Fidia | Maurice Mentens Automotive Services

Restoration Chronicles: Iso Fidia – Disassembly 3

by Maurice | Dec 26, 2016 | Fidia, Iso, Restoration, Ricky | 0 comments

It’s Christmas time and I have a bit of time to update my site. The work on the Iso Fidia is progressing next to the finish of the restoration of a 1955 Porsche (Pre-A) 356 Speedster. Here you can see how Ricky at disassembly concentrating on the wiring while I tackled the engine compartment. This is the original motor the car was delivered with: a 1969 March 21 casting Corvette L-46 350 V8. The Iso company used very good motors for their cars, this 350 horse L-46 is just one step down from the legendary (mechanical lifter) LT-1. (It only needs another intake, cam and carb – it still had pressed in rocker studs) The heads were the same 2.02 heads as the LT-1 and this motor could really open up!

Through the years several things got changed but nothing I can not reverse back to original. When I inspected the car in 2002 my main complaint was the lower end knock it had when seriously revved and yes – it still had it! 😎 But, it will be rebuilt with better internals than factory – the outside will stay fully stock. Fortunately major items like water pump, manifolds and starter were still the original 1969 units. The transmission is the original Muncie 4-speed and there was a noticeable hard spot in shifting which later showed explained itself once I had it open.

I had to cut up the exhaust system as it was fully welded so did not clear the frame and had the wrong mufflers welded into the wrong position. These engines do not come out easy, it takes 3 people and a LOT of tricks to do this! Especially in Fidias there are clearance problems with the distributor and clutch system, sometimes I ask myself how they did it in the factory. I am specifically showing the motor mounts: these are the original (worn out) units and because of the power steering Iso had to cut a corner off the LH one to make it fit. I found out the hard way 8-).

Once the motor was out, the true scope of what damage a quick paint job can do came out: the gloss black paint covered everything! Not only sheet metal but wiring, relays, brake system, steering – they just shot whatever they could reach. Fortunately, some of the original wiring colors could still be seen. Lots of Mickey Mouse “repairs” which are because original parts could not be sourced.

Now there is a lot of weight off the car, the next items that will be tackled are underpinnings, interior and wiring.

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Restoration Chronicles: Iso Fidia – Disassembly 2

by Maurice | Aug 1, 2016 | Fidia, Iso, Restoration | 0 comments

In the doors the original factory color came out – a for that time highly popular “Oro Antico Metallizzato” or metallic gold. The owner and I quickly decided it was not going back to factory color. 😎 A look inside the doors showed where the external rust bubbles came from – it became clear there was more rust waiting for me. The factory put a tar like coating on the blank sheet metal, however it soon cracked and gave water plenty of opportunities to attack. This is the main reason why most of these S4/Fidias are rusted out and need (very) extensive sheet metal work. Luckily this one is not as bad as most. Obviously the floors got saved by the dry climate this car was used in.

Further dangerous electrical “fixes”, lots of bondo gobs and Mickey Mouse “repairs” with silicone. Many bolts inside the doors were rusted stuck and no WD40 or blow torch made them come out whole. Interesting detail: these cars were painted with the door hinges installed, under them there was no more than a light coat of black primer. Of course this looks awful when the hinges come off. These cars were not meant to exist longer than 10 years, so in fact the ones surviving did very well.

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Restoration Chronicles: Iso Fidia – Disassembly 1

by Maurice | Jun 30, 2016 | Fidia, Iso, Restoration | 0 comments

Starting with the outside bright-work to uncover what was under the paint we noticed soon the interior leather was heavily bleached by the sun – the areas which were covered were red and others were pumpkin colored. This told me they used furniture leather instead of bespoke car upholstery leather – an expensive mistake (or cost savings at the upholstery shop).

By taking off the door panels it became clearer the paint job on this car was very quick and cheap and many shortcuts had been taken to make it LOOK nice. This also revealed its original color, a metallic gold which was popular in 1969 but not so much now… The paint the previous “body man” put on had a pink-purple hue to it, probably done to match the interior color better. It’s also obvious no “difficult” parts were taken off, they just blew the new paint over everything. You can see Iso’s solution to the door wiring ducts – regular rubber hose which (of course) would break after prolonged use.

Check out the oil stain on my test cardboard after just sitting for a day – it leaked not just at the engine (dark spots) but also transmission fluid so the drive train had to come out and be worked on. It started to look like a serious undertaking more and more…

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Restoration Chronicles: Iso Fidia – Assessment

by Maurice | Jun 18, 2016 | Fidia, Iso, Uncategorized | 0 comments

The Fidia was driven to my shop and the owner and I went over it, assessing the main points we had to tackle. The car looked very nice from ten feet, had good paint and nice contrasting interior and very nice brightwork. At closer inspection several rust bubbles showed up, it became clear the paint was very roughly applied (and cheap quality) and the interior had an “off” color throughout. In sunshine exposed places the leather was pumpkin color, in hidden areas it was red. The engine (very) obviously needed a rebuild and the engine compartment showed a (very) quick glossy black paint job over pretty much everything that did not need any paint. The car appeared very solid with the main rust in the corners of the doors and rear valance. We agreed that I start to dismantle it and see if I need to do a full restoration or can maybe get away with a partial one. I only offered that because the car looked really honest and it has a long known California history. The disassembly started the week after it got to my shop…

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Restoration Chronicles: Iso Fidia – Prelude

by Maurice | Jun 11, 2016 | Fidia, Iso, Monterey, Restoration | 0 comments

The Fidia was driven only very seldom for the next decade, it attended some local (Los Angeles area) shows and in 2012 trailered it to The Quail in Monterey for the Iso Rivolta celebration. Ricky drove it onto the podium and it was introduced by Mr. Piero Rivolta himself. Even though Isos were flown in from overseas for the event it was the only Iso Fidia present, that should tell you enough of this model’s rarity.

It was really the first time I saw the car again up close and it did show some (more or less serious) signs of aging as the previous paint job was not all too stellar. The carburetor acted up and we had the fire extinguisher handy just in case but all went well and it got a lot of positive comments, mainly because very few people ever saw one in the wild. It was trailered back and it again sat for some time before the owner decided to restore it and bring this Fidia back to show condition and that was when I came in…

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Restoration Chronicles: Iso Fidia – Introduction

by Maurice | Jun 8, 2016 | Fidia, Iso, PPI, Restoration | 0 comments

I have had several requests from people to start a blog about my work and here is my first attempt to do so. It will be challenging to stay at it so we will see how far we get with this… I’d like to start with the Iso Fidia I have been working on for some time and is now in very advanced stages of its restoration.

An Iso Fidia (and it’s early version S4) were cars built by the now defunct company Iso Rivolta S.p.a. in Bresso, Italy. They were advertised as “the fastest four-doors on the planet” and priced as high as a Rolls Royce and found their way into the hands of (very) well-heeled buyers only. This is one of the reasons why the production number did not even meet the 200 mark. This, of course, makes them now very rare and finding good examples does not happen very often. The early cars were powered by a Corvette 327 V8, later ones got a Corvette 350 V8 and the last few cars before bankruptcy were powered by the Ford 351 Cobra Jet V8. The car in my shop is the rare 350 V8 4-speed version with all option boxes ticked when ordered new by a client in Italy. It was delivered in May 1970 and was purchased by a doctor in California around 1995. It used to be gold metallic in color with a tan velvet cloth interior, the main things that got changed during its life time.

Here is the car when I first saw it in 2002. A Dutch friend (Marvin) had me do a PPI on the car when it was offered for sale in Van Nuys (airport). I got to inspect and drive it on the runway only because it was not registered, the seller had two hangars full of classic cars he seldom used. The car itself was pretty nice and rust free; however some things were changed and the engine needed work. Marvin ended up not buying it and it was sold to another friend here in Socal. Here are my first pictures of my inspection of the car back in 2002.