As you can see in pictures of BART he's fitted with metal quarter bumpers with overriders. Apart from them being spray painted when they should be chrome (it's on the to do list to get them chromed) they look OK if not 100% original. I was making some space in the garage and instead of starting BART up to move him I simply pushed and pulled him by hand to make the space.
By accident I pulled him by one of the rubber overriders on the rear bumper, it came off in my hand!
They are supposed to be bolted onto the bumper with an M8 bolt! Closer inspection showed the bolt had obviously corroded and it had either sheared off or had to be cut off before the bumper could be sprayed. Instead of correcting the issue by drilling out the old bolt or tapping a new thread the overrider had been glued back on with some sort of rubberised glue...quality!
Step forward Outwood Cars you are one class act.
Both overriders where the same. To remedy the problem I simply filed the remains of the bolt off square and drilled a hole down the centre of each bolt and tapped it for an M5 set screw. A large penny washer was used to spread the load and a splash of Waxoyl finished it off. Easy to do and took an hour in total...why couldn't this have been done by the garage, shameful.
Glue
Here, the bolt has been drilled and tapped...
Mounted back on to the bumper
The feel of the gearbox has been a concern since I got BART. The X1/9 4 and 5 speed boxes have a tendency to wear out the synchro and using the correct oil is of utmost importance to ensure a long life. The gearbox was rebuilt during the restoration but I had a suspicion that the wrong oil had been used, Fiat specified a none EP (Extreme Pressure) oil for the gearbox and a straight SAE90 weight.
Checking the old invoices I noted a line item for a Semi-synthetic 75W-90 oil but nothing else to indicate what it was. It was obviously wrong, so I ordered the correct Fiat recommended Petronas Tutela ZC90 (a GL-3 oil) from the great guys at Ricambio in London and swapped out the oil. The old oil was clean but I noted on the magnetic drain plug a build up of metal shavings, maybe ok but a bit concerning for a new rebuild.
Oil draining
On the test drive I noted almost immediately an improvement in smoothness and feel of the gearbox, instead of a slightly crunchy feeling the gears now smoothly 'snick' into place. Also, an almost straight cut gear type of whine noise the box used to make has now gone, a vast improvement. Until next time!