850 Sedan Brake Fluid reservoirs...

[fiatrn]

I am wondering if anyone here has an 850 Sedan, and if so, could they post a photo of the brake fluid reservoirs?

I have a '71, and the car came to me with two small cube-shaped reservoirs. They had exit nipples that pointed straight down, which wasn't the best fit but worked well - plus they had larger caps that stock, so I could hook a pressure bleeder to them. They worked great until the exit nipple on one recently cracked, which drooled brake fluid out of hte system.

Originals seem to be a pair of oddly rectangular reservoirs that have the exit nipple slanted. I have obtained a pair of these, and they do not fit in my Sedan. I can abuse them into the general area, but then one of the caps (which are about the size of a quarter!) get jammed against the sheetmetal and can not be removed.

 

[Jeff Stich]

The Sedan reservoir is the same as the Coupe/Spider unit. There's an early type (single reservoir) & a late type (tandem reservoirs connected by a hose). All 850 brake fluid reservoirs have the exit port pointing down at a slight angle. The exit port fits into a hole in the bodywork with an elongated, U-shaped spring-clip holding the reservoir in place from underneath (clip goes inside the car, under the dash).

Early: https://www.ebay.com/itm/322062057347

Late: https://www.ebay.com/itm/173639697426

Here's the late 850 Sedan brake setup your car should have:



It sounds to me like the cube-shaped fluid reservoirs you currently have are from a similar-year 124 Spider.

 

[fiatrn]

Jeff - thank you for the info and insight.

What I purchased and tried to fit matches your Early link. Since my 1971 car has a dual circuit master cylinder, I tried use Two of these, squeezed into the cowl, and they simply don't fit.

I assume the Late style is thinner, and that's how Fiat fit them side-by-side.

The reservoirs that were on the car do indeed appear to be early-70s 124 Spider, as you suspected. I have sourced a replacement. I also attempted to fit a dual-chamber reservoir (also 124 Spider), but it was too tall.

Here is a photo of the two Early style reservoirs failling to fit in the cowl space. They are not aligned with the holes for the hose-to-the-master, but rest assured aligning them does not solve the problem - which is front-rear depth. I can't imagine how tiny the Late styles must be to fit in that area side-by-side.

Hopefully someone with a working 850 can post a photo - at least so we can have a thread with the proper setups documented (rather than my oddball solution)

 

[bruakeman]

FWIW 73 850 Spider.

 

[kmead]

The units should poke the rigid nipple through the hole in the scuttle, not have the units hovering in the scuttle with the rubber hoses visible.

 

[Jeff Stich]

What I purchased and tried to fit matches your Early link. Since my 1971 car has a dual circuit master cylinder, I tried use Two of these, squeezed into the cowl, and they simply don't fit. I assume the Late style is thinner, and that's how Fiat fit them side-by-side.

Yes, the later tandem reservoirs are definitely smaller/narrower than the early single one. The early reservoir was shared with a few other European Fiat models (500, 126, 600E/Zastava/etc.), so new repros are available, but for the later 850 type you'll often have to find good used ones, instead. Get the correct parts & you'll be fine.

Note that there should also be a large, flat rubber ring (thick gasket) fitted between each reservoir & the car body to keep rainwater from entering the car under the dashboard.

 

[fiatrn]

Thanks for all the information and for the photo of the Spider.

Clearly the spider has a lot more room than the Sedan.

It is astounding how small those connected-dual reservoirs are!

 

[tomnj]

This brings up the reason they are all different. Three 850 variants designed by 3 different people/design houses. All masterpieces.

850 Spider - Bertone
850 Sedan - Dante Giacosa
850 Coupe - Mario Buano

Although I have just the 850 coupe, my 1100 Sedan was a Dante Giacosa design and my Alfa GTV is Bertone. So I own cars from all 3 of the masters.

 

[Jeff Stich]

This brings up the reason they are all different. Three 850 variants designed by 3 different people/design houses. All masterpieces.

850 Spider - Bertone
850 Sedan - Dante Giacosa
850 Coupe - Mario Buano

Although I have just the 850 coupe, my 1100 Sedan was a Dante Giacosa design and my Alfa GTV is Bertone. So I own cars from all 3 of the masters.

Replace "Bertone" with "Giorgetto Giugiaro", & Felice's last name was Boano.

 

[fiatrn]

Today I fitted two Non-850 reservoirs to my '71 Sedan. These are early 124 Spider individual reservoirs - which is how the car came to me but is clearly not original. However, they are much larger than the stock twin reservoirs, and they should allow me to fit my pressure bleeder (ran out of warmth today, and haven't designed garage heat yet, so did not get to bleeding the system).

My '71 uses and was clearly designed for a twin input master cylinder. It has two holes stamped (?) into the scuttle.

I've had this twin reservoir setup since I bought the car years ago, but it was recently troublesome when one reservoir's drain nipple broked, and the other's rubber hose crimped and cracked. To (hopefully) prevent this from happening again, I bent the drain nipples: I placed a thick solid copper wire into the outlet hole (to prevent from accidentally bending the outlet closed), then put the reservoir in boiling water for a couple minutes. Once it seemed good and hot, I used two sets of needlenose pliers to bend the outputs so that they are "aimed" at the holes in the scuttle.

They were much easier to install after this modification (to a modification), so here's hoping it works out.