Category: Working on my Cars

Posted on

Market 110: One of the last 1300 Giulietta Spiders

Giulietta Spider 10103*370645. This car was available last week on Sacramento Craigslist, listed as a parts car to make an offer on. Seller stated the car was complete but rusty after having been sitting for years in various indoor and outdoor locations. The owner was the sellers father who finally admitted he was never going to get around to it.

giulietta spider AT LAST!!!If cars could talk, tell the story, relate the lonely years spent 15 feet from the open road, home to litters of kittens, mice and who knows what else while piled with boxes of ephemera waiting for either rebirth in the recycled form of Bob the singing big mouth bass on a Walgreen’s shelf or per chance another shot at the open road. Spider 370645 sees daylight for the first time in years, note it still has shackles on its chin.

Continue reading “Market 110: One of the last 1300 Giulietta Spiders”

Posted on

Fiat 124 Sedan gets a freshen-up down low, part 1.

Did I mention I have to fix a rod knock in the Fiat? I’ve only just now allowed myself to begin thinking through the project, with the Sprint rebuild coming to a close. Last night I drained the oil, coolant and took a bunch of stuff apart, but I guess I’m getting ahead of myself. You probably want to hear more about the knock. It goes like this…

fiat-and-veloceOne of the nicest 1972 Fiat Sedan Specials around keeping the ex-giuliettas.com Veloce company.

Continue reading “Fiat 124 Sedan gets a freshen-up down low, part 1.”

Posted on

101 1300 21: sumday

First off, to address some comments: I do have the original air filter assembly, the problem is, the Solex I am using is the later type that doesn’t clear the airbox.  I suppose the correct Solex could fix the lack of an air cleaner problem too.

So, Sumday (thanks Grandaddy for coming up with that one) is the day I add it all up.  It may be premature since I haven’t fixed the possibly low oil pressure or settled on a carb, but I think I am close.  Below is a tally of work done and how much it cost.  I am presenting this as educational material for those who, like me at the outset, think they can cut corners and save some cash.  I honestly thought this would cost “about $3000”.  Pictures have little to do with this post.

sprintsssssss1I had lunch with Laurence on Friday and he thought a side-by-side of our semi-significant others would be fun and informative.  His is a Sprint Veloce made 3/58, mines a Sprint made 10/59.  Both are long term Bay Area cars with similar patina, though his is nicer in most ways.

Continue reading “101 1300 21: sumday”

Posted on

101 1300 20: the home stretch

I drove the Sprint to work this morning, 29 miles one way in moderate 6:30am traffic. It still has some wrinkles to iron out but all in all it is pretty good. A 101 1300 has to be driven to be believed. I have been spoiled by 1750 power over the last 6 months in the Berlina and with the 1300 powered Sprint I was expecting a noticably slower car, but honestly, other than having to adjust from the ‘power anywhere’ torque curve of the 1750 to a tendancy to stumble below about 3000 rpm in the 1300, the 1300 holds its own and is turbine smooth.

Since my last report on this car I have done a lot of work but I didn’t have the camera so it didn’t get documented.

sprint-at-workHere it is in the parking lot at work. There is a hint of coolant under the nose so I’ll have to tighten the hose clamps when it cools down, but other than that, no problem.

Continue reading “101 1300 20: the home stretch”

Posted on

101 1300 19: made it through another recession…

I know, you’ve all grown bored with my never ending engine rebuild. Well, let me tell you, no one is as tired of it as my back and shoulders! I wonder how Sisyfus would have felt about a never ending series of installation and removals of an Alfa transmission. Yeah yeah, boo hoo your thinking, I deserve all I get if I keep making these rookie moves.

Achem, okay, enough about that. In a mere 5 hours, spread out over three days, I managed to swap out the friction disk with a NEW one that I sourced from Glenn late Saturday afternoon while couch shopping. Now, once again I am on to the next thing and the next thing is on new ground, but first a short recap.

old-discOld disk is .33665 inches or about 8.5mm. The shop manual says 6mm is the limit of wear. The linings were a little loose on the metal part of the disk so I suspect I could have compressed the disk a little more, maybe to 8mm. It’s possible a pressure plate adjustment to account for the springs settling over the years would have made this disk useable to 6mm. I’m not going to find out.

Continue reading “101 1300 19: made it through another recession…”

Posted on

101 1300 18: more slow progress

Even though I haven’t mentioned it in a while I am continuing on with the Sprint. This Saturday I got back around to the Weber vacuum leak work. I installed the DCD again with the newly lapped mounting base and hooked it all back up, the car still refused to idle and runs rougher than it should off idle. Needing a reality check I decided to install the Solex that came with my old TI. It had been off the road for several years and looked bad on the outside but it was clean on the inside and I knew it worked since I drove the TI with this carb installed for 20,000 or more miles.

sprint-solexThe Solex bolted into place. It’s hard to see but the PO spray painted the carb silver, screws, washers, springs, levers and all.

Continue reading “101 1300 18: more slow progress”

Posted on

Today I’m 101 200 603 72,434

The careful reader will know that the 101 is for the number of Market reports I’ve written. I suppose the same reader could guess that 200 is the total number of posts I’ve written for this blog. 603 is the most page views I’ve had in a day, there is no average to be seen, but I would guess around 275. 72,434 is my total visitors, doubtful if they are unique.

What good have I done? Not sure. I’ve been tempted to write a market wrap up but that sounds like a lot of work, maybe at the end of a year. I have this crazy idea that I could develop a Giulietta value calulator based on actual sale prices now that I have a pretty good catalog of auction results.  I’ve gotten a lot of work done on my Sprint, enjoyed the daily commute company of a fine Berlina and gathered a lot of good parts for my SS project. Through all these I’ve had you here to keep me honest and on track. Thanks!

Oh, and check out my new ‘Production and Register’ page. I think the format has stabilized now that I have accepted it has to be edited in HTML.  If your car’s not there drop me a line!

threeqsssRandom period SS photo to fulfill be word-to-photo quota.

Continue reading “Today I’m 101 200 603 72,434”

Posted on

Berlina Register Newsletter 28 out now!

Andrew likes to keep us up to date on the Berlina world by reporting sales, stories and the like in his newsletters. Newsletter 28 (berlet28) appeared in my email box yesterday so naturally I decided to post about it.  I’ve noticed the last few years he has strayed from the primary topic (Berlinas) and it has become more and more the Alfa Sedan Register Newsletter. Yours truly features in one of the sale reports, as I did in Berlina Newsletter 27.   Stay tuned for the next installment on that front where I will likely feature again, perhaps twice in Newsletter 29, which will put me in there three issues running.   If you go to the Berlina register website (there’s a link on my homepage) you can find an archive of all of his Newsletters going back to when market reports included $800 Berlina original runner/drivers that would be $8000 these days.  So it goes.

SF Gate published an article about Andrew in their CARS section recently that is linked below.

SF Gate article about Andrew.

andrew_alfa_4The SF Gate article included a photo session but strangely there are no pictures with the article anymore.  Here’s Andrew with his Super.

Posted on

101 1300 part 17: It ain’t over…

I keep thinking it’s time to write the epilogue, you know, with a final tweak or two to the Weber or ignition described, a break down of what it ended up costing and some video at 80 mph on a nice long back-road sweeper after the exhaust system is welded up. Well, it’s not that time yet. I keep having to revisit things I was taking for granted as done.

I guess the big lesson for me is that when rebuilding and installing the whole drive train, a bunch of the parts of which have never met before, there will always be one more thing to do before it’s done.

img_7895

As usual- my teaser picture. I took this last week after I had just come down from my parts loft. As much as I am enjoying the challenge I would rather be getting on with the SS rebuild. Continue reading “101 1300 part 17: It ain’t over…”