"Fucking Imbeciles Assembled This" and now another to rebuild it...

[Simo101]

Welcome to the build thread for my fiat 125... Sorry slow and rusty fiat 125...

First a bit about me.

Im a motor engineer and i restore 50's and 60's Mercedes, Porsches and Alfa Romeos.
Now thats over with on to the car!

Ive had the car a few months, and somehow its moved up the queue and pushed in front of other projects. Somehow. I don't know, bloody Italians!

Anyway! the car has spent all of its life in rainy, damp ol blighty.
Owned previously by a good friend, passed to another old friend and now in my hands.

Car was originally a 1608 lampredi twin cam with a massive 90hp! Rear wheel drive though so was obviously a drift weapon.

Many years of being Italian, and stored outside (The PO left it sat in wet grass next to his empty garage. what a plum, and stood there for over 5 years.) has obviously taken its toll on this car.

Heres a picture of it in its glory days being thrown around a track. (this day was the famous stag hunting day! the car ran rings round V8 triumph stags all day, one didnt like it, gave chase and his engine blew!)
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Sadly she is no longer looking like this. She is rusty decrepit and a half arsed attempt at restoration (half taken apart) leaves us here.

So far all I have done is remove the axles, put it on my home made jig so i can move it around the workshop, and do some measuring...

So, whats the plan?

I toyed with the idea(s) of

- Rebuilding the car completely standard excep for some sidedraught webers

- Fitting a 2.0 twincam fiat 131 engine

- Making the suspension better with some funky engineering

- Fitting a 16v twinspark alfa engine but that was too boring

and then over a couple of beers at the pub I decided on something more drastic.

I have a 1.8 Mx5/Miata which I was going to repair the rust on and use next summer, i had one before and loved it!
But its too much work for what it is and I wanted to work on the fiat.

So im going to use the front and rear subframe from the Mx5 with all suspension and put it in the fiat, that way ill have a much more modern independent suspension setup, whihc will be waaayyy more tunable than leaf springs...

I was also going to use the mx5 engine, buuuut its not gutsy enough. and i dont want a turbo mx5 motor!

So whats the next logical choice in engine? Rotary of course!
The plan is to use a 231 RX8 engine, with the mx5 gearbox.

all of this whilst keeping it looking as original as possible!

I hope you guys enjoy this thread as much Im going to enjoy building the car.
Ill be here to show you the work, as well as asking advice should I need it!

Ill leave you with some pictures, bonus picture of throwing a wheel in the arch held up with an axle stand...

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[Simo101]

Small update.

Spent most of the morning going through the parts which were all thrown in the 125.
found pretty much everything but im sure there will be a few bits missing.
Got all the parts sorted, boxed and labelled, and shelved. so that was the morning gone.

The Mx5 then arrived via trailer from my work, to my workshop.
Did a couple of burnouts till the tank was empty ( it was literally 2 burnouts before it ran out haha)

Then set about removing the rear subframe. got everything unbolted, except the last 4 bolts, couldn't find my 1/2 inch ratchet, so I called it a day, and went home.

But its ready to drop out tomorrow, I can then go about fitting it into the 125.


Donor Car is a 1.8, California Edition, number 128/300. Almost a shame to break but its for a good cause...

Also note the W114 nosing into the photo... She needs some work, but runs and drives. However no MOT so will be sat for a little while, until I do some welding on it.

[Nagah]

Very promising. I will sub this. Please keep us updated.

[Mehowski]

This thread came out of no where! I grew up around those Fiats, my grandad had about 4 sitting on his drive, but the Polski 125P not the Italian one. Very surprised to see this being built in England though, I know how rare these are. Best of luck with the build sounds like a crazy plan haha

Shame you're splitting a California Edition for parts, but oh well better than than it ending up at a scrapyard

[Simo101]

Thanks guys for the comments! I will update as regularly as I can!

Mehowski - There are only 5 genuine Fiat versions left in the uk. 4 registered and 1 Sorn can you guess which the sorn one is? haha

So today i removed the rear subframe from the MX5 after going to halfords and getting a few more tools...

I then jacked it up into the rear of the 125 to see how it fitted!
Unfortunately the measurements for the subframe which I had prior were not quite as accurate as I hoped... so I ended up hacking some spare wheel well out and will need to notch into the chassis rails to make it sit forward enough, about 5-10 mm forward from where it sits now.

But I figure, seeing as I will be opening the chassis rail up, and taking the sills off at some point. I may as well, reinforce them as I have been told the shell isnt very rigid from factory. (not that I had not guessed this previously)

So ill get some steel for doing that!

Anyway have some pictures!



Also found another picture of the car at castle combe, look at that lean!
Luckily no scratches on the door handles. The alfa behind is my bosses old car too!
1960 Alfa Romeo Giulietta 101 1300cc but with a 2.0 engine and lsd!

Cheers for now.

[Simo101]

Another day some more progress!

Mx5 subframe is in the position I want it in now, I had to cut some chassis rails (which were surprisingly thick!) but it now sits perfectly in its hole and is ready to make some mounting points which I will incorporate into a frame that ties the chassis rails each side together.

Its a couple of inches wider than the original axle so Im probably going to extend the arches out slightly. Not flared as such, but just extended, mainly so I don't have to run too much camber.

Also Ive been look at colours (prematurely I know) and ive found this blue from house of Kolor, im thinking this colour with a tan interior... what do you guys think? im also very open to suggestions, not matte black or white though!



Anyway here are the pics of the progress!


More chassis cutting

the top arm sits perfectly in the 'cutout' for the axle so i should have plenty of travel

im planning on running these magnesium wheels that the car came on too!

Ciao for now!

[DutchieSaxo]

Really cool project man, one Hell of a way to build a fiat.

This is gonna piss off a few purists here and there but that's what I like.

I don't know if you'll use it for trackdays 'n all but if so i'd go for a creative take on a fiat race livery like Alitalia. I know its white but this car can pull it off

[Simo101]

Really cool project man, one Hell of a way to build a fiat.

This is gonna piss off a few purists here and there but that's what I like.

I don't know if you'll use it for trackdays 'n all but if so i'd go for a creative take on a fiat race livery like Alitalia. I know its white but this car can pull it off

Hey thanks man I appreciate it!

Yeah I know haha, im all for originality, but stupid car builds are cooler!

Yeah I will be! i probably should have made that clear in the beginning haha
The cars use when finished will be, fast road/trackday as well as being daily driven in the summer, plus the odd show here and there etc... basically ill be using it whenever I can. No trailer queen here!

Yeah ive thought about a period fiat livery, like the OLIO FIAT livery on the 131 abarth... i just can bring myself to do it though, Ive never been a fan of a liveried road car to be honest! Im going to go for more of a sleeper!

[Yonkers320is]

awesome, I would do the 131 Marku Allen livery: white, with a light blue and dark blue diagonal....

[leaferiksin]

This thing is going to be awesome, TBH I think it looks awesome in white.

[Simo101]

This thing is going to be awesome, TBH I think it looks awesome in white.

awesome, I would do the 131 Marku Allen livery: white, with a light blue and dark blue diagonal....

I love the Marku Allen Livery, Im just not a fan of liveried road cars, I keep thinking about it, but I know I would end up ****** it!

and the white does look great, im just not a white car kinda guy!



No progress this weekend as im away with the other half.

Ive been thinking about the rear wheel fitment though, as in, they dont fit with the arches the way they are, and i wont get any bigger wheels in there...

So the obvious route to go is to flare the arch/wing.
I was thinking of using Porsche 914/6 steel arches, arch profile is similar and the arches are available in steel as opposed to fibreglass.

as fitted to this!


What do you think? will it work?

[FowlerE30]

Pretty cool build, I definitely dig that deep blue metallic. I have heard House of color leaves a little to be desired in the clear coat and base but i have never used there products. keep up the work.

[Simo101]

Pretty cool build, I definitely dig that deep blue metallic. I have heard House of color leaves a little to be desired in the clear coat and base but i have never used there products. keep up the work.

Thanks man appreciate it, oh really? I wasnt planning on using their lacquer as i have stuff which i use anyway, ill do a bit of research into them though! failing that ill go for a similar shade!

[Simo101]

Spent the past two nights making a frame up for the suspension, as well as chopping various bits that i needed to remove as well as cleaning underseal off (oh the fucking joy of underseal. Didn't stop it bloody rusting though did it!?)

The is frame now made up (bar a cross brace #becauseengineering)
tack welded it into place on each corner and it sat where i wanted it too, so I jacked the suspension up into place, spent 2 hours measuring and fettling and then marked the holes and drilled them.

The largest holes in the subframe were 18mm (yeah i know mahoosive) so I bought some M18 nuts and bolts so suit, and drilled the remaining holes on the subframe out to 18mm from about 10. So now theyre all the same and i can sleep at night knowing all is well.

Next job is to cut open the box section and weld in the nuts so that they are captive and then weld the frame in. I can then get creative with making triangles to tie up the rear of the frame to the chassis frame and boot floor and then go ahead and close it all off.

I wont go too mad with it just yet as I want to leave some parts open to the elements for when it get the shell shot blast. once thats done ill use some weld through primer inside chassis rails and then close it all off.

once this is in ill move forward and start tubing up the sills and tying the rear and front subframes together. Im probably going to space frame the front end so that theres more clearance for everything up front.

[CTeunuch]

Very cool build! Subscribed for progress.