vague steering problems

[murrayarnold]

dobar dan spider Dan. Kako si? are you from here originally. I know there are many Croats living in Canada. How on earth do you cope with the winters. Unless your second generation or were from Zagreb. Yes, that would make sense as no good Dalmatian would leave home and miss out on the fantastic café bar culture. ha ha. love it.

[spiderdan]

Dobro sam hvala na pitanju. Nisam Hrvatske, ja sam francuski kanadski. Iako mi se sviđa pomoću "Google prevesti" da naš svijet prijatelja osjećaju dobrodošli na Fiat Spider.com

How on earth do you cope with the winters.

Beer, poutine, Tim Horton's, beer, Crown Royal whiskey, beer, surf ebay for Fiat stuff, beer, watch the weather, beer, surf FiatSpider.com (and envy those American southern friends that get to drive year round!) and more beer

the fantastic café bar culture.

They sounds like great places to hangout and chat about Spiders.

[murrayarnold]

well you will be pleased to know I have found where the issue is on my erratic steering. Its the drivers side upper control arm pivot bolt. The upper A arm has got movement through this. Passenger side looks good. I am wondering if this is a bush issue or its simply not tightened up properly. Well at least I now have the problem identified.

djape1977. thanks for pointing me in the right direction. This is diagnostics 101 and I overlooked this as a possible issue. School day for me and many thanks. Guess a new set of bushes are now required.

[murrayarnold]

and more excellent news. I went into my toy shed. I remembered that I has some bushes and stuff that I got with the car 6 years ago. Low and behold, a complete set of upper and lower bushes for both sides and in addition a full set of upper and lower ball joints. So looks like I will be busy tomorrow. And after that will no doubt need the wheel alignment redone. What a relief that all is now in hand.
I guess seeing the car came with all this in the trunk should have been a sign

[azruss]

You need to check caster and camber when you are done. Camber can make your fat tires wander, especially if both sides arent the same.

[murrayarnold]

my local garage has an optical wheel alignment system. But they don't have the fiat spider on it. Just my luck. just need the tools now as the top pivot bolt appears the only socket and wrench I don't have, can you imagine. A trip to the hardware shop today. I think its 22mm if my estimation is correct.

[murrayarnold]

hmm, I just noticed all the spacers that I have seen people talking about. Would it be safe to leave them as is as there does seam to be a couple mm of difference. If the car goes to an optical wheel alignment garage would they be able to measure castor or is this a specialised job. Bloody fiat has to be overly complicated. My mk1 escort is way less complicated. And it won more races than the 124.

[azruss]

an alignment shop should be able to do all three adjustments. You need to asked them to do caster and camber. Shims are definitely old school. Dont know how you could get much simpler.

[djape1977]

tell the guys at wheel alignment shop to use lada riva measures for 124. same car. also, tell them to measure axle distance on BOTH sides.

join my facebook group, https://www.facebook.com/groups/fiat.an ... sic.parts/ plenty guys with 124's there, some with spiders and lots with coupes. parts usually cost something, while experience is free.

having worked on mk1 escort and on 124, i'll just say that fiat exceedes ford by far in any and all means

[murrayarnold]

Agreed with regards the escort and the fiat can't be compared. You could line the 2 of them up and play trumps and the fiat would win everything. But just like weber carbs, sometimes to much fine tuning can be as good as it can be bad

Regarding face book. sorry not on it. I simply won't touch social media. Waw to much nonsense on them. Much good, yes. But I will steer clear and stick to linked in, which is purely a professional networking media.

So now the alignment. You say lada. My gosh. How embarrassing. Ha. So what year as they will ask. Now you say that I should measure the axles distance to front hubs. Obviously setting the toe of the front wheels will effect this bit by only mm. Would you suggest adjusting this first before aligning the wheels.

I can imagine there will be a huge difference when all this is set right

[djape1977]

linkedin? that anoying site that i keep getting spam mail from?

oh well, your loss. new complete suspension arms, petrol tanks, headlights, twin carbs etc...

funny that you feel it's emberassing. fiats are people's cars, same as lada, opel, ford, volksvagen. by the way, you'll find that lada parts, specially in OUR part of the world, are much more accesible and a lot cheaper than fiat 124 parts, and some are even better quality.

any lada they have in computer, from 2101 to 2107, all the numbers in between, any engine from 1200cc to 1700cc, any year from 1970 to 2013.

most alingment shops do a half assed job. they see that there are no adjustable components in the back and then just do the front without taking rear end into account.

first thing, axle distance must be same on both sides, within 5 milimeters. that can be adjusted by adding or removing shims under front lower a-arms, efectively swinging the whole A - arm back or forwards, one side or the other.
then they need to adjust the toe in/out. and then angle of the wheels to vertical.

all of this MUST be done with two people siting in the car, or at least 50kg weights in both driver's and passanger's footwell.

if you're gonna use car for street driving, toe in 1-2 degrees, wheels vertical
if it's for racing, toe out 2-3 degrees, 3 degrees from vertical with upper end in compared to lower.

[murrayarnold]

great info. Thanks for all that. I will set it for road use. I am selling it so it will be test driven on the road and I need it to be driving true and effortless.
Linked in for me is spot on as I am an oversees contractor. Its been useful. Most of the spam from Linked in comes from other people who are on it. They have not got the setting correct and it accesses their address book and emails everyone on it to join.
Ok well I best get to it, although I think most work will be tomorrow. Again, appreciated.

[murrayarnold]

by the way djape1977 , I see your in Belgrade. Hows the weather. I was nearly there on an invite to a rally just as the bad weather hit your area. All expenses paid but I never made it. They invited me to bring my Spider. Me and the wife were really looking forward to it. She is Dalmatian and I am Scottish. Lucky for me she loves the cars. Good to have an understanding wife. Helps when I want, no, need to spend money on any of the cars. But right now the fiat is finished but the other 3, well not so much the triumph, need some money spent on them. I would rather instead of one car out my 4 being 100%, to have 3 at 100%. For this reason I am selling the fiat but need it to be running well for selling, hence the front end work.
By the way so far all my parts came from Belgium, Britain and America. None from Croatia, not even the tyres. Considering we live opposite Italy you would think all my parts would be easy to get but Italy just don't communicate with Croatia and none of them speak English. Boze boze boze, ha ha ha

[djape1977]

weather's fine these days. usual early autumn. those rains in the spring made a real mess.

if you happen to need any more parts for 124, contact me, i bet i can give you better prices and shipping will definately be cheaper.

there's another one 124 in dalmatia, abarth replica, and a good one too. my group would help you get in touch with that guy and other people from your area that know their way around fiats...

[murrayarnold]

I am registered with the croatian automobile association. My friend Sany August from selce near rieka has the croatian spider club. Mind you he is the only one in his self proclaimed club. He has I think 10 124s. His favourite being his blue and yellow abarth replica with the fiat ofalio lettering. It was the one that got me interested in building one. There are a few more but I understand mine to be the only group 4 design. If I dont sell it there will be some things I will do next year. Full roll cage and rally hard top. Apart from that there is nothing else the car needs.
Having said that I would consider an engine rebuild.