What did you do to your X1/9 today ?

View attachment 4651 View attachment 4652 I ground the button off the backside and pressed the shaft out. Then oblonged the hole by 1/16 inch. Made a crescent moon shaped piece of metal 1/16 inch thick and pressed the shaft back in with the sliver in place. I was too lazy to turn on the gas for the mig so after securing the arm and making sure the shaft was in straight and tight I zapped the backside with the stick welder ground the weld down a bit painted it and reinstalled. 1/16 works pretty good. I wouldn't go much more than another thirty second. Circles are interesting things. If you enlarge the radius by half you double the area. I think I remembered that right. At any rate it doesn't take much to change the arc.

Very nice work.

I would like to replace the arms & pivots with newer style bolt-through arms. There is too much slop in the old design :(
 
Prompted by someone's remark about getting windshields for under a 100euro, I looked again for one for my X. What has held me back so far is the $$$ shipping costs for a fragile item like this. This past Saturday, I found a auto glass shop that is a seller on eBay that is only 40min or so drive from me in Belleville, NJ. Got a new LOM windshield for 285. I'm happy with that :)
 
Yesterday my grandson came over. First we had to pick up all the black walnuts so we could back the X out and then we took it for a nice long ride. At least the longest we have had it on. It was 70 degrees and sunny, had the top off and just enjoyed the ride. Of course grandson got to drive but he had fun. Ran really great and we put on about 50 miles. Getting time to store it for winter but maybe one more week end will happen. :):):)
 
Damn-it you guys! I hate you!
Someone referenced his post in this section of the forum for me to see how he accomplished a particular repair. Being my first visit to "What did you do to your X today?", I now see there are a ton of good posts for me to go back through. Frankly all these years I thought this would be full of nothing but fluff like "I washed it". But now I'll have countless lost days enjoying all of this previously undiscovered great material! Why, why, why can't all of you just stop doing so much excellent work so I can get off my computer and do some work on my own car? Thought I was the only one with no life, but now i see there are MANY of us here.
Love you all, Jeff

Agreed :)
 
Restored the "Bertone" dash emblem. Still have a little clean up to do, but came out OK.
 

Attachments

  • bertone.JPG
    bertone.JPG
    167.9 KB · Views: 113
Summing up this past weekend and a few others before it:

-Painted and installed new rear valence
-Cut out and welded in new drivers side floor pan
-Patched rust in floor behind driver's seat (welded in new metal)
-Fixed the blower motor circuit which required reconditioning the ganged switch, the blower motor ballast resistor, and repairing several broken wire runs.
-Cleaned all contacts in the dash cluster
-Replaced 3 burnt out and/or missing dash cluster bulbs
-Replaced the frunk weather stripping
-Fixed the radiator fan circuit.
-Repaired the driver's seat belt switch
-Repaired the driver's side door jam switch
-Repaired both courtesy light circuits (corroded contacts, bad runs of wire - still need to recondition the door card switches - but the lights work from the door jam switches)
-Repaired seat belt warning circuit except for bad timer relay - several runs of wire were bad.
-Installed correct door lock pulls
-"Restored" drivers side door card (it was really bad; most of the cardboard and staples were gone. Replaced cardboard and restapled everything. It will still need to be replaced, but now it's just worn looking instead of shredded.)
-Replaced all vacuum lines
-Replaced lines going to and from AAV
-Replaced Cold Start Injector fuel line
-Recalibrated the throttle position switch (no more backfires!)
-Installed a clock
-Installed a radio (MR2 radio fits nicely and looks appropriate for the car - not wired up yet - waiting on MR2 radio harness to splice into the X1/9 harness)
 
Summing up this past weekend and a few others before it:

-Painted and installed new rear valence
-Cut out and welded in new drivers side floor pan
-Patched rust in floor behind driver's seat (welded in new metal)
-Fixed the blower motor circuit which required reconditioning the ganged switch, the blower motor ballast resistor, and repairing several broken wire runs.
-Cleaned all contacts in the dash cluster
-Replaced 3 burnt out and/or missing dash cluster bulbs
-Replaced the frunk weather stripping
-Fixed the radiator fan circuit.
-Repaired the driver's seat belt switch
-Repaired the driver's side door jam switch
-Repaired both courtesy light circuits (corroded contacts, bad runs of wire - still need to recondition the door card switches - but the lights work from the door jam switches)
-Repaired seat belt warning circuit except for bad timer relay - several runs of wire were bad.
-Installed correct door lock pulls
-"Restored" drivers side door card (it was really bad; most of the cardboard and staples were gone. Replaced cardboard and restapled everything. It will still need to be replaced, but now it's just worn looking instead of shredded.)
-Replaced all vacuum lines
-Replaced lines going to and from AAV
-Replaced Cold Start Injector fuel line
-Recalibrated the throttle position switch (no more backfires!)
-Installed a clock
-Installed a radio (MR2 radio fits nicely and looks appropriate for the car - not wired up yet - waiting on MR2 radio harness to splice into the X1/9 harness)
Wow, so good to hear there are others investing effort in these great little cars. Good work!
 
Last edited:
Odie - do weld up some replacement metal on your center tunnel before you're done. That's easy 35-40% of your torsional strength of the chassis there missing.

Love the shifter (for your Honda B series IIRC). Very nice. :)
 
Odie - do weld up some replacement metal on your center tunnel before you're done. That's easy 35-40% of your torsional strength of the chassis there missing.

Love the shifter (for your Honda B series IIRC). Very nice. :)
Planning on it. Where I am stuck, is if I ever have to remove the shifter, what ever I put in there will have to clear it or be able to come out. I have mocked up a few ideas, but not as solid as I would like. May end up just putting some sheet back on it, and cut it back out in the slim chance I have to remove the shifter.

Odie
 
May end up just putting some sheet back on it, and cut it back out in the slim chance I have to remove the shifter.
Can you make some 'removable' panels with screws all the way around? Kind of like the riveted panels on older aircraft that retain the rigidity, but with screws that can be removed instead of rivets.
 
Can you make some 'removable' panels with screws all the way around? Kind of like the riveted panels on older aircraft that retain the rigidity, but with screws that can be removed instead of rivets.

Possible. I thought about screwing a panel on, but didn't think it would hold. But doing it like you are saying would probably work. Good idea

Odie
 
Nice work, I like your old wheels better though!;)
Actually got those off a spider that was being scrapped. $100 for 5 wheels and another $100 for 4 tires that had never been installed. I got them for the express purpose of sending to the painter so my original wheels wouldn't get messed up.
 
A rare dry sunny day in Manchester today, so changed the old bulging/leaking plastic expansion tank for an original 1970's stainless one and went for a nice long test drive round the Cheshire countryside - all good! Still got a hot starting problem, but will probably use the winter months when salt is sprayed all over roads here to install an electric fuel pump and my DIY electronic distributor (innards from a Marelli SE100EX installed in a Marelli S178 body) and see if it works!

IMG_0357 (2).JPG
 
Back
Top