Project 3P, Part 1: When Dumb Sh*t Works Out OK! (Fiat 128 3P Restoration)

The Alfa Male attends to the practicalities while I faff about taking photos.

I'm not generally given to impulse buying.  No last-minute check-out queue choccies or copies of celebrity gossip rags for me!  But send me an auction link, like my mate Nick did a few weeks back, and it seems I'll buy nearly any old thing, sight unseen.

A rusty late 70s' Fiat 128 3P coupe?  Why not?!  The photos on the Tullochs' Auctions webpage looked OK, the car seemed straight and one pic even hinted that it might actually run.  And with classic car prices clearly on the up, it looked to be worth the gamble. 

My "winning" bid fell short of the reserve and the car was passed in.  Noting that there only seemed to be two other bidders and their lacklustre interest in the car (I had made two of the total four bids), I flicked Tullochs' a cheeky email with a counter offer, still below the reserve, and left it at that.

The following Friday, I received a call from the auction house proposing a counter-counter offer, also under the reserve, that seemed like a reasonable compromise.  As the photos above and below suggest, I said yes.  

A bit over a week later, the Alfa Male - pictured, above - his trusty ute, a car trailer and I made the trip north from Tasmania's capital city of Hobart to Tullochs' in the state's second largest city, Launceston, approximately 200 kilometres away.  It was a largely uneventful sortie, other than shattering the Fiat's once-was-flexible fuel filler neck as I drove onto the trailer, and the subsequent Exxon Valdez event.

Please note, though, that I was able to DRIVE onto the trailer!  The car started readily, ran cleanly once it was off the choke, there were no problems engaging first and reverse gears (the only ones I'm yet to use!) and although flattish tyres made for heavy steering, it otherwise acquitted itself well.  Apart from the brakes, that is!  We'll get to them later.     

A quick assessment of the car suggests that it wasn't a bad buy.  Mrs UMPH was even moved to comment that she could "... see its potential," which goes very close to being a declaration of love at first sight!  It is very complete, appears to have only two areas of penetrating rust - the passenger side sill and a brace on the driver's side of the boot - doesn't look like its ever taken a serious hit and has a very tidy interior, with an almost totally uncracked dash, only slightly faded carpet, a couple of wear holes on the driver's seat and two missing minor trim panels.

Amazingly, all the electrics work!  Every switch and bulb operates, as does the AM-only radio.  The wiring's tidy, too; it has apparently escaped "upgrades," which is very, very rare on a Fiat of the era!

Under the bonnet, the radiator fluid is clean with what looks like fresh additive, the engine oil appears to have been recently changed, and the hoses and belts seem to be in reasonable nick, at least for the short term.  It also has a newish battery - apparently out of a truck - which may explain the engine's willingness to leap into life!

The only crack on the whole dash can be seen here, on the near-left edge of the top corner.

On the minus side, the rear hatch leaks, the driver’s side front corner is boggy, that same side's medial headlamp has been replaced with an inverted passenger-side version, the front bumper's bent and has been finished in the finest rattle-can silver frost, the tyres are well past their best-by date, the exterior's covered in scabrous surface rust and the last six or eight inches of exhaust is missing, although much of what remains appears to be new.  And - despite what are clearly almost brand new flexible lines - the brake pedal drops ineffectually to mere millimetres from the floor with only the most minimal result and, even then, that’s only when travelling at crawling pace.  The master cylinder's full and there are no obvious leaks, so I can only assume there's air in the system.  Lots of air!   

Farthest from camera: minor wear-related damage on the lateral part of the driver's seat back.

Boggy driver's front corner and rattle-can chrome bumper.

The driver's side high-beam is arse-up!

My face!  Where's my face?  

The fuel filler neck is approaching its use-by date.

That's betterer:  a new fuel filler neck.

Interior view of the new fuel filler neck.

Driver's side internal boot brace.

Passenger-side sill.

Surface rust on the battery tray.

It seems the Tullochs' team gave my car a nickname!

Mainly new exhaust.

New flexible brake lines.

The mudflaps are in nearly as good a nick as the fuel filler neck.

So what's in P3P's immediate future?  I've decided it's too straight to turn it into a track car, so it looks like a restoration's in order.  First off will be bleeding the brakes (assuming that's all that's needed), new tyres - possibly on original 13" Cromodora CD3 alloys, if I can source a fourth, or a set of 14" Alfa "wine glasses," a replacement tail pipe end and getting the rust cut out and replaced with new metal.  Hopefully that'll be enough to get it registered.  

I have no firm plans on how the car will be finished, although I am tending towards keeping it ostensibly stock and only doing subtle modifications like electronic ignition, upgraded suspension and maybe a restrained, but still sporty, exhaust.  Who know exactly how it'll finish up?  It's a work-in-progress, after all  ... .      

U M P H

(uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com.au.)

iPhone images.