The Rat's Nest - 81 X1/9 Build

[Clatter]

A couple small things knocked out.

Stabbing this new motor needs to go differently than the pull did.
Can't be just dragging it...
Ever hear the one about the dog with no legs?

Figured a little wooden box, open in the bottom, that would pick up the pan bolts:

If nothing else, it keeps the motor upright for storage.
The head might be a while. I need my stand back.

Same with the transaxle...
Right as we were buttoning up,
Close inspection revealed the little band brakes inside 5th had burrs on the ends.
Right away a NOS Italian pair showed up on ebay.it so i went for it.
Several weeks later, only one shows.

They say they're sending me the other,
Trans is getting set aside until then.
Plenty of other things to do,
Like cleaning the drain plug.
Reminds me where we came from.
How did those rats manage to get THIS dirty!?!?

Went out to Osuna's Auto Electric in Watsonville, CA.
They rebuilt my alternator for $200.
New bearings and brushes, turned commutator, etc.
I'm feeling more trusting at this point.
Support your local rebuilder if you got one!

Since I'm now waiting on hose to finish the intake,
That stuff got bagged up and put away as well.
Somehow, a clean workbench eases my soul and makes me hopeful.
Parts well-packed can all be dragged out and taken to the finish line once the stragglers trickle in.
Unfinished business right front/center in the way gives me the hump.

Hoisted the motor onto my new stand and a furniture dolly and rolled it to a back corner.
Cleaned up alternator mounting stuff and put it in place.
Vroom!

Vroom! Vroom!!

Now we can move onto hydraulics, compartment.. wiring... dash... heater....
Without all this junk stuck waiting clogging up my work area (and brain).

Part of the process, right?

 

[Rupunzell]

Progress indeed...

Bernice

 

[kmead]

Is there a downside (other than the obvious devation from the OEM aesthetics) of using clamps vs. the ferrules?

No real difference. If you use clamps use either Fuel Injection Clamps or Oetiker type clamps. Both come in size ranges to work with the outside diameter of the hose.

Under no circumstances use typical worm style 'hose clamps' as they don't apply constant pressure around the outside of the hose and tend to be over tightened and extrude the hose material out through the slots.

 

[kmead]

A couple small things knocked out.

Stabbing this new motor needs to go differently than the pull did.
Can't be just dragging it...
Ever hear the one about the dog with no legs?

Figured a little wooden box, open in the bottom, that would pick up the pan bolts:
View attachment 83820
View attachment 83821
View attachment 83822

If nothing else, it keeps the motor upright for storage.
The head might be a while. I need my stand back.

Same with the transaxle...
Right as we were buttoning up,
Close inspection revealed the little band brakes inside 5th had burrs on the ends.
Right away a NOS Italian pair showed up on ebay.it so i went for it.
Several weeks later, only one shows.
View attachment 83818
They say they're sending me the other,
Trans is getting set aside until then.
Plenty of other things to do,
Like cleaning the drain plug.
Reminds me where we came from.
How did those rats manage to get THIS dirty!?!?
View attachment 83819


Went out to Osuna's Auto Electric in Watsonville, CA.
They rebuilt my alternator for $200.
New bearings and brushes, turned commutator, etc.
I'm feeling more trusting at this point.
Support your local rebuilder if you got one!
View attachment 83823

Since I'm now waiting on hose to finish the intake,
That stuff got bagged up and put away as well.
Somehow, a clean workbench eases my soul and makes me hopeful.
Parts well-packed can all be dragged out and taken to the finish line once the stragglers trickle in.
Unfinished business right front/center in the way gives me the hump.

Hoisted the motor onto my new stand and a furniture dolly and rolled it to a back corner.
Cleaned up alternator mounting stuff and put it in place.
Vroom!
View attachment 83824

Vroom! Vroom!!
View attachment 83825

Now we can move onto hydraulics, compartment.. wiring... dash... heater....
Without all this junk stuck waiting clogging up my work area (and brain).

Part of the process, right?

Rat to show car...

 

[Clatter]

Rat to show car...

Former
Italian
Animal
Toilet

 

[kmead]

Former
Italian
Animal
Toilet

That does beat

Foolish, Inept, Attempted, Transportation.

At least in your case.

 

[Clatter]

No school on Monday! Whoohoo!
Who would have guessed the Dad would be happier than the kid about this??

Since it was cold and windy we dug in to this long-procrastinated bin of grimy brake junk.
Started off with front calipers because they're the easiest.

I'm checking the manual on my laptop,
Theo's manning the blaster,
And the bus does storage duty for our harness.
The more times you move a brittle old harness the more likely you are to have issues later.

Curved dentist's pick is key to removing scale stuck in seal grooves.

Very satisfying to clean these calipers.
Especially when it turns out the pistons are beautiful.

Having luck with the fronts, and referencing Tom Ginefra's excellent article,
https://xwebforums.com/wiki/images/2/23/Rear_Caliper_Rebuild_rev4.pdf
We dug into the rears.

Messy!

This rear e-brake and caliper is certainly an odd piece of kit.
Never seen anything like this before.
Packed full of grease?
Yet in contact with brake fluid?
Really??

Need some help from the experts.
Three things conspire to stop our show.

I was taught to never have petroleum products anywhere near brake fluid,
Yet,
There is caliper grease used for assembly of some cylinders.
Here, I have the ATE variety.
Will this work?
Not sure this grease is designed to lubricate metal-to-metal contact like the parking brake screw...
Anybody have a favorite grease for this application?

Also,
The seal kit i got doesn't have the small o-rings to seal the shaft,
-and-
There are only five bevel washer/springs instead of six...

Anybody got some wisdom for me?
Are all calipers supposed to have six?
Where to get proper o-rings?

Once we got stuck on the rear calipers we did other stuff.
JimD donated some pads and like mine they were rusty but had lots of material left.
Scraped and wire-wheeled the rust away,
A dusting of hi-temp rattle bomb,
And a coating of anti-squeal gets them ready for another life.

Since seals (and me) are cheap, the masters and slave got a "rebuild".
This dingle-ball hone is a smidge too big,
So really aggressive removing material.
Finished off with the finer 2-arm.

We'll see how this goes.
Nice shiny reflective surface,
But looking closely you'll see some spots not fully cleaned up.
Scared to take them over too big.
Depending upon where those fall, we may, or may not, have luck with them.
Only one way find out…!

Ain't she a peach?

Ready to puke fluid all over shiny paint!

Wrapping up the evening,
We have a couple of cleaned/honed/blasted/painted masters ready to go together.
Pads drying, ready front calipers,
One rear caliper ready to go together and the other still dirty because example
and a whole bunch of cleaned blasted little parts.

Oh, and, a mess.
We also have a mess...

 

[Tom Ginefra]

Great job, so far! A couple of things... You really don't need "any" grease inside the caliper, as the brake fluid will provide all the lubrication needed for the plunger to adjust to and activate the piston from behind. The small seal on the shaft of the plunger is important as it keeps the inner and outer sections of the caliper separate from each other. Brake fluid on one side, grease on the other. The missing Belleville washer is also important because (in this case) they work in pairs. The 3 sets of washers provide the proper amount of pressure to keep the plunger pushed back against the shaft of the handbrake actuator arm, holding the wedge shaped key in place, as well. After assembly-before you reattach the outer boot- apply a liberal amount of "any" good "high temp" grease to cover and lubricate the entire exposed area of the rotating actuator arm assembly. I just used a good "hi temp" axle grease. Pistons cleaned up beautifully! Way nicer than mine looked!

 

[Clatter]

Great job, so far! A couple of things... You really don't need "any" grease inside the caliper, as the brake fluid will provide all the lubrication needed for the plunger to adjust to and activate the piston from behind. The small seal on the shaft of the plunger is important as it keeps the inner and outer sections of the caliper separate from each other. Brake fluid on one side, grease on the other. The missing Belleville washer is also important because (in this case) they work in pairs. The 3 sets of washers provide the proper amount of pressure to keep the plunger pushed back against the shaft of the handbrake actuator arm, holding the wedge shaped key in place, as well. After assembly-before you reattach the outer boot- apply a liberal amount of "any" good "high temp" grease to cover and lubricate the entire exposed area of the rotating actuator arm assembly. I just used a good "hi temp" axle grease. Pistons cleaned up beautifully! Way nicer than mine looked!

Thanks for sharing the wisdom my friend.
Your help is very much appreciated.

Funny about washers,
The MWB website says “four required per caliper”.
Parts diagram you really can't tell...
Maybe three?

 

[Rupunzell]

Deal with the problem now or deal with the problem later..
These are aftermarket master cylinders that are the "standard" offering today.. essentially not so ok..

Add to this, the cylinder bores are pitted and will not seal for long, they might seal initially for a very short time.. then leak.. really a matter of when, not if..

Master cylinders have been discussed previously..

Brake Master Cylinders, OEM -vs- 2010 Aftermarket

The 74' needs to have it's brake master cylinder replaced after all these years. The current set of master cylinders appear to be OEM from when the exxe was made in 1974. It was not too long ago when the replaced brake master cylinder in the LeMons racer decided to act weird and inconsistent...

xwebforums.com

What the Fiat oem master cylinders look like inside..

These cylinders need to be replaced at the very least, not "new seals"...

Ideal and long term lasting fix is to have a Fiat oem cylinder sleeved in stainless steel, new seals installed.
Bore looks like this after sleeved with SST.

Master cylinder re-do in the future is NO fun at all.. add to this brake or clutch hydro failure is even less fun..
Bernice

 

[ng_randolph]

No school on Monday! Whoohoo!
Who would have guessed the Dad would be happier than the kid about this??

Since it was cold and windy we dug in to this long-procrastinated bin of grimy brake junk.
Started off with front calipers because they're the easiest.

I'm checking the manual on my laptop,
Theo's manning the blaster,
And the bus does storage duty for our harness.
The more times you move a brittle old harness the more likely you are to have issues later.
View attachment 83941

Curved dentist's pick is key to removing scale stuck in seal grooves.
View attachment 83946


Very satisfying to clean these calipers.
Especially when it turns out the pistons are beautiful.
View attachment 83942

Having luck with the fronts, and referencing Tom Ginefra's excellent article,
https://xwebforums.com/wiki/images/2/23/Rear_Caliper_Rebuild_rev4.pdf
We dug into the rears.
View attachment 83943


Messy!
View attachment 83945



This rear e-brake and caliper is certainly an odd piece of kit.
Never seen anything like this before.
Packed full of grease?
Yet in contact with brake fluid?
Really??
View attachment 83944


Need some help from the experts.
Three things conspire to stop our show.

I was taught to never have petroleum products anywhere near brake fluid,
Yet,
There is caliper grease used for assembly of some cylinders.
Here, I have the ATE variety.
Will this work?
Not sure this grease is designed to lubricate metal-to-metal contact like the parking brake screw...
Anybody have a favorite grease for this application?

Also,
The seal kit i got doesn't have the small o-rings to seal the shaft,
-and-
There are only five bevel washer/springs instead of six...

Anybody got some wisdom for me?
Are all calipers supposed to have six?
Where to get proper o-rings?

View attachment 83953


Once we got stuck on the rear calipers we did other stuff.
JimD donated some pads and like mine they were rusty but had lots of material left.
Scraped and wire-wheeled the rust away,
A dusting of hi-temp rattle bomb,
And a coating of anti-squeal gets them ready for another life.
View attachment 83947



Since seals (and me) are cheap, the masters and slave got a "rebuild".
This dingle-ball hone is a smidge too big,
So really aggressive removing material.
Finished off with the finer 2-arm.View attachment 83948


We'll see how this goes.
Nice shiny reflective surface,
But looking closely you'll see some spots not fully cleaned up.
Scared to take them over too big.
Depending upon where those fall, we may, or may not, have luck with them.
Only one way find out…!
View attachment 83954
View attachment 83955


Ain't she a peach?


View attachment 83956




Ready to puke fluid all over shiny paint!
View attachment 83951


Wrapping up the evening,
We have a couple of cleaned/honed/blasted/painted masters ready to go together.
Pads drying, ready front calipers,
One rear caliper ready to go together and the other still dirty because example
and a whole bunch of cleaned blasted little parts.
View attachment 83952


Oh, and, a mess.
We also have a mess...

My rear calipers each have 5 Belleville springs and one flat washer. There is of course no guarantee that it came from the factory that way, but at least left and right were the same when the car came to me.

 

[TonyK]

My rear calipers each have 5 Belleville springs and one flat washer. There is of course no guarantee that it came from the factory that way, but at least left and right were the same when the car came to me.

View attachment 83971

I will agree on the 5 washers. Any of the rebuilds that I have done only have 5 Belleville washers.

TonyK

Grimsby Ontario Canada

 

[Tom Ginefra]

Wow! Don't know if a PO had messed with them, but mine had 3 sets on each of the rear calipers. I just assumed that was factory.

 

[Clatter]

Ya, different old cars are having the same issues to deal with.
NOS cylinders with old dried out seals,
Rebuild kits dried out,
Cheapo replacement parts,
Etc.

Maybe send them to Karps for sleeving?
They rebuilt a power brake booster for me and did a fine job.
They say they can do both masters and the slave for about $300..
Now to find Italian cores?
http://www.karpspb.com/sleeving

The slightly bigger bore of the aftermarket cylinder isn't a huge deal to us.
Long as the seals hold, I really don't care what's OG.
MWB says their masters are Italian made, different than some others?
Still the same aftermarket as i got internally, right?
https://www.midwest-bayless.com/Fia...master-cylinder-fiat-bertone-x19-all-new.aspx

Seems silly to sleeve these cheapo cylinders, but if the guts actually work i really don't care.

Maybe I'll just hump the hone some more!
Theo is getting good at the pedal assembly anyways.
He's young and limber!
A refreshing splash of brake fluid on your feet can feel great on a hot day.
I'll just drill some drain holes in the floor...


It's either one kind of anti-chatter spring, or the other right?
Not both...?

Trying to suss the heater box for up under the dash.
Been so long since i took this apart.
One on the left is a replacement, and i -think- it's from an earlier car?
Think it'll matter if the replacement has a much bigger dump door on the bottom?
Does the later console have room for it?
Issues with this that any of you guys know about?

There's also this other heat outlet with metal edges.
I could put the lid from the new (to me) box on the bottom of my old one,
Or i could drill some rivets and cut a hole and move the parts over.
What does that thing do? a heater vent in the dash, right?

Not really sure how to handle this..
What would you suggest?

Maybe best to just wait until i get the dash in to mock up and see what's what.

Wanted to get this stuff cleaned and assembled and not taking up so much space,
But i guess it's best to just find a place to keep it all.
Not easy!
Maybe the attic...