Fiat 126p - Aircooled 650cc 2 cylinder

[eben]

Parked it in the garden tonight before leaving for SA....

[retrovan]

good to see the Fiat running.
HAVE YOU SOLVED ALL THE ISSUES.
Using it as a daily drive will save you a fortune....

[eben]

*****THE FIRST CUT IS THE DEEPEST....LALALALAA********
OK this is the first time I've attacked a car with a grinder.... we'll see how it goes






I'm going to try and stick-weld fresh metal in there... am I crazy? If I had a MIG welder I would have used that.

[retrovan]

If I may offer some advice when using an Arc welder on cars, rather do what is called Plug Welding.

Ether drill small holes on the offered plate, all around the edge, then weld through the hole onto the bottom plate that you have overlapped, till hole is filled up.

Hope it helps.

Herman

[eben]

Quite hard to start these because the fuelpump isn't so good at priming the carbs. An electric pump will improve it to about 3 cranks in freezing weather. Manual choke and cable operated starter of course

[eben]

Some pictures of the innards if any of you are interested. Some similarities with a VW head
I've had to remove the head because the PO used ONLY silicone sealant on the pushrod tubes, no seals
2461 2460 2459 2458 2457 2454 2452 2449 2447 2446 2445 2444 2443 2442
2441 2439 2436 2435 2434

[eben]

PS.. Note, no oil cooler... the oil cooler on this engine is the sump.... also no proper oil filter, it has a centrifugal oil filter located in the crankshaft pulley. The crankshaft is hollow.

[retrovan]

With the lack of parts, must weigh no more then 10 Kg.
At least the power to weight ratio must be great.........

[Watercool]

Here you go Eben, two birds with one shot.

31_2064312293_xl.jpg

[hitlers revenge]

@Henry. Just what Eben needs.

[eben]

Here you go Eben, two birds with one shot.

31_2064312293_xl.jpg

Joker.... Not really any snow yet but there is a tracked version of a 126 running around in Poland.

At the moment I'm doing some port matching on the exhaust side.









Valves will also need to be re-lapped. Interestingly they all came with dual valve springs..

[eben]

Some of you might now that I'm South African who lived in London for 7 years and now moved to Slovakia 6 months ago.

Everything is great. Except I'm still struggling a bit to communicate, especially with technical things.
Other thing, there are no(or I cant find them), tool shops or Midas type places that you can go browse for what you want.

I've had the head off the 126 for a bit of a clean-up and to re-lap the valves. I removed the retainers by compressing the spring with a piece of tubing which worked. But of course I needed to get them back on again afterwards.

So... I had to make a plan. Went to the builders' warehouse and bought a cheap EUR7 clamp:


Used a HSS drill and some files to convert it into a valve spring compressor:


Took just enough off to make space to refit the retainers and took the sharp edges off:


Probably not as easy as a proper tool but I didn't have any issues and it didn't slip once(best to be careful though)





& Bob's your Uncle ;D

Thought I'd share in case anyone else ever has the same situation.

[hitlers revenge]

Well done lad!

Looks like you've lost none of those, "Picketberg - boer maak n plan", ideas.

[eben]

Needs must Dave

[eben]

So the port matching has been done now.
Before:

After:

Before:

After:


Time to polish and put it back together. Valves have been lapped.