Alfa Romeo – Page 46

November 2, 2009

GTV go over: gauging my progress

Dare I go into the needless tasks I’ve been performing on the GTV? I’m supposed to just make the wipers work and here I am with the gauges apart. Well, I actually like the challenges that lurk behind the cloudy glass of a gauge set and I am waiting to take possession of a used wiper motor and heater valve so why not? I tied one end of the rope securely and tossed the other into the dark depths, lit the light on my miners helmet and descended.

Come on, if you had the power to make these nice and clear and functional and well, just better you would do it too wouldn’t you?

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November 1, 2009

Market 161: Nice 1600 Spider in Seattle

Update 11/6/09: 30 bids, $26,100, reserve not met. A lot of money for a 1600 Spider. I suspect we will be seeing this car again.

Giulia 1600 Spider 10123*372671. This car is currently on eBay out of Seattle Washington. There seem to be a lot of these 1600 Spiders making the rounds on eBay lately, perhaps a good time to jump in if you have been considering one.

Very nice image here. Good to see someone thinking about how the effort put in to listing a car is proportional to the result. It just looks right. Trim, stance, panel fit -everything and a nice vista to boot.

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October 31, 2009

Pushing Product 5: At it again

This pushing product series is funny -an analogy for the intended effect of having the ladies beside the vehicles. I get a high number of visitors for about 2 days after posting one of these photo collections and lots of picture views of the sexier numbers. This installment is the usual aggregate of pictures of ladies used as advertising that readers forwarded me links to or I found on my own while on an internet expedition. From the classy to the silly to the chaste to the sleazy. Behold.

Aaron sent me this one. She is very cute and obviously quite fond of the motorcycle. Dig that white belt. She would be what, 75 years old now?

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October 30, 2009

Market 160: Giulia Spider for parts?

Giulia Spider 10123*392625. This car was on eBay last week listed as a parts car by a pretty well known Alfa guy. The auction disappeared before I could get a post together about it, but for the sake of the poor soul who will one day buy this car with an aim to restoring it and happen upon my blog, I feel like I better include it.
So far so good. I like the fog lights. Headlight and headlight rings missing is kind of typical for a car described as a parts car. Nose sheet metal looks good on the outside. Windsheild doesn’t appear to be cracked.

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October 29, 2009

Market 159: 62 Spider project

Update 11/6/09: 13 bids, $6400, about right. I bet this sale goes through.

Giulietta Spider 10103*171165. This lovely project Spider is on eBay right now. By the VIN number this car was made in mid 1961. It comes with a Fiberfab or some such hard top -gooney but effective at keeping the weather out. Auction is light on detail photo’s but from what is seen, it looks alright. I think if you lined up all the Spiders left in the world side by side, worst condition at one end and each car improving as you made your way to the other end, you would find this car about center.

I think I would have moved Pa’ out of the way so a potential bidder could see the all important nose sheet metal. Paint is stated to be light blue but looks gray here. Engine compartment has a lot of wires etc all roughly where they should be. I don’t see any evidence of rocker rust.

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October 28, 2009

Jaan’s write up of fixing the Sprint

I was checking out if Jaan made an update to his fantastic website Eddins Moto and what should I find but a pretty in depth write-up of what he did to my Sprint the week before the California Melee. Check it out here. You have to scroll down some, but you’ll find it starting with the picture I posted below. The attention he gave it must have worked because I’ve been driving it to work every day without any trouble -well, a headlight burned out recently, but that’s not really trouble.

Sprint hanging around the shop waiting for some attention.

October 27, 2009

Market 158: Interim 750E Sprint Veloce project

Update 11/11/09: This car was relisted and sold for $11,500 with 1 bidder. This is a little more like it for a Veloce.

Update 11/6/09: 21 bids, $7300, reserve not met. I am a little surprised by this. Veloce’s are usually at a premium. Maybe the reality of trying to track down all the required stuff to restore it has dampened the usual fervor. We’ll see it again I suppose.

Giulietta Sprint Veloce 750E 1493*11014. This car is on eBay right now out of -you guessed it- Newport Beach California. I’m pretty sure this is a car that was on Craigslist recently and the seller, a guy I know from buying a 1750 for my SS before I found the 00121 1600, decided he would let a pro list it and get all the money for it. The original engine would have been one of the last 1315*3xxxx Veloce engines, but I suspect it would have had 40DCOE 2’s at this point as they had been out for a while. Anyone have a Sprint Veloce from this series 1493*11001 – 11101 or a Spider Veloce 750F between 1495*05620 – 07213 that has 40DCO3’s?

Nose is in good shape. You can clearly see here how Bertone used lead to fill out the body shape . Bumper, grills and headlight rings all look good.

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October 25, 2009

69 GTV go over: creature comforts coming together

If you’ve been following this thread you know I have the dash out of the GTV and an aim to make the car somewhat pleasurable to drive in the coming cold months. In this spirit I decided to remove the heater unit and clean it up. The wires to the fan motor were disconnected so I had a fear that, like the wiper motor, a PO discovered the motor was frozen with rust and simply unplugged it.

Removing the heater is easy enough, it is held by 4 8mm nuts that thread onto studs under the dash bulkhead that also act as grounding points for the dash and heater circuits. Once these nuts are removed you have to disconnect the heater hoses and either disconnect it from or bring it out together with the heater control sliders and cables.

You can see here that I decided to bring the control cables out with the heater unit. You can also see that the foam gasket that seals the heater intake against the bulkhead is pretty rotten. I’ll replace this with some weatherstripping meant for camper shell to truck bed edge sealing. Also note the cosy nest in here.

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October 22, 2009

GTV and Fiat: pleasing two mistresses…

I am making progress towards simplification, but some of these simplifying measures are turning out to be quite complex -the Fiat engine swap for example. I mentioned recently that I bought an 1800 TC out of a late 70’s 124 Spider to put in the Sedan. Last weekend I took possession of said engine after an hour and a half helping easing it out of the Spider -a tip for all you aspiring 1800 TC removalists, drop the steering centerlink so the flywheel can clear it! Suddenly I have a somewhat long, but not really very expensive list of Fiat parts to procure if I want this engine to fall into place. I think I have a package deal coming together so maybe this wont be so bad. I guess I’ll be the FIAT 124 twin cam in a pushrod car swap expert in a week or two.

Hard to believe how much engine you can get for $250. This thing sounded and ran good with no smoke, is clean and not much bigger (they basically share a block) than the pushrod motor it’s going to replace. Note fancy wrinkle finish on the belt cover. I like.

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October 20, 2009

Market 156: Giulia SS 380642 in Italy

Giulia Sprint Special 10121*380642. While perusing their garden of arcane delights I found this announcement on Anamera of Coys intent to auction this Padova Italy based car. Estimated selling price is 38,000 Euro’s or $56,700 of our recently depressed US dollars. I would call this near retail for a nice SS that is not really perfect but doesn’t have much in the way of wants.

It’s always tough to judge these cars because even the slightest deviation from a perfectly head on picture makes them look a little asymetric. Drivers side corner of this car looks ever so slightly lower than passenger corner and all it takes to cause this is an odd reflction. It’s all part of the hand made charm. Bright work is all present and pretty good, though I would guess the headlights are mismatched in some way -whether age or brand. Where in Italy is GR? Continue reading “Market 156: Giulia SS 380642 in Italy”