The Broken Fiat Club

So I've been working on rebuilding Popabella for a while, but I've been distracted by a new potential project.

A friend in the local Fiat group turned me on to a 2013 500 Abarth at the local dealership. Apparently something is broken in cylinder #3, and the dealership's solution was a brand new engine. The owners didn't want to invest that kind of cash into a 10 year old car, so I picked it up cheap in the hope that I can make it my daily driver with not too much investment. Worst case I can use it to refresh Popabella with some nice stuff and strip off some stuff for sale.

Picked her up today with the hope to start working on her this weekend.

Wish me luck!

Good luck bro.

You're gonna need it.

(At least we have will get more content out of it)

So my dreams of a quick and easy valve job were fairly quickly erased this weekend.

Hopefully nobody goes back and reviews the security footage of me trying to push the car up a very tiny slope and the garage lip, but starting at 6am and finishing at 6.22am the car was in the garage and up on the Quickjacks by 6.30am. It was dark and I don't think anyone saw. Bumper cover off was very easy as there were only 3 fasteners left (2 up top and one below). The trim around the radiators was also easy as only one screw in each part. The passenger headlight is pretty rough, and held on by zip-ties. Started removing the clutter on the head, so we could try to peek inside. Starting with the Eurocompulsion V4.1. I'm going to go back to the stock airbox on this car as I've never been a fan of the EC intake and hopefully it will encourage no mods......or less mods. As we dug in we found the plug in cylinder #3 was squashed flat which wasn't a good sign. I couldn't get plug #4 out, the socket just wouldn't grip on the plug. After discussions about whether I should be using a metric plug socket Alvin noticed that there was a small lump of plastic that had been dropped down the tube by the previous mechanic. After he engineered a solution to retrieve that the plug came out easily. We scoped the engine and the piston rings are visible in cylinder #3, so need to pull the engine to figure out the real damage <sigh>

Started the process of disconnecting everything that ties the engine and transmission to the car. Heater hoses gave us the most trouble. not sure who designs these things.

Discovered that the car has universal coolant in it, hopefully not for too long as I don't want to have to pull the dash apart in the future. The condensor is also pushed back into the radiator, so probably prudent to replace those.

The tee that connects coolant to the after-run pump fell apart as we tried to remove the coolant hoses. So I'll need to replace that. I'll probably use one of the brass one that the Dart folks use.

We got it pretty close to being ready to pull the engine before the heat overtook the AC and we stopped for the day. Still to do: Disconnect clutch hydraulics, gear linkages, axles and suspension extensions. I think that's it....well and mop the floor as it's pretty slippery.

Good progress, but also found more to do...

Removed the cinch bolts and separated the ball joints with the appropriate tool (unusual for me). Removed the vertical braces and the lower brace, as well as the frame extensions.

Disconnected the gear shift bushings, and the hydraulic connection to the slave.

Pulled the hubs away from the axles, finding that both axle boots are totally gone and there is not much grease left inside (just enough to make a mess). Those will need rebuilding. Disconnected the torque mount.

Made sure the metal hoses running to the compressor were freed from the clips as that's coming with the engine.

Connected up the engine hoist to the passenger side engine mount, and to the lifting plate. The lifting plate seems to be expecting a hook, but we had bolts so had to improvise.

The engine mount is totally shot, and the transmission mount is torn so those will need to be replaced.
Short blown mount video: https://youtube.com/shorts/vsto5ZnUo0o Used the hoist to take the weight of the engine and then removed the transmission mount. Then lowering the transmission side and raising the engine side the assembly swings out fairly easily.

yay

Waiting on parts to rebuild the axles and the new engine mounts. So started the process of getting the blocked stripped so the head can come off.

Drained the oil and removed the filter. Had some lumps of plastic stuck in the filter which is odd. Removed the turbo and it looks like the previous install has been done very poorly. The stud that the manifold heat shield is on missing, so no 10mm nut there and the shield itself has been mangled to fit. The turbo isn't an OEM 1446, some kind of clone. Cheaper but seems to be fine. The studs and nuts to secure the turbo to the manifold were clearly too much trouble, so those have just been skipped, or perhaps they've just backed out and fallen off.' At least there is nothing but hopes holding it on in the rear. Anyway, turbo off. Removed the clutch and put the engine on a stand so I can continue.

Today I started pulling apart the engine to better assess the damage.

I completed the FPT electrical connection puzzle challenge. The one that always gives me trouble is the coolant temp sensor on the thermostat. The loom looks a but tired so I plan to rewrap it to avoid replacing it.

Valve cover and cam carrier off easily enough, but was defeated by one of the head bolts where the head decided to give before the bolt. Not sure what to do about that, so broke for the day to enjoy Labor Day.
I did rescope the #3 piston and grabbed a photo of the damaged piston for your enjoyment.

So thinking about naming this car Igor, it's giving off a Frankenstein's monster vibe.

So I went back in the workshop with a positive attitude and a 1/2" impact and got the bolts out of the head. Yay for brute force and a smile!

The bore looks pretty good actually, the valves are whole but don't look clever so they need to be replaced. You can see much clearer the damage to the piston. I do now have a <40k miles engine from a 500L so I'm thinking that I'm going to put that in with a younger gearbox too, and then Igor should have a fresh lease on life.

I didn't update last weekends fun.

I did take some time trying to tidy up the wiring loom as 10 years was showing in places. I unpacked the new engine, and lifted that up in the air. I'm using a new leveler that I really like. Noticed that part of the oil cooler housing is broken off. Looks cosmetic but thinking I might need to address that to avoid future surprises. I did get the wiring loom off, and removed the transmission adapter plate and the flywheel.

Limited time this weekend due to kid's birthday parties and a trip to see some NFL football.

I did dig in a bit deeper to the new engine trying to get it ready for installation. Finished taking the wiring loom off, so I have a complete 2014 500L loom if anyone needs it. First thing I noticed was the timing was slightly off, not enough to make me worry about the valves but enough that the cam tool didn't want to go on until the cam bolt was loosened. The plugs look fine, if a bit oily. I was wondering if that was something to do with the engine being delivered on its side though. MA Filter looks clean I removed the broken oil filter housing, and it's very dirty behind that. So wondering if that's a sign of something worse or perhaps the oil filter housing was damaged before shipping I scoped all 4 pistons and everything looks complete and shiny there.