Self-Imposed 1979 Alfa Spider Restoration

Hey all, I'm a member of the $2000 Challenge team from Georgia Tech, Wreck Racing.  I recently sold my FB RX7 and the extra cash in my pocket and the nice weather had me itching for a classic convertible.  I've kind of wanted an Alfa Romeo for a while, I was even considering a GTV6 before I bought the RX7.  I found a pretty clean example of a 1979 Spider Veloce about 3 hours away from me and drove over with another Wreck Racer.

Everything seemed to check out on initial inspection except a few small things.  Gauges were questionable, brakes pulled right, 2nd gear synchros gone, tires were old.  Noticed some blue smoke on the test drive, and asked to do a compression test with the shop's equipment where the car was.  Everything looked good, so I went through with the deal and signed the papers.  As we're about to drive off, I start the car and it won't idle at all.  Took us an embarrassingly long time to realize that we had put the plug wires back in the wrong order lol.

About 45 minutes into the drive home, the front left tire blew out.  I swerved onto the grass, headed towards a grove of trees in the median of the interstate.  Standing on the brakes and channeling my inner rally driver, I slid the car to a stop barely scratching the paint and narrowly avoiding about 7 trees.

Called AAA, had some nice chats with South Carolina Highway Patrol, and waited about 3 hours for a tow truck.  Right now, it's dropped in my driveway with the wheels pointing different directions, front bumper smashed in, and hopefully minimal other damage.  The engine seems to still be all in good condition.  There's clearly some pretty serious front suspension damage, but I'm confident it can be fixed.  Turned into a bit more of a project than I bargained for, but oh well.

This weekend I'll get it on stands and make a plan.  Hopefully, I can get everything back together in time to drive home at the end of this school semester, but that may be a stretch.  Big thanks to my friend Harry for sticking with me all day.  More updates to come

Jeez. Glad that didn't turn out any worse. Makes me think I shouldn't wait any longer to put new tires on the Miata...

So rally build?

This car loves the slop, can't get enough of it

Glad both you and the car survived, I am curious albeit in a sick way, is there a date code on those tires?

Hitting trees makes people die. Good work not hitting trees.

Glad that it wasn't worse. Btw, that era of Alfa Romeos (and Fiats) were notorious for severe rust problems (starting for day 1 on the dealership lots). This was sometimes made even worse due to the fact that AR shipped some of their cars on the top/open deck of the ocean freighters they were shipped on. I'll also say that those Spiders were/are a lot of fun to drive (I was a lot kid at a AR/Fiat dealership back in the mid '70s).

Egad! Sweet car, lucky/skillful evasion.  

I hope the damage is minimal.

Niki Lauda edition rear spoiler! I hope the locating points for the lower control arms are still correct. The rest is parts replacement as required, not too difficult.

Wow, that was a close call! The oil sump is really low on them, make sure to check things closely. Does it have an oil sump guard?

eastpark is correct. Those Spiders were well known for alloy oil pan damage. And yes, you definitely want the pan guard. Btw, replacement pans were very expensive back in the day. Not sure if you can even get them today without spending an arm, leg, and a torso. I'll also mention that I'm afraid that front end damage is much worse than it looks. Let's hope not.

Yowza, glad to hear you're still in a shape to post about this.

Before I'd make any plans to find a replacement oil pan (or a replacement engine, that might be easier), I'd have a very close look at the rest of the damage. The way the front wheels are splayed does not look promising.

Got a good look under the car.  Very lucky this car came with the oil pan cage.  I think that saved some damage and it looks like the oil pan is in good shape.  The mount for the idler arm on the passenger side cracked in half which cause the wheels to be all over the place, basically no steering anymore.  But I found one of those on ebay for $99 and I probably need new tie rods as well and the shocks are bent I think.  The control arms look pretty solid, no visible damage.  The worst part I think is the valence in the front.  Totally smashed in, and its not really something that could easily be replaced, since there's no seams on the body.  We'll see what I can do

New update on the driveway restoration, I think the hopes of driving this car anytime soon are quickly dwindling.  I thought I was making good progress, I got my replacement idler arm mount, my friends told me that tie rods actually aren't supposed to bent at at 45 degree angles so I found a set of new tie rods links, and I got new tires. 

I had a battle with the last stuck tie rod end but eventually the hydraulic shop press was able to make quick work of it.  I think the loud bang when the taper lets go has been the most exciting part of this process lol.  Anyways, this afternoon I was putting everything back on the car and I noticed the passenger side steering arm wouldn't clear for the whole range of travel.  I'm not 100% confident but it seems like this kink in the sheet metal here is my issue.  It would also explain why my hood doesn't close, the doors seem different to open, and the convertible top didn't want to latch.

Sorry for the garbage pictures, but the sheet metal on the frame rail near that cast aluminum idler arm mounting bracket is looking kind of crunched to the left in the photo. (That's the new bracket) There's a nice crease on the inside of the fender where the coating has flaked off which probably confirms that.  I really have no experience with frame damage and I think my limited setup puts this one out of my shade tree mechanic range.  Here's the other side, which I would imagine should be pretty similar, but is noticeably less bent.

Probably not a coincidence its right near the bracket that broke.  I guess there must have been some pretty hefty forces going into that spot when I took the car into the grass at highway speeds.  Does anyone have experience with something like this?  If I take this to a collision shop, is it possible they could unbend it for a reasonable price?  Am I going to spend the rest of my life chasing the glorious 45 minutes I had driving this car with the wind in my hair?

Awesome emergency driving. That took both luck and skill from the look of the pictures. Glad you are ok, and the car is mostly

I don't know Alfa parts very well, but have two Alfa nuts for info I could put you in contact with, if you need. One started down the Alfa trail at 16 in '78, and has ordered parts in from Italy along the way (gen-u-wine Eye-talyon last name prolly helps The other is a younger guy with a business restoring high end Alfa's. I can't remember Aarons last name, but he is well known in some parts of the Alfa community

In reply to GDare :

Its possible to get that decently straightened for not too much money, but you are going to have to make friends and do some work yourself. The few times I needed a track car straightened, I found one of the sleepy independent body guys that wasnt on the main drag (also had circle track cars out back, seemed like a plus) and had a chat about what I needed. I brought them a car with the fenders/bumpers/rad/ect all taken off already so they had quick access to the frame. A couple quick pulls, and they had my car impressively straight. Then I would go back home and put it all together again. 

Yes it can be straightened. No, you have not found nearly all of the places it is bent. The Alfa's structure is weaker in the cowl area than it is in front where you can easily see a major bend. The door fit and roof header fit indicate that the structure has twisted in some manner behind the cowl. You might have to have the engine out in order to properly repair. First thing you need is the factory frame alignment diagram. It does exist, and whoever straightens it must have it to do the job well. Difficult for a back yard repair, although not a total impossibility with some investment in serious "Port-A-Power" equipment.

Edit: Yes I realize this somewhat contradicts my first post. I did not expect a bend there, that is a strong spot.

Hooooly E36 M3! If that had been me, I'd have to add reupholstering the driver seat bottom to the list after that wild ride. Glad you missed those trees!

You might be able to un-twist the frame by chaining the two opposite "high" corners to some concrete anchors, and using a floor jack or port-a-power to lift an adjacent "low" corner. To re-rectangle-ize a parallelogram'ed unibody, you chain one of the short corners to a tree and chain a come-along to the opposite corner and stretch it out. You can also make a DIY frame puller out of an engine hoist.

Enough interesting things have happened now to warrant an update to this thread I guess.

I went and talked to a lot of body shops around Atlanta and unsurprisingly nobody wants to touch a 40 year old Italian car with frame damage.  As a student, I had to leave Atlanta for the summer for a job, so my unlucky roommates were left with a broken car in the driveway for the foreseeable future. 

This was fun: I made a post on the alfa spider facebook group seeing what their opinions were on the car.  The original owner from 1979's son commented on the post, and I talked to him and it was actually the same car, VIN# confirmed.  Someone in his family had sold it and he lost track of it.  He showed me a bunch of scrap book pictures from when him and his father restored the car in the late 90's, super cool.  He offered to buy it back, and I was going to take him up on it.  Every weekend he planned on coming to pick up the car, something would come up on his end, and then we had some weird discussions about money.  The rate he returned my calls slowly decreased from every few days, to once a week, and now I've effectively been ghosted by him.

Based on the advice in this thread, I think this is out of college-house backyard repair.  I don't really have the connections to get a special deal at an independent shop or anything either.  Trying to sell it on fb marketplace has proven to be hell, every goofball in GA sees a super cheap foreign convertible and thinks they've struck gold, then realize I actually meant it when I said you can't drive it home.  I had one serious sounding buyer who wanted to come look at it last week, but since I'm not on location, I had to bully some of my wreck racing buddies to go over to my house.  (Selling a car that you're 700 miles away from is kind of hard.)   Now the engine won't start up and after about 30 minutes they couldn't get it going even with new gas.  It seems to be a fuel issue, the car did sit for about a month.  Also, never heard back from that buyer after he talked to his mechanic.

I think I'll make a classifieds post on the alfabb forum to maybe sell it as a parts car, but they have some stupid posting requirements for new members I'm going to have to jump through.  Do you guys think anybody around GRM would possibly be interested in purchasing it? It could probably be fairly challenge-friendly priced even. 

To be honest, I'm kind of over it all, and I don't have the facilities to part it out over a long term.  I'm going down to Atlanta for the long 4th of July weekend, and I'm hoping to at least fix the fuel issue.

I just saw this thread for the first time today. man. I'm so sorry. 

In terms of someone on GRM buying it, yes, I think it is possible, and I do recommend posting a for sale thread here. Be warned, we are the cheapest of bastards on the internet. 

It will also be worth getting on the make specific forums for a good for sale ad. 

We are the cheapest bastards on the internet, but we're also the only ones that might touch the car and solve OP's issue. 

OP, if nobody wants it, why not part it out? You'll probably make more money and it's definitely within you abilities.

Haven't been looking on the project page much, and just saw this thread. 
 

Sorry for all of the problems, but there used to be an Alfa guru in Atlanta. Paul Spruell used to be a big racer, and I got a GT chassis from him 20 years ago to make a Challenge car out of. Good guy. 

Ending this thread, I sold the car yesterday afternoon to a big Alfa nut in Atlanta.  He said he's going to put the drive train in a '69 GTV or something.  Glad to see part of it will live on in some crazy Italian project.  While she didn't offer too much excitement in terms of driving time, even a broken Alfa Romeo sitting in a driveway is something that car people just are drawn to.  And I will say it's a pretty good story.  Anyways, cars like these really do have a soul ya know, that's a fact.

In reply to GDare :

Make him post here. I wanna see!

It's to bad you weren't up here in the Seattle area. There is a shop called True Line that specializes in frame straightening and alignments. They are pretty good guy's and reasonably priced. A lot of the vintage racers use them as well as regular track day drivers. As they do racing alignments or specialized alignments for what you want. They checked the frame of my 76 fiat spider after I found some questionable repairs done on it. It was within the Factory specs so they didn't even charge me. They wouldn't let me pay for their time either. So I take my cars there for alignment if needed. Wife has a 78 alfa and that is one fickle little beast.