Spring Comparison

Here's a side by side comparison of the spring options I had for the 128. The 2 on the far left are X19 rear springs, next to that are 124 Spider springs, then some springs from Speedway Motors in pruple and finally on the far right the original 128 springs with 2.5 coils cut off. The best option without a doubt was the x19 setup.

Some more 600's

Mayuko and her 128

Nice boots!

Who's got the fastest spider?

Hint, it's the one in the foreground!

No Respect

Here is a nice little Fiat story, my daughter gives me grief for wasting time browsing Craig's list all the time. While surfing San Diego Craig's list for parts I emailed a guy that had 850 broshures for sale, on a lark I asked him if he knew anyone with a 903 engine, guess what he had a friend in Northern Ca. with engines and transaxles for sale. Turns out Dennis had a complete 903 built by PBS with a 280ST cam and trick remote oil filter, a nice set of wheels, header, carbs, axles, and other misc. parts. After selling our 600D engine and other extra parts Dennis had we were at a net big fat ZERO for all the parts we purchased. Needless to say I get slightly less grief now!

Lightened and balanced flywheel

The 600 flywheel has been converted to work with the 903/850 style clutch and Pressure plate. Ashland grinding in Hayward Ca. did the flywheel work, one of the last machine shops that do this kind of work in Northern Ca.

Buckets

These were adapted using the seat rails from the original seats, you have to drill out the pin to get these off, then using an L bracket bolted them on these seat I found on Craig's list.

Electric fan conversion on the 600

I like it when you can get better cooling and more horsepower out of one upgrade, someone said you can gain 5 HP! by removing the fan from the water pump. This fan is from an X19 and fits the stock 600 radiator hole almost perfectly. I cut down the fan brackets and brazed it on the shroud.

128 rear spring lowering

We used some threaded spacers I found in an electrical supply house, the length is 1 5/8" with hardened bolts from my Fiat bolt stash.

128 Slammed!

I did the work a while ago and I'm finally getting around to posting. On the left is the 128 right before we bought it. You could hide a small dog in those wheel wells. Once the bumpers came off it was even higher. Bringing down the whole car was a project. We tried spring cutting and although they couldn't go anywhere, the top of the spring just didn't sit right in the perch. I could hear them flopping around every time I turned a corner. We were able to get our hands on early, rear X 1/9 struts and new inserts but they came with really tall, stiff 124 springs which put me back up to where I started at. Finally Bernice from the X forums sent me a set of proper springs and the fronts sit perfectly. There it stayed for a while while the 600 got all the attention.

Drag racin'

Finally a few weekends ago the ass end comes down, again no easy task. The back is a transverse leaf spring set-up which needed blocks to lower it. Easy enough to find the hardware but a huge pain in the butt to knock out the original studs. There were angry monkeys all around...but the end result was well worth it.

New binders for baby

Both sides are done, pretty much bolt on, except the lower springs holes had to be drilled out. One other small lproblem, these are early 850 brakes and the the plastic caliper shims are no longer available. I made some steel shims that should work.

Nice garden gloves!

Part of the rear brake freshen up Mayuko is installing new rear cylinders, though she and Buck appear to me catching some ZZZZ's in this shot.

Disc brakes almost ready

One side of the disk brake conversion
the down side is the car will have two different bolt threads, 1.5mm in back and 1.25mm front.

Scuderia Topolino timing gear set

These will change the rotation of the engine to match the 600

We will run 165-65-13 RE-92 bridgestones

These 13x5" wheels should work with the
front disk layout and the 165-65-13 should be
close to the original ride height of the 12x4.5 155 sr

New belly pan driver side

The old floor could probably be saved but Mayuko was adamant about doing this part the right way with now metal, most of the panels are still avail. for the 600, we got this one from MrFiat

Newly cleaned and coated gas tank

Our radiator guy saved another tank for us, his trade mark is a soldered penny in one corner of the finsihed gas tank

Preparing the 850 disk brakes for the front of the 600

New mill almost ready to go in

This is a PBS built motor with their 280ST cam and external oil filter. Dennis Chertien, they guy I bought it from still holds 2 land speed records for an 850 spider, at one time he and his partner held 7 records! Top speed on their yellow spider was over 180 MPH! We are waiting on reverse rotation gears from Scuderia Topolino and our flywheel from Moss machine shop in San Francisco, then the mill will be installed in the little 600.

Cleaned up parts