Bart's bumpers had been painted silver by a previous owner and where not the original chrome items he came with from Fiat, well, not that I could tell anyhow. They seemed the standard black painted quarter bumpers found on the standard early cars and painted silver.
They had to be chrome as this is one of the stand out features of the Lido and frankly they just didn't look right...
With them safely delivered to the plaiters I took the chance to do a bit of cosmetic work around the front headlights and side lights.
The headlights are aftermarket replacement / reproduction units and had become a bit cloudy on the inside. I tried a few ways to clean the glass but none where that successful so I hit upon the idea of using Ladies make up cotton pads taped to the end of a stick (wooden spoon handle) to wipe the inside of the glass. It worked! Some areas where a bit difficult to get to so I replaced the wooden spoon with a bent coat hanger and cleaned away. I was happy with the results!
At the same time I removed the two plastic blanking / filler plates that sit below the headlights, these had been stuck on with double sided tape! Another fantastic engineering fix from the garage that did the restoration. The plates should have had two plastic pins that pushed into some panel clips but they had obviously been broken off at some point. Anyhow it was easy enough to drill two holes in them and mount using black self tapping screws into some Spire like panel clips.
The paint had chipped in this area and hadn't been properly prepared prior to painting plus it was starting to rust so I cleaned the area up, touched up the paint and applied plenty of waxoyl before putting it all back.
I pulled the front side light unit at the same time to fix a bad bulb connection and some corroded spade connectors that where stopping the lights from getting the full 12v. In the process of removing the light unit though I managed to snap off one of the mounting bolts.
Theses are a 8mm hex standoff tapped M4 with a ~30mm long M5 male stud. The nuts had seized solid and wouldn't undo without shearing off the stud. As the side light lens mounting screws only went in 6mm or so there was enough depth in the hex standoff part to counter drill ~5mm and tap for a bit of M5 rod after cutting off the remains of the stud. Perfect.
At this time I noted that Bart had different side repeater indicator lights, the passenger side the correct series 1 and the drivers side one from a later series 2 car. It turns out these are the same as used on the early Fiat 500...I managed to find two sets of NOS lights on eBay so promptly ordered them. A small thing for sure but one that would niggle me knowing they where the wrong ones!
Incorrect for Bart Series 2 repeater
Correct Series 1
Yesterday (30th Jan) I collected the bumpers from the plaiters and have to say the work is excellent and the finish flawless....even though the cost was eye watering! I've mounted the overriders but not refitted them to the car yet as its too cold in the garage at the moment. Cant wait to see what Bart looks like with them on!
Addendum:
Fitting the freshly Chromed bumpers was straight forward. The finish and depth of the plait is first class, I think it really completes the look!
