Category: Working on my Cars

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TI Tidy XXVI: Clutch Master time

The saga continues, like a Halloween horror movie sequel or a Star Wars excuse for merchandising spin-off/splinter story. I’ve been relying on this car for my daily get-a-body-where-it-needs-to-go duties which seem to never be less than 100 miles and I am impressed by how good it is. Starts right up, flies down the freeway and stops pretty good. Given how much I had to do to bring it this far, a little thing like the clutch master acting up is no more than an irritation.

IMG_9675Like it supposedly is with people, what’s on the inside matters most. Here we have a rusty grungy exterior and a virginal interior. Baby drank some bad DOT3. When I opened it up the assembly was sticking in some old black gooey fluid that brake cleaner took care of.

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A new page and suggestions please

This story, that each of these cars is a part of the unfolding of, has a perfect format for the telling and I am struggling to find it. I have been writing a “Giulietta models” page on and off for months and every time I work on it I think it might be time to build a real website with links to pages and all but this too would lead to limitations.

The story is all at once a history with a genesis, a genealogy, accounts of the heroic deeds of remarkable family members and the humans that operated them on race tracks and winding mountain roads, a tale of economic forces, a tale of product life-cycle and today a tale of restoration, preservation and history. I have been telling this tale ad hoc, as the material comes available and time allows, but the time is coming when the whole singular tale could be told from the pieces.

An early SS advertising photo.
An early SS advertising photo.

So what am I getting at here? I guess this is another call for help. You all know how you would like the story to look, how the pieces would fit together and tell the larger tale. I want some recommendations. Is there a book I should get that is exemplary in its presentation of this sort of history? I have a lot of Alfa history type books but they all focus on a piece of the story, and even the best are budget limited and thereby content limited by the publisher.

Have a look at the beginnings of the new page and send me an email or post a comment.

By the way, woo hoo, this is my 300th post!

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Twofer… TI Tidy 25 + A garage full, what to do…

First a news flash:  I added a subscription service to the blog so now you can make it so you get an email when ever I add a new post instead of checking back every hour and pushing the refresh button!  The link is on the top right side.  Click on the more button to see TI Tidy 25 and some musings on what I am going to do with all my needy cars…

bens picture of SprintSprint as photographed by Ben on the Melee.  Amazing how good a quality camera makes it look!

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TI tidy 24: this and that and possibly more of this

Where have I been you ask? It’s been 5 days since my last post and all, well, truth be told I had a kidney stone last week and I wasn’t much good for anything except watching movies I’d seen dozens of times and sleeping 15 hours a day. On Saturday I started feeling better and ventured out in the TI for an inaugural run into Berkeley to run some errands and lets just say it was interesting.

The list of – shall we say – inadequacies was long but I am feeling better so I’ll put it out here: tired tires wobbly, roofing tar on floor slippery in heat, dynamo light erratic but not as erratic as the idle, induction noise intense, carbs out of sync causing no end of smells, noises and visible black smoke, brake pedal getting soft, bouncy rear end – dead shocks?, and lots more that are nothing more than trivialities compared to the above. Time to get to work!

weber 40dcoe27 Starting at the end as usual. The last thing I did before driving off and heading for the grocery store this evening – stealing air cleaners off the GTV and mounting them on the TI. Very nice if I do say so.

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TI tidy 23: Home!

I guess I was closer than I thought. The list seemed daunting: set alignment, hook up blow by canister to breather, dip stick breather, intake manifold port and plumb it out the back, investigate a flickering dynamo light, hard mount the seats which required removal of no longer useable VW/Audi seat belt tension spools, double checking a few bolts for tightness and installing the hood. Here’s how it went.

IMG_9395I think it might look better in this picture than it is. Hood fits pretty good. I need to fashion a prop for it since I don’t think the stock prop will fit. If I paint it I think it will stay this color.

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Ti Tidy 22: Time to start driving

Saturday morning I decided it was time to get back on the TI after a week of being tired after work and just going home and reading instead of going to the shop.  The steering box had been in for a week but I hadn’t hooked everything up and put the dash back together, so my path was clear before me.  The car had been on jack stands for 3 weeks and I was eager to get it back on four wheels so I started under the car.  I hooked up the tie rod ends, made some small adjustments to the alignment, bolted the wheel on and took it off the jack stands. 

steeringDash is at last firmly mounted and bolted together.  Steering wheel now has a woodruff key.  Headlight stalk has an end on it so it can be turned  without difficulty.  Column cowl is on straight and, best of all, the ignition key is mounted to a bracket that is screwed to the dash.  I need to get some cheap stereo to fill that hole.  Anyone have anything they want to donate?

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TI Tidy Twenty-one: Burman ‘box comes out

Every two months or so I have to go afield for parts and as a result a box arrives from someone such as Centerline.  Some parts are not available new or repro and for that I call Larry at APE and usually he turns up what I need and it is reasonably priced.  On the fender below is a  combination of newly acquired stuff for the TI.  The big hose is defroster vent, the smaller is drain hose for the compartment that houses the windshield wiper motor.  The rubber parts are the transmission inner and outer boots.  In the middle are a pair of firewall grommet holders, a Bosch ignition with keys, a steering column rubber seal holder, a drivers side steering link hard stop, brake master cylinder line and a gear shift knob.

Before much of this finds its way on to the TI I need to remove the steering box since it is making clunking noises I can’t get rid of through normal adjustment and it can’t live with.  This is a scary job for me since I’ve never done it before and steering boxes have always been mysterious objects best left alone.

IMG_9207Not much is as exciting as a group of new parts, ready to install.

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Formal announcement: 1969 GTV 1530320

It might be slightly premature since I am waiting on a letter from Georgia DMV stating this car had no title issued due to its age, but since the money is spent and the garage space is filled I might as well go for it.  I bought this 1969 GTV, number 1530320, one of the six hundred some-odd US spec 69 GTV’s made, because hey, a deal you can’t refuse is exactly that.

gtv 1530320 front insideEvidence of the passage of time in ambivalent hands abounds.  That black scorched area is from when a garage-mate and cousin caught fire.  No one was hurt too bad and this guy is still healing.

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TI Tidy Nineteen: death from a thousand pin pricks

Saturdays tasks on the TI were all small and in most cases challenging.  The first thing I did is plug the battery in again and check everything again, just for grins.  The picture below tells a good story.  I decided I could call it a day after I installed the radiator and radiator hoses, mounted the front grill and removed the front license plate and baby turbo mirrors.

ti tidy hi beamHigh beams are nice and bright as are the markers.  Note the Baby Tornado mirrors in this picture.  Okay on a GTV6 or something but lame on a 64 TI.

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