My Second Fiat - The Runner

[wachuko]

I spent a few hours dismantling the gauges, taking the rings out, cleaning the glass, etc. One of the two oil pressure gauges I thought was busted, but some electrical components cleaner, brushing and crossing of the fingers and it is working again.

Also sending one of the clocks to get restored.

Since I now have two options for an oil pressure gauge, which one you folks think should go in?? A or B??

[84pininfarinablack]

the one with the needle pointing downward would be my choice.. the left and right guage also have needles downward..
so thats the natural choice..

[84pininfarinablack]

paint remover will take the black off of the rings around the guages. It wont hurt the fake wood lamination nor the glass..
its alot of scrubbing but the bare metal looks kick ass. Chrome would be nice too.

[pooldoctorstl]

B - It matches the fuel and water with the English name in yellow. I like consistency.

[wachuko]

I am thinking of installing the restored clock in the location where the digital clock is. Imagine it is a clock and that the console is nice and clean . What do you all think?

[wachuko]

The people have spoken. B it is. Now installed. Thank you for the feedback.



Now to work on the speedometer to change the drive gear to match that of the '81... also need to make a few wires to avoid changes to the plugs.

[84pininfarinablack]

I know you dont like the digital clock that much but actually i think it was kind of a big deal on the car . I think less than 2,000 cars were built with the digital clock vs the regular. vs the 200k round ones out there.

Digital clocks were just entering the world and this was some pretty serious technology. Although its about the cheesiest digital clock in the world that too is its beauty. the old school look of the round one is pretty nice too. But if your into 80s tech... digital is the one for you. Plus its not just a clock but a trip timer and countdown device.

I got a jvc stereo system with the color change lighting.. I set my stereo to the same dark red color as the cheesy digital clock.
Looks kinda cool like it matches perfectly.

[Europa]

Jaime, what year Spider did you get the tachometer from? I believe the FI engines redline at 6000 RPM and the yellow "caution" marking at 5500 RPM. The gauge in the picture redlines at 7000 RPM and the caution shows at 6500 RPM. But, I do love the simple look of the older gauges.

As for the clock, again, I love the analog clocks for its simplicity and elegant look. (Love the clock on the Inifiniti's).

[wachuko]

Jaime, what year Spider did you get the tachometer from? I believe the FI engines redline at 6000 RPM and the yellow "caution" marking at 5500 RPM. The gauge in the picture redlines at 7000 RPM and the caution shows at 6500 RPM. But, I do love the simple look of the older gauges.

As for the clock, again, I love the analog clocks for its simplicity and elegant look. (Love the clock on the Inifiniti's).

Abey, I don't know the year of the car that instrument panel came from... sorry. And you are correct, redline on the one I will be using is higher than in the others, hummm, completely missed that.

I spent last night working on moving the internal mechanism from the '83 speedometer to the other housing. Since the older housing lacks a hole for wires I had to improvise a bit. Then I starting matching all the wires to the plugs so that this will all plug back to the wire loom in the car.

Remind me to tell you the story about how much fun it was to look, at 2:30am!!, for that tiny screw that hold the reset odometer cable...

A few photos:







Nice cut out for the wires..



My modification to the older housing to accommodate the wires. Once the cover was one it looked fine...



Final product:

[wachuko]

The rest of the dash inserts cleaned up nicely... I ended up going to bed at around 3:50am... as I was getting into bed, the wife wakes up and I had to pretend I was getting up for work



Dash is ready to be cleaned. Still need to figure out what would be the best/proven method to fix that crack in the dash... and no, a new dash is not an option at this time

[wachuko]

Let's see how this holds up... repaired with some two-part epoxy for plastics and vinyls...

[narfire]

James, I read some time ago,someone used a type of body filler for the crack(s) and then sanded, primed and painted. Its on here somewhere,perhaps someone will chime in

[Foster48x]

narfire, I think this might be the thread your talking about.

http://www.fiatspider.com/f08/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=8522

Rick

[wachuko]

James, I read some time ago,someone used a type of body filler for the crack(s) and then sanded, primed and painted. Its on here somewhere,perhaps someone will chime in

The stuff I used smells like when you walk by those Nails Salons... very strong smell and I ended up on a high note Anyway, the real test is going to be how this holds up in next next year or so...

A few photos of the old dash in the car (pity that they did such a poor job, the color combination would have been beautiful).



Old vs Not so old



Don't look at the mess...











After applying the additive to make the paint stick better, the trick with the paint is that you have to go with several light coats instead of a few heavy ones.

I still need to go back to the area where I fixed the crack, I need to grind/sand it down a little bit more (will use a dremel with a small sanding wheel to avoid sanding more of the rest of the dash). But I like how it came out.





Also left the car draining the coolant last night. Getting ready to remove radiator and anything in the way to the aux shaft. Will remove and replace aux shaft, do a timing belt change along with seals, timing tensioner bearing, plugs, etc...

[Europa]

The painted dash looks very good. What type of paint did you use? How did you prep the dash for painting?