Tag: Classic cars

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Berlina project part 3: success!

My dad was in town and to keep him busy I brought him to the shop with me on Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago. We spent most of the time talking about the best approach and after one false start got the engine and transmission to mate up. Not an easy job when you leave the transmission in the car. Dropping the front swaybar turned out to be the trick to make two faces parallel. Once it was in I probably spent more time trying to find the correct bolts to bolt the motor mounts down than I did installing the engine.

Two successive afternoons the following week I put all the pieces together and to my amazement it fired right up. I didn’t want to try and retrofit the early 60’s 1600 Veloce airbox (though it probably would have looked very cool) so I traded it for the Euro airbox seen here. I spent $11 more than I paid for the car on a bag of parts from a local dealer including a new oil pressure send unit to put the finishing touches on the assembly part of the project.

Here it is in all its glory. I traded a late ‘scalloped with tabs’ valve cover for the smooth unit seen here with the 90 degree breather to match the airbox. Note the high out-put alternator from a late 80’s spider.

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101 1300 rebuild for Giulietta Sprint part 1: Out with the new, in with the old

If you have followed the Berlina recommission posts you know my plan was to pull the 1750 out of the Sprint, put it in the Berlina and then drop the original 101 1300 into the Sprint. A slight complication was revealed on Saturday when, while the sun dried the gas out of the Fiat gas tank, I set to work preparing the 1300 for its new (old) home. It seemed like a good idea to open the engine up enough to at least check the bores, a main bearing or two and the combustion chambers to establish a baseline of its condition.

It turned out that the spark plugs being out of the holes for 13 years (only 2 in my keeping…) allowed moisture to attack the bores and rings. I tried to hone one of the liners but wasn’t happy with the result. Oh well, piston and liner sets are not too expensive, but do I go for the 1300 normale 9.1:1, veloce 10:1 or a 1400 kit or really punch it out and go for the Conrero spec 1500? Time to fish through my wallet!

The business end of a Giulietta 1300. All and all pretty clean in here. Someone decided polishing the crank was the way to go. Note 101 1300 Nomales have the dip in the block side for the close in oil filter.

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Fiat centoventiquattro ongoing fix it again

Ahhhh yes. You think things are going your way but really the elements are conspiring against you. Within an hour of making the Berlina run I get a call from the better half. “Uh… I smell gas strong in the Fiat.”

“Where are you?”

“Right in front of work.”

“Where is it coming from? trunk? Engine compartment?” I am already pulling the gas tank out in my mind

If you’re reading this blog you’ve experienced this sort of thing. That night I spot a puddle forming under the passenger side rear corner below where the gas tank lives. Great.

There is dirt, there is gunk and a spaghetti of fuel lines and wires but no reason for the bottom of the gas tank to have rusted out.

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72 Berlina revival part 2

I don’t know if I should start this by saying I’m ahead or behind. I thought it would take me a few weeks to get the 1750 out of the Sprint and into the Berlina, but I guess I thought wrong. I will admit that taking a full time job, hosting my dad for a week, going out of town for most of the weekends between buying this car and my birthday a few weeks ago and other everyday life interruptions have played a part in retarding my progress, but I’ll also say hey, it is coming along. I’m in no danger of selling this thing on eBay in 20 years after cowering in the corner of procrastination.

To the point. Once I got the engine out of the Sprint it required a bunch of parts change over to prepare it for its new life in the Berlina. The biggest job was swapping the oil pan and pump. The second biggest job was cleaning it up after leaking around the rear main seal and valve cover gasket heavily over the last 20,000 miles in the Sprint.

I had never replaced an Alfa oil pump before this. The bull-nose or whatever you want to call it oil pan requires a specific oil pump. That’s the 1300 in the background that is going in the Sprint when all this Berlina hootenany is done.

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Market #51: 1964 Sprint rally/race car

Our friends over at bring a trailer have this car on offer from a collection in Southern California.  If it’s a 1964 it’s probably a Giulia 1600 Sprint.  The car is reported to have been a French market car which means it probably had a few oddities like a glass brake fluid bottle when it was new.  Alfa and Renault had a deal worked out that reduced the import tax on Alfa’s and allowed Alfa to make Dauphines and R4’s in Italy.  I’ll explore this relationship in a later post. 

This car looks like a pretty straight, lightly modified, used but not abused car that would clean up nicely and make a great driver.  Asking price is $30,000 which seems optimistic, but a trip to Orange County may find this car to be better than it appears and it probably has excellent provenance from its time on the track.

The absence of the egg-crate grills on this car makes it look tough.  I’d put some Cibie Oscars on either side of the grill heart.  All the visible trim and shut lines look good.  I like the orangy-red and would look forward to cleaning and polishing this car if I bought it.

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2008 Andrew Watry Berlina Tour

Andrew Watry, keeper of the Giulietta Berlina, Giulia Sedan and Berlina registers, began putting together a Fall Berlina tour a few years back to encourage local Alfa Berlina owners to hit the backroads and exercise their often overlooked Alfa Sedans.  Well, with appreciation for Alfa sedans at an all time high (especially for the Giulia TI and Super) and Andrew welcoming all comers so long as they’re driving an appropriately interesting or old car, the event has grown.

Stopped for a photo op on Redwood road. 

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Market #50: Al Leake’s 57 Monoposto Spider race car

Update 2/11/09: This car just showed up on Anamera advertising that it will be auctioned by RM.  They are looking for $125,000.

95a9ec9425How much mark up does a detailing add?  Someone is going to find out!

213965f39dThis is one sweet ride.  Knowing me, if it were mine I’d commute in it.

Ex-Al Leake 1957 Giulietta Spider ‘Monoposto’ 1495*02646, Engine 00106*00512. This is a pretty serious purpose-built race car and it is available right now from Fantasy Junction. Click on the link if for no other reason than to look at the 50 or so pictures provided. No price is stated but Sophia, his most often raced Giulietta Spider made about $75,000 on eBay last winter so you can bet that this car will be at least that much.

Al Leake along with some other guys including H.B. Luginbuhl had an SCCA race team that started in the late 60’s/early 70’s called Rubber Chicken racing. Al continued to race and build Alfa’s for many years until he lost a battle with cancer earlier this year. A little of his history and cars can be read here on the Alfa BB. I saw Al race a few times at Sears Point and Laguna Seca and I can personally attest that he was very very fast and that this car is capable of winning against seemingly faster and more nimble cars if well driven.

It’s refreshing to see a modern era vintage race car that is both fiercely competitive and tastefully presented. I like the contrasting white wheels and cut down windscreen. A lot of Giulietta Spider race cars lose the under door trims, eyebrow trims and even grill heart. If you are fast this eight pounds of jewelry isn’t going to keep you from winning.

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Market #48: 2L 57 Sprint revisited

Sold!  $23,102 is the winning bid after 16 bids.  I think this is the best price this car has acheived yet.  Will its reign of terror end or will we be seeing it again on eBay?  Time will tell.

Giulietta Sprint 750B 1493*04891 with 105 2 liter engine ‘AbNormale‘.  This car has been for sale since before I bought my first Sprint a couple of years ago and can presently be found on eBay.  I featured this car and another by the same seller in Market 26 and it doesn’t look like much has changed with this car.

You have to admit this car photographs well.  It’s straight, the trim is all present and it has a slightly agressive look to the way it sits.  Smaller 6 inch headlights are neat feature of these early Sprints.

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Market #47: Restored Austrian Giulia SS

This 1964 Giulia SS is available here and here out of Austria.  I seem to remeber this car from somewhere else, but haven’t had time to go through my files to see.  No price is listed on Anamera and price is listed as inquire on the sellers website so it’s a safe bet they want top dollar for the car, maybe 50K Euro’s?

Very nice backdrop for a photo set.  Greens in the background really bring out the lustrous red body.  I don’t see anything wrong here.  That’s quite a billboard they put out front.

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Market #46: Sprint project in CT with 00121 Veloce engine

Update 9/17/08.  Reserve not met at $5101 with 35 bids.  I made a pretty good estimate of the closing price this time and would have won big if this was ‘The Price is Right’.  I think the seller should take this amount.  This car needs a lot of expensive work and even though it has the later Veloce engine it will only in the end ever be an ‘Abnormale’ and not worth as much as a genuine unmolested matching-number example, which for these Normale 101’s is probably going to be south of $20,000 for a long time except for really choice examples.  Look for the string of disappointing follow up auctions…

Giulietta Sprint Normale 10105 1493*21372, Engine AR 00121*01522 (not original).  This 1959 Sprint is available now on eBay with a low starting bid.  Engine is a 1600 101 Veloce unit out of either a Spider Veloce or Sprint Speciale.  Connecticut is in the part of the country you normally associate with rusty cars but this car looks to be as free of rot as described.  I guess 34 years in dry storage paid off.

From this angle it doesn’t so bad other than a few scrapes and bumps.  Most trim is present and jacking points look good.

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