Winter's bone

The weather here in the Bay Area has been cold and wet for so long that the month long break we got in January is a distant memory. With the rain and chilly temperatures it's been much harder to muster enough enthusiasm to go out to the garage, move the motorcycles and the CSL, and start massaging metal. Welding and panel beating just aren't fun when you it's 45 degrees. And so I've spent more than one night watching TopGear, Chasing Classic Cars, or reading Alfa books in front of the fire.

Recently a long time friend, and fellow Alfista, found a nice Milano on Craigslist, parted with a small sum of cash, and brought the little Italian stallion home. It's a great car, and my short but inspired test drive confirmed a belief I saw in print the other day. "Alfa Romeo seems incapable of making uninteresting cars". The v6 engine's exhaust note is fantastic, although the feel of it is noticeably different for someone who has spent 20 years driving BMWs with their turbine smooth straight 6 power plants. With my Alfa lust sufficiently spiked, I hit up Craigslist and clicked through the usual morass of mid-70s Spiders. Not that I'm looking to buy but it's always fun to see what's available. "Ah well, there's nothing interesting here", I thought. "Wait, what's this?" The listing read "Alfa door panel-$149". Not very sexy copy, I'd seen it but not even paid attention to it for the first 10 minutes. I clicked on it and couldn't believe my eyes; it was a driver's side door for a 105 series Giulia Sprint Veloce.

Twenty minutes later I'd PayPal'd the funds to the owner, who lives just about 60 miles north of me, and who'd promised to bring it down the peninsula in the next week or two. Even from the poor quality picture I could tell the door was well worth my small investment. The driver's door on Chela's Alfa requires a lot of work to get it straight. It's been dented and damaged and has areas of rust that will require lots of work to be a usable part. The door I found on Craigslist needs only to be stripped and painted.

Last week the owner kindly delivered it to me and I wasted no time in bolting it in place. This is temporary of course, but it's fun to see it on the car.

A long dormant summer

It's been a long time since I've been able to post any news about the work on Chela's Alfa. I had another project that I needed to get out of the garage before I could put the little Italian car back inside. She was stored outside for a few months, covered, out of sight, but not out of mind. I could not wait to get her back in the garage and pick up where I left off last winter. Thankfully, the summer was a dry one, and the body got only a very light amount of easily removable surface rust during her time in the driveway.

With the other project gone I was able to push the Alfa back in to her new, and permanent spot in the Cowpoke Racing garage. It was nice to be able to reclaim some space, and with the Alfa's relatively small footprint, there's room for it, our CSL, and our motorcycles. Even better, I can work on the Alfa without having to move anything outside.

Picking up where I left off, I need to continue to remove rust, bump metal, and weld in new panels. Before I got pulled away I was welding the new nose, and tail sections on. They're aftermarket pieces and while the fit is not bad, it's not perfect either. Another common thread, one I'll repeat many times I'm sure, is that I don't really know what I'm doing, and I'm learning as I go. Cutting out old sections of metal and getting the replacement panel to fit in perfectly is not easy. The biggest challenge however, has been that I am having a hard time getting a consistent spot weld that doesn't burn away the metal panels. Before I started this job I considered both Tig and Mig welders. I ended up going with a Mig welder for the same reason that most people do; they're easy to operate, and they fit a lot of different applications. The benefit of Tig of course, is that when properly used, you can control the amount of heat that you put in to the metal very precisely. Of course with infinite control comes a lot of complexity, because only one setting is ideal, and finding that setting takes a lot of experience. Right now, a Tig welder in the hands of someone that knows how to use one, would be very much appreciated. The problem is, that with my Millermatic 210 Mig welder set on the lowest voltage setting, I have a very hard time getting enough of a weld started to bridge both panels, before it simply burns right through the edge of the panel. It's like chasing a never ending hole. I pull the trigger for only a second and I'll get a small spot started, but just as quickly, a hole appears on one of the panels. It's usually on the existing metal, as opposed to the new panel, and that metal is understandably old, somewhat contaminated, and thin in spots. It's frustrating because it's inconsistent. Some areas actually allow me to get good penetration while others burn like a hot knife touching butter. I did find that increasing the wirespeed to 30 seems to help, as the wire can fill faster without putting as much heat in the panel, which I believe to be the cause of the metal burning.

My welds and body panel fitting still need a lot of work, and I'm not done with it, but the tail is starting to look like one piece, rather than a panel just tacked in place.

This picture was made before I ground the welds down so it's pretty ugly. I had this idea that my body panels would be perfectly match, and with the perfect gap so that my welds would be small and tidy, but that's not realistic. I'll do my best to get the seams as straight and smooth as possible, but I will still need to use body filler to get them finished. A master welder and body man I am not.

Here's a picture of the panel after grinding the welds down with my angle grinder.

I still have some more touching up and grinding to do on this corner. There's also a small section where the metal is so thin that I could not get it to weld, and I cannot fill it. I'm going to need to cut it out and fabricate a small replacement piece and weld it in. Hopefully I'll be able to use the Mig welder and not have to find someone proficient at Tig welding who can do it for me. I may have to learn how to Tig weld, which means I'll have to buy one. While I would like to learn the skill, I'm really not interested in spending money on another welder at this point. We'll see what happens.

I need to spend a few more hours getting both rear corners welded, and smoothed before I move to another area. The new nose panel promises to be challenging as well. I'm hoping the existing metal there is healthier than that on the rear.

Stay tuned!

Not such a blast

I decided that rather than farming out the blasting of our Giulia I'd do it myself. It seemed to be much more economical and much less of a hassle. The closest blaster is a few hours away and it would require at least 2 trips up and back to get the car done, not to mention the harrowing ordeal of strapping a bodyshell to a dolly on to a trailer.........yuck.

After some research I ordered a relatively inexpensive dual-media blaster from Eastwood. I'm in a position where I need to clean up some metal in the nose and in the trunk section before I continue to repair some of the metal in those areas. I took a break from welding and finally got the blaster out and gave it a try last weekend. My compressor is an Ingersol Rand rated at 12.3 CFM@ 125PSI and it has a 40 gallon tank. The blaster is only supposed to require about 8CFM@80PSI, so I figured I'd have enough muscle for the job.

I started with aluminum oxide in the tank as I knew I'd be working on some areas with some sound deadener, some heavy glue, and some rust.

Now I know why people pay others to blast their cars for them. While it's rather satisfying, it's kind of a hassle, and it makes a helluva mess (I expected that part). Unfortunately I was not able to make much progress as I'd only get a short burst of usable blasting before the pressure would drop and I'd have to wait 30 seconds or more for the pressure in the blaster tank to build back up. It was extremely frustrating, and my compressor was running non-stop. After an hour or more of blasting intermittently like this I had only gotten a few small areas blasted, although the results were pretty good.

After thinking about it and discussing it with some friends I came to the conclusion that the reason my compressor couldn't keep the tank pressurized was the very long run I had in between it and the blaster. Just like a long extension cord, the volume of air I am able to move through my plumbed air lines to the tank is insufficient to refill the blaster.

With this in mind I set about to rectify the situation. I went to a local hose/fitting store and purchased 8 feet of 1/2 inch hose, along with several 1/2 inch high flow fittings. I wanted the run of hose to be as short as possible but I need at least enough to be able to get the blaster out of the garage and have some room to move it around. I will connect this 1/2 inch hose directly to the compressor tank and then in to the soda blaster. The only thing in between will be the regulator. I'm hoping that will be sufficient to help me to be able to blast for more than a few seconds before having to take a break.

Chela got in on the blasting action too. Here's some pictures of the process and the results:

Welding progress

The last couple of days in the Cowpoke Racing garage have been more fruitful. After a lot of trial and error and using some different techniques I am happy to report that I've actually gotten to a point where I can get the metal from the new tail section to tack to the rest of the car. The welds aren't pretty and I have lots of grinding to do, but I did get the tail section welded on. I still have lots more tacks to make to "connect the dots" but it's fairly well lined up and it's not coming off again. Due to the nature of the remanfactured panel, I could not get it to line up at all the critical points. I had to choose which seam I wanted lined up, and so I chose the top crease on the left rear fender. With this body line properly aligned, other areas don't line up, but I figure they're easier to modify and less likely to be noticed if they're not perfect. You can see the first area that will need to be worked (where the trunk lid shuts) in the picture below:

I've also started cutting out the rusted out gas tank mounting flange and fitting the section that Kevin sent me from his donor car (thanks Kevin!). I should have my soda/sand blaster in the next couple of days and I'm anxious to use it to prep some more of the trunk for more welding and eventually primer.

I had a friend who has restored several concours quality cars come over to the shop and take a look at my progress. I was more heartened by what he didn't say than what he did. He didn't say "dude, you're in way over your head and this is never going to look good, wtf are you thinking?", so that's good.

It's been a while

It's been a while since I've updated the blog or this thread. There's no good reason for it other than be being out of town on work-related travel, and the first good storm of the season here in Northern California which rendered us without power for a good portion of two days. Last weekend it was suitably dry and Chel and I set about making some progress on the Alfa. The last time I posted I was having trouble welding the front fender. I need to do some more metal prep on the nose before I can try welding some more and so we thought we'd move to another area, and take a break from the front of the car.

Taking the advice of the forum I set up the welder so that we could test some settings on old original metal I'd cut from the tail section. We cleaned it with Scotchbrite pads on our Dynabrade and tried to draw some welds. Then we cut a piece of the panel in two, and tried to weld it together. The results were not a surprise; the original metal does not like to be welded. With the welder on the lowest settings we could get small tacks started but it didn't take much to blow through the metal just like I'd experienced on the front of the car. The only thing that I didn't try was a wire brush. I've heard that they're very good at getting all the rust out of the metal, but I can't see any rust left after the Scotchbrite pad. Regardless, I'll give the pieces a once over with the wire brush in my angle grinder and try welding again. With that experiment complete we moved to the rear of the car.

Chel wanted to try her hand at metal bumping so I set her up with a hammer and some dollies and let her have at it. She did a great job, especially given the fact that it was her first try. I'm still trying to figure out the art of metal bumping myself, it's not simple.

While she was doing that I removed the tail section which I'd temporarily clamped in place. I prepped some of the metal where it will ultimately be welded, and again used the Scotchbrite pad to remove the paint from the remanufactured tail section. I'll need to drill holes along the rear where it was originally spot welded to the trunk floor but I wanted to see if I could get the panel tacked in temporarily. I clamped it in place and tried to weld the right rear corner; just a few tacks to see if I could get it lined up and in place. The results were not good as you can see.

You can see the metal burning away from the side where the original metal is. And these are very wimpy welds. I don't feel like I'm getting good penetration at all, because as soon as I pull the trigger I have to release it or the metal will............you know.

It's frustrating and more than a little troublesome because the metal in this area doesn't look bad. There are other areas of the car that need repair which have much worse metal than this. If I can't get this to weld, I don't know how I'll weld the places where the metal is worse. I met a guy a few weeks ago at Santana Row Cars and Coffee who claims to be a metal fabricator/ex restorer. I've seen some of his work and he's a nice guy and I asked if he'd come take a look at my work and tell me what I'm doing wrong. At this point I realize I'm in need of expert advice and so that's what I'm going to get. Here's another picture of the rear of the car.

I am hopeful that there is some trick that I'm missing. I can't believe that the body of this car is so bad that it's unusable. And if I need to get a Tig welder and spend a year or 10 learning how to Tig weld, that's what I'll do.

Ciao!

-tj

Still more nose work and an engine update

Over the past few days I've spent about 20 hours on the nose of the car. With the new panel trial fit in place I've focused on the driver's side front fender which I'm replacing with a panel I got from the good folks at Alfaholics. After lots and lots of measuring, fitting, measuring, fitting, trimming, measuring and fitting, this is what I have. Not quite there, but getting closer.



I also used a combination of wire brush and Zinc rust condition on the stringer that the nose piece mounts on, followed by a few coats of Wurth self etching primer.



The front has been banged up pretty good over the life of the car so I spent lots of time dollying and bumping the area around the bumper mounts, as well as on the bumper mounts themselves. This is crucial to ensure that the nose panel has proper orientation to the rest of the car. Combined with the stringer between the fenders, they're the only reference I have for getting it straight.

With a spirit level, masking tape, and a measuring tape I spent a good amount of time trying to get everything as straight as possible. There's some damage to the passenger side bumper mount which made it tricky, but I managed to get it within about a sixteenth of an inch of the driver's side mount.

I also ground off old welding material and removed rust from the cross member which the lower part of the nose piece is welded. With that in place I could again fit the nose and start working on that repair panel.



As you can see, the bumper is temporarily mounted in order to make sure that the fenders and nose piece are properly oriented. Assuming that everything will lined up and painting the car is not the right way to approach this. Essentially every component that attaches to the body must be trial fit several times before the car ever gets painted in order to ensure it will be right when the time comes for final assembly.

Here's another picture of the repair panel temporarily in place, during one of the 25 or so times I installed and removed it before taking another 32nd of an inch off the surrounding metal to get the fit right.



As you can see, the crease along the top of the fender as long as the waistline crease are still not lined up properly, so I've still got more work to do.

On another topic, Chel and I finally got around to measuring the valve clearances this afternoon. I was not surprised to find that nearly all of the shims that came with the head were not at all close to the right size. The head has a fresh valve job and the only shims I had were from before that happened, so as you'd expect, the clearances were all way off. At least I have a reference point now, and I know what size shims I need to get to set them properly. On a disappointing note, I could not get one of the studs that holds the rear camshaft cap on the intake size to torque down. The stud is pulling up through the head. I will have to take the head back to my machinist and see if he can install a timesert of do something to prevent it from pulling out. They're only torqued to 15 foot pounds but they need to hold that much torque.

I'm expecting at least 5 or 10 more hours of work trimming and fitting the metal on the nose before I can get serious about welding it, but hopefully I'm getting closer.

More nose work

I'm feeling pretty good about the front end of Chela's Alfa. I've spent about 10 or 15 hours over the past few days removing the original nose of the car. This time I decided to use a flap disc in my angle grinder to slowly grind off the old skin, rather than trying to drill out each individual spot well. Combined with my plasma cutter, a cut off wheel in my pneumatic angle grinder, and a hammer, I was able to get the original sheet metal off without doing any damage to the metal underneath. There is a stringer that locates the top of the nose panel and which has the hinges for the hood attached to it. This needs to stay in place in order to get the nose fit properly.

The nose, despite being a more complex piece, is actually easier to locate than the tail because of that stringer. It locates the entire piece very accurately, and as long as your bumper mount points aren't too bent (mine were) everything should line up fairly nicely. Since our car had sustained numerous concussions to the front end, both bumper mounts were off by about a half an inch, but some gentle persuading with a hammer, dolly and c-clamp reinforced with some square tubing to distribute the load were sufficient to get them in the proper location.

I still have lots of trimming work to do on both fenders, and also will have to graft in the corner section on the driver's side as there was a ton of unfixable damage there.

I am going to check alignment on every joint over and over until I'm sure I've got it proper before I start tacking it in place. But before that I've still got lots of metal prep and bumping to do around the headlight rings and in the sheet metal around the bumper mounts. I'm also a bit puzzled as to how exactly the headlight rings mount. As you can see, I've got the passenger side on in place, but it's just propped there, and I don't think it's in the right position. I'll have to check the pieces I cut out to try to get the orientation and alignment.