As my 128 was slowly turning into the little racecar that I wanted it to be, the less I wanted to haul around all my junk in it. There's plenty of room, but that just adds weight and something to go "clunk" or "crash!" around corners. So when I saw the wagon on the Forum I thought it would make a great "sport utility vehicle": plenty of room to haul cargo and people around in, the great suspension of the 124 series, and best of all - it was a Fiat!
An 8 hour journey brought my roommate Geoff and I from Davis to Santa Monica (we stopped at his home in Tulare on the way down to spend the night). When we finally arrived at the wagon's resting place we were in for quite a treat. Apparently some transient had used it as shelter during the long, wet El Nino winter. We found a blanket, clothes, old food containers, nitro glyceryin tablets, books, and all sorts of other lovely items. We piled them outside and tried to clean most of the trash out (still didn't help the smell though).
Surprise number two was the missing ignition key. I knew the switch was bad before I made the trip, but I figured at least I would get to unlock the steering column. My spirits weren't at their best, but I said to hell with it! I didn't drive 8 hours to let something like that get in the way. Out came the hammer and big screwdriver.
After half an hour of mangling the switch I finally got it out. Running a wire from the (+) on the coil to the battery, and jumping a lead from the starter to the battery got it running (though first we had to clean a corroded (-) battery cable which was smoking).
From there we commenced our journey back to Davis (with a pit-stop at my home in Marin). The little 1438cc pushrod engine ran great the whole way. I babied it at first, but once on the open highway it was happy cruising at cruising at 70-80mph the whole way. The tranny popped out of 3rd on decel unless you held it in; the driver's seat was broken so I had to prop it up with a box; the steering column was pretty loose; it smelled terrible (drove most of the way with the windows down); and the rear end whined a bit. But hey, it ran strong and what was even cooler is all the electrical worked!
Looked much better with a wash and vaccuum!
