Greetings; and how I came to be here...

[oaxacagold]

Well, first of all, let me thank the admins of this forum for providing a place for such a nice and knowledgeable community to meet.

Alright, here's my story. I have always been a relentless admirer of the work of Batista Farina. One day my neighbor came home one day with an '83 pininfarina/fiat spider, and our shared enthusiasm of classic italian roadsters brought as to be good friends. Since at the time, I owned my own online business, and my wife only worked a few blocks away, for both environmental and economic reasons we resisted owning a car, but on those rare occasions when I did need a car, my neighbor was extremely generous and would let me borrow his spider. I remember the first time I drove it like it was yesterday. It was a beautiful day, I put the top down, lit up a cubano Por Larranaga, and took the car out of the city. The car really reminded me of flying the WWI era lacquered canvas covered airplane owned by my best friend's step dad while growing up. It was not very fast, and was extremely difficult to hold a conversation in, but it was beautiful, and while operating it, you felt like you were in touch with every piston, gear and pulley, and could sense the road even blindfolded, in the same way that the canvas airplane was as much a glider as an airplane.

As always, no good thing (or bad for that matter) lasts forever. My neighbor, whose wife had given birth to his son one year previous, had lost his job. I had saved up several thousand dollars, preparing to move to the mountains when my lease expired, and thinking of his young son, when he had come to me needing money to keep the lights on and rent paid, I lent him some out of my savings. After several months, the money lending had started to become well over $4,000. He had failed to keep h is promise of using his income tax return to pay back a portion of what he was owed. So, we both decided that it would make both of us feel better if he signed the title over to me, in exchange for another thousand dollars, but I would hold on to it for as long as I could without going to the DMV and getting the car titled in my name. At the time, I knew that he had only paid about $3,000 for the car, but figured he really loved it, and would do his absolute best to pay me back, despite the fact that he owed me more than the car was worth.

Now, I had never liked his wife. The first time I had ever met her was the first week we moved next to them and she had beat on my door, accusing me of breaking into their house. His wife had begun to believe that her husband was cheating on her, and not knowing that the car was collateral for the money I was providing to them to keep a roof over their heads, she decided to take her psychotic rage out on the car. With a knife, she attacked the top. She broke the drivers side mirror, which was the expensive ($500 at iap) plastic sort the mounts on the window. She broke off the turn signal knob, which requires complete replacement of the entire column switch set ($300 at iap). I didn't learn until much later, but I believe she even attempted to cut the break line. Fortunately, she is an idiot psychopath, and only ended up cutting the passenger side of the parking break cable.

Her husband was also either hiding from her the fact that I was lending them money, or at least the extent of which. I was unaware of this, so when she knocked on my door demanding that I tell her how much was owed, I gave her a rough estimate off the top of my head. This brought a whole knew round of psychopathic behavior, and I felt it was best if he slept on our sofa, in order to prevent him, an amateur boxer, from hurting her while defending himself from her physically abusive nature. Somehow, she interpreted this as me trying to interfere in their personal lives, when really all I was doing was giving him a place to sleep while they worked things out, and trying to minimize their child's already heavy exposure to domestic violence and yelling. While festering alone in her house, she either came up with an evil plan, or had actually become so self delusional that she called the city police department, to tell them that I was keeping her husband addicted to crack or meth in my home as a way to get him to sign over all of their savings and assets to me. When actually, it was me who had lost all of my savings keeping a roof over her head. So, two narcotics detectives, and four regular cops come to my home, beat on my door and ask to search my home. This was quite the dilemma. I don't think anyone would feel comfortable having police rifle through their belongings, but at the same time I really didn't want to deal with the harassment and trouble with having the police label me as being a drug dealer who strategically targets families to take their assets.

I already had to deal with police harassment just a couple months earlier, because the police allowed a guy who had killed and raped a teenager to go free. Out of an extremely bad stroke of randomness, the suspect, someone who I had never seen before, had out of the blue, given drawn my own address off the top of his head, to give them as his own. So, when they realized they made a mistake, they went to pick him up at my house, and just as in the case of my neighbor, were convinced I was hiding him in my basement.

I ended up not allowing them to search my house, because I felt they could look at me and tell that I do not look like a user of hard drugs. I did let them into my home and sat them in the living room, so they could run their eyes over my living conditions, and see that I was neither wealthy enough to be a drug dealer, nor poor enough to be a drug addict. I used the excuse of my pitbulls not liking strangers (actually they're very nice), as a reason to prevent them from tearing my home apart

After all this, I was repaid about a thousand dollars, which at least made what I had paid for the car somewhat bearable, but I still ended up paying a price that I felt was too high, for a car I liked a lot, but did not really want to buy. My business was doing well at the time, and I was moving away from my crazy neighbors and a police department that thought I was a meth dealing pedophile murderer. So, I moved, and instead of having a newer more reliable car, I spend what I had left on moving and buying a 2000 dodge truck. Unfortunately, my business suffered almost immediately after moving. The company my largest contract was with ended up collapsing due to the owner going through a divorce, because like my neighbor he was also caught cheating on his wife. Also, immediately after moving, I was diagnosed with a serious health condition, and the spider along with having some driveshaft troubles causing the car to sound like a jackhammer, could not pass the yearly state inspection due to the damage my crazy neighbor had done, and I simply did not have the money or physical health to repair. While the car was sitting, I did pretty much everything you are not supposed to do. I just parked her for close to year, and only started her about once every 5 times during this period.

Now that things are appearing to go much better for me. I'm starting to get my health and energy levels back, and my income is getting back to a level where I have some discretionary income. Since my wife and I now live up in the mountains, I also really need to have a backup form of transportation, so it is time to get the spider back on the road, and hoping to look to this community as a means of advice and support.

[Danno]

WOW, that's a heck of a story. Welcome aboard, and hopefully the restoration will be far less painful than the experience that got it into your hands!

[mdrburchette]

Wow, your story read like a short novel. I hope we'll be able to help with the closing chapters (getting your car repaired).
Welcome aboard. Where are you located?

[rlux4]

I thought I had a bad neighbor story!
Here's hoping things stay better and continue to improve.
Post some pictures of your Spider, we want to see what you got for your money (and hassle).
Ron

[mbouse]

wowzers, and i thought pope lived in a bad neighbor hood.

umm, welcome. yes, please post some pictures.

[Jazgeek]

I think I saw that story on a made for tv movie.... your part was played by James Brolin I believe and the crazy neighbours wife was played by Roseanne Barr.....

seriously though... that's quite a story. Good luck with your restore and don't let the backstory cloud the view of your topless mountain rides!

[racydave]

Thank god I lead a boring life! Dont give up on being a good neighbor ( to someone else! )

[pope]

Yes, truth is definitely stranger than fiction.

[So Cal Mark]

welcome, that has to be the introductory story in "Tales from FiatSpider.com"
And Ron, it's your neighbor that has the bad neighbor story!

[oaxacagold]

Thanks for the warm welcome. Here's some pictures of her. Please bear with me. I'm fairly new to using a third party image hosting site for posting images.







The first thing I need to do is replace the top. I've never changed a top before, but I do have the top itself. Unfortunately, I bought the wrong adhesive. Yesterday I got the jammed passenger door working. But at least I figured that out before attempting to replace it. After I replace the top, I'll fix the driveshaft. I drove it up the gravel road I live off of yesterday, and the engine and transmission appear to be okay, but because of the knocking driveshaft I didn't take it into third gear. While in reverse, the driveshaft had seized which had me worried. Fortunately I put it back into first and it came unseized. I believe it to be the rear u-joint, but could be the hanger bearings. It could also possibly the notorious differential on the later models, but I'm doubtful. After I do that, will then replace the column switch set, which should hopefully fix the non-working windshield wipers. Then, after that, I will replace the break pads, and the parking break cable, and she should pass inspection. OF course, I intend to get he restored much further, but for the short term my goal is simply getting her on the road legally. I know well the difficulty of restoring a car that you are driving regularly, but I'm just hoping to get her legal so I can keep her from suffering from stagnation, which seems to really kill a lot of spiders.

Oh yeah, about where I live. I had gotten the car while living in Richmond. My neighbor had purchased it from sports car workshop, which is, in my opinion, the best place to purchase/repair a spider in that region. The owner isn't just a mechanic but has a mechanical engineering degree, something that I really look for in a mechanic that works on classic italians. My neighbor had grown up with the owner's son. Also, now that I think of it, the car has had some third party performance suspension stuff installed. I know there were shocks and springs put in, but not sure what else if anything.

I now live in southwestern Virginia, near the North Carolina border, and within walking distance of the blue ridge parkway. To those that aren't familiar with the blue ridge parkway, second to the pacific coast highway, it is perhaps the nicest road for going on a scenic drive in a spider. Except for the fact that if you get speeding ticket, you have to deal with the federal court system, which can be a nightmare, and unlike most local courts they rarely knock a few mph off of your ticket. One of my friends once missed his turn off, and turned around in the road taking advantage of the gravel covered shoulder. He was pulled over and given a ticket for off roading in a national park, a terrible crime, that is if someone is actually off roading.

[4babycar]

Nice to have another Virginia spider! I live in Lynchburg and I am in the process of working on 2 spiders myself, an 80 and 81. I too am only a few miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway and I agree that it is some of the best driving scenery around! Welcome to the forum and let me know if there is anything that I can help you with.

[So Cal Mark]

my bet is a broken differential, not driveshaft.

[mdrburchette]

Hey, I'm in the Winston-Salem area and our club has drives and rallies in the Blue Ridge. Hurry up and get that thing rolling so you can join us for the Wooly Worm rally the third weekend of October. As for your wipers, it's possible that your linkage needs lubed and connectors could use a cleaning. They seldom fail due to the column levers.

[oaxacagold]

Mark, the differential was my first guess when the noise started appearing, but after getting my wife to drive back and forth in the driveway while I laid on the ground it really did seem to be coming from the u-joint. Also, when I moved the drivshaft back and forth within the existing play, I could get the U-joint to make a sound with similar tonal qualities. Although, I suppose it is entirely possible that something in the differential is causing the u-joint to make or amplify the sound. To have an 83 spider to go 125k miles without a differential rebuild does seem like an act of god, and is something that I was planning to do or pay someone to do whether it is the cause of the current problem or not.

mdrburchette, that sounds wonderful, that sounds like a good proposed deadline to get her back on the road. How do I get in touch with your group? Also thanks for the tip with the linkage I will try to check on that tomorrow, although I will need to change the column switches (I think my car is actually more like an '84 than an '83, it was made in 9-83 and the column is the same as an '84. I can't wait until I replace that pininfarina hood emblem, which I refuse to do until I get her on the road. That was one of the reasons I fell in love with her, she only has pininfarina logos except on the engine, and to think that this car was assembled in the legendary pininfarina factory just makes me all warm and fuzzy.

[mdrburchette]

Email me at spyderlady71@yahoo.com and I'll send you the info on the rally. Hope to see you there and good luck with your repairs.