This saturday Yorn and I started work on the engine. Stripped the old engine, cleaned the centrifugal oil filter which contained a cup full of sediment. It seems these filters are forgotten during normal maintenance.

We are planning to add an extra (external) filter on the side of the engine to keep the oil in better condition. All parts are in stock but we'll test assembly on the old engine first before we remove the cover on the new block.

This is what we encountered when the timingcover came off:

This timingchain has clearly reached the end of it's life. Some of the links are already broken. I'm glad the new block has a new timingchain!
The rest of the old engine didn't look much better but the crankshaft seems to be ok.

The old and the new:


Oilpan was cleaned, sanded and sprayed with primer and black chassispaint.

I gave the cylinderhead a quick check and it really is as flat as glass.

My bodyman bought a car for his girlfriend and he will be working on this car for the next weeks so I'll concentrate on the engine. Re-assembling will take time and has to be done anyway.

Today Joop (fellow member of the Dutch Fiat Club) travelled a good few hours to deliver the Seat Marbella cylinderhead. It has double valve springs, where to the original head has single springs.

Not only did he supply a cylinderhead in very good condition, he also cleaned it and included bolts and valvecover. When you realise what I had to pay for all this you won't believe it.
I think it hardly covers the cost of driving up and down. Very much appreciated!!

The plan is to pressuretest this head, grind off a bit to get the compressionratio above 9,5 and polish the ports  to improve breathing.

This week I ordered a decal-set from EBay UK. It arrived today. They're replicas but look the part and I won't be using them all.

Just returned from Belgium where we picked up the engineblock.

It sat on a shelf for many years, forgotten or as dead stock. But not dead at all! It looks great.

Nearly everything is new: pistons ( 0,58 oversize), rings and pins. Same for bearings, timing chain, camshaft and oilpump.
Crankshaft was polished too.

Everything was lightly oiled so nu rust. The crankshaft can be turned by hand. Can you imagine that we're happy?

Also spent a few hours of bodywork. The inner sill on the right hand side is nearly ready. Photos will be published later

Parts for our 850 come from all over the world!

Bodypanels from Italy and the Netherlands, trim from the United States. Engine parts also arrived from different parts of the Netherlands and soon Joop, a member of the Dutch Fiat Club, will bring me a used cylinderhead, formerly attached to s Seat Marbella engine.

And tomorrow we'll be heading to Belgium where we found a rebuilt block (100G). So far no details on the job done but it's origins are a machine shop whose owner died. When the shop was emptied this block was found on a shelf and the current owner has no use for it.

Finally we had another day's work on the 850. We focussed on the front wheelarch and the inner sill. The man who worked on this before really earns the title "Worst welder ever".
Metal over metal over metal and covered with bad filler.

Robin (the "panelmaster") cut out all bad areas, cleaned the surroundings and started welding new material. After grinding down this repair will be nearly invisible, even without paint.

This is what you get when a craftsman with good tools takes time to build your car.

Yorn and I stripped the doors and cleaned all panels with an industrial cleaner using steam. No rust on any of the parts, exept a small hole in the rear panel.

The inner sill is reinforced with a small panel. Behind it was a lot of rust and it is impossible to clean there without removing the panel so that is what we did.
It will need to be repaired before we replace it but before we do that the rest of the inner sill will be cleaned and repaired.

This day in an album

It's been a while since the last update. A lot of work  in my job and a setback with the engine took up a lot of time.

The cilinderhead is in such a bad state that it is a bad idea to invest any money in it.

I've asked a collegue of mine to work on the body so I've started preparations on the body: removed sill on right side, cleaned metal and removed rest of the interior and glass.
Robin then cut out most of the rot from the right side and made a new inner sill from scratch.

A small album of today's work: here

Last week's endoscope-inspection showed two cylinders full of sh*t.

The only thing to do was take the cylinderhead off.
Which is what we did today. Easy job.

I purchased a secondhand Winntec 500 engine stand a few years ago which now came in handy. It's a bit oversized (can safely handle up to 500 kg's) because the 850's engine can be lifted easily by one person.

Within half an hour the head was off and that gave us a good view of the internals and the damage done.

Small album: here

At van Andel, the Sherlock Holmes for Fiat parts. What he doesn't know about Fiat wasn't built by Fiat.

I called him today and explained what I needed. He thought for a moment and said: "probably I have them but I'll have to check my stock. Will call you back in a minute" Which he did and this is what he had for me: two rear wheelarches.
Since I had the day off I picked them up immediately. Not firstrate quality but quite usefull.
 


All important bodyparts have been bought now so as soon as there is workspace available in the bodyshop we can start cosmetic surgery.
In the meantime the engine is the next target.