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.

Nose and tail

Recent hours in the Cowpoke Racing garage have been dedicated to getting the tail section fitted properly to the body. I'm learning how very tricky it is to get the new piece matched properly to the body. I left lots of room for error when I cut the original metal out, and went very slowly with my angle grinder, taking off only sixteenths of an inch at a time. Obviously taking too much metal off could really make things tricky. The nice thing about this panel is that, provided they're straight, you can use the bumper brackets as reference points for the entire tail section. Also, where the trunk lid closes is a good reference point for the top. What I wasn't certain about was how much overhang the trunk lid has over the tail section, and thankfully my friend Carl sent me some pictures of his very nicely restored 66 Veloce for reference. I also visited a local friend with a 74 GTV so I could see what the panel looks like in person.

My job was made a bit easier with the arrival of some panel clamps that I got from Eastwood. These hold the panel in place, with a very small spacer, which guarantees proper fitment and alignment of the two panels. Here's a picture of one corner of the rear before I put the finishing touches on the metal. As you can see, there's a big gap, one that is too big to weld.

A few more passes with my flap disc and the gap is much closer now. Obviously I am still a few hours away from welding the panel in permanently as I have to remove rust from the trunk floor, prep it with primer and remove the paint from the replacement panel.

Here's a profile picture of the rear, illustrating the overhang with the trunk lid that I was trying to achieve.

Feeling confident in my ability to cut and fit body panels I decided to move to the front of the car. The nose has been damaged so many times that I knew there was no way I'd ever get it straight. I'd been holding off cutting it out because it's a bit complex and I didn't want to cut through the wrong parts. The trick is to leave the upper support piece (to which the hinges mount) in place, which is a little hard as it's spot welded to the entire section. I started at the bottom, with plasma torch in hand, and started removing metal. I've learned that trying to remove whole sections at one time is not the way to go. It's better to take out smaller areas, piece by piece, thus ensuring you don't cut through the wrong part. This front end has been buttered and leaded and brazed so many times it was incredible. Plasma cutting through body filler is interesting. It smokes, catches fire, and turns to good. I know the front end had been replaced, but it looked like whomever did so just laid one nose on top of the other, at least at the bottom. The entire lower valance was double thick metal. It was a dirty, smoky, messy job, but within a half an hour or so, this is what I had.

And this is what I cut out.

I still have to remove the top section, carefully I might add, as the piece beneath it must stay in place. Then I'll start removing rust, straightening the bent panels (and there are a few) before I start trimming more closely for the new panel. I also have a new section for the driver's side corner which will replace the original, very damaged metal. I think that piece will go in before I weld the entire front panel in, but I'm still working on figuring that out.

Rear end removal

Today Chela and I took a major step in the restoration of our old Alfa. We cut the damaged rear end of the car out. I've been spending a bit of time in the trunk over the past week and after drilling out the spot welds that run along the midsection of the tail panel and cutting the inner brace loose from the trunk floor we were ready. I clamped my new replacement panel on the rear of the car, traced the outline with a Sharpie, and turned on my plasma cutter. It didn't take more than 5 minutes and I was holding the extremely damaged rear panel in my hands.

Here's what the rear of the car looked like with the panel removed.

As you can see, I've got some pretty serious rust in the trunk panel. If I could find a good replacement trunk floor I'd buy one and weld it in, but I've yet to source that part. With the panel roughly removed I then turned to my Dynabrade angle grinder with a metal flap disc in it, and began slowly grinding metal away, stopping short of the Sharpie outline I'd made.

As I progressed I was able to get to a point where the rear bumper mounts were nearly flush with the indentation in the panel, indicating I was getting close to where I needed to be. I was able to temporarily hold the panel in place by installing the bolts that hold the bumper to the body, but this is where it gets tricky. Obviously cutting too much metal out would be disastrous so I need to go very slowly, make lots of measurements, and trial fit the panel after each pass.

I've also bolted the trunk lid back on to check the shut lines where it meets the top of the rear panel. Over the next few days I'll keep working on fitting that rear panel. Then I'll remove the rust from the lip of the trunk floor where it butts up against the inner part of the panel, primer it and start welding the panel in. It's really rewarding to remove rusted and damaged metal from an old car, and also to fit the new panel in place. I decided to start with the rear because this panel is not nearly as complex as the front, and I hoped I'd learn something without making too many mistakes.

Speaking of the front of the car, I found a used grill on eBay that is not perfect, but which should be a good candidate for re-chroming, assuming I can figure out how to get the stainless steel slats out without ruining the part. It looks to be an original grill and has none of the quality control issues that I've found in the reproductions. After getting it chromed it will no doubt cost as much as a new reproduction part, but hopefully it will look and fit much better.

Ciao!

Me and Giulia

Last night we went to see Julie and Julia, the very sweet and inspiring story of Julia Child, and a young woman who chronicled her attempt to cook every recipe from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in one year, in a blog. I mention this not because lovers of vintage Italian cars all love good food (although I suspect the majority do) but because cooking and restoring an old car are not terribly different. Both require technique, a basic skill set for task at hand, the right tool for the job, and of course plenty of patience. And so mastering the perfect beurre blanc is somewhat like drilling out the spot welds of a rusty body panel in order to remove it without ruining the underlying metal. Which is exactly what I spent an hour or so doing today.

The job requires a special sort of drill bit, which has flat blades and a nib in the center to keep it from wandering. The idea is to cut just through the top part of the metal, while not damaging the metal beneath the panel you're trying to remove. This was my first time using the tool and so far my results are mixed. It seems to require a lot of pressure to get the bit to bite in to the metal, and on one or two occasions it suddenly blew through both pieces of metal, leaving me with a perfect hole. Not the end of the world, but not ideal either. The area I'm working on is in the trunk, where the spare wheel well is, or was anyway. The original metal was so badly rusted that there was essentially no bottom. I have a replacement, but first the remnants of the old wheel well have to come out. The piece itself was assembled to the trunk floor with about 100 spot welds. An hour of drilling and chiseling and grinding and I'm almost half way done. Once the entire part is removed, I'll use my 3M Scotchbrite pad to remove all rust and paint, and then I'll apply some Wurth Weld-through Zinc primer to keep it from rusting. Then the new spare wheel well will get welded in.

Inspiration and progress

It's Monterey Historics weekend which means that Friday is the Concorso Italiano. Despite vowing never to return after last year's debacle, and despite having tickets to another show, we decided that the opportunity to look at 105s was just too good to pass up, especially with all the questions I have about possible color combinations and what a stock engine bay and interior should look like.

Sadly there were only three step noses in attendance, and two were GTAs. All three were Alfa Rosso, which is lovely but doesn't help us with our decision regarding what color to paint the little car. We did manage to find an NOS front marker light, which was a nice find. And there were plenty of other beautiful Italian cars in attendance so it was worth the time and expense.

Suitably inspired I returned to the Cowpoke Racing garage first thing this morning to continue stripping paint, cutting out rust, and removing the headliner. A box from Alfaholics arrived this afternoon with more parts (we love parts!), including a repair section for the front corner of the front fender, as well as the headlamp support rings which are welded to the nose. Combined with my marker light and the six wheels I got the other day, it's been a good week for collecting Alfa parts. What? I didn't tell you about the wheels? When we got the car it had steel wheels, but they were 14s, for a later Alfa. With the objective of 100% original appearance I was in search of a set of the proper 15 inch steel wheels, which I learned are pretty hard to find. You'd think there'd be tons of them out there as most 105s I see have GTA replica wheels, but I had to make calls and send emails to parts houses all over the world before finding some at a European car restorer in Kansas.

I got six of them and will choose the best five. There's a little bit of rust on the insides around the valve stem holes but I think I can clean them up well enough that they won't leak.

Here's a picture of the repair panel so you can see where it will fit.

And here's a picture of the damaged portion that it will replace. I'm happy to have found this part as it would be very difficult to ever get that metal straight. It's been damaged and repaired so many times.

This is a picture of the area behind the front wheel on the driver's side, after removing the splash panel that is supposed to seal off the cavity inside the fender. As you can see, it's filled with a lot of stuff that's not supposed to be there, likely the former home of a rodent.

I didn't get as much work done as I'd hoped this weekend but I did manage to sort some fasteners and temporarily mount the upper part of the oil pan and figure out where some of the nuts and bolts that I have been cleaning in my solvent tank go. Part of any good restoration is in using the proper fasteners, and having them in good condition. I am looking forward to the Concorso Italiano next weekend so that I can make plenty of pictures of engines and engine compartments so that I can figure out what goes where, and what sort of plating is correct. I believe Alfa Romeo used black oxide on a lot of the nuts and bolts, including the ones on the head, so I'll be looking for a local plater who can do that sort of work.

I also spent some time working on the body. I did some more sanding but also worked on welding up holes on the driver's side of the car. It's very tricky with a MIG welder because you have to use very low voltage to keep from blowing through the thin sheet metal. Once the hole was filled I used my angle grinder to grind them flush. There's still lots more of this work to do, but I am making progress.

I received some more tools from Eastwood and I'm awaiting some parts from IAP which will hopefully show up next week. I have a few very small bushings and bearings that I need to source before I can assemble the intermediate gear, timing chains and front timing cover and I need to find a place to get those as well.

Next weekend is the aforementioned Concorso Italiano, as well as the Monterey Historic races. I'm hoping to see lots of Giulias and learn more about how a stock 67 should look.

Ciao!

-tj

Getting down to the bottom end

Today we finally got the bottom end of the Alfa's pretty little engine assembled. The crank is in, the pistons are in, and the rods are hung. We used a combination of Redline Assembly lube and some special assembly oil that my machinist gave us as the engine will not be started for at least a year while the body is straightened and painted. The only tricky part of the job was the circlip installation. For some reason the AE/Borgo piston kits come with plain circlips (rather than ones which are easily installed with circlip pliers) and pressing them in without scarring up fingers and the piston skirt is a little tricky. My right thumb has nice cut on it from my first attempt prior to putting on mechanic's gloves, which of course make handling a tiny sprung piece of wire that much harder.

We got the main bearing caps torqued and the cigarette seals installed. A nice trick on the latter, which the manuals say must be installed with a special tapered factory tool, is to put them in the freezer for a few hours prior to installation. This makes the rubber hard enough that you can tap/press them in gently with a small hammer until they're all the way seated. According to the manual, it's smart to leave them a little bit higher than the surface of the block so that the oil pan will compress them in the last few millimeters.

I need to get some lock tab washers for the rear main bearing cap prior to finishing the bottom, but for now I'm pleased with the progress.

Of bearings and body trim

It's been a while since I posted last (I hate it when life gets in the way of working in the garage) but the last time I posted I was facing some questions around my main bearings and why they didn't have holes that matched the holes in the main bearing saddles in the engine block.

Engine

It turns out that the 1600cc Alfa engine did not come from the factory with the number 2 and 4 main bearing saddles drilled. This was apparently a common upgrade and intended to supply more oil to the crank in racing situations. As this car will never be raced, and because the questionable nature of this upgrade in the first place, I will leave the bearings the way they are and not drill them to match the holes in the saddles. The Alfa engine is a strong and reliable unit and hundreds of thousands of them were made that ran for years without this modification.

I'm hoping to actually be able to assemble the bottom end sometime soon. Another of the challenges I've had is finding the right fasteners for the bottom end, as Alfa originally used some thin "tin" jam nuts, which are NLA. The common wisdom is to use Loctite instead, something I don't have a problem with.

Yesterday we drove up the peninsula to get a couple more engine components back from the machine shop, including the oil pan, valve cover and intake manifold, all of which were disassembled, bead blasted and hot tanked. They look beautiful and are ready for assembly.

Body

I continue to strip the body shell of paint and trim pieces. This job seems never ending but I finally managed to remove the last of the stainless steel trim that surrounds the windows and drip rail. The trim is held in with very small metal screws, a couple of which had rusted so badly that I could not remove them with a screw driver. I had to drill a couple of them out, which is always tricky because you don't want to enlarge the original hole, which would then require using a larger fastener when you're ready for reassembly. I still have much stripping to do, but the exterior of the shell is 98% done.

Confusion runs amok

I'm very much looking forward to assembling the bottom end of the engine but we've been stymied by confusion around several different topics. First, the bearings that I have had holes which did not line up with the holes in the main bearing saddles. Apparently a popular modification was to drill holes in the number 2 and 4 main bearing saddles to allow for extra oil circulation, but the bearings themselves have to be drilled to take advantage of this. Also, the bearings for number 1, 3, and 5 have two holes while the saddles themselves only have 1. I've been told that this is not a problem as the groove in the saddle will allow oil to flow properly through the engine, but it's still a bit disconcerting to not know for sure from an authoritative source (like an official manual).

Another area of confusion surrounds the pistons. The only manual I have, which is for a 2L motor, suggests that there should be an arrow on the piston crown which needs to point to the exhaust side of the head. Problem is, I'm not building a 2L engine, I'm building a 1600cc engine and the AE/Borgo pistons I have do not have such a marking on them. It's been suggested that these pistons are in fact symmetrical and that it does not matter which side faces which, but again, with an engine, you just want to know for sure.

And so the various engine components continue to sit in boxes on my workbench while I call and research and post questions to the Alfabb looking for answers.

Hopefully I'm getting closer to the truth and can start building an engine soon.

The Engine Returns

Last Saturday Chel and I drove up the peninsula to Cardelli Motorsports to pick up some of the engine that needed work. The head got new valve guides and seals, the seats were cut and all the components were blasted and thoroughly cleaned. The rods were reconditioned and fitted with new bushings. The new cylinder liners were pressed in to the block. Here's a picture of everything ready for reassembly. I ended up buying a set of new matched pistons and liners as it seemed false economy to re-use the old ones. Additionally, I'll be installing a new oil pump as it's one of the critical components to an engine's health, and I had no idea what sort of oil pressure I was getting with the old one as the car was never really driven before I began to disassemble it.

Chela and I are cleaning engine fasteners and trying to figure out where they all go, but the block is now mounted on the engine stand and soon we'll start to put it together. I love building engines! They're like big puzzles, and everything fits.

More tools

Today the UPS man dropped of a box from Eastwood Automotive, which specializes in products for restoring old cars. In the box was a "stud welder" which looks like this. It plugs in to a 110v outlet and with the push of a button welds a 2mm stud to the body panel you're trying to pull the dent from.

Here's what the stud looks like once it's welded on. You then use a slide hammer which grabs on to the stud to pull the dent out. Once that's done, you cut off the stud and grind it flush. I've only used it on a couple places and I have a lot to learn but so far it seems to work really well. The tool came with 100 studs. I'm definitely going to need more!

Here's a particularly nasty portion of the driver's side rocker panel which will need more than a little work to get straight. You can also see where the dent has gone upward, affecting the shutline between the bottom of the door and the top of the rocker panel.

For the next few weeks all the work on the Alfa will be about bumping metal, welding holes, filling and sanding.

Some tail

The replacement panel arrived today from the UK. Thankfully this part made it across the Atlantic without any damage. I'm hoping that I have all the metal pieces necessary to repair 40 years of rust and collision damage. For the next few months it's all about pounding out dings and getting the body as straight as possible. Once all four corners are as good as I can get them I'll cut out the nose and tail sections and weld them in. I still have lots of holes to weld up and many small dings to get out. Then I'll move to cutting out the rusted sections behind the wheels and replacing them with the patch panels from Wolf Steel.

On another note, I'm trying to find a replacement front grill. The one that was on the car is damaged and it doesn't sound practical to replace it. The reproduction grills that are available are apparently not very good, and they don't fit properly. So I'm looking for a very good used or New Old Stock part.

A bit of a break

I've been working on the car at least a couple hours a day lately, but this weekend we took a little time off for some other activities, including the Palo Alto Concours d'Elegance. We took our 73 BMW 3.0 CSL but were hoping to see lots of Alfas, both for inspiration, as well as to provide assistance and ideas on our own restoration. Sadly there were only a couple, and no stepnose versions of the Giulia Sprint GT.

Last Friday we received a box from the good people at Wolf Steel which contained replacement panels for the lower wheel arches as well as the metal pieces that go behind them (at the bottom of the A-pillar for example). They look to be well made and like they'll fit well, so I'm looking forward to getting them welded in.

Chela and I also spent some time on the right side of the car, welding the holes drilled by a previous owner for a rubber bumper strip. Chela got in to the action as well, using the Mig welder and grinder to finish the holes. Learning to weld up such small holes takes time and patience, but she's a good student and a quick learner and she's getting a lot better at it. Here's an action shot:

Here's a picture of the progress. So far we've managed to not get too much heat in to the metal even after welding and grinding.

Here's a picture of some of the panels from Wolf.

A spot of welding

First of all, apologies for the formatting problem on the Archived posts. I need to figure out how to change the margin or wrap the text so that it's all visible, so give me some time.

Back in the garage I spent more time with the abrasive discs removing paint and Bondo. There was much more filler on the left side of the car than I'd hoped and I ended up burning through my remaining discs before the car was done. So I ordered ten more from my local 3M supplier and once I could remove paint no more I set about cleaning the garage up and then moved on to some new things.

A previous owner had put a body protector strip down each side of the car, just below the waistline. All that was left however, was a series of small holes drilled in the metal, from the front fender all the way back to the rear. I debated as to the best method for filling them, and decided to use my Mig welder. It's important not to put too much heat in to the body panel any time you're welding, but also when doing a whole bunch of welding all in a line. I really wasn't sure how it was going to work but I figured that the best way to learn is to do, so I plugged in my welder and set about filling some holes. Fortunately my Miller Mig welder has very fine adjustment and so I set it at the lowest voltage, gave it a little more wire feed speed and started on the first hole. The trick is to go in very short bursts and to limit them to as few is required to fill the hole. I'd heard that using compressed air to cool the weld down helps so I tried this, but I can't tell if it worked or not. I didn't seem to be getting any warpage from heat so things seemed ok. Once the hole is welded closed you have to remove the excess material with a grinder. I used my pneumatic angle grinder for this with a small abrasive grinding disc. The only problem I had is that it's hard to remove just the weld without also removing metal around it. The resulting low spot will need to be filled with filler in order to get the panel completely straight. The end result is that while I feel better about having the hole filled with melted metal rather than body filler, I still end up having to use a small amount of it anyway. The jury is still out on whether or not I want to do the rest of the holes this way. Here's what I ended up with.

From the archives: 2003

5.17.06 Has it really been over two years since I last posted an update on the Alfa? I should be shamed. My punishment should be that I should have to drive a Ford Pinto for the rest of my life. Alas it has been many moons since I last did much to the Alfa. To bring you up to speed, here's a brief history lesson. Several years ago I found a local GTV on craigslist for a very low price. I'd always wanted to restore one of these for my wife and despite the fact that I was in graduate school and had a lot of other things going on, we bought the car and towed it home. We actually did get the engine to fire and drove the car for a very brief period. The car was not in good shape at all. The engine made bad knocking noises which sounded curiously like a big end bearing gone bad, the suspension was completely shot, and the body was in horrible condition. We had no illusions, we knew when we bought it that it would be a complete restoration project, for some day in the future. I pulled the engine out, took it apart, found the bad big end bearing, and carefully boxed up all the parts. The transmission and exhaust and driveline were removed, and the car was stored under a cover in our front yard, awaiting the day when I would get to lay my hands on her and bring her back to life. In the mean time my friend Carl bought and had a 66 GTV restored, which always piqued my interest in the little car. I collected Alfa books and when I wasn't fantasizing about my CSL my thoughts would wander to the GTV. My wife named it Shakespeare and every once in a while we'd pull the cover off to look at the car's lovely shape. Every time I see the car it makes me smile. Fast forward to 2006. My CSL is not back from paint, the engine's ready to go, and I have some time on my hands and nothing else fun to do. There was space in the garage, so I pushed it up the driveway and in to the garage and began cleaning. I started with the engine compartment, removing wiring, hoses and ancillary equipment still mounted to the fender wells and firewalls. I attacked the interior, removing seats, insulation, and wiring. I removed as much from the car as I could, and over the past two days I've made significant progress. Make no mistake, this is the tip of the iceberg. It will be years before she's on the road again. There are some pretty serious body issues, not necessarily related to rust, but badly done body repair that has resulted in thick layers of bondo. So far I've found very little rust, which is a nice change (old BMWs were packed in saltwater before they left the factory). I've restored a lot of old cars in my life, and I must say, that despite some bad bodywork, this car is remarkably original. There haven't been any aggregious attacks on her interior, no 6X9 speaker holes cut in the door panels, no chopped body bits. It will be a lot of work, but what I have to start with is not horrible. The goal is to have her completely stripped to a bare shell on a rolling dolly sometime this summer. She'll then go to be plastic media blasted and primered so that I can begin the bodywork. When I sold my CS I used some of the funds to equip my workshop with a proper air compressor (5HP, 60 gallon tank IR rated at 12.3 CFM at 120PSI). This thing should handle just about any work I need, including sanding, grinding and painting) and a Millermatic 210 MiG welder (I can also do aluminum). Over the past couple of days I've been removing seats, wiring, interior, and every part that isn't part of the shell and either boxing it or throwing it away. As you can see from the pictures above, there is a lot to do. The front left fender has been pretty mangled over the years, and is probably going to need to be completely replaced, Ditto for the front clip which has serious amounts of damage. Luckily the rest of the car is not too bad. For the most part it's very clean, with only mild surface rust (for the most part). There are several rust areas which will need to be fixed, but for a nearly 40 year old car that has been sitting a lot over the past ten, she looks pretty good. I can only compare it to my BMW CS/CSL experience and in that light the car is amazing. An E9 BMW would be rusted horribly with this sort of history. I've been making good use of my Dynabrade angle grinder, and my DA Dynabrade sander. Using 3M sanding discs I've checked several areas of the car and have been happy to find fairly clean metal. So far, so good. There's plenty more work to be done. Ciao! 9.19.03 It is with great shame that I announce that virtually no progress has been made on the Alfa since the beginning of the summer. The last time I wrote I had been cutting up an old CS body and hauling it off to the recycler. That job is done and the space that it gave us was available for only a brief amount of time. I had moved the Alfa to the garage in hopes of stripping the body but soon two new projects loomed on the horizon, one for the house, the other for income. The house project is the construction of a retaining wall for our front yard and it's quite a task. All told the wall will be over 40 feet long, involve one 90 degree corner and a nearly 180 degree bend. It will be 4 feet tall and constructed of interlocking cinder blocks. As with many things the bulk of the work is preparation, and with retaining walls preparation involves digging......lots of digging. That project along with my continued studies have robbed the Alfa of attention. Additionally, I've taken on a project to put together a friend's BMW CSL. Despite the guilt felt over not working on the Alfa I'm hoping some of the funds from the CSL job will help me to acquire some tools (such as a welder) and parts for the Alfa so in the long run it is good for the Alfa. It just makes the Alfa's restoration a longer run. A month ago we made our annual 40 mile trek south to Laguna Seca for the Historic races and also to the Concorso Italiano. There were lots of pretty Alfas, Ferraris and other Italian marques there as usual. Since I have no pictures of our Alfa that are of interest, I included a couple from the show for you to appreciate. The yellow Fiat 500 belongs to my father Joe. This show was the maiden voyage for the little car following a 2 year restoration. Cute ain't it? 7.15.03 Work has definitely stalled on the Alfa over the past couple of months. Several work and school-related activities have kept me from getting work done on it. Most significant is my project to finally cut up and discard the smashed CS (affectionately dubbed, "The Hulk") from my yard so that I can make room to work on the Alfa. I began the process a couple weeks ago, by removing the engine and using an oxy/acetyln torch to cut the old thing up. It was hot out and cutting up a car this way is NASTY work. Every time you hit places that have been undercoated, big black plumes of smoke waft in to your face. To make matters worse, big molten globs of metal fly through the air, usually landing somewhere in your shoe or inside your glove where they burn your skin while you frantically try to remove said article of clothing. It is NOT fun! After a lot of sweating and a lot of work I'd gotten the car cut up in to some more manageable pieces but we ran out of oxygen before we could finish the job. With this now accomplished I could put some of the pieces in the bed of my truck and run them to the junkyard to be recycled. See you all next week! Ciao! 5.25.2003-Long Time Gone It has been a long time since I'd spent any time on the Alfa. Spring here in Northern California was one of the wettest on record and that prevented me for accomplishing a lot of things that were necessary in order go play with the Alfa. Additionally, my pursuit of higher education took me out of the country for a couple weekends. All of this meant no time to work on the Alfa! This weekend the weather allowed me to move some vehicles around and I was able to get the Alfa in to the garage to begin disassembly. Despite the fact that our driveway is steep, I was able to push the little car up in to the garage by myself. Of course the engine is out, but it's still impressive to be able to do this. I wasn't sure where to start. The car needs to be completely taken apart so that it can be media blasted. I need to take the doors off and for this I'll need a impact driver to get the philips head screws that hold the hinges to the door jamb. I started cutting the window gasket out for windshield removal, and also began to remove the interior trim. As you can see from this engine bay shot there is a lot of work to do, and a lot of cleaning as well. I'm sure it will take many evenings to get the car stripped bare, but what else am I going to do with my time? See you all next week! Ciao! 3.23.2003-What a Blast! This weekend saw some actual work done on the Alfa. I had a box full of engine and transmission mount parts that I removed when I took the engine and gearbox out that were crying out for attention. The paint on them was horrible, they were greasy and bent. The rubber bushes for the transmission cross-member were competely destroyed. Thanks to my good friend Jon Nichols of Nichols Manufacturing (purveyor of Head-up Displays to the military and lightweight flywheels and clutchbaskets for Ducati owners) I was able to bead blast the box full of parts in his blast cabinet. Having access to this piece of equipment was invaluable when I restored my CS and if I were able to have my pick of home workshop tools a bead blasting cabinet would be right up there with a welder and a plasma cutter. Hopefully someday I'll have one, but in the mean time I'm lucky to have the occasional use of Jon's. The bead blasting made quick work of prepping all the parts for powder coating, and I was even able to use his 50-ton press to remove the wasted bushings. This week for the first time in a while I have pictures! See the before and after pictures and you'll understand why I think bead blasting is so cool. With a little work these guys will be ready for powdercoating, at which point I'll box them up and store them until the day I'm ready to re-install them on the car. Saturday also saw the second meeting of the growing local Northern California Alfa/BMW owner's Pose-n-drive session. This event saw the addition of a new face, Mr. Erik Lutkin, whose Silver 74 GTV joined Tom Hardy's 67, Jeff Mc Neill's wonderfully restored 74, and my CS. We met at Alice's Restaurant and after a short pose session we headed out Highway 84 toward the coast. With the exception of a large gaggle of bicyclists whose presence severely limited us for a few miles the roads were clean and clear and we had a nice time swapping the lead. I even got some video of us screaming Westward toward Highway 1. We then headed south on 1 along the coast, and then up through Soquel back to the house for sandwiches and bench racing on the deck. Perhaps more local Alfisti will come out of the woodwork and we can begin making this a semi-regular event. Ciao! 3.02.2003-Tapped Out Follows a tale of two cars, one of Italian origin, long in the tooth and in need of love. The other, much newer and of Teutonic background still requires occasional love (as do all things with wheels and hearts). My wife's 1997 Z3 had developed an oil leak that continued to get worse as the months passed. By last week the oil slick underneath the engine was starting to get embarrassing. Despite the fact that our garage floor is painted it was getting to be a real drag cleaning up oil every day. Besides that, German cars, new German cars, should just not leak oil. I decided to find the source of the leak but a floor jack and jack stands did not allow me the perspective I needed to see where the oil was coming from. Last week I stopped by to see my good friends at Independent BMW of Palo Alto to see if they could help me out. With the car on one of their lifts Mike quickly informed me that it was the oil filter housing (huh?). "Costs about $500 including the part", he said. Yikes. I gave him some money for his time and thanked him before getting on my way. Since our car was supposedly still under warranty I decided to take it back to the dealer to have them fix it. Turns out BMW North America knows about this leaking oil filter housing problem. There are service bulletins out on it, and a revised part # that fixes the problems of the old part. I schedule the car for the service and drop it off. Three or four hours later I receive a call from the dealer ungraciously telling me that the car's warranty expired two weeks ago and that they would have to charge me (over $500) for the part and labor. "Sure you will", I thought to myself. The reason I'm telling you all this is that I spent Saturday morning installing the part myself. That, combined with the other chores and workload on my desk right now prevented me from getting much quality time with the Alfa block, but I did manage to touch it for a little while and effect some positive change. As it turned out, the work on the little Bimmer was not too arduous, and only took 3 hours or so. Modern engines are both fun and frustrating to work on as despite the compact nature of their design, the fasteners and components themselves are usually in good shape and easy to remove. The Z3's alternator has it's own air intake and duct to keep it cool! The oil filter housing itself is something that Alfa Romeo would be proud of. It's cast aluminum, rather pretty for a German part, and rather intricate. It also costs a lot of money. Now the work is done, the car is driveable, and there's no more oil on the garage floor after she leaves. On to the Alfa. I borrowed a set of Metric taps and dies from my father and am chasing all the threads on the studs and tapped holes in the block. Some of the auxilliary studs are a bit damaged so I'll be replaceing them when the time comes. Once that was done I chucked up a wire brush in a handheld drill and worked on removing the corrosion from the cylinder head studs. I've got some more work to do, but so far the brush does a good job and the studs themselves look great. Next weekend is a TEMBA weekend and my current coursework is Economic Analysis for Global Business so I'm sure I'll have something fun to talk about next weekend in relating my Bschool learning to Alfa Romeo. Ciao! 2.23.2003-Don't Stop Cleaning, it's gonna be a car someday Sadly there is not much in the way of news to report this week. I did move the block back to the solvent tank for another round of cleaning now that the liners are out. I managed to get a lot of the junk that was caked around the inside of the block out and now I'm ready to go at it with a slightly more abrasive media. I'm going to use a wire brush chucked up in an electric drill to clean the corrosion off the studs and on some of the other areas. After that I'll chase all the threads with the appropriate die and get the block cleaned for reassembly. It's pretty much at it's most elemental state right now, there's really nothing else to remove. I also began removing the head gasket material from the top of the block. This is a trick job because it's important to have a clean and uniform surface for reassembly but one has to be careful the way you remove the old gasket. The Alfa gaskets have a built in adhesive that gets activated with heat in order to seal the head to the block. This results in a rather thick coating of gasket material and glue on the head and the block upon disassembly. You must be careful if you use a razor blade to remove this stuff as the head and block are obviously aluminum which is obviously soft, so obviously you could do great damage if you're not careful. Obviously, I attempted to be careful. I found that some steel wool soaked in lacquer thinner did a good job of softening the material and that scrubbing on the surface helped clean it up pretty well. There is much more work to be done, but I'm confident that with time, elbow grease and patience I can get the head and the block cleaned properly. The pictures at the right show this work as well as the inside of the block now that I've given it a first cleaning. It will get much prettier after I get in there with a wire brush to clean it up. Ciao! 2.16.2003 Last time I touched the Alfa engine block it was to give it a bath in the solvent tank. With that job now completed I needed to figure out whether or not I was going to remove the cylinder liners. I originally had planned to leave them in as they looked to be in good condition, there was no signs of leakage from the seals, and they were in place pretty well. After mulling the situation over I decided to pull them out, mostly so that I could clean the passages around the liners at the bottom of the block. There was some pretty heavy corrosion and rust in there and I couldn't see that I'd be able to effectively get it out with the liners in place. So, with an easy 180 degree rotation of my wonderful AutoComponenti modified engine stand I had the block upside down and was ready to remove the liners. Some gentle but persistent tapping with a brass drift and a hammer and the liners slowly came out of the block. Now I'm ready to throughly scrub the block to remove the corrosion and dirt. Then I'll make the decision as to whether or not I'll re-use the liners or buy a complete matched set of liners and pistons. Ciao! 2.02.2003 For some reason this page got overwritten last week when I updated the site and the pictures of the cleaned engine block were missing. Here then, are the pictures of the engine block looking a lot cleaner after spending some time in the solvent tank. It was very satisfying to clean off the years of oil and crud that coated the entire engine block. It's looking a little cleaner and a lot nicer now. My next step will be to remove the liners so that I can clean the area around the studs and the water passages. The liners are in there pretty good, I hope I'm able to get them out without having to resort to a hydraulic press. Ciao! 1.26.2003-Super Bowl Weekend A lot has been going on in my personal life lately and it's been impacting the amount of time I've been able to spend on the Alfa engine. That's ok by me as this project is not one that I expect to be completed in 12 months. In one week I begin a year-long MBA program and I've been preparing during the evenings rather than spending them in the garage. I have made some progress since last week though. Last time I left the engine I had most of the con-rod caps off the crank but the crank itself was still in the block, and the pistons were still in the liners. I had not figured out how to pull the number 5 main bearing cap out of its mortised position in the rear of the block, and I had not pulled the front timing gear off the crank. Both of these situations prevented the crank from being removed from the block. I was anxious to get it all apart so that I could begin cleaning the various parts and determining what's needed for re-assembly. The first thing task I tackled was pulling that number 5 main bearing cap. This turned out to be much easier than expected, and a few taps with a jelly-head hammer got it out far enough that I could just lever it right out without damaging the aluminum. Moving to the front of the block I again tapped gently on the keyed timing gear and it was soon off too, along with the lower timing chain and the intermediate gear. With these pieces now off, I could lift the crank out of the block. In doing so I found yet another failed bearing on the number two con-rod. This one had actually fractured in to two pieces. I don't know if this engine was run out of oil or if the oil galleys in the crank were plugged but something sinister definitely fell on the bottom end. I then discovered that you can in fact push the pistons out of the liners from the bottom and so soon I had all four pistons out of the block. At this point it's now a bare block (with the liners still intact) covered in lots of grease. I'll make sure to get some pictures before and after so you can see all the pieces in their glory. The next step is to get that block in the tank and introduce it to the wonderful cleaning powers of solvent. Then I'll inspect the bores, measure the ring gaps and determine whether or not she needs a new set of liners and pistons. Check back in a day or so and I should have some pictures posted of these latest results. Ciao!

1.19.2003-Time out to play

There is not much new to report this week as far as progress on the engine. As you recall, the number three conrod journal is heavily scored due to a bearing failure. The crank has already been ground to 30 thou under standard which is the service limit so I'll need to find a nice 1600cc crank to rebuild the engine. I did tinker a little and removed the helical gear at the end of the crankshaft but I've not yet figured out how to remove the intermediate timing chain gear from the crank. It appears to be pressed on and located by a woodruff key but it's on there pretty tight. I need to consult a workshop manual or the knowledge of someone with experience before I mess something up.

I've met several very interesting and dedicated folks on the Alfa list, two of whom live up the Peninsula from me in San Francisco. After exchanging many emails with them I decided it was imperative that we meet in real life. Last Sunday Glenn Zucca (74 GTV currently undergoing restoration), Tom Hardy (67 GT Veloce, original condition) and Jeff Mc Neill (74 GTV, just finished complete cosmetic restoration), and a BMW CS friend of mine (Kurt Delimon) met at Alice's Restaurant for a "pose and drive" event. Glenn's GTV is inoperative so he met me at my place and together we drove my 1973 BMW 3.5 CS up to Alice's. There, we met Tom, Jeff and Kurt already gracing the parking lot with their beautiful cars. I know that German cars and Italian cars don't really mix, but the CS is saved by the fact that it was based on the previous 3200CS, which was designed by Bertone, who also designed the GTV, so there is a spiritual link. To me there is more than that even as I see a lot of similarities in the design of the two cars. Here are some pictures of the cars in the parking lot that morning.

We left Alice's for a spirited drive through the coastal mountains and stopped by Glenn's house to view his Alfa. From there we headed to my place for more shop talk, Alfa viewing, and lunch. Along the way I was fortunate enough to drive both Tom and Jeff's beautiful cars. Thanks guys!

1.13.2003-Knock Knock........it's your engine Hello. This is your engine speaking. I'm afraid someone did not put me together properly and if you don't do something about it soon the parts of me that are supposed to be inside the block my rise up in revolt and project themselves through my lovely aluminum coat. You hear that knocking on acceleration? It's coming from my number three cylinder, specifically the connecting rod bearing in that cylinder. See that picture to the right? It's of the bearing and as you can see, it's not too happy. It appears that I did not get my recommended daily allowance of oil, or perhaps someone installed a faulty bearing because as you can see, the bearing is destroyed. The friction, which not only wore the bearing's soft metal lining completely way also caused enough heat that the bearing itself warped and now does not fit properly in the connecting rod cap. The damage to my crank was not too bad, but I don't know if merely polishing it will do the trick. You may need to grind my crank and it's already been ground two or three times before. If you can safely grind my crank to 040 thou under please do so, otherwise, you may need to find me a new crankshaft. I promise you that if you find the source of the damage and make sure all my oil galleys are clean and obstruction free, and assemble me with loving care I will be happy to provide you with tens of thousands of worry-free miles of service. And the only time I'll ever speak again is to sing my lovely Italian 4 cylinder opera. Yours, The Engine

1.12.2003-The New Year and Winter Doldrums The past month has brought little in the way of Alfa tinkering. The Christmas holidays and my preoccupation with a leaking gearbox in my old BMW CS have prevented me from spending any real quality time with Shakespeare. I was also at a point where I needed to get the engine up off its dolly and on to my engine stand which necessitated an appropriate adaptor. Jim Steck of AutoComponenti makes such an adaptor and I ordered one from him. He too was busy during the holidays and it was just this week that I finally received the adaptor. The workmanship and quality of finish is excellent, better than I could have done myself. It was $35 well spent. With this part now in hand I could bolt it to the block and mount it in the stand. A unique feature of Jim's part is that it picks up the engine mount studs on the right side of the block which then allows the engine to rotate on it's latitudinal axis (rather than longitudinally as with most engine stands). It fits in to a standard Harbor Freight engine stand. I turned the engine upside down and removed the two pieces of the oil pan, the front timing cover, and the oil pump. I also began removing main bearing caps. To me this is the most exciting and interesting part of engine disassembly as you are able at once to determine the relative health of the engine. It's like looking at history. I was not sure what to expect because I had no idea as to the car's maintenance or overhaul records but this engine has definitely been apart before. As you can see from the pictures, the main bearing journals are in very good condition. At this point a regrind seems completely unnecessary although I've not yet mic'd the journals and done a full inspection. The #4 big-end journal (visible in the last picture) is also in good condition. I have not yet removed the rest of the connecting rods, I'm most interested in #3 as I believe that's the source of the knock that the engine was making when you'd rev the throttle from idle. It also appears that some previous owner had the crank's oil galleys tapped for threaded plugs. I was going to do this myself and am happy to see it's already been done. Now I don't need to worry about them falling out in the future. I continue to be impressed with the quality of this engine. It really is a little jewel to work on, if a little dirty. The engine is filthy and the front cover, oil pan and other auxilliary parts all spent lots of time being scrubbed down in the solvent tank. After the first wash they're starting to look more like engine parts and less like junkyard trash. The fins on the lower part of the oil pan are not too badly damaged although you can see where it's hit hard ground before. Dressing them up with a file before it's reinstalled will help appearances a great deal. I plan on installing a sump guard to the car to prevent future damage to this pretty piece. I'm almost ready to remove the crankshaft from the block. I just need to figure out how to pull the gear off the crankshaft and pull the #5 main bearing from its "mortised" place in the rear of the block. Then I should be able to get a clear understanding of not only the crank's health, but also that of the pistons and liners. Hopefully I'll be able to get those tasks completed before the end of next weekend. Ciao!