot but for right now I am super pleased that after a year of off and on project mode the Fiat can be driven around. 

I almost forgot how low it is since it has been on jack stands for the last 12 or 13 months. It has a temporary intake and filter straight up and out of where the hood will eventually go.  

The first gentle spin around the block went well and from then on I have been basically hooning the E36 M3 out of this thing and smiling like a goon. It is way faster. It sounds great. NVH? Yes to all in great quantities. There are still so many things that will need to be addressed but for right now it feels good to have reached another stage in the project. A very brief clip from a closed course nearby. https://youtu.be/TDo23ty0DbQ

Bitchin! I bet it feels pretty good with the injection of extra horsepowers

Some project progress has been made. The wheels that came on the car are truly horrible and wrong in every possible way including the pcd. They are also shod in some astoundingly bad tires from the junkyard that actually say “do not sell” on them.   3 hold air for 5+ days. Yuck! 

Bought some new el-cheapo Federal tires

and got my wheels from the machine shop, drilled for 4x98mm

I took them to a friends place and mounted them up and presto:

les cringy. I had to get some longer lug bolts from Midwest-Bayless and ended up cutting them all down slightly. The previously installed studs did not all want to be removed and I ended up bandsawing the old lug nuts and welding the open half to the stud and impact gunning them out. Quite a bit of work so far to use these junkyard alloys. I am also not crazy about the “dual pattern” so... 

more bike parts! These are 10-speed handlebar end caps and were free from the decades of random clutter hoarding at the shop. Now we just need some center caps. 

I also got some rear struts because the old ones were the most blown out junk I have ever seen. I should have replaced them before even driving around at all.  These were $50/per on Rock Auto  and now the back of the car is not a trampoline 

I did run into an issue apparently there are 2 different struts that X1/9s came with and this car had one of each.

the difference is that one has a step on the end of the shaft and so the aluminum volcano washer does not go on. Drill press action for a temporary solution. 

The interior also got some love. Before:  

And after:

 I sewed this and I am by no means an upholstery expert but it makes me less want to eye vomit than the old one. I would love to have an industrial machine, which is what I learned to sew on. Instead I used our daughters entry level Bernette and boy howdy it was not a bit happy about the doubled thickness of the vinyl and scrim foam!  The screws now hold on the panel because every single weirdo Italian clip was broken or missing and, well, I just would rather use screws anyway especially when the clips are $60 to replace. Screw it! 

Today this happened:because the dashboard is awful and the blower fan motor shrieks. 

Exploded view of the blower motor. 

Since it made noise anyway I figured that it should come apart and maybe there would be a bearing that could be replaced. (And if not scrap bucket) A pleasant surprise about this job is that the motor comes apart with clips; no drilling or cutting required.  As it turns out they have a spherical bushing and it was just bone dry. With a dab of grease on both ends it seemed like a win. 13mm 1/4” drive deep socket in photo is being used to hold back the brushes to re-insert the spinny bit. The red wire on the background is a spare scrap I pulled through the internal routing when I removed the motor from the housing. It serves as a reassembly aid; tape the wires to the one that already is routed and pull them all through. 

Works and is quiet again. Dash is still crap. 

I don’t know exactly how to proceed with this.  Filler and stretch vinyl? Chuck it in the trash and bend some alloy? What say y’all? I’m open to suggestions. 

Personally I like the idea of a filler and an attempt to recover- not for the savings, but because I like things that clearly have been loved and repaired. That's just me tho.

Excellent progress here!

That dash is going to be tough...I'd be worried that it would continue to develop more cracks and failures, so I would personally hold out for a better one and fill/vinyl over it.

If that's not in the cards, then...maybe carve away as much of the damaged bits as you can and then fill and shape with expanding foam? Is there a metal backer under the factory foam and vinyl? If there is, I might be tempted to remove all the foam and just vinyl over the base metal. But that could get really weird on the edges. I have a similar quandary with my X.