Project 3P, Part 3: Making Upside Down Right Way Up + More Surgery (Fiat 128 3P Restoration)

I get that fixing things with rubber bands and string isn't exactly rocket science, which is just as well seeing that my aeronautical skills top out at paper plane construction!  That said, anyone with some basic handyperson and lateral thinking abilities should be able to tackle lots of the small jobs that make up a large chunk of any classic car restoration, gaining satisfaction and saving money, too.

Case in point:  The inner driver's side Carello headlight of P3P had been fitted upside down and was never going to do much for the beam pattern or the car's chances of passing a roadworthiness check.  The locator lugs on the back were asymmetrically spaced, meaning that the light couldn't simply be realigned 180° into the headlight bucket and that the only option appeared to be to buy a new one.  

Upside-down, Miss Jane!

Several years ago, I had tried to swap the pristine reflector from a cracked Cibie Super Oscar into one that had a badly corroded reflector and an intact lens, but had found it impossible, such was the strength of the caulking that held the two components together.  It seemed likely that this would also be the case with the Carello.  However, it turns out that the Italians are soft compared to the French, with a bit of scalpel and narrow-bladed screwdriver work soon seeing the two parts separated.

Fortunately, the entire reflector is uniformly parabolic throughout its full 360°, so all that needed to be adjusted was the lens position itself.  After the caulking was removed, the only steps were to:

• Mark the position of what was the bottom - or six o'clock position - of the lens on the back of the reflector, as this was to become the "new" top;
• Place the handle of a large screwdriver through the bulb hole, gently applying pressure to the back (inside) of the lens whilst supporting it in my cupped hand, safely separating the two parts;
• Thoroughly clean the inside of the lens, the reflector face and inner ring that had contained the caulking;
• Place the lens back into the reflector, aligned at 180° to its original position;
• Apply two or three small drops of superglue to the rim of the inner reflector rim where it met the lens, slowly rotating the light until the liquid adhesive had thinned out and could no longer been seen;
• Re-apply further drops of superglue, again rotating the light in the same direction until this glue could also not be seen, which was repeated until the entire diameter of the light had a thin application of adhesive;
• (Particular care was taken not to dispense too much superglue during any one application - definitely not more than two or three drops - and to continuously rotate the light to ensure than none leaked into the light itself, contaminating the reflector).
• Mask the lens after the superglue had set, as per the following photos, before silicone sealant was applied to replace the old caulking; and
• Float the assembled light with cured silicone in a sinkful of water to ensure that it had been adequately sealed against the ingress of moisture.

Being keen to do as much of the more involved resto work as possible, leaving only the jobs that require proper tradie skills - like welding, spray painting and "big" mechanical repairs - to those qualified to do them, I again embarked on a bit of basic surgery, this time cutting out the rusted driver's side rear brace.  How did anyone fare before power tools existed?!  It took fewer than ten minutes with a pneumatic cutting disc to excise the offending part, which would've been a mammoth task with hand tools.  And neat, too; the cutter was so easy to hold that it made doing a professional looking job very simple.

Coming soon to P3P:  Rebuilding the broken grille with superglue and bog, steel replacement panels made and welded in by someone who's not me, and hopefully a bit more progress towards a roadworthy check.  Plus any other random stuff that I think to photograph.    

U M P H

(uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com.au.)

iPhone images.