Author: hamilton.mm

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Suspension #4: Drivers side front assembly part 1

It’s nice to have a couple of working examples hanging around the shop to supplement the parts book when it comes to finalizing assemblies. Even when taking care to label and organize parts as they come apart it’s possible to mix them up and if they have been apart before, which on a 47 year old car you have to assume they have, it’s possible they are not put together correctly in the first place. I started on the complete sinestro (left) front suspension assembly with the goal of having it completely ready to bolt on the car before I moved on to the destro assembly. All of the upper wishbone parts had been cleaned and painted before I started this blog so I will deal with the assembly now as a whole for simplicity and look at most of the individual parts later in the blog as I work on the destro unit.

The first two pictures below are of the destro assembly to give an idea of the condition of the sinestro parts before I started work.

Complete lower Destro Wishbone assembly ready for hours of attention. This should give an idea of how much work went into the Sinestro assembly.

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Market #16: Veloce-ized clean Sprint

Giulietta Sprint ‘Normale’ Tipo 10102 1493*23260. This presentable Giulietta Sprint has been on Fantasy Junction’s ‘off-site’ cars page for at least a year. The $24,500 asking price seemed high for this car the first time I looked at the ad but I think the market may have come around and this is probably a decent deal now if it is still available at this price. According to Fusi the serial number for this car falls in the 1960 10102 Giulietta Sprint range (1493*21488 – 26200). As usual stated year of 1963 is probably what is on the title.

First impression is good with this car. I like the color, the paint work is, as described in the ad text ‘very good from a few feet away… but not Pebble Beach quality’ and the bright-work is said to all have been re-chromed. There are 28 high quality pictures on their web site documenting every corner of the car, so I can’t gripe about a lack of good presentation. The details of the car are just enough to make you call for more if you were interested. I don’t know that ‘adorable’ is an adjective I’d use to describe these cars, but maybe someones grandmother helped write their description.

Looking good. I like the little mirrors and Italian plate ‘TO’ is for Torino if I’m not mistaken. I don’t usually like the orange turn signal lenses but they compliment the blue on this car. Continue reading “Market #16: Veloce-ized clean Sprint”

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Very cool photography link with Giulietta Sprint and Sprint Speciale content

This link was sent to me the other day and the premise is a pretty cool twist on the idea of re-enacting famous photographs.

“Automotive Monogamy”

Both the Sprint Speciale and its owner are nicely preserved. I wonder if there is a correlation between how one takes care of ones things and how one takes care of ones self.

I have some photographs of me about 16 years ago when I first got my 1974 Triumph Trident motorcycle that I still have and which is still in the same shape as it was then, maybe I should add my own chapter to this book.

If any of you readers out there has a car that you’ve had a long time, consider documenting your ownership in the same way. Your ancestors will appreciate it.

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Suspension #3: rear axle rebound straps

Rebound limit straps are very important, if the rear axle were allowed to rebound freely away from the body without them, due to a large bump, the single nut at the upper end of the shocks is the next limiting devise. This nut is small and the sheet metal it mounts the shock to is not thick so damage to this area is easily possible. The straps are a strip of layered canvas bonded with rubber which is clamped together by metal plates held together by nuts and bolts to form a loop. A rubber bump stop limits axle travel toward the body. Conveniently the strap and bump stop are incorporated into the same assembly.

This strap, although frayed, is still in one piece and functional.

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Bodywork #4: Scraping through 47 years of crud

Removal of the gas tank, the aerodynamic panel between the gas tank and rear body edge, the rear axle, rebound straps, clutch linkages, emergency brake linkages and lots of other little stuff was hard work made much more difficult by the presence of about 1/4″ of accumulated crud.  The crud is a mix of grease, road dirt and dust, oil, undercoating, and other debris hardened over the years by continual wetting and drying, heating and cooling.   In many cases I had to use a screwdriver and wire brush to expose the bolts holding an assembly together and clean the treads so I could get it apart.  I can’t complain too much about this crud though because it protected the metal in these areas from the elements and kept it free of rust.

The tools I used for this job were a 3″ wide putty knife/paint scraper with a sharp edge, a dull pocket knife, a wide bladed screwdriver and a course bristle wire brush.  Before climbing under the car I put all 6 of my jack stands under it in case I shook it loose with my scraping, I don’t want to end the project prematurely by having the clutch pivot mounting bracket pierce my lung when the car slips off of a stand.  I should add that I wore a respirator, eye protection, gloves and a ski cap.  Even with this safety equipment I usually went home with dirty fingernails, eyes red from frequently fishing chunks out of them that got around the glasses and black snot (sorry, I have allergies and blow my nose a lot…).  The hat was not so much a safety precaution as a practical way to keep from having to shampoo 6 times to get all the junk out of my hair, like I did the first night.

If not for the rebound strap this shot could be anywhere under the car.  I took this picture so I could refer to it later when putting the restored rebound strap assemblies on the car.

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Market #13: Italian eBay Sprint Veloce

I love Italian eBay. Spending an hour or two some quiet evening with a glass of red wine (Barolo or Amarone works best) and a fast internet connection, looking through page after page of interesting cars, most of which never made it to the US, is both great fun and a learning experience. I tend to forget that at one point all the cars on the road were what we now call old and in places like Italy and France, this means that there are still lots of clean original interesting old cars looking for new homes. I suppose eventually even the supply in these countries will run out. Someday, before they are all gone, I’m going to go to Italy, buy a one owner perfect original Giulietta TI, preferably a 56 or 57 model, tour around in it for a month then ship it home.

I came across this car during my last window shopping spree on Italian eBay. A restored 1962 Giulietta Sprint Veloce in Vespolate, a village about an hour south-west of Milan. Italian eBay auctions are different from American auctions, they are more like an advertisement in the back of a classic car magazine, giving only the minimum information about the car and an email and phone number to call if you are interested.

Celeste SV pensively poses for photos outside the gates of the biggest house in the village. Maybe my next owner will drive me more…

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Suspension #2: Rear axle locating triangle

The differential and axle assembly has to be able move around freely as the rear suspension absorbs bumps and loading changes caused during cornering and braking.  This travel in the axle has to be limited so that the wheels can’t come into contact with the body in any loading condition.  To accomplish this the axle assembly is attached to the body by a rear triangle at its center and a pair of trailing arms at either end.   These pivot together as a sort of 3 dimensional four-bar linkage through the center of the massive ball joint that connects the triangle to a boss nearly equidistant from the two rear wheels on the axle. The ball joint is the fulcrum of a teeter-totter between the two rear wheels.  With respect to each other and this point when one goes up, the other goes down.  This motion is softened with respect to the body by springs that are dampened by shock absorbers and the travel at either end is limited by canvas straps.  The entire assembly is isolated from the rest of the car by rubber bushings.

The ball joint pin is a taper fit into the boss it goes in on the axle housing.  Removing the triangle from the rear axle required heat and a ball joint separating tool commonly called a pickle fork.  The pickle fork works by acting as a wedge between the axle housing boss and the triangle.  I first scraped as much grease as I could off the boss to avoid a fire and to minimize stinky fumes, then heated the boss up, once it was hot I used a big hammer on the end of the pickle fork and the ball joint popped out of the taper. 

A lot of road grime attaches itself to everything on the underside of the car and the axle locating triangle is no exception.

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Market #11 1965 Sprint 1300 project

Sold! This car ended on 5/20/08 for $5300. A decent buy for parts if nothing else. I imagine the buyer and seller will both be pleased. I am wondering if the success of this sellers last 2 Sprint projects is bringing more cars out of hiding, and if the market has the capacity to digest any more Sprints at these strong prices. I guess we will see since there has been a seeming steady stream of them the last two months.

Giulietta Sprint 101 10102*385744, engines 00102*33631 and 00536*17120. A third project Sprint from the eBay seller out of Newport Beach, though not nearly as nice as the prior two. Body has some very serious though not terminal rust and everything needs rebuilding, which detracts significantly, but the car appears to be complete and unhit which is good. According to Fusi, the two engines that come with the car are a 1600 from a 67 Giulia Sprint GT that is installed, and an 00102 1300 from a 1962 Giulietta Sprint or Spider. Since the 1300 is not the original engine for the car I would stick with the 1600. If it can’t be original, it might as well be fun.

Car doesn’t look too bad in this picture. Grills, bumper and light rings all appear to be fine. There is probably $1500 – $2000 worth of value in those parts alone. I am not sure if the sill plates are original.

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Bodywork #3: That dent in the corner

Warning:  I don’t have any training at what I am attempting here, this is all new territory for me, so use this as a guide at your own risk! 

I decided I could take on this dent in the corner without much trouble.  I made some measurements and found that the mounting face for the tail light bases had been pushed in about an inch in compared to the same face on the other side.  This is the  not so obvious effect of the dent on the edge.  The metal in this corner is still very sound so I don’t want to cut anything out that I don’t have to.  Secondary to this dent is the shallow dent, right in the seam about a foot to the left of the corner dent.  This will need straightening and shrinking.

I’m not sure how this dent happened, it’s very high and narrow and at an odd angle to the car.

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Market #10: Shiny red 10102 Sprint ‘Driver’

Sold! This car ended on eBay at $12,301.57 on 5/17/08. I said it wouldn’t be a bad deal for less than $12K, hopefully I am right. Another curious aspect is there were no questions answered and added during the auction. If I were bidding I would have asked a lot of questions. Compare this car to Special Sprints #3 and you get a sense of what Giulietta buyers want. As always, we’ll see if the auction sale is final.

Giulietta Sprint ‘Normale’ 10105 1493*20428. Seller lists the car as a 1961, but Fusi says it falls in the 1959 101 Sprint number range. There is actually no real information in the sellers description other than paint and interior were ‘done to driver standard’ and most chrome work was recently done. These are items whose quality can vary wildly, so I would want someone to look at the car in person for me. The information in the eBay ad is so scant I would have to send an email with a tiresome list of questions if I was interested in buying.

The condition of this car is very interesting. It looks great at first flush, and someone who is new to these cars would be wowed by all the shiny stuff, but if you know how these cars are supposed to be that wowing slowly gives way to uncertainty. I am going to critique this car, comparing it with originality, but one has to remember that there were about 35 years in this cars life when any sort of non-mechanical parts were simply unobtainable for most people and this car looks to have been put together from what was on hand during this period. If it wasn’t for this approach, this car probably would have been scrapped a long time ago

Nice looking car for the right price. Wheels are later 105 Giulia Sedan or GT items. I wonder if the hub caps had to be modified to fit? I think the marker lights are Fiat 500 items.

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