Fiat acquisition of Chrysler (in my driveway)

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

Yep. That clicks with me. Plus, it is so horrible I don’t have much to loose. 

In reply to Mezzanine :

I certainly don’t want it to be a repeat project because of cracking. I like the full foam delete idea. There is a metal frame below the foam and that might actually be cool looking. Additional features could also be welded in and covered/coated?  I am keeping the “exo-dash” as a plan B in case what I’m starting doesn’t pan out. Easy enough to chop and grind back. 

Using the heat gun I stripped all the old vinyl off of the dash. It was  so brittle that just pressing with my thumb I could create spider web cracks. 

With all skin off I attacked the cracks with my wood rasp to get out all the sun damaged portions.   

Looking at the complexity that is going on with the dash has me completely rethinking the vinyl cover idea it seems like fiberglass is where this is headed. The old vinyl skin can get replaced with a roughly equal thickness of fiberglass which will be a lot stronger and tougher to crack. It should also be pretty easy to drape and conform to the odd shapes in the dash. 

It has been a few years since I have played with composite repairs and based on past, uh, learning opportunities I mixed up some of my seriously out of date epoxy and applied some to all of the relevant pieces. It didn’t melt anything so that is nice. It also did not cure yet so that is not so nice. It is a slow cure resin and its cold outside (-10F) so my garage is a bit cool. Maybe by tomorrow it will set up? If not, at least I won’t have a vast sticky pile to deal with.

I got about this far into application of body filler when I realized that it was making my house smell bad. This is the down side of the garage being attached to the house. The rest of the family is not stoked! I can take this to the hot rod shop and finish up there. Fiberglass will have to be done there as well. 

My X dash is nearing the condition of yours, but I just drive it ugly, 2K miles since Dec. 15th. Summer heat will be time to do cosmetics. And, I live alone, so damn the stink!

While the dash is on hold I decided to make some delete plates  

And to the porta-band

then grinder and sander use until the fit is satisfactory 

and welded to the car front and rear

Next up is side marker delete and various and many trim holes. 

A few holes left on the front fenders that can be gotten to once I have more gas for the Mig. I am happy that I no longer have luggage rack mounts to stab me when I lean over the trunk. 

No way, I was totally planning to do the same body detail deletes on my X! I'm probably going to leave the badges, but the side markers are going to be 3/4" round LEDs instead of the big rectangles, so I'll fill the panels the same as you.

Did you cut away the recessed factory steel behind the side markers?

Looking great, and your progress is impressive.

In reply to Mezzanine :

I left the factory opening behind the plates so I can shoot foam in post body work. Thanks for the encouragement; it has been a lot of fun to work on. The heated garage is something I’ve never had before and it is really great. 

2_3 said:

I have long axles made from welding two fiat ones. These survived lots of hard launches and abuse and even the guy who welded them was surprised. Maybe there is no need to get custom ones made for low power applications, which leads me to... what are the plans for this engine?

I did axles for an fsae car by cutting the ends that fit the CVs and slipping them into a tube and welding.  We never had a problem.   I shortened a set of connecting rod by cutting and welding on new small ends then raced then 2 seasons with no issue.   Steel welds good, I wouldn't hesitate to weld the axles ......worst happens they break and you need to get custom ones so not not much to lose trying the welding path first.

In reply to mke :

Exactly what I did.  They aren’t broken yet! 

In reply to GoLucky :

Sorry, I must have missed the post when I read through.  Well done then! :)

In reply to mke :

Thanks! and No stress, lots going on in these threads plus I probably didn't put any pictures of the axles because I was in welding mode. I have the samples and lengths saved to send to a professional service should mine break. I am hoping that lightish car, 185 tire and stockish Neon motor is less than welded axle strength. 

There are some broken plastic parts in the heater system. Like the hinges of the blend door. 

And 2 out of 3 control levers.

cleaned and sanded up the cracks and metal pins for the blown door then mixed up some epoxy and gobbed it together.  

The metal pins are held to the heater box with some metal clamps and there isn’t any bushing present. I have no idea if the Fiat came that way or not but I did not like the idea of the blend door breaking again so I walked around for a while with a dial caliper looking for a improvised bushing. I was really regretting tossing out a box of old/ broken arrows this past fall when we moved because I am certain that there were some good sizes in there. Eventually I ended up finding a pen to chop up.

While my epoxy was curing I made some new ends to the control levers out of stainless scrap and attached them with steel stick. One done in top of picture and lower one in process. 

I also wrapped the glove box in vinyl which does not address the issue of the broken hinge but it does look much more red at least. 

Also took apart the cluster to remove the mechanical speedo which will be replaced with something else later. The tach and  speedo both had some crazy bad UV damage to the pointers

With a few mods one of the pointers from the Neon cluster took over pointing duty. Also swapped out the seat belt light for a CEL that may or may not end up getting used. That will depend upon whether or not the ECU gets a reflash; smog stuff would have it on all the time currently.

Progress in tiny steps. 

Bring my dash to work day got it farther down the road to complete. 

did some sanding and some more mud and it is getting better. 

In between the gas, exhaust and cigars Bondo smell is completely acceptable out at the hot rod shop; aka Steve’s  garage. 

All X1/9 glove box hinges break. I replaced my lid completely with a piece of flat carbon fiber (scrap from someone else ) and two small brass hinges from hardware store. Hinged at the bottom. Best part? Original 4.5 pounds, new 4.5 ounces! Could be covered like yours, but I have black interior, so , why bother. You probably will want the upper surfaces on rebuilt dash black to prevent reflection on windshield. Otherwise red interior looks great.

In reply to TurnerX19 :

sounds cool. Do you have a thread for yours? I sure love looking at other peoples projects.

I have been dragging my feet a bit with glassing the dash. A friend recommended that I slather on some hella pricey fiber reinforced filler so I figured I would give that a go. 

First coat went on so-so. Looks like a lot of sanding in my future. 

In reply to GoLucky :

No build thread (yet) but I do post the occasional photo. I have owned it 14 years. Put 70k miles on it in the first 7 years, then it got parked for almost 7 more. Now have put 2400 on it since mid Dec.

Well it is now almost clear road time of year here so I decided to put the Fiat back together so that I can drive it. 

It was time to stop worrying about the dash being “good” and instead make it “done”.  Primer, trunk textured paint, then satin black all from rattle cans. Crap, but still WAY better than before.  

More pics of the finished dash please! I'm totally ok with crap - anything would look better than all the cracks it had before.

In reply to Mezzanine :

I’ll get some pictures after work. 

I need to take and post a photo of my glove box lid. All of the originals broke at the hinge.

In reply to TurnerX19 :

That would be great. Mine is also broken 

As promised last evening, some glove box lid pics. The carbon fiber was sourced from a trashed splitter/front under tray originally on a Trans-Am series Pontiac GTO. The inner lip that prevents contents from opening the lid was in place several years before the lid was added, but long after the original lid departed. It is a scrap of black formica. Hinges from Lowdepot, riveted to lid with #2 x1/2 brass wood screws into the original dash plastic. I had an Oring to hold it closed, but UV kept killing it, and is un-necessary.