Reviving a 1973 X1/9 Art Car

[JTBernhardt]

May 2020, After waiting over a decade for the opportunity to buy these cars, the owner, Jerry, finally agreed to sell them thanks to his home owners insurance threatening to drop his policy for having too many cars.

One is a 1974 X1/9 the previous owner bought brand new in 1974 and took Italian delivery of the car, followed F1 all over Europe in 1974 and imported the car back to the US. More on this car later when I have a chance to work on it...

The other is a clone of the 1974 Jerry bought new. I guess the story on the car is that he saw an ad for a 1.6 PBS Stroker engine along with 12 (this number changes sometimes...) other X1/9's. He tried buying just the engine but ended up having to take all the X1/9's along with the engine. He planned on parting them all out, but when he saw that one was a 1973 he decided to save it. It was titled as a '73 (year first sold 1974), built 11/73 with a vin ending in 07985. He fixed some rust in the floor, installed the 1.6 PBS stroker engine (based on the 1.5L) and a five speed. He custom made the air cleaner by modifying a Datsun 240z air cleaner. The rain gutter was removed from the engine cover, and a hole was cut in the cover so that the air cleaner was exposed. He surrounded it in hand-bent aluminum and claims the way it's set up allows more airflow to the carburetors. He had the car repainted with the same racing stripes as his 1974 because he thought it'd be cool to have clones. The car had snow tires fitted to Cromodora CD4's in the rear and he only used the car to get his mail in the winter when it snowed.

Picking the car up was quite an adventure in itself. I started by swapping the old rotten tires out for a set with good tires. I bled the brakes and clutch, changed out some rotten fuel lines, and the car started right up. I went to go bleed the radiator and the bleed screw snapped off, ****. I stole the radiator out of the other X1/9 and got the car running again with a correctly bled coolant system. After fighting off three hornets nests, I loaded my tools and the spare parts into the car, and headed back 120 miles to San Francisco. I was cruising along highway 37 and noticed the driver's mirror wiggling, so I put my hand out the window and caught it right as it fell. Other than that, the drive to San Francisco was uneventful, but god damn did I have a big smile the whole time.

 

[JTBernhardt]

June 2nd, 2020:

I decided to document the car as it was before doing anything to it. A few more hornets nests were found while doing this, hornets and all.

 

[JTBernhardt]

More initial pictures:

 

[JTBernhardt]

After an initial clean up I swapped out the accelerator pumps in the DCNF's, changed the lollipop linkage, and then loaned the car to a friend of mine who showed it at a local Cars and Coffee event. There was a strong smell of fuel coming from the car at the event, so they ended up having to take the air cleaner off and found that one of the banjo bolts on the DCNF's fuel inlets was loose and leaking. The fun didn't end there though! The brand new lollipop linkage snapped off on him while he was driving home. He ended up having to book a flatbed through AAA. While waiting a "nice" local cop gave him a warning for the broken windshield rather than a fix-it ticket. Whoopsie!

I found two more Cromodora CD4's from Ebay Italy so now I have a set of five CD4's and a set of four CD3's with hubcaps. My plan was to use the CD4's on this car and the CD3's on the other car.

I also found a set of correct early model targa grills and repainted them.

 

[JTBernhardt]

September 9th, 2020.

The sun didn't rise in the Bay area due to forest fire smoke. What a strange day...

The next day I started working on the interior clean-up. I started by removing the late-model seats and cleaning the carpets thoroughly. I then installed a set of NOS 1974 X1/9 seat belts to replace the non-functional 3-point belts that were fitted. I installed an Abarth steering wheel and made a shift knob to match by sacrificing one of those old Fiat shift knobs and gluing an Abarth crest in it's place. I tried to remove the old shift knob, and discovered that it was a strangely modified early shifter. I took the liberty to remove the aftermarket third brake light while I was in there, and swapped the real leather seats from the '74 into this car. I might as well use the nice seats in the running car.

 

[JTBernhardt]

Detailing time! I started by removing the front grill and dropping the radiator to remove the front bumpers. I then removed the rear bumper and set them all aside to be refurbished. I removed any plastic trim that could be removed. I power-washed the entire car, engine an all to remove as much grime as possible before polishing the car.

It was pretty clear that this wasn't the best paint job in the world after just the wash. There was pealing clear-coat, some rust bubbles here and there, orange peel, runs, and paint flaking off, exposing the original yellow below.

For the detail I started with a gentle clay bar, then some light color-sanding to knock back some of the decaying clear coat. I followed that up with a compounding and polishing using a Rupes polisher and Meguiar's professional line compound and polish. After that I applied an enamel coat, offered by AMMO NYC, which has to cure overnight. The next morning I put on the top two layers of wax by hand, also AMMO NYC products. It took me about 20 hours to finish.

I painted most of the black trim semi-gloss black as well. I find that is pops a bit more than the matte black. The mirrors were taken completely apart, brought back to bare metal, and then primed and painted.

I installed some NOS red rear turn signals and amber front turn signals.

After some reassembly I took the car to it's second Cars and Coffee despite it's lack of bumpers. It drew a lot of attention from the crowd and I even managed to get the car sideways leaving the event thanks to the mini-van tires I put on it temporarily.

Here's a video of my car at the event:

 

[JTBernhardt]

February 1, 2021

It's time to un-**** the rear trunk and tail light wiring. I cleaned the headlight recesses, cleaned the bulb holders, replaced the bulbs, polished the lenses, and reinstalled the tail lights. I also drilled the holes required for fitting the correct rear license plate lamps and I fixed the wiring to make them work again. I decided to leave the chrome added by the previous owner.

It was time to rebuild the 40 DCNF carburetors. Note that I replaced the throttle shaft bearings with improved sealed bearings that don't require greasing at every oil change. These are offered by Pierce Manifolds for a reasonable cost.

The new sealed bearing.

I refurbished the bumpers and the custom 240z air cleaner as well. I sanded the sharper edges and rough welds down on the air cleaner so it looks more finished. I stripped the bumpers and air cleaner of all the old paint and rust, painted them in several layers of self etching primer, then I sanded them down. a bit and primed them in black (in case of rock chips) before applying a semi-gloss black finish on top. I have bumpers again!

Now that I have the car running relatively well I took it to Sutro Bath ruins in San Francisco to drink a well deserved latte and read.

 

[JTBernhardt]

February 23-24, 2021
Suspension, Steering, and Brakes.

The front suspension was a wash of broken components. The shocks were blown and warping the shock tower mount, the brake lines were cracked. The front wheel bearings were shot. Even the radius rods were bent. I'm still not exactly sure what was wrong with the steering rack, but sometimes the car would randomly change direction after making a tight turn. The rear suspension seemed okay.

I replaced the radius rods along with the inner and outer radius rod bushing. The inner bushings required boiling and some light lubrication to make pliable enough to install into the radius rod front mount. I replaced both front control arms since the ball joints in the others had a lot of play. I opted to install rebuilt late-model front spindles and a rebuilt later steering rack with new ball joints, but the axle grease boots were torn and needed to be replaced.

Thanks to a supply chain shortage on single adjustable Koni coil overs, I was offered the last set of double-adjustable Koni's from Midwest Bayless (at the time) at a slight discount. I installed new upper mounts (I feel very lucky to have found a set!) paired with Bigfoot strut top reinforcements. I was able to correct the warping in the shock towers with a few minutes of body work per side. Sometimes it's nice to hit something with a hammer repeatedly.

All the brake components were stripped and painted in a semi-gloss black to prevent rust, but mostly because I like my cars clean. I replaced the soft brake lines and installed new calipers (which I decided to polish). The brake wedges were polished to a chrome-like finish and properly greased. For rotors and pads I decided to give EBC's slotted direction rotors and greenstuff pads a try. I've been using greenstuff pads for years, but I've experienced some brake fade due to heat on some of more curvaceous mountain roads in my '75 X1/9. Hopefully the new rotors will help with that issue.

I was given the opportunity to purchase a beautifully restored set of Cromodora CD50's from Mark. He threw in a set of Federal 595's in a 185 55 14, the perfect size for an X1/9. I was giddy. I've been lusting after a set of these wheels for almost a decade. I'm not sure what the fate of the Cromodora CD4's will be though...

After getting all the new and refurbished components installed, I adjusted the ride height of the car and rough aligned the car using the string method.

Master Cylinders:

The fun didn't stop there! Both the clutch and brake master cylinders were leaking, and the soft lines from the reservoirs to the master cylinders looked to be original. The clutch slave cylinder was also toast along with it's soft rubber line. I slid the front seat back out, removed the pedal box without breaking anything (yay!) I replaced the clutch and brake master cylinders and ran the 13 feet of soft line from the reservoirs to the master cylinders. I used one of Jeff Stich's brake reservoir kits which made installation a breeze and made it possible to use a power-bleeder. Changing out the clutch slave cylinder and soft line was also fairly easy. I bled the brakes and clutch, adjusted the clutch and shifted my attention towards the interior and wiring.

Interior and Wiring Un-****ing:

For reasons I'll never know the battery was relocated to the rear trunk at some point. To correct this I ran a late model cable with three wires for the fuel injection hook-up so that I could turn the seat belt interlock bypass into a starter relay to reduce stress on the ignition switch. Running the wire was two hours of profanity and grunting. The ignition switch in the car had burnt out and Jerry had wired an external ignition switch on the dash to keep it working. I replaced the ignition switch and removed the dash mounted switch. The battery now lives where intended to and the car turns over much quicker.

While I was playing around in the transmission tunnel I noticed that the shift linkage was a four-speed linkage. I guess that explains why the car shifted so poorly! I swapped in the correct five-speed linkage and installed the Abarth shift knob.

I very carefully removed the clear plastic front from a newer instrument cluster and attached it to an old cluster face plate for period correctness. While the cluster was removed I used an air compressor to clean out all the dust and debris that accumulated in the dash over the years. I cleaned all the contacts and grounds while I was in there. I went through the fuse box one fuse at a time to clean the contacts and checked the wiring for accuracy. The fuse holders were cleaned up with a wire brush and then bent up slightly to ensure a tight fit and good electrical connection. I generally opt to replace the small 3amp fuses with larger 8amp fuses due to availability. This requires carefully bending the fuse holder into the shape of the other holders, I would suggest keeping an extra fuse box around if you try this and accidentally break a tab.

I then swapped in a much better looking center console one switch at a time, cleaning contacts and checking the wiring for accuracy as I went. I found that the heater fan switch and the dash light switche were bad, so I replaced them. Since I had done most of the wiring at this point I decided to clean the grounds and contacts in the front headlight pods and install new horns along with some Cibie H4 headlights. This rendered all the electrical in the car working aside from the interior dome light and the windshield washers. The only un-****ing left to be done electrically was in the engine bay.

I treated the engine cover to a similar priming process to the bumpers after sanding it to bare metal. I chose to leave the aluminum section intact and polished it after a little bit of refinement with a dremel tool.

 

[Ron Avery]

Great documentary on this early car. Can’t wait for more installments

 

[Dr.Jeff]

Vert cool JT. You are a brave man to drive the car home like that. Interesting that the guy built a clone of the one he already had. Great job!

And I see one had the rare Abarth "second glove box" option:

 

[JTBernhardt]

April 13th, 2021
The car was completely assembled with newly painted trim and rebuilt carbs. The windshield, alignment, and broken transaxle were next on the to-do list. I tried driving the car around the block, but it sputtered and misfired so bad I barely made it back. The carburetors clearly needed some tuning as well.

I had the car towed up to Wine Country Motors in Napa. Kelly extremely generous and let me work on my car in his shop. I was able to replace all the front engine seals, do a timing belt and tensioner, replace the water pump, and rewired the engine bay to accept a later 65amp Bosch alternator and eliminate the external regulator. I replaced the top engine dog bone mount, and found that the shorter, early dog bone was fitted before. That might explain why I couldn't sync the carbs, they weren't level.

I then moved onto fuel and ignition. I replaced the Bosch electronic ignition with a Marelli plex unit with centrifugal advance and changed the spark plugs and plug wires. I decided to use the carburetor cooling fan relay as a fuel pump relay, which worked exactly as planned. A fuel pressure regulator and filter was fitted along with new fuel lines, and the fuel pressure was set to 3psi. I replaced the coolant overflow tank with the correct 13psi cap. I was able to get carburetors synced, the radiator bled, and took it for a test drive. It needed a bit more advance, and was running a little lean. I set the timing to 14 degrees from 10 and tuned the carbs a bit richer. It seemed to like that.

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To my surprise the windshield was replaced soon after the car arrived at the shop. We got very lucky and found on new in a warehouse. There was some rust starting under the windshield that was ground out and treated with rust killer before being painted over.

 

[JTBernhardt]

The transaxle in this car was trashed. It popped out of reverse without fail, and finding 3rd-5th was more in hope and expectation. I brought up another five speed that supposedly had low miles on it to check out and swap in. I'm glad Kelly ended up opening the case and found that the reverse idler gear and the 1/2/reverse sliding sleeve were chewed up. We're still looking for a good 1/2/R sliding sleeve.

I pulled the transaxle out of the car and replaced the rear main seal, which looked to have been as old as the car. The flywheel was resurfaced and a new clutch was ordered. I had to use a saw to cut the lower rear control arm bolts free from the car. They had rusted to the inner bushing sleeve. I found that both axles needed to be rebuilt, both rear wheel bearings were bad, and both rear control arms has bad ball joints. GREAT.

After fighting with the bushings for a few hours I gave up and had a machine shop press in the new control arm bushings on my extra set of rear control arms. It took a special tool and 7.5 tonnes of pressure to get the old bushings out! Fitting the new ball joint boots wasn't too difficult, just tedious. I was lucky to snag a kit while they were available. I rebuilt both axles with new boots and grease and replaced the wheel bearings.

Right when I was ready to bolt the rebuilt components back into the car I found that the passenger side rear control arm wouldn't line up. I found a crease in the chassis that bent the control arm mount. I had a bad feeling that meant taking the engine out...

I got hit in the face by a swinging brake caliper, be careful where you perch brake calipers while working under the car!

My fears were confirmed! The engine needed to come out for a body specialist to come in and figure out how to straighten the frame. At least it was an easy job since all the suspension and the transaxle were already out of the car. The PBS exhaust header was a bit tricky to get out, but eventually slid out after some heat was applied to the center spacer that had rusted to center bolt.

We're now just waiting on a body specialist to work his magic on the crease, and for a 1/2/R sliding sleeve.

 

[tvmaster]

Wow, I can’t believe how clear the instrument cluster is - that can’t be original, can it?

 

[JTBernhardt]

Wow, I can’t believe how clear the instrument cluster is - that can’t be original, can it?

It’s an original cluster, with the clear plastic lense stolen off a later car’s cluster. It’s a bit tricky to separate the clear plastic cover from the face plate.

 

[Oxnardo_Ring]

It’s an original cluster, with the clear plastic lense stolen off a later car’s cluster. It’s a bit tricky to separate the clear plastic cover from the face plate.

Great pics. Those are awesome details to be able to follow along with.

 

[dllubin]

September 9th, 2020. The sun didn't rise in the Bay area due to forest fire smoke.View attachment 48635
The next day I started working on the interior clean up for the '73. I started by removing the late-model seats and cleaning the carpets thoroughly. I fit an Abarth steering wheel and shift knob. I took the liberty to remove the third brake light while I was in there, and I swapped the seats from the '74 into this car for now.

It was a bit darker where I was that day. Our house was less than a half mile from the CZU fire evacuation zone although I think on that day we were getting just as much smoke from the other fires. Your neighborhood looks very familiar.

 

[tvmaster]

It’s an original cluster, with the clear plastic lense stolen off a later car’s cluster. It’s a bit tricky to separate the clear plastic cover from the face plate.

Lol, yes, sorry, I meant the lens couldn‘t be original. Never seen a clear one. I drilled mine out, and am still trying to find a later model replacement to attach to my original cluster…

 

[NEG]

Great work JT that’s some ‘mission creep‘ right there! Hope the top lip healed up OK

 

[kmead]

Great photos and descriptions of the various activities. Thank you.

Amazing looking at modern cars relative to an X, particularly the high shot from your steps of the Boxster behind the X on that dark day.

Amazing amount of work needed to bring a neglected car back to life, glad you are able to do it.

 

[JTBernhardt]

It was a bit darker where I was that day. Our house was less than a half mile from the CZU fire evacuation zone although I think on that day we were getting just as much smoke from the other fires. Your neighborhood looks very familiar.

That was a crazy week. This car was at a friend's house about a half mile down Skyline from Alice's Restaurant and I had to sneak into the evacuation zone to go evacuate this X1/9 and help my friend relocate his classic cars.