My son just bought an '82. Seller is willing to use his tow dolly to get over to our place, 23 miles. Is that alright? Just keep in neutral I assume? He claims it ran fine until it suddenly stopped making spark and he parked it. Hasn't been run in a few months. I'll charge up the battery, drop a bit of 2cycle oil into each plug hole and start diagnostics. I love tinker but am not a trained mechanic, have never touched a rotary but have kept a '70 Opel GT, 63 Midget and (currently) '81 X1/9 on the road, the Fiat is my daily driver.
Hope we did alright.
Here's the ad (he'll pull pretty quick though)

flickr

 

Yea, it'll be safe to tow it that way, just leave it in neutral as you say and make sure the parking brake lever is all the way down, disengaged.

I looked at the flicker pics and at 105k miles, the engine should still be ok, I'm thinking the ignitor(s) may be dead. Those are the little black boxes on the distributor. Check to see if you have spark once you get the battery charged up and let us know.

Mario III

 

You must be in the GR area. I nearly bought that car, was going to look at it this weekend if it was still available. I think you got a great deal.

Put the car on the dolly with the rear wheels on the dolly. Make sure the steering wheel is locked into position.

First thing to do would be a check for spark. Then post up the results and we can go from there. There are several owners in the GR area, and we get together from time to time. Get her running and you'll have to swing by.



.

 

Thanks for the input. Seller is towing it and I'll have to hope it all goes well. There's another in Dorr that I thought we should check out but my son had exactly $900 and that's it so here we go. It'll need tires, any input there would be appreciated. Got a quote for Cooper Trendsetters for $360 but cheaper is better. Car does show rust bubbles in various areas and at least one spot on the drivers floor. Will take stop gap measures on those. This will be a driver and will not see a ton of use as his school and work are both 1 mile away! I'll have to train him to take the very long way, he'll find the twistiest roads on his own. I found them with X 1/9!

 

I've got 2 stock rims with tires on them if you want them.
The tires are road huggers, with pretty good tread.
You can have them if you want them.
E-mail me for pics.
I'm in NW Ohio
Rex

 

Thanks for the offer. Probably a bit much to ship though? I can't email yet, only 2 posts!

 

Got the car. Fixed questionable ground strap, checked oil, checked other fluids. It has spark (spare plug held against blcok. Shot some starter fluid down it's throat. Turns over, coughed and sputtered a little. I don't even know if I was checking lead or trail or anything else. Will dig deeper tomorrow.

 

no spark was a red herring, look for new thread...........

 

Tires: Talk to Garret at Discount Tire on 28th street. Tell him the guy with the red fb who recently bought race tires sent you. He's giving deals in an attempt to gain longtime customers.

Do you have fuel in the float bowls (little windows front and back of carb). Should be halfway full.

Can you hear the fuel pump running?

Top plugs are trailing, bottom are leading.

Rust: Grab a jug of Muriatic Acid from any hardware store (4 bucks?). Treat any rust you find with the acid, just brush it on and let it sit for a few minutes. Then rinse. At that point, get a coat of something on it right away or it will rust quick. This method seems to stop rust dead, even years later no sign of returning. You can dilute it to 25 - 50% to soak parts in too (not aluminum!).

 

Thanks for feedback. I did start new threads on specific issues but can quick update here too. Figured out add-on fuel pump was not coming on, traced wires to a toggle hidden UNDER the center console factory switch plate, it was off and supply was unswitched, turned it on and pump started and we had running engine. Very weird set up. I'm going to switch the feed to switched power and use an unused OEM toggle switch if indeed it is a simple on/off switch.
I bought some Rustoleum gloss white to use as touch up paint, rust spots will be ground down, rust converter applied then either POR15 or just primer, some sort of temp top coat (Rustoleum gloss white if matches decently) Looks like car was resprayed (poorly!) from silver to white, probably go back to silver.
Maybe someday we can convince you to come by and eyeball this thing and alert us to potential issues before me make big problems out of little ones?


Which Discount Tire? East end or West end of 28th?

 

West end.

I'd love to get together sometime. Time is pretty tight for me, but I usually try to get the local rotorheads together once a month or so. Friend me on facebook if you are on there, and I'll keep you posted.