New here. 1980 FI Spider. Colorado Springs

[novws]

Last weekend I acquired a 1980 Fiat Spider that has hail damage to the body, roof and windshield. The body otherwise is solid. The car has 86k miles and does need some work mechanically too. It runs well but needs a valve adjustment. It pulls to the right under braking. And it pops out of 2nd gear. Lots to do with this one, but the price was right and it is a fun car to drive, even in its current state.

Speaking of driving, I won’t be doing much of that for a while. I don’t have much of a budget at the moment and winter is coming. Tentatively, my plan is to replace the top and windshield, address the brakes (and probably replace all four calipers), and adjust the valves along with other routine maintenance — starting tomorrow with an oil change.

The timing belt was supposed to have been replaced 4 years/4k miles ago. Since my fix list is long I would ideally like to wait another year until replacing it. But how do I inspect it? It looks like the upper coolant passage ness to be removed just to get the timing cover off.

Thanks in advance for any tips and advice. I’ve wanted one of these for a while.

John

[novws]

A few pics:

[redcars]

Yes you must remove the coolant T to get to the timing belt. A new belt is like $20.00 so just put on a new one.