My Spider Restoration, ser##665

[Gaelicguy]

Moved from Technical section.

bought my Spider in the USA after it was stored for 35 years. We shipped it with us to Portugal were moved too two years ago.
It finally arrived this last January.
The car hadn’t been run since 1989, to get it matriculated in Portugal I had to take it to an inspection station. It had to be running!
When I first bought the car a couple of years before, I had filled the cylinder with diesel.
I’d had turned the engine by hand a few times since and again topped them of with diesel.
But now I had to try and get it running. I removed the diesel, drained the oil from the sump, fitted a new filter, oil and plugs.
I had rebuilt the carbs a year or so ago. But of course couldn’t tune them.
Before trying to start the engine we did a compression test. Yikes, everything from 60-100 psi. I added Marvel oil additive to the cylinders. ( it’s an amazing product, not sure it’s available in Europe)
Left for a few days the pressures came up to 110-1655. Still very low, but as it is my intent to totally rebuild the engine, we took a chance and started it up. We ran it for about a minute at a high idle.
Turned it off and checked the pressures again. The lows went up a bit the the highs pretty much stayed the same.

We started again and set the carbs, the engine was quiet and sounded great.
A day later we changed the oil again, it looked new.

We made the appointment and drove the 60 km to the station. Apart from headlight alignment and the rear seal deciding to leak exactly at a time the inspector was underneath. It passed.

I was amazed at how powerful the engine was considering the low pressures. I’m beginning to suspect a faulty tester ( I’ve had it for 40 years) My brother followed me to the test center, he said there was never any side of oil
Being burnt at any point of throttle.

I forgot to mention, the two weeks before the engine work, going through the electrical system. I removed probably 10 meters of wire used for jumping things like the fuel pump cutoff etc. it is now wired the way Fiat intended.

Now this is how the car looks, getting ready for restoring the body.
I’ll post another message later, this one is long enough.
ATTACHMENTS
IMG_1718.jpeg