Tipo updates

"BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion" (pbs) 11/01/2013 at 13:57 • Filed to: None

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After spending a good amount of time assembling and disassembling the driver's seat, I gave up and took the car to a shop. Apparently, damage to the reclining mechanism was much worse than I initially thought, and welding it back in a functional way will be quite a task. The owner of the shop said it can be done, but it will be difficult and if it doesn't work, my only other option is to weld the back of the seat at a comfortable position and give up reclining altogether.

Not cool, but, like I said, it'll have to do for now. It's not like worse stuff hasn't happened already, plus, I can always hunt down new seats in the future. Sedicivalvole seats are rarer than hen's teeth around here, but maybe someone in the UK will be able to shed some light on this...

davedave1111 > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion 11/01/2013 at 14:24

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There are bugger-all Tipo parts around that I can see - there are only 300-odd left on the road over here, according to howmanyleft.co.uk so I don't know if anyone's even bothering to break them anymore.

Still, Fiat being Fiat, they're probably the same seat internals on a dozen other models. If it's the same on Mk I Puntos, or something, then there should be some still about.

BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion > davedave1111 11/01/2013 at 20:34

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Tsc... I was actually hoping there would be at least a few of the original seats still available over there, but it looks like the Sedicivalvole isn't rare just in Brazil anymore.

I do believe the seat internals are the same used in several other fiats of the era, I'm just not sure I'd be able to get a new seat and use the same upholstery and cloth from the original seat...

Edit: I just checked the site you mentioned, and there seem to be no more than 8 Sedicivalvoles still on the road in England. I'd no idea there were so few, to be honest...

davedave1111 > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion 11/01/2013 at 20:46

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With Brazilian labour rates, I'd have thought you can have a new part fabbed from scratch cheaper than postage from the UK anyway.

BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion > davedave1111 11/01/2013 at 20:53

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Maybe, but Brazilian labour rates and Brazilian fabrication skills are directly proportional. I'd end up with a wooden stool covered in plastic shower curtains, haha...

davedave1111 > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion 11/01/2013 at 21:12

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Nah, you need to find a skilled metal fabricator and have him make an exact copy of the broken part. Maybe you underestimate UK postage costs :)

Actually, I just looked it up, and the average hourly rates I found for Brazil suggest a skilled machinist or welder or whatever wouldn't earn more than about BRL40-50 per hour, and probably a fair bit less. Is that about right? Postage to Brazil from the UK is going to be about £50 for anything over 2kg, even by surface mail.

BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion > davedave1111 11/01/2013 at 21:23

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Yeah, that sounds about right... Unlike Europe and US, labour isn't worth very much here, as most of it is untrained, there's little know how associated to it and you usually need 4 to 5 people to do the job one single worker in the US or Europe would be able to do...

I'm not saying skilled craftsmen don't exist around here, they're just very, very hard to find. The people who work making planes at my parents' garage, for example, they stick as close as possible to an american model of worksmanship, with manuals and tools mostly imported from the US, but the people who work fixing planes at the airfield have no idea what they're most of the time. I'm amazed there were only 5 deaths this past year.

davedave1111 > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion 11/01/2013 at 21:36

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My wife's from Trinidad, and it's much the same over there. Still, you find the odd skilled guy who's set up on his own, and because the general labour rates are fairly cheap he's doing pretty well for himself without charging the earth.

Maybe the difference is that Trinidad's so small that everyone knows everyone else, so when you need to find that one guy you just ask around. Brazil's, what, two hundred times the size?

BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion > davedave1111 11/01/2013 at 22:09

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Beats me... I know the US has about 10 million km² in total area, but I've no clue as to how large Brazil is exactly, only that it comes right after the US in terms of total area.

I'm not very good at being Brazilian, am I?

davedave1111 > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion 11/01/2013 at 22:24

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I have no idea about the total area of either. Or of the UK. Is that something people commonly know about a country in Brazil? I can see why you'd like it as a measure...

Off the top of my head, the US has 350 million people and Brazil about 300 million. Let me check: nope, Google says Brazil only has 200 million people. Trinidad has just over a million people, so it's a little bit smaller than either.

I don't know what makes a good Brazilian, I'm afraid. You're not an Amazonian Indian, a footballer, or a racing driver, nor do you sell crack in a favela, as far as I know, but those are pretty much the only typically Brazilian occupations I'm familiar with, so that's not a great start in my book. Oh, there's also the manufacturing of strange cars, but I think that's stopped now Gurgel's gone bust. Oh, wait, do you carnival? Maybe you can still redeem yourself before your government strips you of your citizenship and kicks you out the country.

BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion > davedave1111 11/01/2013 at 22:33

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Well, there's the manufacturing of strange airplanes, not sure if that counts though... To be honest, that's something I've been thinking about for a while now, how little I'm aligned to Brazilian culture. But I diggress... I just asked my old man how's things at the airfield back home and, unsurprisingly, one of the mechanics that work there, that I just mentioned above, almost lost his head because someone fire up the engine as he was hunched over the propeller and, apparently, that's not the right way to fix a plane.

Who knew?