Big Man, Little Car

[TheTallOne]

A little under a year ago, I acquired my 2nd X19. It was in both much better and much worse shape than my Lemons X19, but the body is straight enough and the doors close, so I want to save it.

Unfortunately for my love of small Italian sports cars, I'm 6'6". The problem can be seen clearly in this picture of my Lemons X pre roll cage. I'm sitting on a bare aluminum seat bolted to the stock floor pan

So here's my plan:

• Fully strip down the car
• Put the empty shell on a rotisserie
• Cut the floor out and lower the entire cabin 3 inches. This should be enough for me to fit with a helmet and under a roll bar tucked into the factory hoop, albeit with a very modified (Kart/Formula car style) seating position.
• Restore (extensive) rust damage
• Install 6 point roll cage, excluding door bars
• K20/24 Swap?
• Custom suspension/Widening

Its a stretch for my current skills, but that's how learning works right?

So far I have stripped down the car and gotten it onto the rotisserie. I have also gotten the steel tube to build the lowered floor frame, and removed the coolant pipes under the tunnel. More on that tomorrow

 

[TheTallOne]

I acquired my rotisserie off of Facebook Marketplace for ~$300, which is cheaper than I could have built myself, and it has good enough casters that I can roll the car all around the garage . I did weld on a second spin lock, just a pin that sticks into the fins of the brake rotors that the cross bars are welded to.

I'm gonna gloss over just how sketchy it was to get the car up on the rotisserie, but it was simple enough to bolt the rotisserie to the bumper shock absorbers and add braces from the upper hinge to the door latch. Here's an idea of how bad it was though:

And it finally could do what my dog wont; roll over.

 

[TheTallOne]

Coolant pipes are a massive pain to remove. I drilled or die ground out 73ish spot welds on the main cover. Finding the spots through the undercoating was near impossible, and the cover would need pretty extensive repair to the flange to weld back on were I planning to go that route.

I would not attempt to remove/replace the coolant pipes without a lift or better yet a rotisserie. If I had to attempt such a thing I would instead carefully cut the bottom of the cover with an angle grinder and metal/diamond wheel, using a guide to set the depth of cut to not knick the tubes (but you're replacing/repairing them anyways, do you care?)
Below are close ups of the inside of the coolant tube cover, which someone may find useful for cutting the clamps that retain the tubes. Metric/Standard tape measure in frame to help generally locate things, in the same place/orientation as the above picture of the whole tubes

Finally for those curious, here is the underside of the bottom of the tunnel, and probably where that 10mm you dropped 6 years ago when you were fiddling with the shifter/parking brake ran off to.

 

[TheTallOne]

Placeholder for 3D scans of suspension/panels/parts

 

[Steve Thomas]

how sketchy it was to get the car up on the rotisserie,

The 80 I just bought, stalled restoration, was on a home made rotisserie. Getting it down was as sketchy! Piles of tyres, and engine crane... The rotisserie was thrown in with the deal and now I face getting it back up again

 

[carl]

Do you really have to mess with the coolant tubes if you are lowering the floor if you do the floor as two separate pieces, driver and passenger side?
Be careful of full cage for a street car, I bought a caged ITC X for the street and had to cut out the bars running front to back as they were only an inch or so from my unhelmeted head.

 

[TheTallOne]

Do you really have to mess with the coolant tubes if you are lowering the floor if you do the floor as two separate pieces, driver and passenger side?
Be careful of full cage for a street car, I bought a caged ITC X for the street and had to cut out the bars running front to back as they were only an inch or so from my unhelmeted head.

Partially I removed the coolant tubes out of curiosity. My plan for the floor drop would technically allow my new floor structure to run right under the tubes, but would effectively make an unknown quality coolant pipes unremovable. I'm probably going to replace them with straight stainless tubes and AN fittings, and will do some research before I choose a tube diameter

In terms of headroom around cage bars that will be what decides how streetable this car ends up being for me. If I get the seating position that I'm planning on I should have at least 4 inches to any bar unhelmeted. Your inch or so of clearance is how I've fit in every car I've owned or sat in up til last week when I got a new truck that can lower the drivers seat, so anything where my head doesn't tap the doorframe going over a bump is a win in safety for me

 

[Alex(Tenerife)]

Agree 100% while you are doing this swap the tubes for stainless.

Also kind of agree once they are replaced, no reason not to leave the tunnel where it is and build the new floor around it. I always fancied the idea of a perfectly flat underside. Dropping the floor is certainly one way to lower the car

 

[545days]

What year is the car? I'm thinking it was a 1987 but don't remember for sure. Edit to add: It's a 1986, I found a copy of the title application.

I'm The TallOne's father, my thread on rust repair is based on another of three X1/9s we bought at the same time. The third was completely rusted out, and went to the scrap yard after being stripped for parts.

 

[Alex(Tenerife)]

Oops just scrolled up and saw your post with the tunnel removed. Very interesting.

I would still consider making the new lower floor roll around the box for the new tubes to give a nice flat underside

Great work so far, at this pace it will be finished by Monday right?

 

[TheTallOne]

A flat bottom floor is the plan. I need to sit as low as possible with as much lay back as I can get.
Today I'm working on how to attach my new lower frame rails. This starts by marking below the body line and cutting out the rotten panels to get access to the structure. What I don't know is if there is an inner rail under the door itself. Before I accidentally cut structure I need to find that out. It looks like the rocker is the frame rails below the door, as the pinch weld at the top is 2 sided

 

[545days]

I edited my previous post adding the answer to my question about the year model. The car in this thread is a 1986 Bertone X1/9.

 

[TheTallOne]

Answered below (thanks GregS) the X frame rail does have a outer rocker panel covering it, the inner brace is a thicker flat piece of steel than the inner and outer skins that are spot welded to it

 

[545days]

Are you planning to duplicate the drain hole in the new rail? It would provide a good access point for spraying Woolwax for rust prevention after painting and I think reproducing the oval hole would be cool. I'm also providing you with an excuse to use your Bridgeport.

 

[Alex(Tenerife)]

As I recall this area is where 4 different panels connect, but I am sure you will find out.
The 4 panels I am thinking of are the outer sill, inner sill, "outer" that is inside the car and the floor itself.
So the hard option would be to extend the 1st 3 of these panels and reattach the floor at the new lower location, or leave the structure as is and add box section to the dimensions required and weld the new floor onto the box section.
The rear I think is just fill the gap with sheet steel and the front you need to work out how and where to remount the pedals.
Then there is the central tunnel, that will also need extending down to the new floor level.

Can't wait to see what shape the outer sill is going to be. Are you going to continue the existing curve or some kind of flared sill similar to some of the dalara or eurosport body kits?

Going to be a fun project

edit
thinking about it maybe the inside sill is welded directly to the floor.

 

[GregS]

There are 3 components to the chassis rails. The red outer, yellow middle, green inner and floor. I have an x1/9 rear end that was cut off through the middle of the car but don't have access at the moment to show a photo. Plus of course the upper and lower central tunnel.

 

[TheTallOne]

View attachment 78089There are 3 components to the chassis rails. The red outer, yellow middle, green inner and floor. I have an x1/9 rear end that was cut off through the middle of the car but don't have access at the moment to show a photo. Plus of course the upper and lower central tunnel.

I see that now. Then the question is, is it safe to cut the outer skin to get a look at the inner structure, and should the new floor structure weld to the slightly thicker middle part of the frame rail, or to the outer skin. I'm trying to balance the risk of warping the car on rotisserie with the security of the lowered floor

My current plan is to cut the top of the tubes off, and stitch weld them to the underside of the frame rail, covering the existing pinch weld

 

[TheTallOne]

I decided based on the thickness and orientation of the inner steel plate of the frame rail that I would cut the outer sill skin off with the car upside down, and the doors braced. I feel like that gives me the best chance of the doors going back on and closing properly when I get to that point. This will also let me check the state of the inner structure, and weld my new dropped frame rails to the sturdiest part of the car.

Next up is some cleaning, rust conversion, and fitting the new rail.

 

[Alex(Tenerife)]

Greg you have drawn what I was trying to describe, but the green is 2 pieces of metal welded somewhere (can't remember where).

I've been thinking and the best way I can think of is pretty much what you have in mind I think.

You definitely want to pop off the out sill if just to check the condition of the yellow inner sill. The reason know about this section of the car if I had to repair mine. out sill corrosion repair which on digging showed I had inner sill corrosion as well. I had to remove out sill, I then cut out the bad of the inner sill, cut down a repair panel for the inner sill, welded it in and welded on a new outer sill.

If you do one side at a time it "should" be strong enough to peel back the outer sill. It was on mine when I did the repair, but I did mine with the car on its wheels.

As you cut in, repair all corrosion you find to help keep the strength of the chassis, and then you know you are building onto something solid.

I think the outer is the easy part, its the rest of the floor I think might be where you have to get creative

 

[Alex(Tenerife)]

Ahh cross postings

Looks clean, no signs of rust.

If it was me, I'd take the floor pan out next and then build up from there, but I am sure you will find your way. Looking good