In my ongoing quest to shed light on and put together a Fiat 500/126 disc brake conversion and in the absence of any detailed plans I have decided that the only way forward is to get my hands on some of the parts. So I am interested in any disc brake bits from the smaller Fiat range that may help me piece the puzzle together wether they be used or even new unwanted bits.

me thinks you can get the kits, from most Itlian Car part dealers, i have seen the kits, at a lot of FIAT 500 events in Italy neil

kits can be found on EBay neil

Hi you have slightly missed the point here and I know about the kits on eBay which are very expensive. Lots of people have put together front disc set ups for Fiat 500s & 126s at around £100 or less but nobody seems to have kept an accurate drawing of adaptor plates for instance and a wide variety of calipers have been used. Some people have run into problems and have been unable to refit the original wheels, some had to resort to wheel spacers. My aim is to put together a parts list, using standard Fiat calipers & discs, required nuts & bolts and suitably designed adaptor plates (some pictures I have seen look pretty grim). I have 500 & 126 stub axles that I can check out the set up on then once perfected I can publish the details to make it easy for others to uprate brakes. So I need some bits & bobs to play with. Can be old scrap calipers, part worn, new old stock or just surplus to requirements bits.

I know that Uno/Panda discs fit the Fiat 125 and 124 (and therefore the Lada Riva).

You've got quite a good chance of finding a Lada in a scrapyard.

I'd be amazed if any Ladas exist in scrapyards. They were commanding top money from Russian sailors in the late 80s and early 90s so most of them were "exported" back home to be used as parts.

That's the real reason you don't see any Ladas on the roads anymore

heard a story about a russian ship that was at liverpool, a crowd of sailors hired a mini bus, went to a scrapyard in oldham,lancashire, rolled up at the gate, said to the owner "lada" yes mate over to the left gesturing to them, of they went in close formation, stripped the car in over a hour of what they wanted, and went!

Tough old boot, the Lada. Mechanicals a little agricultural , but tough nevertheless. Certainly effective in their class wins on domestic rallies such as the RAC in the 70's

I can't see how you can use standard Fiat parts as other Fiats are based on 98 PCD stud fixings. I've done it on a Fiat 600, rather than go down the 850 coupe route, using uno calipers and Lancia rear discs which was relatively straightforward as the 600 was 98 PCD.

Hi All
at some point during the 126 production they changed to 98pcd type fittings, i recollect a 1980 v reg car having 98pcd wheels but i cannot remember when the change over happened, You will also find that 12 inch wheels will not fit over any of the easily availiable standardish fiat Discs (unless spacers offset them enough).
I have on my 850 spyder a set of 127 calliper mounts/ callipers/discs and pads, as they bolt straight onto the kingpin.
this conversion i am attempting to put on my 850 coupe series one so that i can get a set of uprated pads for heavier uses that are more availiable for 128/unos (ie ebc green stuff).
Dave
If you are local to me (as i think you are)you are welcome to borrow a complete hub assembly for an 850 coupe s1 to check out the sizes etc.
Tim Milnes (high wycombe)

On my 500 I am using Panda disks with Ford Fiesta callipers, which are nice and small. I've 126 stub axles and an adapter plate to take the PCD back out for the original 500 12" wheels. The advantage of Ford Fiesta callipers is they are very common and cheap.

Thanks for the input guys & here are a couple of observations/replys. Nic - pretty much all of the smaller Fiat range run with 98mm PCD wheel bolts so that is no problem. Tim - only the very early 126s up to 1977 used the old Fiat 500 bolt spacing otherwise as above. Also thanks for the offer of the 850 parts to check but from the point of ecconomy as paulB says the more abundant the part then the most likely to be good on price hence the models mentioned in the title. paulB - did you make your own caliper and wheel adaptor plates ?
I know that the 850 set up is a good upgrade for the 600 but you are now talking classic car parts here and no point in draining the stocks for a non standard mod.
Looking at the specs & pics in the Haynes manuals the Fiat 1100 and 850 seem to share some attributes, Uno , Panda and to a limited extent the 127 also.
I do not have manuals for the later cars but reveals the same disc size comes up across so many models, ie 240 & 227 mms diameter.
To further my research I have bought some used Cinquecento & early Panda calipers from eBay which will be very useful in the project but they came without any of the twiddly springs , clips and pads etc so I cannot yet put together a mock up.
Early feelings are that the caliper which I believe is shared by the Cinquecento , Seicento & Punto look favourite along with the 227 mm disc.

Apologies for the long post...

I bought my adaptors and spacers from Ruud in Holland.

Re those smaller Fiat discs - they are what I use.
Holes = 4
PCD = 98mm
Outer Diameter = 227mm
Thickness = 10.8mm (min 9mm)
centre diameter 62mm

part numbers: 4208311, 4385812

Common to:

124 Spider
01.1966 - 09.1985
2000 Europa, 2000 Europa (124DS),2000 Europa Volumex

127
06.1971 - 12.1986

127 Panorama
01.1977 - 12.1986

128
03.1969 - 12.1984

128 coupé
03.1972 - 02.1981

128 Familiare
10.1969 - 10.1982

131
03.1975 - 12.1986

132
04.1972 - 12.1982

850
10.1965 - 12.1972

900T/E Panorama
01.1978 - 01.1986

900 T/E Pulmino
01.1978 - 01.1986

Argenta
005.1977 - 03.1987, 2500 Turbodiesel

Fiorino (127)
10.1977 - 12.1987

Fiorino (147)
:01.1980 - 04.1988

Fiorino Kasten/Van (146 Uno)
01.1988 - 05.2001
60 1.1, 60 1.7 D, 70 1.3, 75 i.e. 1.5

Fiorino Pritsche/Pick up (146)
01.1988 - 05.2001
1.3, 1.7 D

Fiorno Pickup (147)
10.1982 - 12.1988

Panda (141A)
03.1980 - 07.2004
except: 0.9 Fire S Allrad

Panda Van
01.1986 - 02.2004

Regatta (138)
09.1983 - 12.1990
except: 100 1.6

Regatta Weekend
01.1984 - 06.1991

Ritmo/Strada I (138A)
01.1978 - 05.1987

Ritmo Bertone Cabrio
01.1980 - 07.1989

Ritmo II (138A)
10.1982 - 12.1988

Uno (146A)
01.1983 - 08.2000

X 1/9 (128 AS)
11.1972 - 12.1989

If your stud spacing is 98PCD use standard Fiat/Lancia discs - I studied a parts catalogue to determine which gave the best 'offset'. use minimum thickness of 8mm mild steel and cut out a triangle which picks up the original backplate fixing locations and allows mounting of calipers with clearance hole in the middle to go over hub. I used Uno calipers for cost reasons. I only used a jigsaw, file and drill.
Years later I saw an advert for the launch of a similar design for over £400. I probably still have the patterns.

Hi Dave
If you are looking to use the origonal wheels you could look at dewoo matiz parts as they are smaller diameter wheels/ disc's etc and quite available too.

also the matiz design was origonally for fiat but they chose not to use it, hence it was sold to dewoo,
so they do have a simpathy to fiat if you were to use those parts

Tim

Thanks to all for the additional input. I managed to borrow some trade catalogues & spent about an hour photocopying the Fiat pages so have loads of info part nos for the different models. Still short of the smaller parts for a Panda and a Cinquecento caliper plus looking to get a pair of the 227mm diameter discs.

The discs are easily found on ebay - about £15 a pair (plus shipping).
You'll probably find most other parts you need there too, though for things like seals and hoses I prefer to buy straight from an autoparts shop and can check they aren't 25 years old.

Slow but steady progress is being made and I have stuck my neck out and commisioned a pair of adaptor plates to be made but it is form a sketch I was sent so keeping fingers crossed about the fit. After discovering that the Cinquecento caliper pistons had had some harsh treatment by someone's attempt to remove them I took no chances with the Panda calipers. I managed , with a bit of work , to graft an inner tube inlet valve to the end of a flexible brake pipe and using a heavy duty footpump I managed to blow the pistons out with about 120 psi of pressure. The pistons that were a bit seized as they had not been used for about 15 years came out clean with a loud pop. So more parts under inspection & restoration. I still need pretty much all of the parts for the Cinquecento caliper and some old Panda pads and the anti-rattle spring would be useful. I know that kits are available but they are very expensive and would not give me all the parts I need. Discs I have been looking at on eBay and they do go very cheaply as you say.

which is often the case, parts can take a week or so to arrive, alot can depend on how good the parts department is! The one at the FIAT agent is very good at location parts!

When fabricating anything like adapter plates it can save a lot of time and money to mock them up with plywood or thick card first. Once a good fit has been found, you've then got a template too.