New from SoCal

[Oldschoolbuilder]

Just introducing myself. New to Fiat's old to building cars. A friend of mine gave me a 1977 Fiat spider last weekend. The car has sat outside for from what I can tell around 10 years.
The electrical looks like it was chewed up and spat out a couple of times. The master cylinder is dry, and something is locked up in the rear brakes. Interior and top are both pretty much shot. I get an odd clunk sound whenever I sit in the drivers seat from the rear suspension. But the clutch feels tight and the trans runs through the gears pretty smoothly.
Last weekend after I got it off the trailer I pulled the plugs and cleaned them. Put some Marvel Mystery oil in the cylinders, the rear one being a nightmare to get to with my big hands. I let the Marvel sit over night, then did an oil change the next day. Put some fresh fuel in the carb and after the mouse nest shot out the tail pipe she fired and ran like a champ for a few seconds.
The radiator is shot so I didn't try to run the motor for longer, though I hope to this weekend.
And debating if I'll repair the wiring or just replace the whole harness and fuse box with an aftermarket.

[nelsonj]

Great to hear it fires up and welcome aboard! I'd be very careful running the engine (at all) until you change the timing belt. The 77 is a full interference engine. If the timing belt breaks, you'll bend all 8 valves (at minimum). It's just not safe for the engine (in my opinion) to run if the timing belt has been exposed to the elements for the last 10 years.

Ok - I'm in SoCal also (Simi Valley), where are you? Please keep posting and let us know how things are going. Pictures are nice to have.

Peace.
Out.

[Oldschoolbuilder]

Thanks for the advice. I actually just heard this from a guy from craigslist I just bought a radiator from for the Spider (up in Acton really nice guy). While I hadn't intended to run it much more than I already had I'm certainly not even going to attempt it again until I get a new belt on it. I've done some work on a Eclipse and the tensioner went after I replaced the belt clean sweep on the exhaust valves, learned my first lesson on interference motors, and not to play games.

I'm up in Gorman/Frazier park area, so just up the hill from you.