Author: hamilton.mm

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Glas 1700 GT: BMW 1600GT rebuild rabbit hole

Whenever I need a little reminder that it can be done I go to this site and look for a little inspiration.  A BMW 1600GT rebuild in .be with little to no narration, but very eloquent pictures and elegant solutions.  Especially helpful is the fact that I have a very similar car that I will be going through some of this stuff with in the near future.  Don’t follow the link unless you have some time to spend looking over some good work.

Update on my Glas 1700 GT?  It’s headed to a shop for some body work next week, the engine is nearly together and about 30 pieces of the car have been powder coated, so it is moving forward…

The Sprint Speciale of BMW’s?  Well, Franco wasn’t involved and realistically it’s a badge engineered Glas GT making it a Frua, and therefore magically Italian, and numbers are low -but low enough to be serious money one day I can’t say.

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Market 62: Restored Giulia SS 380024 (still) on the block

Update 8/13/12: Still available.  Description says it was restored from bare metal by Carrozzeria Touring.  Price is now “upon request”.  Maybe a good car to bring to the US and try and sell at auction for a profit?

Update 2/13/09: This car is now listed on Anamera at 59000 Euro’s.  They have included a statement that the engine is an 00121.

Oops:  I confused this car with another.  This one was not (to my knowledge) restored by a German and didn’t benefit from a parts car that was sold for 50 Euro’s.  Sorry.

Original post 11/24/08: Giulia Sprint Speciale 10121*380024, 00121*00128.  This car is available now out of Italy from Luzzago.  Car was restored by a German Gentleman who is said to have had a parts car that he sold for 50 Euro’s when the project was done!

The condition of this car is very good  and Luzzago has several mid-restoration pictures to assure you that things were done right where the body is concerned.

giulia20160020ss20196420azzurra2000220wBumpers fit very well in this picture, as does the hood and headlight rings.  I like the blue but it might be a little better if it had a little less baby in it.

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Market 437: Sprint Veloce Alleggerita 750 E 03819

Giulietta Sprint Veloce ‘Alleggerita’ 750 E 1493*03819, 1315*30348. This 1957 Sprint Veloce is available now out of Italy. It is a good comparison with yesterdays lightweight Veloce, especially in the interior -would be a great comparison if I knew how much they were asking.  They made about 600 lightweights if my vin/body number math is sound.  Not horrifically rare as far as rare Italian cars goes, but these being very potent machines in their hey-day, frequently vanquishing their own class and placing very high outright in races against competitors with 2 or 3 times the displacement, and being constructed from lots of impossible to find special parts, they have all the cache one could want in a 50 year old Italian car.  Oh -and they are beautiful and easy to drive -even among modern traffic.

Hood fits very well.  I like the extra lights -looks like 1 fog and 1 spot.  Marchal’s?  Bumper, eyebrow trims and headlights all look like aluminum to me.  Nice car.

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Market 435: Spider Veloce 750F 04191 NLA

Giulietta Spider Veloce 750F 1495*04191. This car was on eBay for about 30 hours before being pulled and declared No Longer Available.  Someone with a spare Veloce block must have made an unrefuseable offer.  I guess we will have to keep waiting to see what a 750 Veloce goes for without a Veloce engine…  Will the new owner please step forward!

A fine looking example, without much to be done.  I like them like this -no worry driving them around.  Hood spear gone?  165 series tires?

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Order of Operations (pretty please my dear aunt sally*)

You’ve done it.  You are at the nadir!  Anything you do from this point forward will temporarily counteract the entropic tendencies of that system known as your car -assuming an asteroid or flood doesn’t stop by for an afternoon chat.  From here on you’ll be moving closer to that first turn of the ignition key, that first drive, that first stone chip.  Or:  your car is as apart as you can get it without employing cutting tools.  Everything from here on out is part of the process of putting it back together.

As with any process, there are things that need to be done in preparation, things that just need to happen at some point for the process to be considered complete, things that can be done simultaneously, and things that need to be done in a specific order because if they are not, they either can’t be done or a lot of time will be wasted.  Some are obvious -you wouldn’t paint before the rust repair or torque the head before putting the head gasket on for example, but others are a little more subtle, like assembling the front turn signal lights –  but mostly it’s a matter of not doing things more than once or twice if possible, and taking advantage of big blocks of time the car will spend with experts -such as when getting rust repair and paint.  If you are doing every single thing to the car yourself then the process will take however long it will take because you can’t do more than 1 hour per hour.

Car manufacturers are keenly aware of the dependent and independent processes that go into putting a car together.  Everything is prepared and on hand for trained staff to do the job efficiently.  Here some Montreal’s and Dino’s (?) get coupons for Pizza delivery tucked under their windscreen wipers.  I got this image off Alfa-male, a great Alfa site.

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Heater part 2: Heater valve 1493.54.709 and control cable 1488.31.723

Last installment we looked at the heat exchanger box itself, this time I’ll focus on the bits that hook it up and control the incoming hot water: the heater valve and the push/pull cable that controls the valve.  The first generation of Sprint’s had a heater valve (1483.54.711) that looked not far removed from a garden tap and you actually had to pop the hood and get out to turn on the flow of hot water to the heater core (if you didn’t realize you were going to want heat before you started out).  At some point this was deemed a little old fashioned so a cable operated valve was put to use -cousins of which can be found on Alfa’s for many years to follow.

Valve failure mode(s): hardening of rubber diverter seal, oxidation leading to through pits or breakage, loss.

Control cable failure mode(s): still/difficult operation, cable breakage/cut leading to too short, loss.

The current state of the parts supply has:

1493.54.709 with new diaphragm seal installed.  Like all rubber things, it just got hard and cracked after 50+ years.  The inner plateau seals against the port in the valve body, keeping the water out of the core when not wanted, the outer ring seals to the body to keep it from leaking when it’s open.

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Market 432: SS 10120 00392 ‘no longer for sale’

Giulietta Sprint Speciale 10120*00392.  This car is currently listed on eBay out of Haverhill, MA and sits at $45,000.  A note has been added at the end of the auction that it’s no longer available.  Must have received an offer too good to pass up, while being spooked by the presence of a nicer Giulia SS on eBay at the same time.

The car itself is rough around the edges, but needs mostly light cosmetics and some missing original parts sourced to be taken to the next level.  What level is that you ask?  Nice driver maybe…

There is a gray spot on the roof with a corresponding exit wound in the headliner.  They do look sweet without bumpers.  Looks very nice!

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Market 69: Yet another restored ‘Guilia Spyder’ 372402

Update 7/22/12: This car has surfaced on Hemmings Motor news for $47,000. Still looks good. Amazing how they get around.  The current seller has done a lot of work to the interior -it looks amazing now.

Sensibly the Ferrari sticker has been removed from the fender.

Update 12/15/08: Auction ended at $26,250 with 35 bids, $250 more than I predicted.  Look for the follow up.

Giulia Spider 10123*372402. This car is on eBay right now. Car was new with a single carb 1600 but the seller states the original engine was a 750 series 1300 with a 4 speed which can’t be right, but as the driver of a 1750 powered 2000 series Berlina I don’t doubt that is what was in it when they got it. Older Alfas tended to get whatever running engine was on hand when the original gave out. I don’t know how a guy can spend $40,000 on restoring a car and misspell both of the words in the model name on the title of the auction, but hey, it’s a free country.

2d3a_3Pretty odd combination of mirrors can be seen here. This car is Porsche Boxter metallic ‘Ocean Blue’, a nice color in the right setting, and I’m sure striking on this car, but a detractor to most people that would spend big money on a car like this. I’d have talked him into Dutch or Tornado blue, both period correct, striking and not far from what can be seen here. I can’t fault the preparation though, the car looks great with all trim in top condition.

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Market 315: Vent window Giulietta SS 10120 177061

Update 7/22/12: Available now from Motor Classic and Competition Corp. Interesting that this car has failed to find a home with so much demand for SS’s right now.

Update 4/2/12: Guess who’s available again? This SS. It’s now on the East Coast now, listed on Hemmings, and with a new fun asking price of $129,500.  Does this herald the arrival of market malaise?  Are we approaching a correction?  How many SS’s at greater than $100K can the market support?  Survivor-ship is high for a limited production car -probably approaching 15% documented on this site alone.  Costs more than this?

Update 9/13/11: Again.  I wonder how much they’ve spent on eBay auctions??  My advise to the seller – a change of venue after a few months pass.  Maybe Amelia Island.  Ebay is alright for 3 year old ipods and disassembled Sprints but a seriously nice SS?  Time to move up into the major leagues.  But what do I know.

Update 9/1/11: “We have made deals on this car twice on eBay now, only to have the buyer renege on his contract due to financial issues without seeing the car in person. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE FINANCIAL ABILITY TO PURCHASE THE CAR before bidding, and especially before having us mail you sales documents and pull all of our advertising. If you are financing or running the car through a leasing company, make sure you are pre-approved. Each time this happens we lose other interested parties who ARE able to purchase the car. Thank you for your consideration.”  That explains it.  Rich guys drunk eBaying.

Update 8/26/11:  As predicted, this car is on eBay again -this time with new improved pictures and lengthy description attached below.  This is a great car, it’s just not going to go for Gooding money on eBay.

I know that bridge -about 15 minutes before you get to Big Sur when headed south on 1.

Continue reading “Market 315: Vent window Giulietta SS 10120 177061”

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Market 424: restored 1965 SS in Toronto

Update 8/12/12: Not surprisingly it failed to meet reserve and sell. It’s probably a nicer car than can be told from the pictures, but only better pictures will tell.

Update 7/21/12: Giulia Sprint Speciale 10121*380813, 00121*00914. As expected this car has turned up on eBay with slightly more comprehensive pictures and vin numbers. I’m sure there are excited emails and phone calls going on right now between Drivers Source/Classic Invest and probably other ‘opportunity spotters’ and the seller as I type. Car looks good. Better pictures are required.

Giulia Sprint Speciale. This car is on Craigslist right now out of Toronto.  There is no real information about the car other than the pictures where it looks pretty good.  Appraised at over $100K?  I guess that’s where to start the negotiation.

Nothing to complain about here.  Bosphorus blue?  Dutch blue?  Hood fits great.  Is that a 128 and a Yugo in the back ground?  I think so…  Good to know this car has been in austere company.  Grill doesn’t look right.

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