What did you do to your X1/9 today ?

Paint is still a little wet, but I think it's turned out pretty nice.
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Today I continued work on the cooling system. Thankfully only a few things left.

I breifly considered reinstalling the old water pump instead of the blockoff plate, but after dealing with trying to reinstall the old one I quickly became reminded of why I decided to ditch it in the first place.

I think ultimately, a waterjetted blockoff plate would be the move, but at least for now I'm fabricating one. At least the CAD I have for it seems to be correct.

I also managed to pick up some stainless steel pipe (finally) so I'll be extending one of the hoses slightly, to eliminate the strain and kinking. I never knew sourcing a few inches of 1.5in stainless pipe would be so difficult, but it makes sense as few infrastructure projects around here require anything close to that, and almost all exhaust shops around here work with steel only.
 
Jonohhh said:
Wow! Awesome work. Mine needs the same treatment too some day, but I'm not so sure I have the skills to get that kind of result.
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It really wasn't that bad. I followed the steps in this post https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?1865940-DIY-Cracked-Dashboard-Repair-Pic-Heavy

The guy in that post has good tips to help it turn out well. Mine isn't perfect but it is a heck of a lot nicer than it was. I'm sure you can achieve at least the same results.
 
This is more in the category of "What did my X do to ME today"...

So, as I pulled the car out of the garage this morning I felt a drop on my left foot.

Uh oh.

Look down and the floor mat is wet. Drive back into garage. Drop a paper towel down to catch any drips and drive to work in the DD.

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Kinda lookin' like the clutch master failed. Have to check my notes but I believe they were replaced by a PO. Not sure how much driving they did but I've put 500 miles on it since spring.

Looks like the fall maintenance is starting early!

Roy
 
Thanks everyone. Yeah it's a 1979. I think my first couple projects will be with the voltage regulator (the meter was skirting pretty close to zero yesterday, but was fine today), and there's something off with the gas intake that I need to figure out. Sometimes the rpms drop a little too low while idling. Looking forward to working on it!
 
ryansmith said:
Hi everyone, I'm new here. What I did with my X today is I bought it! Super excited to learn everything there is to know about this car.

RyanView attachment 64985
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Welcome. Always nice to see a clean yellow 1979 here. AC or no AC?

Congrats that is a lovely car. You started off your ownership and membership here correctly by posting a good image :)

There are some threads in the Best of Xweb (BOX) you should read. Please ask questions, we may have answered them before but we don’t mind answering or pointing you in the right direction. Many of us have owned an X for decades and have dealt with nearly everything that could go wrong with one at some point or another. Not a difficult car to work on but there are a few jobs which will not be pleasant.

The search function is iffy, there is a link to a Google search from JimD you can use. BOX has lots of links but not everything is cataloged or properly tagged. We are happy to help.

To help others, put some details about your car in your signature as it can help us help you when we no long remember your car. You could put your general region of the country (I see stucco and Chinese Elms so somewhere southerly) there so if someone is nearby they might offer to lend a hand.

In any case welcome and congrats on your new mistress, I mean toy.

Karl
 
ryansmith said:
Thanks everyone. Yeah it's a 1979. I think my first couple projects will be with the voltage regulator (the meter was skirting pretty close to zero yesterday, but was fine today), and there's something off with the gas intake that I need to figure out. Sometimes the rpms drop a little too low while idling. Looking forward to working on it!
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The charge meter may be the culprit, not the regulator. These are not dependable gauges. :rolleyes:

The carb on the '79 (assuming it is the stock one) is not a good design. And it was equipped with a bunch of emissions related gadgets, including a solenoid that affects the idle speed. Typically most of those carb add-on components do not function correctly. Honestly it would be better to fit a decent carb in place of the stock one rather than trying to fit the old carb. ;)
 
Dr.Jeff said:
The charge meter may be the culprit, not the regulator. These are not dependable gauges. :rolleyes:

The carb on the '79 (assuming it is the stock one) is not a good design. And it was equipped with a bunch of emissions related gadgets, including a solenoid that affects the idle speed. Typically most of those carb add-on components do not function correctly. Honestly it would be better to fit a decent carb in place of the stock one rather than trying to fit the old carb. ;)
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I actually just came by this in the shop manual the previous owner left me. He replaced the carb, but it looks like the idling speed still needs to be adjusted (or I could just keep revving my engine at 8 in the morning to keep it from falling below 1500rpm 😎). Problem is the diagram in the manual has three adjustment screws and I can only find one, which I'm assuming is the slow running screw. Anybody know where else I can look for the other two?

Btw thanks Karl, and great guess! I'm based in Albuquerque, NM.

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Worked on the front bumper. Used the rear bumper brackets to hold it up (not going to use what's in the pic). Making combo front bumper mount, Adco bar mount, tow hook set up. The bumper will ultimately sit a bit higher. Anyhow, happy with the little progress made.

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Dr.Jeff said:
The charge meter may be the culprit, not the regulator. These are not dependable gauges. :rolleyes:

The carb on the '79 (assuming it is the stock one) is not a good design. And it was equipped with a bunch of emissions related gadgets, including a solenoid that affects the idle speed. Typically most of those carb add-on components do not function correctly. Honestly it would be better to fit a decent carb in place of the stock one rather than trying to fit the old carb. ;)
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Dr.Jeff you are exactly right, I worked on Fiats for 27 years, I have a 79 X1/9 and I tried everything I could think of to get the electrical gauge to read properly, I ran a ground wire directly to the gauge, I wired a positive directly to the gauge but it still behaves the same, at this point I say, don't worry about it, check your charge rate at the battery and if it's good carry on !
 
ryansmith said:
Problem is the diagram in the manual has three adjustment screws and I can only find one, which I'm assuming is the slow running screw. Anybody know where else I can look for the other two?
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That diagram shows an early 32DMTR with a manual choke and idle air bypass screw (A in the diagram)

Your carb is a 32datra , it has a water actuated choke flap device (not manual) and doesn't have the air bypass.

The screw that controls the (choke actuated - so faster) idling speed is arrowed in red

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the screw you're looking at on your carburettor pic is the idle mixture screw (A in this pic)

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B is the idle speed screw, C is the "choke on" fast idle speed screw.

edit: actually looking at your picture again, and reading that it's a 79 model, will mean that stock it used a 28/30DHTA carb - which is about the most crap carb the X19 or sohc engine in general was ever fitted with... the three adjustment screws shown above will still be the same, but lots of other detail parts will be significantly different. If it gives you any grief the best thing to do is bin the DHTA and fit a DATR/DATRA, number one improvement for a 79 X19.

SteveC
 
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tigeravg said:
Worked on the front bumper. Used the rear bumper brackets to hold it up (not going to use what's in the pic). Making combo front bumper mount, Adco bar mount, tow hook set up. The bumper will ultimately sit a bit higher. Anyhow, happy with the little progress made.

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Love this, the same solution Werner Buehrer suggested in the 1974 styling analysis in Road and Track. It looks good. Chroming or painting black (my preference)?

I like the height fit up.

Nice work!
 
ryansmith said:
I actually just came by this in the shop manual the previous owner left me. He replaced the carb, but it looks like the idling speed still needs to be adjusted (or I could just keep revving my engine at 8 in the morning to keep it from falling below 1500rpm 😎). Problem is the diagram in the manual has three adjustment screws and I can only find one, which I'm assuming is the slow running screw. Anybody know where else I can look for the other two?

Btw thanks Karl, and great guess! I'm based in Albuquerque, NM.

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I would get the right manual for your car, you can buy it from Midwest Bayless. You can download the carburetor section which does pertain to your car and the actual carb it has in it from the WIKI here on XWeb (the whole manual is there as well but I prefer the paper manual) https://xwebforums.com/wiki/images/f/fd/WrokshopManual_25.pdf

This will give you more information about the carb and the thinking behind its adjustment and bolsters the info Steve (FiatFactory) gave you.

The 1979s have a complex set of emissions parts which interact based on air temperature, engine temperature, throttle position and so on, along with the traditional choke (which may be all you really need to adjust in this instance) if the car runs fine when warmed up.

If you live in a region where you don’t need to worry about testing you could systemically remove them (there is an excellent thread by one of our members who did a good job of this on a similar year car (1979 and early 1980 cars shared the same systems). I can try and find it, she documented it well.

On the one hand it looks like all the stuff is there which means the previous owner didn’t screw things up. On the other hand you still have to deal with the strangling the system applies to the engine.
 
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