Category: Working on my Cars

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SS 00121 engine #3: the timing case

I’ve been keen to get on with this engine rebuild since most of the impediments to my progress have been removed. With the Spider, TI and GTV out of my life, the Fiat back in daily rotation and the Sprint doing its trouble-free thing, I can focus on the SS. I may not have been working on it much in the last year, but I have been buying parts as they come up so I am mainly behind in my processing of the parts and way behind in my getting the floors in the car and the rust repaired.

Anyway, this past weekend I got a bunch of rearranging done on the shop and this afternoon I started some of the small ‘parts processing’ jobs I had been putting off, among them the clean up of the timing cover and assembling it along with the timing components to the engine.

Here’s the timing cover after a power wash, some Purple Power scrubbing, some detail work with carb/choke cleaner and a light polish. Note that the generator bolt hole is in good shape. This cover and the block are stamped ’18’. A matching set.

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D&S 6: original SS color options

d’Amico and Tabucchi in their ‘Alfa Romeo Le vetture di produzione’ list the color options for the 10120 SS as follows (the English translations are their work not mine): azzuro nube (cloud blue), bianco ambra (amber white), bleu notte (midnight blue), rosso Alfa (Alfa red), bianco gardenia (gardenia white), grigio metallizzato (metallic grey), argento metallizzato (metallic silver), verde Suez (Suez green), rosso rubino (ruby red), argento auteuil (auteuil silver), verde bosco (wood green), bleu sera (night blue), grigio Inglese (British gray), grigio Fiat (Fiat grey) and for 1959 and 1960: bluette.

For the Giulia SS they opted for a more streamlined approach to color, no doubt to increase efficiency in the paint department. You could choose from: rosso Alfa (Alfa red), grigio graphite (graphite grey), bleu Bosforo (Bosphorus blue), verde muschio (moss green) and bianco gardenia (gardenia white).

I imagine that these 5 colors are available across the line up of Bertone built Alfa’s. This all goes out the window when you consider you could pay them extra to paint your SS whatever color you wanted.

Antti in Finland sent me this picture of a Bluette (if my guess is correct and this car darkens when rubbed out) Giulia SS he has that was one of three to come to Finland new, the others being red and white. All three cars survive which means 100% survivorship in the Finnish market.

I haven’t seen too many green SS’s. If anyone has pictures of any of these colors listed that they KNOW is an original car in factory paint drop me a line and I’ll add it to this post to create a palette for reference. I don’t have access to my library of pictures right now or I could add a few.

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D&S 5: Looking forward

Part of the software pack we run is a program designed to give us a visceral response to the anticipation of an event or situation. The event or situation can be anywhere in the spectrum defined by the shades between agony, ennui and ecstacy. It is this anticipation of things to come that rules our actions as much or more than that which is going on around us. Just consider how often you hear the terms ‘looking forward’ ‘dreaming of’ and ‘imagining’. These are all expressions of expectation that is being shared. The software of anticipated experience, whether tinged with forboding or longing, when viewed in this light, is an important aspect of our humanness. I’m not just talking about big stuff like getting out of jail or sex, this notion applies equally to the little stuff like a first sip of coffee or taking a pee after having to hold it for a while because you’re driving.

This blog post is to help me get a handle on my anticipations surrounding my SS project. There is a lot to consider in the context of this project I’ve chosen to undertake. Simple stuff like exterior and interior color, becomes an anticipated fork in the road to plan for.  What will I do the day I am confronted with that choice and the rest of the project depends on the decision being made and undoing the decision is a matter of thousands of dollars? In light of the gravity of the decision I look forward, I anticipate what it will be like to live with and enjoy or be disappointed with the fruits of my labors.  Or: what color combo should I choose for the SS? What level of quality should I strive for in the finish? Should I run bumpers and all the trim? To what extent should I wring power out of the engine? What brake set-up should I pursue? What rear end ratio should I plan to run?

Metallic dark silvery gray with red interior is not such a bad combo, especially on BAT 5, and is the color combo I am thinking of painting the SS.  Careful with the gray and purple comments my eagle-eyed readers!  I wonder if I can get a paint code for BAT5?

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Suspension #6: The 410?

It’s official kids, I’m back on the SS. I bought a CAD plating kit today online from Caswell, ordered a set of tail light base and lens seal gaskets from Velocespace, requested a price quote for a new set of door latch buttons, a rear view mirror and some interior handles from Afra, and made a list of engine parts I still need to buy from Centerline.

As far as real work, I removed the brakes from a spare rear end I got that I am thinking I will use for the SS -but I guess I better back track a bit here before I get into the gory details. I bought a big group of parts last spring and among them was a complete rear end, which having the cable style emergency brake cable set-up meant it was from either an SS or a Sprint Veloce. I have been thinking a 4:10 rear end might make some sense for relaxed freeway cruising during commutes and with the engine being a somewhat hot 1600 it wouldn’t be too terrible off the line either. Anyhow, the other day I decided it was time to see what I had bought. It went something like this…

The gentle approach to removing drums involves tapping and pulling with your hands. That is followed by prying and hammering. Prying and hammering gives way to a big puller and when the fins start to break you call it a day and think about it until your next day at the shop. Today was that next day at the shop for me. Picture above is what it looked like today when I started.

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Cleaning up my SS and TI gauges

Update 11/23/09: I started back in on the SS so I thought another repost about working on it would be good. I am especially proud of my efforts on this post and the one that followed it.
I have spent a lot of time going through catalogs and making shopping lists so the GTV has to be sold soon to buy a bunch of the stuff I need. If you have any interest in a 69 GTV let me know. It wont be expensive. I am working on the SS rear end right now so look for another post about it soon.
Original post 6/27/09. I know it’s hard to believe but I did some work on my SS! The buyer of Market 1 SS, that had the incorrect earlier style gauges, bought the Italian/metric gauges that came out of my SS so I started cleaning up the US market gauges I had been contemplating using. Funny what a wad of cash can help you decide. The condition of the US gauges turned out to be one of those better and worse at the same time deals. Cosmetically they looked bad and the guts were in need of cleaning and lubricating, but the fundamental parts were presentable and most important, the plastic had not yellowed, so I could make a good set out of them with a little effort.

allgaugesThe fruit of my labor. Lot’s of spiffy gauges ready to tell me how I and my car(s) are doing. Still need to clean up the SS tach.

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Suspension #1: Front lower wishbone and ball joint

Update 11/17/09: I’ll be moving the Fiat out tonight and moving the SS to front row center and starting to work on it again this weekend. All the suspension pieces could be assembled to the car by the end of the year if my plans to get floors in the car work out.

Original Post 5/22/08: I am going to use the parts book terms for these parts so there is no confusion as to what I am talking about.

The front suspension on my SS was lightly assembled without shocks to make the car a roller and it came apart without any problems. Most of the pieces just need cleaning and painting so I will deal with those as a group later, but there are some components that require great care in cleaning and restoring. The lower wishbone is one of these parts because there are several critical systems tied to it: the bushed suspension support pivots, lower ball joint, suspension limiting rebound strap, sway bar mount and lower spring seat. In this post I am going to look at the wishbone itself with regard to cleaning, and the disassembly of the ball joint. I was advised to leave the ball joints together but this one had enough play that I was worried about it having to come apart later anyway. The parts book has only one part number (101.00.21.030.00) for the wishbone that fits all 101 cars and 2 are required for each car so it must be symmetrical.

The suspension components on my SS were treated with some kind of rust inhibitor that is very hard to remove, requiring a combination of scraping and media blasting. Once I have the wishbone stripped bare I tape over the openings to the support pivot bushings, to prevent blast media from getting into the grease passage ways and I masked the ball joint opening to keep media out and grease from getting in the blast cabinet. For a first pass I spend about 10 minutes removing as much of the loose coating as possible and I focus on the snap ring on the ball joint threaded ring nut. This snap ring has to be removed to thread the ring nut out.

Wishbone masked off and ready to be blasted.

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Fiat fresh-up five: finish line in sight

I keep having to steal time between ‘somewheres’ I’m supposed to be to work on the Fiat and I’m happy to report it has paid off.  The bell housing bolts, starter bolts, solenoid and other stuff I was waiting for showed up and last weekend I got to spend a few of those stolen moments installing it all along with the intake manifold and fuel pump, which I had removed to get access to the starter.  Way too much going on on the intake side of these Fiat twin cam engines!  Sunday I left the shop having turned the engine over with the starter – v e r y  s l o w l y I admit, but encouraging none-the-less. 

FIAT ONE ENGINEThis is a picture from this morning, about 1 hour before I started writing this post.  You will notice all sorts of funky stuff that I will go into later, but the important thing to take away from this picture is that it has the look of a car that runs.

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Fasteners #1: Introduction and cleaning oily fasteners

Update 11/9/09. Alas yes, I have gotten a bunch of work done on my projects but haven’t found time to write a proper post about it.  I started driving the GTV to work and tonight the battery gave up on my way home.  A friend picked me up, and we got it going.  I borrowed a new battery from another friend until I can figure out if it’s alternator or battery related.  On the bright side I had just spent a half an hour getting the heater core hooked up and heater fan working so I wont freeze on the way to work at 630 am tomorrow.

Enjoy the below post which maybe 3 people read the first time around.

Originally posted May 9th, 2008. Years ago when someone would ask me how I managed to get a project together, and wasn’t I daunted by all the parts that they saw laying about I would reply casually, ‘It’s all just nuts and bolts with a few special parts thrown in’. Little did I know how true this ingenuous response was. I didn’t however grasp the complexity and importance of those nuts and bolts.

I was thinking about this yesterday as I was working on the rear axle ‘casing and covers’ to quote the parts book. Besides a few big obvious parts I ended up with a pile of nuts bolts and washers. I usually bag and tag the fasteners after cleaning, or loosely assemble the parts if possible, but sometimes I get interrupted and 3 weeks later I find myself faced with a crusty pile of unfamiliar nuts and washers to try and identify. I looked at the parts bookto see how much information it had on these and it has a simple but useful nomenclature: what it is, what size it is, what it’s for. I guess if I get in any trouble I can reference the parts book.

Axle housing nut getting cleaned up.

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Bodywork #1: Full body workout

Update 11/7/09. I’m happy to say this rerun series seems to be doing well.  Todays installment should show clearly why this car is not on the road.  If I can display the same tenacity towards this car as I have the TI or Berlina it will get done.  It’s just going to take a while.

Originally posted May 2nd 2008, my third blog post! Just a quick guided tour of what the body needs. Remind yourself that surface rust looks worse than it is in pictures. The plan at this point is to scrape off the undercoating with a putty knife and use abrasive wheels etc on the rust. I have had lots of suggestions to take the body to the blasters and this is probably what I will end up doing.

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D&S #2: Receiving my new SS

Update 11/6/09:  Following yesterdays installment is this one.  I saw that some of you peeked ahead and read this by following the link at the bottom of the page.  Sorry, nothing new for you guys.  Don’t worry, there will be a few new posts this weekend if the load of new parts in the back of the Sprint is any indication.  How’s the novel coming you ask?  I think I’m at about 7000 words right now.  I plan to be a few thousand ahead by Sunday evening.

Originally posted May 1, 2008. My second blog post ever!Money was paid, promises made and in early December 2007 I was the proud owner of a 1961 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Speciale. Between Christmas duties and ski trips for the kids it took about a month for the seller to gather the boxes of parts, pull the car out of storage and get everything loaded up and ready to ship. I have had bad experiences shipping cars through brokers so I did some searching and found Randy of Motor Auto Express on Hemmings.com. His was the only listing I found that simply had his cell phone number and what seemed like a good sign, he works out of Washington. I called Randy on a Monday afternoon and the car was picked up the following Friday. Randy was as professional as could be asked for and I am very happy with his service and have recommended him several times.

Of course the day the car arrived at my shop it was raining. Hard. Randy’s truck rolls up and amazingly the rain stops. When the door opens and the car is revealed my heart sinks, not necessarily because the car is worse than I expected, it’s just the gravity of the project settles on me with its full weight. This car needs a lot of work, a lot of work I know how to do in theory but have never attempted. I change the one flat tire and we roll it out of the truck. OK, maybe it is worse than I thought, or was I just glossing over the rough edges. I’ll have to review the pictures again to see if it was me who misled myself.

I unpack the boxes, make a list of parts that are present to compare with what was promised and take some pictures. The parts list will also be helpful as I start searching for missing parts. My work space is a little cramped so I decide the first thing I should do is build a loft to put shelves and work tables on so I can spread out. As I drive home from the shop I am wondering what I have gotten myself into. Pictures below are from the day after the car was dropped off.

Someone had started this project. The brownish-black is some sort of rust inhibiting paint.

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