fiatrn
Jonathan is the FiatRN
This last weekend I took my first drive in the 86 X I bought. I live in Colorado, the car was in NJ, and it went to my friend in Pennsylvania for some low grade refubishment. (here: https://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/86-bertone-for-sale.44699/#post-433330) After a 15 mile test flog on some curvy roads near Allentown PA, everything seemed ok, so I headed out to NJ.
I made it three miles before the car stalled.
I pulled to the side of the road, and found that the fuel line from the fuel rail to the cold start injector had unhooked itself at the fuel rail. It looked like the factory metal collet had undone. The line looked new. I thought my friend had replaced the hoses, so I was a little baffled, but... she picked me up some hose clamps, I reclamped the hose at the side of the road and was off to NJ! How this did not result in the destruction of the X1/9 is a testament to the low flammabiity of liquid gasoline ! And luck.
I drove down eastern PA along the Delaware River, through lovely small towns and over fun curvy roads, to cross the river at Washington's Crossing. Jonathan Crossing the Delaware was not immortalizied in a painting like when Washington did it, but fun to return to my home state none the less. I did some highway miles into NJ and spent a few days visiting Mom, where i shined the car up a little more one afternoon. It still won't win awards for paint, but a couple coats of spray wax should at least keep it safer and it did make it look presentable.
I bought this car off an member here, who hadn't used it much in the last few years. My friend in PA did a bunch of work, replaced the seive of a radiator, and swapped on some new tires. Everything seemed funcitonal except the radio - it has a cassette deck, but I had no cassettes. And it turned out the antenna is not wired up, so even listening to radio wasn't happening.
The car came with the original owner's manual in a little branded Bertone pouch. What I found baffling was that the pouch really doesn't fit into the glove box, unless I am willing to really fold/roll up the manual. An odd conundrum. The manual went with me on the trip but was never necessary.
Next on the adventure agenda was picking my girlfriend up at Newark airport, and then driving to Boston for the marathon weekend. After a small stint on i95 in southern CT we stopped for lunch, and when we got out of the car it smelled like gasoline. No fumes inside, just outside, I was unable to locate a fuel leak, even with the fuel pump running and the engine off. It just smelled like a fuel leak. This made me uncomfortable, but I couldn't locate any badness and it was a Saturday afternoon, so no shops were open. Onward, but off the interstate and onto smaller roads for a more fun X drive through CT, RI and into southern Mass. It used only one tank of gas from NJ to Boston, carrying two people, luggage, and doing plenty of highway miles.
Monday afternoon I fueled up in Dedham and the fuel smell was back. This time I found a tiny pinhol leak in one injector supply hose. I guess my friends didn't notice them underneath the manifold when they did the other fuel lines. Luckily I had a bag of parts in the trunk (the accelerator cable just in case, a clutch hose, and those 5 small short fuel hoses) that contained the fuel hose. I noted two things - one, that the hose to the cold start injector was newer but different than the hoses I had suppllied my friends, and two that the injector lines looked 'weepy'. I could only find one tiny pinhole leak in injector hose number 2, but the other ones looked bad. So in the darkness of an April evening I pulled half the manifold while my family helped me with lights and tools and a trip to the store to nab some hose clamps. It really wasn't a hard job, and having quality precut fuel hoses from Midwest really helped speed the process along. I determined that the line to the cold start injector hadn't been changed by my friends - they told me later it looked new so they left it, not realizing there were the lines under the manifold and not realizing that the collet wasn't in good shape. I guess the previous owner had swapped that One line but it didn't hold. They had done all the main, easily visible fuel supply and return lines.
With the fuel lines all fixed for real now, the car continued to work basically flawlessly. It has been a long time since I drove an X1/9 - - maybe 15 years, and that last one was a '74. I found this car delightful and fun, with much better power. The steering is excellent, the car is comfortable. Sound with the roof on is decent, with the roof off is considerabbly better than expected and less than the wind noise in my 124 top down. The 1500 makes far more power than I expected, though I do live at a mile high and everything is slower here. This X has an aftermarket cam and headers and a PBS light flywheel, and with the stock air intake system in place it's pretty quiet with just enough "music" but no drone. The 1500 is so so smooth - a veritable sewing machine. it has some sort of 'short shifter' that worked great and had none of the vagueness I remember from other Xs i drove when I worked on Fiats for a living in the late 1990s.
Even though I drive small cars (a 124, an 850 sedan), the X is astoundingly tiny in the modern world. Driving on i95 I often felt invisible. Stopped at a light in NJ I marvelled at a giant car next to me that turned out to be a subaru crosstrek. Everything seems gigantic - but also, everything seems absurdly large bc the X feels fine as a driver and only small in comparison to the cars around it. It feels like it is as big as it needs to be.
My girlfriend took all of this madness with aplomb. Despite 5 years together, we've never road tripped in the 124. We did take the Lancia Delta on a long trip from CO through southwestern Utah. But despite being only 3 years newer, the Delta is a world apart in the feeling of modernity compared to the Bertone. The X is a bit more raw and a little harsher in ride, nvh, etc, plus down on power (what isn't down on power of the same vintage as a Delta?). I think she went into it wondering why I would choose to drive 800 miles in a 38 year old car rather than fly direct to Boston, but then she did seem to see the adventure side of it by the time we were back, albeit the risk of immolation was disconcerting to her.
I left the car in my friend's garage in Nazareth. She'll drive it for fun, and I'll use it on my next visit back east - perhaps this summer. Eventually I'll bring it out to Colorado.
I made it three miles before the car stalled.
I pulled to the side of the road, and found that the fuel line from the fuel rail to the cold start injector had unhooked itself at the fuel rail. It looked like the factory metal collet had undone. The line looked new. I thought my friend had replaced the hoses, so I was a little baffled, but... she picked me up some hose clamps, I reclamped the hose at the side of the road and was off to NJ! How this did not result in the destruction of the X1/9 is a testament to the low flammabiity of liquid gasoline ! And luck.
I drove down eastern PA along the Delaware River, through lovely small towns and over fun curvy roads, to cross the river at Washington's Crossing. Jonathan Crossing the Delaware was not immortalizied in a painting like when Washington did it, but fun to return to my home state none the less. I did some highway miles into NJ and spent a few days visiting Mom, where i shined the car up a little more one afternoon. It still won't win awards for paint, but a couple coats of spray wax should at least keep it safer and it did make it look presentable.
I bought this car off an member here, who hadn't used it much in the last few years. My friend in PA did a bunch of work, replaced the seive of a radiator, and swapped on some new tires. Everything seemed funcitonal except the radio - it has a cassette deck, but I had no cassettes. And it turned out the antenna is not wired up, so even listening to radio wasn't happening.
The car came with the original owner's manual in a little branded Bertone pouch. What I found baffling was that the pouch really doesn't fit into the glove box, unless I am willing to really fold/roll up the manual. An odd conundrum. The manual went with me on the trip but was never necessary.
Next on the adventure agenda was picking my girlfriend up at Newark airport, and then driving to Boston for the marathon weekend. After a small stint on i95 in southern CT we stopped for lunch, and when we got out of the car it smelled like gasoline. No fumes inside, just outside, I was unable to locate a fuel leak, even with the fuel pump running and the engine off. It just smelled like a fuel leak. This made me uncomfortable, but I couldn't locate any badness and it was a Saturday afternoon, so no shops were open. Onward, but off the interstate and onto smaller roads for a more fun X drive through CT, RI and into southern Mass. It used only one tank of gas from NJ to Boston, carrying two people, luggage, and doing plenty of highway miles.
Monday afternoon I fueled up in Dedham and the fuel smell was back. This time I found a tiny pinhol leak in one injector supply hose. I guess my friends didn't notice them underneath the manifold when they did the other fuel lines. Luckily I had a bag of parts in the trunk (the accelerator cable just in case, a clutch hose, and those 5 small short fuel hoses) that contained the fuel hose. I noted two things - one, that the hose to the cold start injector was newer but different than the hoses I had suppllied my friends, and two that the injector lines looked 'weepy'. I could only find one tiny pinhole leak in injector hose number 2, but the other ones looked bad. So in the darkness of an April evening I pulled half the manifold while my family helped me with lights and tools and a trip to the store to nab some hose clamps. It really wasn't a hard job, and having quality precut fuel hoses from Midwest really helped speed the process along. I determined that the line to the cold start injector hadn't been changed by my friends - they told me later it looked new so they left it, not realizing there were the lines under the manifold and not realizing that the collet wasn't in good shape. I guess the previous owner had swapped that One line but it didn't hold. They had done all the main, easily visible fuel supply and return lines.
With the fuel lines all fixed for real now, the car continued to work basically flawlessly. It has been a long time since I drove an X1/9 - - maybe 15 years, and that last one was a '74. I found this car delightful and fun, with much better power. The steering is excellent, the car is comfortable. Sound with the roof on is decent, with the roof off is considerabbly better than expected and less than the wind noise in my 124 top down. The 1500 makes far more power than I expected, though I do live at a mile high and everything is slower here. This X has an aftermarket cam and headers and a PBS light flywheel, and with the stock air intake system in place it's pretty quiet with just enough "music" but no drone. The 1500 is so so smooth - a veritable sewing machine. it has some sort of 'short shifter' that worked great and had none of the vagueness I remember from other Xs i drove when I worked on Fiats for a living in the late 1990s.
Even though I drive small cars (a 124, an 850 sedan), the X is astoundingly tiny in the modern world. Driving on i95 I often felt invisible. Stopped at a light in NJ I marvelled at a giant car next to me that turned out to be a subaru crosstrek. Everything seems gigantic - but also, everything seems absurdly large bc the X feels fine as a driver and only small in comparison to the cars around it. It feels like it is as big as it needs to be.
My girlfriend took all of this madness with aplomb. Despite 5 years together, we've never road tripped in the 124. We did take the Lancia Delta on a long trip from CO through southwestern Utah. But despite being only 3 years newer, the Delta is a world apart in the feeling of modernity compared to the Bertone. The X is a bit more raw and a little harsher in ride, nvh, etc, plus down on power (what isn't down on power of the same vintage as a Delta?). I think she went into it wondering why I would choose to drive 800 miles in a 38 year old car rather than fly direct to Boston, but then she did seem to see the adventure side of it by the time we were back, albeit the risk of immolation was disconcerting to her.
I left the car in my friend's garage in Nazareth. She'll drive it for fun, and I'll use it on my next visit back east - perhaps this summer. Eventually I'll bring it out to Colorado.
)
