Tag: Alfa Romeo

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Sprint to Berlina engine swap advances: Part 1 of Sprint engine rebuild and Berlina revival.

After I picked up the new windshield for the Berlina in Berkeley I headed down to the shop to finish the pulling portion of the job.

I am new to pulling and dropping in engines so I probably spent way too much time thinking about it compared to just doing it. I decided to pull the transmission from below due to the tight fit of the 1750 in the Sprint, which turned out to be a good idea, though difficult. To pull the transmission the tunnel opening cover has to be removed along with both shift boots (and a whole bunch of stuff on the underside). It took about an hour to get the right angle and grip on it but eventually the trans slid free of the main shaft. I put a tire under it so if it got loose unexpectedly it wouldn’t hurt itself crashing on the cement floor.

I hated pulling up the nicely glued in carpet but there was no getting around it. The cover had two Philips and two slotted screws, nice touch. The boot you see here is what keeps you from smelling gear oil when you drive. Stinky stuff.

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Market #36: Very Rough 1600 SS

Update: This car (11/18/08) is now offered for 1012 Euro.  Next thing you know this car will be free if you are willing to get a tetanus shot and show up with a trailer.  I know of a similar car locally that, in addition to being this rusty, was hit HARD in the front, that recently changed hands for the price of a tow.  Someday for this car?  I hope so…

The opening bid of $5413.80 (3500 Euro) will probably buy you this challenging SS rusty shell project that is currently on Italian eBay. Of course what do you do with something like this? From the pictures, I’d say half of the car would have to be rebuilt from panel sections and fabricated from scratch. Lets not forget glass… doors… trim…

This is kind of what I expected to arrive when my SS came, but I spent less than this and got more than I was hoping of the trim and glass. Drivers side headlight opening is funky among other things. Steering box should be present, a small plus.

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Market #35: Black plate Sprint Veloce Confortevole project

Sold! $19,340. Deutschland, here it comes. Well, it is eBay, so we wont know until a few weeks pass without it reappearing if it actually sold.  I was kind of thinking $20,000 would be the tipping price between a good buy and a good sale, so for what it’s worth I owe myself a t-shirt.  Greig, you were the only entrant in my guess the final price contest so I guess I owe you a T-shirt either way.  Hopefully I’ll get to them in our life-time.

Sprint Veloce ‘Confortevole’ 1493E*06481, engine 1315*30972. I am starting to think that Michael at Fast Cars of California has a endless hoard of Giulietta projects, mainly Sprints. Today’s offering is a 1958 Giulietta Sprint Veloce Confortevole project that apparently spent 15 years with weeds growing through its trunk. The car is complete and basically sound but requires (and deserves) a full restoration.

Pretty much all there and ready to come apart. Nose has been where it ought not have been and has lots of little dents to show for the experience. Grill ‘eyebrows’ can be had.

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Market #33: Giulietta Spider… Veloce?… Veloce!

Reserve not met! Auction ended the second time around at $9100, I guess the repeated listing curse has struck.  I imagine the seller will regroup, make some small changes to the car then relist it in a few months when the general public has forgotten about it.

Relisted: The car is back on ebay due to a non-paying high bidder. The seller has added to the description a scan of a response from the Alfa Romeo Archive stating without caveat that the car is a Giulietta Spider Veloce. Will a relist with solid documentation take this auction higher than the first selling price or will the eBay repeated listing low-price curse strike? I anticipate the former. Veloces are special and with a little, ok, well, a lot of work this car will be fantastic.

Update: Car sold for $14,100 which is at the lower end of my speculation, but considering the expense of getting a 750 Veloce engine together this is probably a good price. As always, we’ll see if the sale sticks. I am thinking Sprints might be more popular than Spiders right now based on recent eBay results.

Giulietta Spider 10125 1495*(F)10203, Engine 1315*44059 (not original). This car is available now on eBay, another neat Giulietta project from the seller in Newport Beach who sold several of the Sprints I have written about. This car is being sold as a Veloce and has several physical characteristics of a Veloce but based on the numbers there is some legitimate doubt as to whether it is truly a Veloce.

There are a lot of VERY enthusiastic Alfa people out there whose primary interest and first love are Giulietta Spider’s, especially Veloce’s, and if you are seriously considering this car and looking for guidance, you may want to check out the AlfaBB (link is to a discussion of this car) or join the 750/101 Yahoo group to track some of them down and get their opinions.

This Spider almost looks like a wax and go in this picture. Dent in the nose is not too bad and it doesn’t seem to have affected the trim which all looks pretty good. I like the baby blue.

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Berlina recommission becomes Sprint originalization plan

I’ve been thinking about what I want out of the Berlina and how best to achieve it. I want a daily commuter that gets as close to 30mpg as possible with plenty of torque and top end. I have been pondering the quickest, cheapest and easiest approach to getting this out of the Berlina and I think I figured it out yesterday after an hour long session going back and forth between a catalog and an Excel spreadsheet followed by a call to my local used Alfa parts supplier. I’m going to pull the carburetted 1750 that is in my 1959 Sprint out and put it in the Berlina then put the original 1300 back in the Sprint.

What a mess! You can see from this picture why I was keen to freshen up the engine bay on the Sprint. An hour of work and I’m ready to crawl under the car to disconnect the transmission.

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Giulia Super chases BMW Neu klasse video

If you ever wondered what it would have been like if ‘Streets of San Francisco’ had a sister show in Italy then wonder no more. This Maurizio Merli clip from the early 70’s is pretty tough, with all the obligatory car chase moves including avoiding baby-stroller pushing pedestrians, crashing through a flower stand and kicking out a broken windshield. Awesome! Maybe the Berlina needs to be Italian Police spec.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYcbgBpMYXE&feature=related]

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1959 Sprint gets new (old) seats

When I bought the 1959 Giulietta Sprint a few years back the PO had installed Duetto round tail Spider seats in it.  I never really learned to like them so when a pair of unknown Italian, probably Alfa Romeo or Fiat seats in good shape for $300 came up for sale on Craigslist I decided to go for it and bought them. 

There were no seat tracks included and one seat had a rusted bolt broken off in the base but other than that they were in original and very nice condition.  I pulled the Duetto seats out and sold them to a friend which turned out to be a mistake because it didn’t occur to me that the track widths of the seats could be different than the car.  Last weekend, a year after removing the Spider seats, I finally got both seats neatly and permanently mounted. 

“Fabricato Dalla Suardi Francesco & Figlio, VIA BINDA N 20, TEL. 470-412, MILANO.”  Anyone know anything about these people?

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