Why worry? Alfa project log

I am inspired by a particular thread about a red Alfa to share this recent project.

I decided to drive an Alfa to the Alfa Convention in July 2013 in Santa Rosa. Luckily I had one available, only problem was that it hadn't run for 20 years. This is a 67 Duetto that my Dad bought in 1979, and back then I built a 1750 engine, painted it, general upkeep, and so on. He drove it for 13 years, about 40K miles, and then the clutch exploded and it got parked. Eventually he gave it to me, and here's the car being moved into my garage about 10 years ago.

Did you ever notice that some projects just never get going? That was happening with this car, even with the best intentions. I was on my second year of a “No new projects” resolution, and when I heard that the convention was going to be in Santa Rosa, I set that as a goal for getting this project through a major step. Luckily, the body has very little rust, being from California, and then garaged for 20 years. And the motor only has 40K. But a lot of the rest needed help.

Knowing that I had a lot to do, I started in the fall of 2012 taking things apart and repairing/ replacing items. All hoses and seals, front and rear suspension, springs, brakes, starter, radiator, carbs, gas tank, seats, bumpers, lights, flywheel lightened, clutch, tranny, drive line, bodywork, etc etc. I figured I could get it driving by May, do some shakedown runs, and then finish it off over the next few weeks.

Progress slowed over the winter in my unheated garage, but luckily we had great weather in the spring, so I really got going in March and April. Often fell into the “while I’m in there” trap, and continually had to walk the line between doing it right, and over-restoring.

Eventually, I got the car started over Memorial Day weekend (first time in almost 20 years ) , and things were looking pretty good.

However, when I went on the first test drive about a week later, the brakes locked up. With a month to go, no problem. I took the master cylinder out two more times before I was able to determine on 6/22 that the rebuild kit I bought from XXX in 2009 (for this car) had the wrong main seal in it. The seal was too deep, and did not uncover the compensating port when the pedal was released. Took me until 6/25 to determine that nobody in the US, England, or Germany had the right seal readily available (20mm Ate), so I ordered a new MC from Classic Alfa.

Plans and reservations have long been made, and we were leaving on July 5th, either in the Alfa, or the minivan. While waiting for the MC, I stayed very busy getting a lot more done, but at this point I had only driven the car about 20 miles, in three short trips, so I was getting a bit nervous about the upcoming 2500 mile trip. Luckily, having so much to do kept my mind off the time frame.

The insurance company wanted pictures of the car for their policy. I still had never had the seats in or all the bumpers and signals on, nor had we ever washed the car. So after a big weekend of effort I pulled the car out to the driveway for some pictures. No MC in the car at all.

Finally, the MC arrived on July 2. It took 2 days to get from England to Seattle, then 4 days to get the last 30 miles to me. I put it in after work, did the final fitting of the seatbelts and seats, and at 9:30pm drove to the gas station for the first time. Most everything appeared to be fine, most notably the brakes are great! Came home and got my partner to go for another drive, about 35 miles. Apart from the somewhat noisy rear end, no issues.

Still needed to get an alignment, and do all the weatherstripping of the top, and paint the body red where I didn’t have time to do the straightening, etc etc, but things were looking good for leaving on Friday. Why worry, everything's fine!

The lines on those cars are so, so nice. Great job!

Beautify car & great story!

Love the style of that car. The later Cam Tails don't do it for me.

Another Alfa story.......

mine began... and ended back in 1977...

but I do enjoy other peoples "adventures" with them. And yes the boat tail is far sexier then the flat backs

I apologize in advance for the way my brain works, but I read the title of this thread and instantly thought, "Alfa E. Neumann!"

More history (2013): My schedule before leaving:

Wed 7/3 8:30 am to 1:30 am finishing "real work" (non Alfa) items.

Thurs 7/4 6:30 am to 1:30 am work on the car, included getting keys made, remove and replace bumper and light for primer and paint, modify and upholster headrests and install, finish weatherstripping on doors and top, flush and change oil and coolant, etc. I washed the rear window for the first time.

On the morning of July 4th I met the local locksmith and he had the ignition key blanks on an old Taylor key board in his old shop! He said Taylor hasn't made keys for 20 years. I had the last two made into duplicates. And the local hardware store had the correct door key blank. I tipped him 100%

Fri 7/5: suspension alignment, and finish tunnel carpet install and ashtray install with wiring to modified cig lighter, etc. I started packing around 1:30pm, and we got on the road around 2:30 for a 300 mile drive to Eugene.

Headrests had to be modified to fit earlier style covers

Back together

Packing

Most every journey here begins with a ferry ride, we got on the 3:30 boat.

We got preferred parking behind the horses

Twilight driving in Oregon, at 70 mph Got to Eugene around 10:30pm

Bitchin

Few would ever point to me as a leader of the cultural Zeitgeist, but here I am talking about my cross-state trip in an old Alfa. (Re: In the Next Issue of Classic Motorsports: Epic Alfa Road Trip: We drive from Los Angeles to Florida in a car we’d just met online...)

It's interesting to me that the things I repaired on the road didn't show up until after 4--500 miles, so even if I had gotten the car driving a month ahead, these issues probably wouldn't have shown up before leaving anyway.

-- brake light switch got flakey, I think it was the original. Bought and replaced in Berkeley.

-- top of the gear lever unscrewed, put it back together

-- the gas gauge stopped working. It had a new sender, and I fixed it by adding an auxiliary ground wire from the sender to the body

–The plugs began loading up after 500 miles. I changed the plugs twice, and each time the fouling began a bit sooner. So while on the trip, I installed the pressure regulator, with a gauge, and there was still lots of raw gas at the front carb. Checked the floats, and the front one seemed funny. Took it out and one of the floats was half full of gas, with a very small leak. This explains the worsening condition over the past few hundred miles.

Luckily, we were staying at a friends house in Santa Rosa, and he had a few tools. I found the hole and made it bigger, then shook out all the gas. I used a torch to vaporize the remaining fumes, then overcooked it and the float solder came apart. Re--soldered, and put a skim of epoxy on the seams.

Then the car was running well again. Since I added weight to the float with the repair, I rebent the tab to compensate. With the round covers off the Webers, you can check the float height with a thin probe. I used my thinnest allen wrench, which has also served as a spark plug gauge. I guessed pretty well, and the front float height was pretty close to the rear on the first try.

After 5 days( mostly parked) and about 250 miles, it failed. The "gas tank" epoxy which had hardened nicely was now soft like silicone, and peeling off the float. But I had bought new replacements so just took about 30 minutes to change and set it.

I also got a hold of a spare float at the Convention swap meet, put in a safe place as a reminder of what it takes to go an a trip like this.

Last two days, ~ 750 miles, required no repairs.

When the fuel gauge stopped working, the only gauge that I would trust was the water temp :

Tach: 400 rpm twitch, don't know about accuracy

Speedo: 4 mph twitch, and about 10% optimistic

Odometer: Also optimistic, probably by about 10%, but can't tell exactly because it doesn't have tenths, and

Trip odometer: doesn't work

Gas level: was intermittent, now working with new ground wire.

Reserve light: works, but didn't seem like much reserve, as I ran out of gas on an early test drive at home.

Oil pressure: Seems high, as it goes to 114 when cold. otherwise functions well as pressure drops when warm.

Water temp: seems good, reads at 185, rose somewhat on longer hot climbs. (new bigger radiator installed)

Dynamo light: works

Heating fan light: doesn't work

Headlight indicator: works

High beam indicator: works

Turn signal indicators: work

A few more trip pics:

South of Eureka is the Avenue of the Giants

We were incredibly fortunate to only encounter one car on this ~40 mile section.

Lunch at the beach

~2000 miles, mostly at 3750 to 4300 rpm. Top down for all but about 50 miles.

So we're getting closer to the current project status...

Love me a good road trip, thanks for letting us ride along.

Nice!

Looks great, BTW.

That reverse thing- you are going to have to rebuild it.... Which is something I'm not comfortable doing.

Last convention I went to was in 2007. Holy cow, that was a long time ago.

After that long break in trip, we had a successful ~500 mile trip to Oregon and back. We took the east route through Yakima to Hood River, had a 50 mile detour due to the grassland fires.

Car was running good, oil consumption seemed to be rising, but it was very hot for a lot of the drive. I was finally pretty confident that the car was reliable.

I took my dad in the Alfa to it's debut at the local cars and coffee. His first ride in the car in over 20 years.

A year later I drove to California again. About 2500 miles, and really no issues to speak of. Coming home I drove straight through from SF to home north of Seattle with the top down. About 15 hours. When I was about two miles from our ferry, around 11:30 pm, the transmission started making a pretty bad noise. I kept going at slightly slower pace, got home and parked the car. It hasn’t moved in over two years.

Last Wednesday was the full moon, and my partner KBomb spent the afternoon and evening with a local chanting group, honoring the moon spirit.

I, on the other hand, spent the evening honoring some 42 year old Italian engineering excellence. Here it is unloaded and heading to a temporary work area.

The mighty John Deere for the last few feet

Interior is pretty nice, “no cracks or tears”...

I bought this just for the transmission and the rear end. This came with a LSD, and is a simple bolt in swap. The trans is also somewhat improved over the 67, and also swaps in easy.

This 75 body is pretty nice, and I might shed a small tear if it goes to the recycling. But there’s too many of these around to make it worth much of anything. If anyone was restoring a Series 2 shell and had much of any rust repair to do, swapping into this would make it easier. It’s available very cheap. Has a clear title.

In reply to coexist:

Turn that bad boy into a challenge car.

That 75 deserves to see competition again.

I am endlessly jealous of places where the bodies don't evaporate into thin air on a yearly cycle.