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| Non-original Hella 181s. Being a UK-delivered Serie Speciale, the car was factory-wired for accessory lights, and may have originally been fitted with a set of Carellos. |
For the past several months, work on my "new" 1978 Series 1 Fiat X1/9 has consisted almost entirely of tidying-up and replacing wiring, plus removing surplus-to-needs accessories and their circuits. All the driving light loom forward of the windscreen has been replaced, including a new relay. Also, a defunct stereo and its confusion of electro-spaghetti has gone, as has a fan override, a digital trip computer, and a couple of two-way radio power sources and aerials. Even the door-mounted speakers have been taken out, although the grilles remain to mask the holes in the door cards. Any cables that had been severed, spliced or otherwise messed with have been replaced, returning the car's electrics to stock.
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| Above and below: rewired driving light loom, including a new relay and a fuse. The original version was mounted low in the forward luggage compartment but this one's been relocated to the bulkhead in front of of the windscreen. |
Other than the stereo and the driving light wiring from where it entered the under-bonnet area, all the other accessories were professionally installed, making their removal reasonably easy and minimising the work required to put things right again. I reckon I'm fairly lucky in this regard; stories abound of the damage caused in the quest to "improve" some X1/9s' electrics but I've largely escaped this curse!
So with the electrics sorted, what was next? There are a few things on the list that are beyond my modest abilities - a respray, and swapping-in the twin DCNFs, manifold, cam and head from my "old" 1980 Series 1.5 - but I am reasonably handy when it come to fitting and wiring accessories.
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| Dual air horn trumpets mounted on the septum behind the radiator. The straight edge parallel to the horn butts vertically against the radiator side of the front bulkhead of the forward luggage compartment; the rubber strip on the right of the septum fits flush with the radiator. |
I also have a belief that proper sports cars, and especially those from Italy, are incomplete without a set of air horns. It might be that I'm a bit shouty by nature but to be fair, my Series 1 was only fitted with a single Fiamm unit and there's no evidence that a second was ever installed (a UK design rule, perhaps?). As a result, leaning on the horn button proved about as effective a warning as a fart would be for an impending cyclone and, given the apparent invisibility of the diminutive X to some road users, a safety upgrade was definitely in order.
My Series 1.5 had air horns when I bought it, so I was confident that it'd be easy to instal one into my Series 1. Wrong! Whereas the former benefits from the larger front bumper, and plenty of space and mounting points, the latter's front end was surprisingly tight. I was considering abandoning my plan but couldn't face the idea of re-fitting the Fiamm, as it had already taken better than an hour with a ratchet ring spanner to remove it in the first place.
After much deliberation, measuring and practice placements, I settled on mounting the compressor behind the radiator on the driver's side of the forward luggage compartment's front bulkhead. It's mounted as laterally as it can be, insuring that it doesn't cop too much hot air being blown back through the radiator and it's not in the direct wash from the fan, either. This also has the advantage of keeping it as close as possible to the previous horn's positive wire, onto which I soldered a new lead.
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| Compressor mounting point: to the right of photo is the front bulkhead of the forward luggage compartment, with the inner surface of the front light / washer bottle pod forward of the driver's side front wheel visible on the left. |
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| Above and below: staggered bolt holes for the high- and low-tone trumpets. |
Mounting the trumpets could've been simple, had it not been for my intention to fit a second radiator fan. The current single-fan setup sees the fan mounted on the drivers side only, taking up only half the radiator's rear surface, leaving a void on the passenger's side rear large enough for the compressor and the twin trumpets with room to spare. However, I needed a solution that wouldn't impede a second fan's installation.
A bit of trial and error demonstrated that if if mounted the trumpets vertically at the rear of the septum that separates the fan and non-fan sides of the radiator and the space behind it, I'd be able to fit the second fan. This would also see the trumpets high enough to be protected, yet not visible unless the viewer was on his or her hands and knees, looking upwards. It also allowed them to discharge - if that's the right term - directly out of the car rather than into a semi-enclosed space, as the previous Fiamm horn did inside the front light / washer bottle pod forward of the driver's side front wheel.
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