So it has come to pass that all three of my current vehicles are of the Chrysler/Mitsubishi persuasion. I used to be a GM man, but somewhere along the way I wandered off the reservation. Now via Dustbury I hear that Fiat and Chrysler may be joining forces, or Fiat may be the next sucker to try and rescue Chrysler, however you want to look at it. All of which reminds me of the time I had a Fiat.
Mike came to visit me in Austin (25 years ago, more or less) and came across a Fiat 124 Sedan (below). It was not sexy or cool like the Spyder (above) or the Coupe (left), but it was small, and because it had a blown engine, it was really cheap. Exploratory surgery revealed that the aluminum head had warped causing the head gasket to fail. When he got the head off we discovered that it wasn't warped so much as bowed. The face of the head was bowed up about a half an inch. No way that you would be able to fix it by milling, but Mike tried it anyway. And, no, it didn't work.
He poked around and found an engine from another 124 that could be used. But it wasn't from a sedan, it was from a coupe, so it wasn't the single overhead cam workhorse, it was the double overhead cam racehorse. Made that little tin can run like a scalded cat. It would hit 60 MPH in 2nd gear. But it was still a rattle trap. All of the suspension joints were loose and would need to be replaced which would have meant special order from Italy. I don't remember exactly what happened to it. Perhaps it too wandered off the reservation.
3 comments:
I didn't try to salvage that engine. I went straight for the twin-cam.
So why did you bother getting the head milled?
Didn't Renault team up with AMC in the 80's to produce the Alliance? And Chrysler already teamed up with another European automaker (Daimler) around 1998; that fell apart pretty quickly.
Good luck, Fiat, but I think you're in for a rude surprise -- you're going to find your new roommates sitting on the couch in their underwear, drinking up all your beer, and making excuses about why they don't have the rent and can't clean the bathroom.
Speaking of AMC, there was similar handwringing when they went out of business -- and the whole world is so much better off now without an AMC in it.
The car industry is becoming like the airlines -- oversaturated with poor players gasping to stay alive.
I have so many lousy memories of GM from growing up in Michigan. I'm thoroughly enjoying myself, watching them go under.
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