A112 Abarth Revival: All The Wrong Bits For The Job

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Hello and welcome back to Seaside Garage and the Abbath. I went racing yesterday in my visa. It was a minor rally for newbies like myself. It was the first time I raced a car, apart from go-karts, of course.

[00:00:26]>> RP.

[00:00:40]It was so much fun and the thought about doing it in this one really got me motivated to go back and continue on this project which is nice. The visa did great too though. Since the last video where I took this down from the auto whip for the first time in more than a year, I pushed it onto the ramp or or the lift and lifted it up. And then I have actually removed the rear uh axle assembly, all the suspension parts back here. And I'm getting ready to put new stuff back there uh and close up whatever I need to close up back there rustwise and protect so I can put the fuel tank back in. There's still a lot of rust work, but what I want to do is to make it drivable so I can drive it in and out. And that's the goal for today.

[00:01:20]That's the reason for that prop right there because there's a lot of weight in the front end of the car and I don't want it to fall down. It's not even close to doing that. But just in case, I propped it up like that. Come a bit closer and watch what I did. So, to begin with, I removed everything back here, uh, all the suspension unit, the brake lines, and so on. And then I really prepped up that structure right there because that's where the leaf spring is going to rest. So, uh, I won't really be able to get to that once the new one is in. So, that is well protected now. And same on the other side. I just welded this in for the brake line divider. It's supposed to be there, but that broke off and I couldn't get the stud out. So, I welded in a new stud to hold that back in. I'm also going to change the brake lines. They are steel line still, which is quite amazing. In Denmark, everything changes to copper pretty quickly. But these are still steel, but I'm going to change them now that I'm here. I'm also going to change the brake bias valve right there. But firstly, I want to attach the new leaf spring. I've been looking at my Abbath a lot of times thinking that there was something wrong with the suspension. It drives pretty well, but the issue is it's very high at the front. H I was thinking that maybe someone changed it for some other springs. Uh, I think the 127 springs fits but are a little bit longer. But after taking the leaf spring off, I realized that it's probably the rear that is low and not the other way around. But looking at the new leaf spring, which is not new, it's a used one. And comparing it to the old shows quite a massive height difference.

[00:03:04]And of course, this has been compressed for a long time. So maybe it I don't think so. This is just a lot higher. It's going to make the car look a lot more harmonic um and not like this as it did before. What I need to do is to undo this clip so I can use this plastic bit which is probably a bit worn. But I don't have one for this one.

[00:03:24]So I will fit that in here to avoid it being too noisy.

[00:03:33]There we go. It's off.

[00:03:42]That's quite a lot of of the spring converted into rust. Rust tends to grow a lot. So, this is not it's not this amount of thickness that has disappeared, but there's definitely been a lot of material gone away. And that explains why it's getting lower and lower.

[00:04:06]And I'm getting ready to install the leaf spring. Got new brackets for it. These these are supposed to have these on them as well to hold up the hand cables, but these are toast. So, I made my own for those. But where did I put them? They are right here. Gave them a lay of paint.

[00:04:37]there.

[00:04:40]And then comes this new lower control arm. There are washers behind this system.

[00:04:48]And uh I'm not sure it's a correct amount. That I will have to check later on. It's to do with the uh with the alignment of the rear axle.

[00:05:02]That will be another day.

[00:05:06]Probably need to have it up there.

[00:05:19]And Blast helped me out again with these used but good condition ones because they're slightly better than the old ones.

[00:05:32]They don't fit.

[00:05:37]Oh no.

[00:05:40]So, with the holes made slightly larger, it will now fit.

[00:05:45]Got to admit that the rubber cradle is also a little bit larger. Uh, but the old one, so it could slide around a little bit in there. I doubt that it will, but if I have any weird issues there, I know where to look.

[00:06:01]For now, it's good.

[00:06:08]And then a new shock absorb, which I don't think will ever fit either.

[00:06:22]What's going on with this?

[00:06:25]I have a feeling that a lot of things are wrong with this setup that I'm making.

[00:06:32]I'm unsure if the spring is the correct one because of the distance or the length.

[00:06:40]Let's travel some. Maybe that's the reason why it was so much longer.

[00:06:46]Game over on this. The leaf spring is not the correct one. It's way longer and that's the reason why it was higher. I don't know why I didn't realize that it came from a Yugo, which we thought was the same. Is my own mistake, but very annoying because it means I have to take it off again.

[00:07:04]And I'm really not liking putting the old one back in because it is so corroded. But it's not going to come down from the lift today. That's for sure. That's a shame. I just removed the leaf spring again. And it's not just higher because of uh yeah my And it's not just higher, it's also longer. So I don't think my old one is that sacky as I thought. I just think it's a completely different spring. And I'm not sure it will be able to fit in there.

[00:07:32]It's slightly wider. That works out all right, it seems, but the length makes it foul the suspension arm, at least at the lower settings. Um and it it's just not right. So, I think I'm going to So, I'm going to abandon this one and I don't have a spare one. So, I'm going to fit the old one and then I'm going to try to source another one for the future because it is it is pretty bad. But, there's still a lot of material in it. I just think it's lost a lot of tension, but it will have to work. But, it's not the only issue. So, I am going to be abandoning my plan for today of rebuilding the rear axle. I actually think I will end up putting a lot of old parts back on to get it rolling again because I need some parts that probably will not get here quickly. And that over there is my mistake. I should have measured before I got the spare one.

[00:08:24]This one though is not my mistake. This is bought. I just double checked. These lower arms are bought for the A12, but unfortunately the bushings installed in here are probably from from Yugo or or something else. At least they are supposed to be 31 mm and they are 38. Uh which means that it gives a clearance between the two points of just about 40 43. But on the old arm, as you can see, it's very visible. It's it's just it's just a lot bigger. and 43 is not going to clear this.

[00:09:16]Not even close. So, I think the arm will work just fine, but the bushing needs to be changed. I have to contact the company that I bought it bought it from because clearly it's wrong and see what they will do about that. And that's a big bummer. I need the lift. So, I have to put the old parts back on. But the other thing is it's just annoying. But I'm getting used to that. Especially on old cars like this. It's so hard to get the parts right the first time. Uh they are old. The knowledge about them are lost and yeah, it's just it is what it is. It's something you have to be prepared for. To not be completely let down going into the weekend, I'm going to proceed on the engine. I'm going to go ahead and fit the fuel tank and the exhaust system so that I can fire this car up.

[00:10:15]There we go.

[00:10:27]And the exhaust system. I'm not going to fit it completely. I'm just going to put it on for a bit of nice reduction.

[00:10:53]So, just loosely fit it so it doesn't so it's not too noisy. I need to remove it again when I continue on it. And then up here, I'm going to drain the oil because it's very old. And I also need to make sure that there are no oil in the combustion chambers before trying to start it up.

[00:11:24]I doubt a lot of oil will come out because so much have drained out while it stood there.

[00:11:42]While it drains, I'm going to remove the spark plugs.

[00:11:54]Looks all right.

[00:12:06]completely clean. Oh, the horn marks are still very visible. That's nice.

[00:12:12]I forgot to hit record, but I have checked that there are no oil inside the combustion chambers.

[00:12:22]drained the oil and are now filling in some new fresh oil, hooked up a battery.

[00:12:36]Let's see if it cranks. There are no fuel in it currently, so it's not going to fire. Just want to see if it cranks.

[00:12:49]Oh yeah, totally like it always does.

[00:12:54]That's nice. Let's add some fuel.

[00:13:06]Now, I'm running out of time for today, but uh so I'm not going to run it on the fuel pump because that's currently disconnected, the mechanical fuel pump.

[00:13:14]But I do got this boat set up I used when I emptied out the tank which will work just fine for a test run which is all this is going to be. So I'm going to pump fuel into this joke.

[00:14:08]It's alive.

[00:14:14]So, even though this didn't go according to plan, this is really motivating to hear this engine run for the first time in a long time.

[00:14:25]I love this car.

[00:14:27]Thank you for watching. It will be a while before the next video on Yaba, but this is massive.

[00:14:33]It's back.

[00:14:36]Heat. Heat.