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Cheers Alex but the more time I spend driving the car, the less I think it needs it. It's a delicate car to drive, it likes to be driven hard, but maybe not thrashed as such. It's more about dancing along nicely from bend to bend. The engine already has a lovely free revving, almost rotary feel to it, singing up the redline through all the gears with ease. One of the best descriptions of a Fulvia I have ever read, perfect. Making a restomod can be cool but I would always want an original Fulvia to go back to. The induction noise, the balanced steering and the sewing machine smoothness of the 1.3 are things to be experienced .
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1987 Alfa Milano/75 1979 Alfetta Mille Miglia 1976 Alfetta GT race car 1970 Lancia Fulvia 1.3 Rallye S 1968 Fiat 850 spider
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,880
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Apr 25, 2013 19:42:29 GMT
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Yeah I've always been someone who thought every car needs modifying to my taste, but the Fulvia is turning my mind a bit. It would still benefit from a few tweaks, for example I like the slightly louder exhaust and as I mentioned a couple of posts back I'd like to do some head work. I think the main thing is it doesn't 'need' huge mods to be fun. It's cool with me as I'm not blowing huge chunks of money on mods constantly! haha
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,880
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Yesterday and today I've finally had the weather and time to sort the carpet out. First up was to take the old disintegrating rubber matting and assorted bits of house carpet offcuts out. It was pretty grim to be honest. And the floor underneath wasn't much better. Various different colours of paint and a fair amount of surface rust. It's all very solid though, which is good news. I think it'd just suffered from getting water in the footwells from the leaky rear window. So I broke out the wire brush and got the worst of the flakeyness off, then put some Hammerite I had lying about down. It should keep the rust at bay for a few more years. Not so pretty, but functional, and it shouldn't be seen again. Next up was some cheapo eBay carpet. I went for black with a thin layer of insulation stuck to the back of it. Initially I was going to be brave and try and cut the carpet out as just 2 main pieces, but soon realised that was beyond my skill level. So what I did instead was simply trace all the rubber matting onto the carpet, it will cover the floor effectively and means no complex shapes and folds. I got busy with a stanley knife, and the double sided carpet tape and tried it out. A test fit looks promising. There's still some tidying up to do and edges to trim then I'll take all of the top layers out and sew some edging on them, so they will kinda be carpet mats. I can't believe how much quieter it is. At motorway speeds it's now the exhaust I hear loud and clear rather than it being drowned out by road noise. Any noise, road or exhaust seems to be coming from the rear of the car, which does make me tempted to carpet the boot too. I'll see if I can be bothered once I've finished these off properly. Not done anything about the gearbox yet. I'm hoping to be ready to do the swap in a couple of weeks when my mate will have finished his uni exams and can help me out with some muscle!
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adam73bgt
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 4,940
Club RR Member Number: 58
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That carpeting work looks really good from here, I wasn't brave enough to start from scratch with cutting out carpet for my car so ive had to make do with second hand bits and bobs Been meaning to comment on this thread for a while actually, its nice to see the car being used daily rather than being kept away in a garage somewhere for the occasional sunny day Top stuff!
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Kev
Part of things
Posts: 221
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Now THAT is a job well done.
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It was pretty grim to be honest. And the floor underneath wasn't much better. Actually I would have expected worse.
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1987 Alfa Milano/75 1979 Alfetta Mille Miglia 1976 Alfetta GT race car 1970 Lancia Fulvia 1.3 Rallye S 1968 Fiat 850 spider
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Mark
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,097
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How have I missed this thread?!! Love your work so far man, just spent an hour reading it all when I should have been working on my car Carpets looks fantastic btw.
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,880
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Cheers guys The photos do flatter the carpet a bit. It's worked well and I'm really pleased with them, but they do need fitting properly. I did some trimming on them today, and so now they just need edging and sticking down as they seems to slide around all over the new floor paint a bit much! I didn't get much time to spend on the car today, too busy being distracted by two wheeled toys! But I did get to sort out one of those little niggles that's been bothering me. The silver paint round the heater controls is pretty worn and dulled, and always bugs me as it's in my eye line while driving. So I bought some 'chrome' paint, it's certainly not chrome, but it's a nice bright silver. I sprayed it into an old paint lid then applied it with a cotton bud and it went on pretty well, couple of bits I need to clean up with some thinners, but generally much better. I also panted the heater vent that should have been chrome from the factory but had reverted to yellowed plastic. It looks tacky though, the chrome paint isn't chrome enough. I think it might try painting it black and leaving in vertical fins and controls silver. Thoughts?
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Last Edit: May 4, 2013 20:03:37 GMT by goldnrust
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,880
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Well it's been a quiet week for work and the sun's shining so I've been making as much headway with the car as I can. The interior is coming along nicely. My mum kindly spent a few hours edging the carpets and I've now stuck them down, and I'm very pleased with how they look. The steering column switch gear was next up for some TLC. It was looking pretty sorry for itself. So out with the paint, sandpaper and autosol. And it's looking nicer While I had the satin black paint out I had a second shot at the heater vent, and I'm much happier with how it sits in the car now being mostly black. So yeah, very happy with how the interiors looking now, the only thing left to sort really is the door cards. They look pretty sorry for themselves. I thought it'd be pretty easy to pick up some retro looking speaker trims, maybe a simple chrome ring with black mesh, but I'm struggling. Anyone got any ideas where I could find something like that? On to more mechanical things where I feel a bit more at home Gearbox time. Having got hold of the right replacement bearing I hacked up an old 1" 1/4 socket into a castle nut tool and with some help from the trusty Aldi rattle gun and the lock nut that had defeated me the last couple of times. Heres the old bearing Vs new bearing. Old one doesn't look tooo bad on closer inspection, but there is some corrosion on the bearing running surfaces, so it was worth changing. With the bearing sorted I could put the gearbox back together, which took a surprisingly long time! She's not pretty on the outside but I know it's clean inside and everything's moving nice and smooth. So it's all coming along nicely. I'm getting scared that I'll have to deal with bodywork again soon though.... Not feeling enthusiastic!
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Wow that carpet looks really good!
If you need brute force and ignorance to fit the box, give me a call!
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Koos
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,880
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Cheers mate. Might have to take you up on that will see. Certainly it's much heavier than the rx7 box, which was enough of a challenge to fit with just two of us.
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Seth
South East
MorrisOxford TriumphMirald HillmanMinx BorgwardIsabellaCombi
Posts: 15,538
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Carpet and interior trimmings looks like a top job! Very nice indeed.
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Follow your dreams or you might as well be a vegetable.
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79cord
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,615
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Carpet looks great & its interesting to compare the 'logical' heater controls of a late one compared to Dad's '65 model with its two knobs & lever hidden under the dash, dad recognized the heater box as having been shared with the Renault R4. & having handled the Flavia's alloy transaxle he had also commented that it was considerably heavier than his Elans cast-iron Cortina g/box..
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May 10, 2013 11:21:45 GMT
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Great work on the interior. Looks sweet!
Changing out that bearing was definitely a smart move saving some potentially large headaches later especially if you're building this ride as a driver.
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eurogranada
Europe
To tinker or not to tinker, that is the question...
Posts: 2,552
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May 14, 2013 15:16:42 GMT
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Very nice progress!! I've yet to gather the guts to tackle a gearbox rebuild...
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May 17, 2013 19:54:39 GMT
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I love all those little jobs. They make such a big improvement. Re making the carpets in my Viva was a very satisfying job and made it a much nicer place to be.
I know you'll be doing body work again soon. I would avoid using hammerite ever. It lifts over time and doesn't ever seem to inhibit rust long term. Id use a 2 part epoxy paint like the epoxy mastic from rust busters uk.
I still keep looking for fulvias here in NZ but so expensive.
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,880
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May 17, 2013 21:27:33 GMT
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Cheers guys I'm really happy with how the interior is coming together. Don't worry Alex, I normally avoid Hammerite and have had good results with the POR rust inhibiting paints. I just wanted something to put down to cover up the old manky floor paint, if my window seal fixing has worked there should be no need for the paint to be particularly rust proof inside! Small update for now, was over at a car friends house a couple of days ago and popped the bonnet so he could see what points look like (he'd never seen a set...) and while poking around in the engine bay we noticed the engine seemed to rock fairly easily. Then we saw a worrying crack in the upper engine mount Sorry about the phone pics, this was all a bit unplanned! After noticing the first crack and pulling the mount off we found a second large crack (near the right bolt hole) With the cracks, the mount was so flexy, could twist it by hand like stiff cardboard or something. So we broke out the welder, was a very quick job and not pretty but we were pushed for time. Still it's well solid now. I think it must have been cracked the whole time I've owned the car as the car feels noticeably more 'together'. It's a bit smoother too. I was quietly hoping that it would turn out to be the source of the grindy knocky noise that I think is the gearbox but alas no This weekends project will be the steering wheel I think. Then gearbox when we get a couple of days with no chance of rain!
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,880
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May 19, 2013 23:26:17 GMT
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Made a good start on the steering wheel this weekend This is what we start with. 40 years old and showing it, the varnish is peeling off all over the place and it's splitting at the back in a number of places. This is all a bit new ot me, metal I'm fine with but wood is a whole other world. After doing some reading up on how to refurb a wooden wheel I started by peeling as much of the old varnish off with some help from a scraper. Then broke out some sandpaper to finish the job. Took a good few hours but I'm pretty happy with how it's coming on. Looks so much better already. Here we can see the cracking I'm dealing with. Now the varnish is off it's clear that all the cracking is on the black inlay at the rear of the wheel. As far as I can tell this is plastic, it's certainly not wood. More googling suggested filling the cracks with clear epoxy then wrapping the wheel as tight as I could in wire to pull the crack closed. The clear epoxy went well, the wrapping less so. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get the cracks to close, even looked at clamping it but was gonna damage the wood before closing the crack. Haven't got any more pictures but the cracks are filled now and the excess epoxy needs sanding off before varnishing. But it's kinda on hold for a couple of weeks while I rebuild my motorbike which has decided to eat its big end, and I'd rather not have both my vehicles in bits. It'll be the first time I try to do a bottom end rebuild on a 2 stroke myself, so gonna require all my attention! Other minor updates, my el-cheapo eBay speaker covers came. Far from perfect but better than gaping holes in the damaged door cards. And finally I realised the only pictures I have of the Fulvia not in bits were the ones I took on my first day with the car in the dark. So this evening when the sun came out, I decided to remedy this. Gotta say, seeing it sat there in the dappled sunlight on a nice B-road kinda makes it all worth while. I've been having dirty thoughts about Deltas, wanting more power and a decades newer technology, while I've been using her everyday in the curse word weather and boring day to day pottering around town, but drives like tonights remind me exactly why I love this car.
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That last photos really cool!
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May 20, 2013 17:14:10 GMT
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Spotted this in the B&Q car park this morning, lovely looking but oh so small car. How is it progress when a small modern car looks like a range rover in comparison. Then on leaving Malvern i sore about 20 or so Citroen SM Maserati.
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