Fiat Restoration
I bought a 1979 Fiat 124 in 2017 thinking it would be a relatively quick turn around. Little did I know the shear amount of rust repair that would be required.
Taking delivery of the car: To my surprise started up pretty easily on a cold November morning. Things would go downhill quite quickly from here. Trailering it due to the plates situation
Delivery + 6 hours. Come home to a smell of fuel permeating through garage door to my outdoor parking spot. Thrash for 5 hours disassembling fuel system to find rotten out fuel lines INSIDE the car (apparently that's where they routed those things in the 70s).
Engine seems to leak from everywhere, which is common for these cars. So it got pulled out
Rusty floor boards. So far this projects still basically aligns with my expectations concerning a 50 year old Italian car
This is the point where I realized I was in serious trouble. That piece of sheetmetal hanging down is the previous owner's "rust repair" on the rocker, it took a small pry bar to take it apart.
Continued down the rust rabbit hole to realize there were more "rust repairs" in the rear wheel arch area on the left hand side
No one wants to see 1000s of pictures of rust. This is the mostly finalized LH side of the car. Rockers and rear wheel arches have been rebuilt. Rear quarter is going to require a lot of massaging at paint but it's miiiiiiles better than when I received the car.
In case you were wondering if the right side of the car was somehow not a rusty pile of trash
While I'm dealing with this rust repair ordeal, I'd sent the engine out to get machined and ordered many parts. Nothing like fresh clean parts to make me happy
Living rooms is where all engines should be rebuilt
Meanwhile, RH side rocker is getting rebuilt. Note the copious amount of bracing I put it to avoid this thing turning into a noodle.