bleeding front brakes

[oilheadron]

No well-designed automobile ever suffered for having disks in the front and drums in the rear. Drums suck to work on, but they work just fine, especially in the rear.

P.S. Hinting at any 60's Fiat as an example of advanced engineering (braking or otherwise), just MIGHT open a can of worms with us American-types.

Can you say "flimsy, fragile, self-igniting rust-bombs from Hell"?

[EMS]

Ron: Funny enough, this goes both ways. I was born in Europe and lived over there for the first 36 years of my life and American cars never made it there. They were considered slow, fuel-guzzling behemoths with insufficient brakes, that rusted away in five years. You wouldn't dare to go faster than 80 mph in one of them. Even the Corvettes regularly overheated. The only people who bought and drove them were pimps.

[oilheadron]

I know that's definitely true. A big part of the problem with the early European cars here in the States was a lack of parts support and just plain lousy mechanics wrenching on them.

[Will]

The car I had was a 1968 Fiat 124 Sport Coupe. It was unlike most of Fiat’s offerings. Not only did it have 4 wheel disks, it was an all aluminum overhead cam 4, 4 speed tranny. It was really nice to look at. There were neat little innovations everywhere you looked. The car had both gauges and idiot lights. If the rising temperature gauge didn’t get your attention, that blinking red light did. It had a link apparatus on the rear axle that decreased the rear brakes as the rear of the car rose. There was a push button under the gas pedal. If you had the interval wipers on (very rare in 1968) and floored the gas pedal, the wipers went to full speed; very handy for passing semis on a wet Interstate. And the neatest trick was a switch activated by the hood. If you opened the hood, the idle would change. Why you ask? The first sentence of the government testing said “First open the hood.” Then the testing equipment was attached. So the emissions were legal if the hood was open. Neat, huh.

Parts support was OK. I wouldn’t know about mechanics, I did my own. The metallurgy killed it. The second gear synco disintegrated. I fixed it. It dropped a piston in the pan. I sold it to a couple guys who rebuilt it, gutted it, and flogged it on every sports car track they could find in the North East.

It cost $2,700 dollars new, when the equal Ford or Chevy was about the same price. I replaced it with a 1970 Boss 302 Mustang. As high performance as it was, it had still drum brakes on the rear.

[EMS]

The Fiat 124 (Spider) was the direct replacement for the 1500/1600S "Kabriolet", that Fiat built from 1960 to, I believe, 1966.
The 1500S started out in 1960 with a 78HP 1500cc OSCA engine, two double barrel Weber carbs, disc brakes front and rear. In 1962 it was replaced by the 1600S with the slightly boosted displacement and 90HP, while a 1500 "non-S" version was continued with the SOHC motor out of the 1500 Sedan. These things were screamers. The engine was made by race engine manufacturer OSCA, which was founded by the Maserati brothers and was commonly called a "Maserati" engine. Although the standard tranny was a 4-speed, it was available with an optional 5-speed. Several body manufacturers took turns to put custom bodyshells on the "Kabriolet", especially the 1600S, most of them Coupes. In good condition, they command outrageous prices today, compared to what they were new.
I still keep in touch with several owners in Germany
Apologies for hijacking the thread!

[oilheadron]

When I was a teenager one of our neighbors had a 124 and his next door neighbor had an 850 Spider. They both let me take their cars out by myself for some strange reason. Cool drivers.