Category: Sprint Abnormale

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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.

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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.

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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…”

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101 1300 rebuild 15: almost back together

Goodness I’m tired! Saturday was a long day but I got close to being back where I should be. Let’s see, where to begin. So I got the piston/connecting rod that was in backward out and took it to Norman Racing Group on Thursday afternoon. Dan Marvin agreed to check the rod for straightness and pointed out that the piston was making contact with the head, something Tom Sahines told me to look for. I brought the head along too so they could tell me if there were problems with valve clearances etc which was a good thing as it was needed to cut the pistons down to clear the head. I asked if they could do a one day turn around on Friday so I could reassemble everything this weekend if I got the other three pistons to them first thing Friday morning. They said they would try.

I left their shop and pulled the other three pistons. I can’t complement Norman Racing Group and Dan enough. I had my wife drop the pistons off on Friday morning about 10am and they were ready when I got there at 430 to pick them up. I guess the bag of pastries she brought them probably helped but I doubt they were necessary. He gave the backward connecting rod a clean bill of health. I bought a new head gasket and set of Viton oil passage seals and away I went.

img_7882I guess you can’t really see the orientation in the manual, but I can tell you the offset goes toward the center on 2 and 3. Continue reading “101 1300 rebuild 15: almost back together”

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101 1300 part 14: two steps forward and, er, 10 steps back

I’m usually pretty good at analogies. I am thinking maybe my current situation is like flying to Italy and finding out you have to fly home to San Francisco, turn off the oven and then fly back to Italy to get on with your vacation.

Okay, what did I do that is so bad? A total rookie move so it’s a good thing I’m a rookie. I put the number three connecting rod in backward. The Engine ran with a not terminal sounding but noteworthy knock. “The engine ran???” the attentive reader will ask.

It goes something like this…

img_7866I’m not sure why but it is somehow immediately apparent that this engine runs. This was right before the steps back announced in the title began.

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101 1300 rebuild part #13: Weber 28/36 DCD

It was a tough decision, but after weeks of debating, test fitting, consulting experts and looking for patterns in tea leaves I decided to go with a Weber 28/36 DCD that I got from Conrad in exchange for some valuable emergency brake components as used on cars with the big Veloce gas tank. One local expert posited that a 1300 normale with this carb and ‘decent’ cams will out perform the stock Veloce set up of 1959. We shall see. In the interest of thoroughly documenting this rebuild I plan on running this thing on a dyno to dial the carb in and try out a few cam options I have. Anyone care to donate a little dyno time to a good cause? I’ll give you endless accolades in my write ups.

img_7719As always, the teaser picture is actually the near final product. This carb looks pretty good but required $130 in new parts from my local Weber parts dealer. With the phenolic insulator block taking up about 6mm you can see the mounting nuts don’t fully engage the studs. Oh well, this is not a suspension component.

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101 1300 rebuild part #12: The devil in the ongoing details

The build goes ever on. I had been resisting working on the Sprint for the last two weeks and concentrated on organizing and consolidating my parts, tools and the like. Yesterday I had a surprise few hours of freedom so I decided to run to the shop and get back on the Sprint. The first order of business was hooking up the new exhaust front section I got in the mail a few weeks ago. I used M8 x 1.25 stainless socket head cap screws with flat and lock washers I had laying around to bolt the exhaust to the manifold with an NOS copper gasket in between sourced locally. I needed help supporting the exhaust to get the bolts started but after that it was easy. The pipe is closer to the floor than I like so I will have to see if it’s a motor mount, engine mount or pipe bend problem once everything is installed.

img_7741Here’s the new pipe mounted to the manifold with the asbestos heat shield bent out of the way. The oil pressure line is very close to the header with the heat shield in between. I plan on seeing if the pressure line can be bent or turned on the banjo bolt.

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Market #92: Red Sprint Three-fer in Italy

Giulietta Sprints 1493*26018, 1493*26085 and a 1965 Giulietta 1300.  These three cars are all in Italy, all about 25,000 Euro’s, all red and all in pretty nice shape.  I have them arranged in the chronological order outlined above for each group of common view pictures.  26018 and 26085 are from the 1960 interim series that ends at 26200 in Fusi.  The 1965 Giulietta 1300 represents the last gasp for the classic Giulietta Sprint and they only made 428 if Fusi’s numbers are accurate.  Giulietta Sprint production spanned 11 years and if you look at the Sprints contemporaries at the beginning and end of its run you see a great leap forward in automobile design and technology that was just catching up in the early 1960’s to the standard of robustness, reliability and style set by the Sprint.

3396f5be3a1493*26018 is not only 67 cars older than the next car, it is photographed in the same spot.  There are some event stickers on the quarter window which if nothing else indicate this car drives well enough to do a few hundred miles.

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101 1300 rebuild part #11: Marelli Veloce distributor set up

You may remember I earlier wrote about distributors and what I should do for one for this engine rebuild. I had the Lucas unit that was originally in this car in a box so I assumed I would just get it re-bushed, put new points, condenser etc in it and use it. I dropped it off a Jaan’s shop and a few days later he called me to tell me the shaft and drive section was all home-made and that it would not be cost effective to fix it, and that at its best it still wouldn’t be as good as a Bosch or Marelli unit. The next day I started pulling the 1600 apart that is going in the SS and I realized the Marelli distributor installed on it would be perfect for the 1300 rebuild, especially if I ever went with a Veloce spec conversion as it is a 750/101 spec unit.

dirty-marelliHere it is, fresh off the 00121 engine I am going to start rebuilding soon for the SS. It doesn’t look like much but the shaft spins nicely without having any side to side play. I am told these are pretty hard to find and expensive, so I will be careful.

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