1977 Fiat 124 Spider

This beautiful 1977 Fiat 124 Spider has arrived for some fall/winter service work. After an inspection we determined that this car is extremely solid but is in need of some mechanical attention.

Compression is down in the #3 cylinder slightly and significantly enough in #4 to warrant some investigation. We removed the upper engine ancillaries, manifolds, etc., and drained the engine fluids.

Once everything was off we pulled the valve covers and ultimately the cylinder head itself.

Fortunately there were no obvious major failures - the cylinder head will go to the machine shop for a closer inspection. While there we'll also flatten the flange on the exhaust manifold which had not been sealing properly at the rear of the engine.

While disassembling an engine for a project of this type we like to restore individual components whenever possible. The first example here is the water pump pulley - it was fairly rusty and most of its paint had flaked off over the years. We sandblasted it and powder-coated it in-shop.

The second example is the emissions pre-heater/heatshield that mounts over top of the exhaust manifold. This was extremely rusty (you can see it in the second picture above). We found some areas on this piece that were black, which gave us confidence that the part should actually be black. It is an interesting piece as it is actually 2 pieces of steel with a sheet of asbestos sandwiched between them. We sandblasted this piece as well, but rather than powdercoating we opted for a high-heat enamel paint to better withstand the temperatures it faces.

The third example is the engine front cover piece. This is cast aluminum and was au-natural from the factory. We bead-blasted this piece to maintain the cast look and not damage the aluminum. After cleaning we sprayed the exterior with a satin clear-coat to help preserve the look.