This story begun when I saw a little Fiat on my friend's backyard. The model was 127 of year 1976. The car was partly taken to pieces, and very few of the parts were remained. My friend had no time to rebuild it, but it interested me since my present vehicle was in a quite hopeless condition. The price of the car was a power supply worth of about 120 FIM ($20). A heap of parts of different Fiat models was included in the deal. :-)

The part variety included 1116cc engine used in Fiat 128 and its four-speed gearbox. Since the original pushrod engine of the car was not found and it does not have very enormous performance, I decided to use that engine in my car. Although the engine was in good condition, I replaced bearings, gaskets and piston rings.

The gearbox appeared to be totally crushed. I assume that an inner driveshaft joint has broken up and the parts of it drifted to gears. Total destruction followed. I had to find a new gearbox, preferably five-speed one.

During the seeking of parts, I had to do something to the chassis. Corrosion is the main problem with cars in Finland, thanks to the idiots who spread huge amounts of salt to the roads every winter. After welding and preparing for painting the car looked more encouraging.

I purchased a Ritmo (Strada) to have a five-speed gearbox. The car had also a 1498cc engine and many useful parts for my 127. The chassis was in awful condition but that was not a problem since the car was going to be taken to pieces.

The 1498cc engine does not differ very much from 128-type when talking about the outside measures of the engine. However, the 1498cc offers better base for tuning since "nothing beats cubic inches" :-). In other words, the car would be faster with that 1500cc engine.

The dashboard of Ritmo is modern when compared to the original 127 one. Since the gauges and indicators fit more easily to the Ritmo dashboard, the old-fashioned dashboard was replaced with the Ritmo one. The conversion took several months and it also required major modifications to the heater system. The board was put together using rivets and aluminum plates.

The 1498cc engine was dismantled and the gearbox inspected. The gearbox seemed to make strange noise but it worked well. The box was opened and the reason for the noise was found. Someone has put a too thin gasket between the halves of the box cover. As consequence, one of the gears was chafing against the cover making the strange noise. The problem was fixed by using a gasket of correct thickness.