New '82 Spider Owner - Hello!

[FiatSpiderGirl]

Hello, I just joined and am so excited to be here. I discovered the Fiat Spider at an auto auction last fall and just fell in love. I didn't win the one there, so I went on a search! I found an '82 Fiat Spider 2000 Pininfarina that needed a lot of work. My fiance has re-built a Spider years ago, and being the pack-rat that he is, I was elated to see he still had the manual in storage. We've started taking her apart, mending her broken, dented, bent parts and are getting ready to have her painted. (She'd been pretty badly treated by her previous owners) I have even learned to weld in this process. We removed the bumpers and bumper shocks and are making her look more like a '72 year model. I just like the look of the older models, but we didn't want to mess with a carbeurator. Is it considered a "sin" for me to have removed the bumpers and changed the look of my car? I hope not because selling those parts on ebay is paying for the new paint job! It's so awesome! I have welded shut the holes where the bumper shocks were attached to the body of the car and even cut and welded to make the front turn signals fit flush on the car instead of in the bumpers. We live at Lake Texoma, TX and this will be an awesome car for driving the 1/2 mile down to the boat slip. I'm loving learning about this car and repairing her myself. Doing the work yourself sure makes you appreciate the car much more than paying someone else to do it. We are going to start tackling the quirky issue of the dash-blower killing the engine every time you turn it on. That was an interesting suprise the first time that happened. Anyone else have that problem? Well, I'll close for now. Look forward to hearing from you... FiatSpiderGirl

[Danno]

Welcome! post pics asap!!!!

[rlux4]

Howdy to ya! Welcome to the forum. I am soo impressed that you are getting in there and doing so much of the job yourself. Tough question on why the heater fan is killing your engine. Have you had the console off yet? The wires go to the switch in plain sight under it. My '82 has the wires running down the left side. So many POs (previous owners) messed with the wiring in ways that make no sense now. Could be there is a tap into the main 12v going there. I'll look at the wiring diagrams to see if there is a common wire with your FI control circuits. If you don't have it already, Brad Artigue has great wiring diagrams you can download for free here: http://www.artigue.com/fiat/
Good luck, and hurry up with those pictures.
Ron

[So Cal Mark]

welcome! It's not a sin to make a late car look like an early one. Lots of owners have done that. Losing the weight of the bumpers is a cheap way to gain performance. I'm impressed that you've learned to weld! That's devotion

[mdrburchette]

Welcome to the forum, Fiatspidergirl! It's nice to see another female willing to learn about her car in the most intimate way. Hope you've been taking pics during the process.

[pope]

Is that true that Texans put a pair of longhorns on the front of their Fiats. Yeehaa!! Welcome to the site and lets see the pics!

[kristoj]

I'm loving learning about this car and repairing her myself. Doing the work yourself sure makes you appreciate the car much more than paying someone else to do it.

Amen! Couldn't agree more. And you get to learn new skills in the process, which is also rewarding. Welcome to the forum. Can't wait to see some pix.

John

[baltobernie]

Welcome to the forum! I'm a new member myself, with a 1973 Spider originally from Rising Star, TX. The members here are fantastic in their knowledge and willingness to help others share the Spider experience.

[FiatSpiderGirl]

Hey everybody! Ron, thanks for the wiring downloads. I'll pull those up and show my finace this weekend while we're working on the car. He's an electrical engineer, so they should be awesome for him. We've just been doing the body-work so far, but I'm pushing him to start the wiring and at least get in there and take a look.

My pics seem to be too large for me to upload and I haven't had a chance to adjust them in PhotoShop. Check out my website for pics! I'll keep it updated as we go! http://www.freewebs.com/fiatspidergirl/

Keely

[pope]

You cant upload pics to this site, they have to be on a hosted website or a photo site like photobucket or flix. Try to keep the pics under 600 x 400.

[rlux4]

Thanks for the thanks Keely, but all I did was let you know about them. I learned about it here too. We all owe much gratitude to Brad Artigue for the work he's done that makes our projects easier. We should all get together and take him out to dinner sometime!
I checked out your pictures, whoa, you are gettin' in there girl! Way to go.
Ron

[mbouse]

Yup, Keely, that is the way it usually happens.... love at first sight. Welcome to the site.