Crank him up!

With at least some of the electrics working, it was time to see if the engine would fire up. I had read on numerous forums that 500s could be a little temperamental even when in good condition, so my hopes were not high.

The starting procedure involves switching on the ignition on the steering column with the key, as with any modern car, but the starter motor is activated by a separate lever near the gear-stick.

Choke and starter motor lever

So attempt No.1. Ignition on, lights on the instrument cluster come on. Good sign!

Ignition on. Check!

Next, pull the starter motor lever.... Yes the engine turns.... Just. But then stop. Houston we have a problem. There's not quite enough juice in the battery to crank it fast enough to let it start. 

Luckily, my parents had lent me their jump start battery. After 24 hrs or so on charge, it was time for attempt number 2......

Ignition on...check. That's a relief, that still works! Next, starter lever pulled, engine turns, this time with a little more gusto than before. This is promising.

Not quite knowing whether to blip the throttle or add some choke, I do both at the same time and suddenly he comes to life! Spluttering initially, he settles down and idles quite nicely.

Result, he lives......! Here's a video of a subsequent fire up - not quite a Quentin Tarantino epic but it'll do!

(S)He's Electric!

Whilst the next major task is to start to strip Massi down, I wanted to check that everything works before I take him to bits.

First - the lights. I managed to retrieve the front and rear lights from his box of bits. The rear clusters were easily fitted - thanks to the colours of the wires each terminal connected to being stamped into the plastic next to each connection. I'm not an electrical expert, so plugging a red wire onto a terminal labelled as red and so on was a breeze. 

Thoughtfully labelled terminals!

So onto the front lights. I had found numerous wiring diagrams for different models online, but for some reason, the wire colours at the front of the car did not seem to match with any of the wire colours on any of the diagrams....

The wiring diagram....

After having a closer look, I noticed that Massi's headlights had four connections plus an earth, whereas all the ones on the wiring diagram had three plus an earth. Hmmm. Then I noticed that many of the wires on the car suddenly changed colour, and there were a couple of instances of four earth cables connected together in mid air with a nut and bolt. I think Stevie Wonder had re-wired poor Massi!

A bowl of spaghetti Wiring in the front.....

After some trial and error, I managed to get the rear and some of the front lights working, but not the indicators correctly. I think starting again with a new wiring loom might be a good idea!

Next job - lets see if he fires up!

Let there be seats!

Luckily, nearly every part you will ever need for the 500 is available online from various sources - spares companies or eBay (other online auctions are available). Apart from seats it seems. 

Sure, you can buy seat covers in many shades, foam and springs but try and buy the seats frames - no chance. Not even on PastaBay (that's Italian eBay for the uninitiated). As previously mentioned, Massi came with rather 80s looking seats from what I think was the 126 which looked awful. One of the previous owners had also removed the rear bench seat and fitted a rather shoddy looking home-made wooden panel to which speakers were fitted.

Home-made rear interior..... classy!

Suddenly, we spotted a set of correct 500 front seats and the vertical part of the rear seat that had just come up on eBay. We knew these didn't come up often had had to buy them, and luckily both items had no other bids so we won them. They were only an hour or so down the road, so off we went one evening and scooped them up.

Proper seats!

The 126 seats were soon slid off the seat rails and replaced with the 500 seats. These were actually from the 500L model (they have the vertical lines in the seat covers) but we want to change the colour anyway so the covers can easily be swapped for authentic 500F covers. Once fitted, the interior looked much better!

A slightly better looking 500 interior

The next plan was to try and sort out the electrics to see what works and what doesn't before I strip him down. Would he start? Who knows!

Getting to know Massi

Seeing as the poor chap was covered in dust, I thought the best thing was to try and clean him up a bit so I could have a closer look.

Love the speedo design!

The dashboard looks in pretty good condition, the speedo unit is generally OK but the steering wheel is cracked and needs replacing.

650cc Engine

After a bit of a clean, the engine looks in fairly good condition. Some superficial shedding of paint here and there but otherwise OK. Massi has an upgraded 650cc unit and synchromesh gearbox from the Fiat 126 which increases power from the standard 16 bhp to a whopping 23 bhp. I hope it's got traction control.......

Carefully thought-out modification!

I spotted the 'slight' modification where one of the previous owners had made the exhaust fit due to the slightly wider 650cc engine. This will need tidying up!

I was starting to find a few other areas of the car that were not standard. In no particular order:

• What looked like Fiat 126 seats (awful!) with inertra reel seatbelts
• A rather ugly looking 1980s radio with antenna
• Addition of reversing light and cobbled together switch next to to the gear-lever to detect when reverse was selected
• Electric windscreen wash, with switch under dash and extra reservoir in front compartment near brake fluid reservoir
• Front and rear nudge bars from the Lusso model
• And the rear seat removed and replaced with a shoddy shelf with speakers fitted.

Radio

Reverse gear detection switch

Additional windscreen wash reservoir with electric pump

Fiat 126 seats with inertia belts

Our aim is to restore the car back to it's original condition (apart from the engine) so these things will have to go!

I wonder what other things I'll find over the coming weeks!

The first inspection!

Massi arrived to his new home in Nantwich as a 'runner' (I use the term loosely after not having verified it!) but having had all of his panels and outer trim removed. The previous owner had started to fill in areas of the bodywork that needed attention (around the rear quarter panels) and had given him a good rub down in preparation for further body rectification.

As wheeled off the truck

The poor chap was covered in dust both inside and out, and came with his 'suitcase' full of bits and bobs that the previous owner had removed:

Massi's Suitcase

After having a good old rummage through here I found the number plates, lights and other bits of trim that had been removed. It certainly looked like everything was there, although a lot of things were not immediately obvious as to what they were given my limited knowledge of 500s! 

The slightly more obvious bit of trim!

It was interesting to delve into the paperwork which showed that he originally came from Germany (the Hamburg area) and had a number of owners around that area of Northern Germany before coming to the UK.

Massi's movements

It's unclear exactly what year he arrived in the UK - first registration was in July 2012 but I have receipts from earlier that year, and the last date on the German paperwork is 2002!

Fahrzeugbrief

It is also interesting that Massi seemed to have three different German registrations in his history according to the paperwork, before receiving his UK plate from the DVLA in July 2012.

It will be interesting to see if I can dig deeper to confirm his exact whereabouts and whenabouts!

We had to give him a name....

Once our little Fiat 500F had settled into his new surroundings, we felt really ought to give him a name. 

Seeing as he looked a very happy little chap, despite having bits missing, we wanted a name that fitted his demeanour. 

I was on a trip with work to Germany recently when for some strange reason, the hotel had me booked in as Massimiliano rather than my slightly less Italian sounding name of Andy, see below:

Whilst Massimiliano was a bit of a mouthful, Massi seemed much more appropriate. So from now on, I'll refer to our 500F as Massi :)

Oh, and for those who spotted what I had my evening meal on the bill above, yes I did enjoy my Weiss Bier and steak!

The Arrival...

So with our logistics organised thanks to OnTime Automotive (yes, they were on time, well early actually) our car arrived on the 11th June to it's shiny new garage.....

Final approach

Here is the friendly truck driver unloading our 500. It probably would have started but it's first journey in Cheshire was gravity powered!

Touchdown!

And here it is at home. I think he's settled in quite well!

Home sweet home

Even though I'd measured out the garage to see how much space I had, it seemed to take up less than I was anticipating. Plenty of space left to tinker then :)

The Frantic Garage Clean-Up....

An hour or two after the online auction had ended - the realisation had set in. Yes, we had bought ourselves a Fiat 500!

What had started as a crazy idea based on a text message a few weeks previously, had now resulted in us buying a car we had never seen before, that was in bits....

As the excitement of being Fiat 500 owners sunk in, so did the realisation that we now had to somehow fit a car in a single garage that was full of, well, junk! Oh, and the small matter of retrieving the car from it's current home, 255 miles away...

The evening times after work the following week consisted of tidying, discarding, sweeping, painting, binning, swearing (!), sweating, falling over, umming and aaahing. Until finally our garage looked like something ready to accept a little car:

That's better

The secondary task was to work out how to get the car from near Torquay to Nantwich. After much head scratching trying to hire a van with a trailer (it seems companies that hire vans and trailers don't have any vans with tow-bars....) we decided to let the professionals look after the delivery of our new project... 

...And then a Purchase!

So on the 30/05/13 we noticed this little chap for sale on eBay:

The eBay advert

We didn't intend to buy one so soon, but there was something about this one that just seemed right. It was a 500F from 1970, where the owner had just begun restoring it but had decided to sell it and his other restoration projects due to unforeseen circumstances.

The price was good, and it already had the 650cc engine and synchromesh gearbox from the Fiat 126. The body was in generally good condition. The owner, Mike, had been kind enough to put lots of photos online of the current condition of the car during the auction:

Mike had started to strip the car and prepare the body for paint work. The parts he had taken off had been labelled and stored sensibly. Did it look too good to be true? Maybe, but it was worth a punt we thought! 

We decided to go for it, so on Sunday 02/6/13 we gathered around the computer anxiously waiting.......and after some edge-of-the-seat bidding, the car was ours! 

The Start...

So this is the picture that started it all off. Sent by Fabian, one of my ex-colleagues in Germany on 18/05/13.  Here is Fabian's 500R, with his friend Felix's 500D (in front) on the route of the Mille Miglia rally in Italy.

500s on the open road

Unfortunately, Felix's 500 had a slight mechanical issue that meant an appointment with a trailer to take it back home.

:(

The seed was now planted......