Fiat 500

DIY Mechanic

• DIY Cleaning the oil slinger
• DIY modifying your original crossbow leaf springs
• DIY how to remove your Fiat 500 engine and gear box

Note: These are some awesome DIY postings found on an Italian website with literal translations from Google so please bare with the imperfect English.

The Original posting is here to give credit where credit is due.
http://www.cinquino.net/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2706

 Lower your Fiat 500 by modifying your leaf springs 

 Finally I will explain how to flip around your crossbow leaf spring to give your car a  lower profile without it being lowered way too much. With this job you will have a happy medium.
This was a technique used many years ago before they came out with those aftermarket lowering springs, for many it was too low. 

With this job you will have a middle way. 
I will Start by saying that if the crossbow is to be thrown away, the job will come out bad! So if thats the case buy a new one first.
So here is how  the crossbow  appears in my  Nuova original Fiat, slightly oxidized

Here we must first remove the clamps that hold the outer leaves of the crossbow, To do this all you need is.... a vice and a screwdriver, tighten with the crossbow with the vice as shown in the picture, with the screwdriver  you pry to remove the clips, do not bother with trying to save the clips because the way you remove them is by breaking them ! OK

Ok now we need to remove the  center clamp that holds all the leaf springs together.  Place it back on the vice grip as illustrated in the picture with a C clamp holding together the leaf springs, you will find a welded point on the bolt  made ​​to prevent the nut from unscrewing,  to not ruin the threads use a hacksaw and cut the solder, then unscrew the nut, and everything should be fine.

With the nut removed and the C clamp  still tight we should have this: 

 now slowly release the C clamp, do not worry, nothing will jump away from you because the Leaves are preformed and now should just pull apart from each other.   As you see my crossbow is new but you can see some rust on it.

Since mine was mildly oxidized, I gave it a little paint!

Here now from this picture you can see the work that needs to be done, take the second sheet from the top and turn it upside down , insert  a threaded bar into the center hole and tighten it as much as you can.

just like this you see.

Now, we must remove the threaded Stud! but how do we do this?? Simple now that is pinched, we take 2 C clamps and tighten one on each side of the threaded rod then remove the threaded rod, being careful not to move the sheets, Otherwise it will be hard to insert the center clamp bolt back into the hole!

This is done now finally we can put the center bolt back in.   What remains is to clamp the ends of the sheets, so pinch the crossbow ends back in the vice and bind them with some new clamps you have bought or ones you have self made at home. And here you have the results.

 I hope this was helpful to everyone! OK?  I recommend you replace the welding point on the center nut, even more than one, because now you will notice that the there is more pressure on the sheets.

 Questions/Suggestions  on the subject ?
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