Category: Sprint Speciale

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Body work 7 and Fasteners 2: saturday at the shop

I slept in until 10 am this morning! Two cups of coffee and the enthusiasm generated by seeing all the nice SS’s on the market I’ve written about this week saw me rushing out the door by 11am to work on the SS. I figured out everything I needed to make the plating kit work and wanted to get it all together, set it up and run some tests.

I bought 5 gallons of distilled water, a bunch of wire end alligator clips, a candy thermometer, a measuring spoon set, a spray bottle and a surge protector. I decided for my first attempt I’d use a 6 volt, 500 mA motorcycle battery charger I had laying around from who knows when. The day went like this:

The finished product first as usual. Plated engine lift bracket, head nuts and washers. I could probably have paid to plate every part on this car for what I am into my kit but this way I wont lose anything, I wont be driving back and forth to a plating shop and I can say: I did that!

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Bodywork 7: floor it!

Two years is a long time to wait plan and ponder but here I am seeing what has for so long seemed like something consigned to some later date.  Bill, old friend and recently arrived shop mate agreed to have a go at welding the floors into the SS.  I had a floor set I bought from Wolf last year and yesterday they finally saw some action.

The Veloce e-brake mount finally has somewhere to mount.  Looking good.  Welds will be cleaned up later.

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SS 00121 engine 6 and bodywork 6: the shop sunday

Update 4pm. Aaron put up a new post on his blog with a pretty cool video of his first trip in his 1962 1600 Giulia Sprint that spent a month in my shop getting freshened up to be roadworthy with some occasional, marginally helpful pointers from me.  Check it out.

Sunday December 6th, 2009.  I didn’t have any big plans for the time I would spend at the shop, mostly catching up on some small jobs and doing some organizing.  I was cold at the shop, even with long underwear and a thick hooded sweatshirt -hoodie in California stoner parlance, so I was moving slow and not very motivated.

Veloce intake side motor mount

Veloce engine mount receives a good cleaning, new bushing and used but good shape engine mount.  Note Bendix fuel pump in the background -the subject of a future post no doubt.

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SS 00121 engine rebuild 5: assembling for real this time

Saturday December 5th 2009. I arrived at the shop at noon after eating three Al Pastor tacos from my favorite taqueria -sounds like a lot but it’s not. Initially my plan was to do some more scraping of paint from the engine compartment and front wheel wells but my hands are pretty beat up from the last session doing this, and I’m tired of moving internal engine parts around when looking for things so I decided to do more work on the engine, namely install pistons and liners, water pump and get the oil pan ready for assembly.

It went like this…

giulietta sprnt speciale engine

Beginning at the end as usual. I had just installed the water pump and pulley hardware as 5 pm struck -time to go home. It’s got my name on it!

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SS Bodywork 5: the engine compartment

I have been looking at this car for 2 years now, in pictures after sending $4500 to the seller in December of 2007, trying to come up with a coherent plan for tackling it, and since then as a sculpture of sorts, always looming in the background corner of the shop, watching me toil on other cars, patiently waiting its turn.  It’s turn is here.

Having a really snotty cold complete with a crackly sounding cough ensures your work wants you as far away as possible, and when you start feeling pretty good but your body is still in clean up mode you have to get out an do.  In this fit of new found near health I decided that since I lacked the parts to finish assembling the engine, I would start in on the body, and where better to start than the engine compartment.  It has been a hellish job, but, as with all jobs, took starting and doing if it was to be seen finished.  I guess I could have paid someone to do this, but that would have been cheating, and besides, my funds are already in arrears of the someones I will be paying for time spent exercising their skills on my car.

The starting line.  First order of business was removing the steering components, the wiring harness and some other odds and ends so this would be a long level run rather than an obstacle course.  Looks pretty bad doesn’t it.

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SS 00121 engine rebuild 4: the intake and mock up

I’ve got a pretty serious cold and in order to keep from spreading it around work I haven’t been there the last few days. I don’t feel horrible, mainly just spaced out from the cocktail of stuff in cold medicines and unable to breathe through my nose, so I’ve been spending a few hours at the shop in warm clothes working on the endless SS project. Today I decided I should mock up the engine pieces to try and identify anything I need to buy now so I can make one long trip and pick everything up at once instead of wasting days looking for one odd sized nut/bolt/washer.

I was quite proud of myself when this manifold turned up for a good price. Carbs are a matched set of early 60’s 40 DCOE2’s, the correct carb for all flavors of Sprint Speciale besides early 750SS badged cars (correct me if I’m wrong). I can’t wait to see these doing their job when I pop the hood on my daily driver SS.

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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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