Preparing For Dallara Body Kit

Your energy level amazes me. After the serpentine belt conversion work, the 1600 development, the adaptation of the LH2.4 system (with the associated blown head gaskets), as well as your other mods and now this amazing body work, I can't believe that you are ready to chuck all of that to do a Honda engine swap. :eek: Don't you just want to stand back, admire it and drive it for a while? :)
 
I was going to say the same thing.
Do you work on this car 10 hours every day?
Your progress is like mine but on the fast forward button.
 
Your energy level amazes me. After the serpentine belt conversion work, the 1600 development, the adaptation of the LH2.4 system (with the associated blown head gaskets), as well as your other mods and now this amazing body work, I can't believe that you are ready to chuck all of that to do a Honda engine swap. :eek: Don't you just want to stand back, admire it and drive it for a while? :)

While the performance is MUCH better than stock, I feel the body deserves a more powerful plant. I can offer the 1600/LH/EZK for sale as a complete drop in, there's probably someone who would like it :D I also now need to sell the SH rebuilt trans I bought....

Adding pic of car since current page has none, and I like to look at it as much as possible :)

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Holy S*%@ smooth it is! You wet sounded all the paint through that step process then 4 levels of polish on the paint or clear? You're nuts! Are you some kind of android?

I'll be spraying metallic lime green and I'm hoping with the metallic that what you did won't be necessary for my X to shine. I don't think I have that kind of fortitude and I'm meticulous.
 
Holy S*%@ smooth it is! You wet sounded all the paint through that step process then 4 levels of polish on the paint or clear? You're nuts! Are you some kind of android?

I'll be spraying metallic lime green and I'm hoping with the metallic that what you did won't be necessary for my X to shine. I don't think I have that kind of fortitude and I'm meticulous.

It's a small car, it doesn't take that many days to get through it. I actually still need to do the hood & trunk, I've been putting those off :D
 
Finished up the wiper mod & added plastic push pins to hold the door seals down in the corners, similar to the original. Without the, water seems to accumulate in the seal, and squirts into the cabin when the door is closed :D Hopefully, this will allow water to run off.

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Volvo splined shaft end being welded onto the Fiat shaft

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Edit: 17" main blade
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Copied the 500 on the angled PS blade. With the windshield contour, the longer [EDIT] (15") blade hangs out over curve otherwise. May need to switch to 13" for the right side.

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Wiper arms are from 1990's Volvo 240 series, bent to suit. They are normally straight, like the originals. The advantage to 'doglegging' them is that the (driver's side) arm is less in the field of vision
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Two parts to the washer nozzle: plastic retainer grommet that fits in the cowl, and nozzle itself

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Nice mod. Any pics of it near the end of sweep?

Nice Volvo part use, not many 240s left in my neck of the woods.

I have gone to much longer wipers on mine and actually have them slightly overlap at rest with one spline of up tilt for the drivers wiper arm. I may go back to one length shorter.
 
Nice mod. Any pics of it near the end of sweep?

Nice Volvo part use, not many 240s left in my neck of the woods.

I have gone to much longer wipers on mine and actually have them slightly overlap at rest with one spline of up tilt for the drivers wiper arm. I may go back to one length shorter.

This is full sweep. I switched to 2 17" blades.

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I do have a question - I didn't note the original park position of the wiper motor arm. I've moved it somewhat, but I still have a slight (momentary) downward pull of the blades before they travel up the windshield. Obviously I'd like to remove that :D

This is mine parked:

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The short arm on the motor and the long arm to the wiper should be lined up over each other. That will eliminate the down motion.
 
So does the motor run clockwise or counter clockwise? (I don’t think I have ever watched it run on mine)

If CCW then you need to move it up CCW one to two splines at the motor so it is at or near the 3 o’clock position.

If CW then its not clear, could you have inadvertantly welded the head off by a few degrees?

The sweep looks great. A shame it can’t be a bit more acute at the A pillar, ie parallel to the pillar but it will be good.

If you shortened the drivers side arm could that wiper be longer still? IE a half inch shorter arm would allow an 18 wiper to sweep deeper in front the IP without going much higher towards the header and only nominally near the other wiper at rest.
 
Thanks for the reference point Rodger.

An 18" blade would work with a shorter arm, that is what I used with the stock arm, which is only about a foot if I recall correctly. It covers line-of-sight as is, so no real benefit to playing with it further, however, I will try bending another arm more acutely to shorten overall length & try the 18" blade again :D

Looking at the motor, the arm travels CCW.

EDIT: to answer the orientation question, since I welded the tips onto the driveshaft, the clocking of the arms does not come into play. When they are reassembled, the respective levers only have to point in the correct direction of travel. When they are all connected together to the motor, they are automatically set correctly, relative to the drive.
It is only the wiper motor arm that sets the arc of travel(which is the part I didn't get right). The wiper blade arms are simply placed on the transmissions when the proper arc of travel is set .
 
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Pondering adding the original Bertone emblem on the spoiler
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Reset the wiper pivot arm, and repositioned the arms accordingly. That’s all good now.
Played with the DS wiper arm - took another and bent it further to reduce overall length
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This gave me a smidge of clearance for an 18” blade at the tip of the arc, but the blade holder will strike the molding in practice, so needs further tweaking.

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So I bent it a little more to gain an additional 1/4” or so
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View driving, this is now with 18” DS 17” PS blades.
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Dealing with water ingress issues. Still have to figure out where it's passing in between the windshield frame seal & targa, but more is coming in around the DS fixed glass, and the glass/B pillar seal. I put towels on the sill/seat edge & behind the seat to soak up the rain water. We've had much rain recently, so it has been a bit of a PITA keeping on top of it. At least it only comes in when the rain is really heavy, light rain is OK.

I ordered 20' of the bulb seal discussed in the targa/weatherseal thread, I'm only going to change the DS seal for now, the PS seems to be fine.

The other place water is coming in is around the door release handles & behind the door card. I realized I forgot to put the water shields back when I re-assembled the doors. I used the old ones as templates to make new ones from heavyweight plastic sheet. Took a couple hours to take the doors apart again to get the sheild in place behind the sheet metal, lipped over the top edge under the inner scraper molding.

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Hussein!

I guess I forgot to pay my dues as I have been out of this loop for awhile. BEAUTIFUL WORK... love all the detailing you did as well.

BTW... those windshield wipers... just what are they used for anyway? I took mine off and stored them in the truck to rot...
 
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