TIx Restoration Project

[vecchioalfa]

Thanks for the pictures guys

Looks like there are a few different styles of sticker then !

Any more of you got an original one ? I have a feeling on the cars with a boot i.e. pre hatchback the sticker was in the boot

Yes Series 1 cars had the paint code decal on the inside of the bootlid, all the series 1 cars I have every owned have always had either Magneti Marelli or Ducellier ignition coils, never a Bosch so it must be the SIII car that had Bosch coils maybe, anyone got a SI car with a Bosch coil?

[KevJTD]

pretty sure the bosch coils went with the electronic ignition systems of the S3 cars, as vecchio says. early cars like mine were still on points

we have an S1 rear boot at the unit, will try and have a look this weekend to see what sticker is on it, a beige colour if memory serves...

[alfasuddriver]

A small job done today was to make 10 square holes and 2 round holes in the new left sill panel for the sill moulding clips & wax holes

Did not think it would take too long but was nearly 2 hours in the end after lots of measuring from the other side and the remaining bit of cut off sill that I had kept so help with this job - another step closer to going to paint !

sud 114.jpg

sud 115.jpg

It's amazing how time flies once you get going with these jobs isn't. How did you go about making the squares in cills? My Sud has new cills and I need to put the covers back, think I've got enough clips to do the job thankfully...

[Gary Orchard]

I made the holes by drilling a round hole and then using a small square file - as I had only fitted one new sill I had the original to refer to

The top row of holes are all the same distance apart - if you need the distance I can measure it on Monday for you

Also if you need some of the top square clips I think I will have some spares - not the bottom round clips as I only have the exact number of them myself - hope none break when it comes to refitting the trim

[KevJTD]

this is the sticker on the boot of the S1 sud ti, seem to remember john saying it was a '75 or '76 car.

[vecchioalfa]

That's the same as on my car Kev, may 1976. I think they may have varied a bit depending on who made the paint at the time, PPG / IVI etc.

[Gary Orchard]

Time for an update !

The shell went to be painted last Saturday - before it went has quite a few trial fits of all the panels and in the end I had to fit a new wing to the left front as well but not the new door - saved the original left door

Looking back at the pictures of the dent repair to the left front wing that was on the car I wonder now if the car has had a new wing before and it is a pattern wing - the primer is not the same as the rest of the car - it just would not fit properly to the front panel but as soon as I tried the new genuine wing it fitted fine - this was ok apart from having to then make all the holes in this wing as well and also strip it back to bare metal on the outside due to surface rust in storage

One thing I did notice on both the new wings and the bonnet and tailgate is that the new panels have the alfa logo stamped into them - this was not on any of the originals so maybe this was only on panels supplied as spare parts ?

Not sure if anyone ever made pattern bonnets or tailgates but if anyone is looking to buy a new wing and is not sure if it's a genuine one or not this may help

[Gary Orchard]

I have also tried to replicate the seam sealer on the new panels - seems like the factory were a bit mean with it though as the bonnet had 3 sides only done and the doors only the back edge - at least they did all the way round on the tailgate

Also did the lower lip of the sill on the left new sill and the back of the original right sill where it had been repaired with the seam sealer (forgot to take any pictures !)

Left front wing fitted on with nice even gaps now

All of the panels will be removed again for painting of the edges etc. but at least I know that they do fit now

All loaded up and ready to go - Shrew may recognise the trailer !

Good job last Saturday was a nice day and not raining as is was stressful enough hoping that the shell would not come off the dollies or move around too much on the trailer but it was all fine

While the shell is away I want to get all the mechanical parts overhauled so this will be started over the next few weeks

[Kegsti66]

Looking good Gary, any idea how long the body shop need the car for? Bet you can't wait for "the call".
She will look great with a nice fresh coat.

[vecchioalfa]

Nice job mate, good to see another car will soon be hitting the roads again

[Greencloverleaf pat]

Looking good.

[Gary Orchard]

Not too sure how long the bodyshop will have it - there was quite a few other projects in there when I dropped it off - 2 Ferrari 330's, a Testarossa, Jag XJ220, a very early Countach, 2 1960's Lotus F1 shells + a pre war Bugatti of some sort - nice to know the Sud is with some good company while it's away !

Had a couple of hours to spare tonight so decided to make a start on the engine - went from this

To this quite quickly

The inside of all the coolant passages look a bit rusty but no sludge or bits in the sump or on the oil pump foot and with a quick look at the bores and piston skirts all looks good so far

The inside of the sump has the paint coming off it a bit as you can see in the picture but is quite clean so looks like the oil had been regularly changed

I will get the pistons and crank out next week and have a measure of all the parts - the block will be cleaned up inside by a local engineering company to get rid of all the rust in the waterways and the radiator was damaged in the original accident so that needs to be renewed - a new set of hoses and a water pump + a flush of the heater matrix should get to cooling system healthy again

[PETROLHEAD]

great work and progress again,

good to see the trailer in good use again too

might as well roll the lot into the paint booth and give her a coat or two aswell eh?

[Gary Orchard]

Hi Shrew

Ian has done a few jobs on the trailer since he had it from you - new brake cables + painted the sides of it - was in action again over the weekend to get Ian's race car to Silverstone etc.

No time to work on my engine at all last week so I need to try and strip it fully this week

[Gary Orchard]

Bottom end of the engine is now fully stripped, all in good condition as far as I can see , slight wear marks on the big end shells but the main bearings and thrust washers are like new - I think these will be used again (will measure the wear fully but look ok to the eye)
Pistons and bores all look good , rings are getting near the wear limit so will fit a new set of them - apart from that just a good clean up and all new seals + gaskets
I did not expect to find any major faults as it had only done 33000 miles and sounded healthy before the car was stripped

Started on one of the cylinder heads tonight - dusted off a few old Alfa tools to help - does make life easier

The heads look good too - no corrosion to the water ways etc. and the surface is nice and flat

Then spent a couple of hours with the valve grinding stick - a bit tedious but satisfying now the valves are all lapped in

Another thing I am on the hunt for now is the engine lifting brackets that fix to the inlet manifolds - these always got taken off as it makes life much easier to check + adjust the valve clearances - I have thrown dozens of these away myself but can't find any in my collections of parts now which is typical
They fit in the upper holes as shown here with two 13mm bolts

Would be grateful of a pair now if anyone has them

[Gary Orchard]

Long overdue update !!

After a summer of not doing much on the car September was a busy month on the mechanical bits - over the next few days I will upload the pictures of what has been done - engine,gearbox and suspension are all near enough done now

I checked the thickness of both heads to make sure they were both the same - head gasket failure was quite common on the 95 bhp veloce engine and I have known just 1 head to be skimmed which then gives uneven compression and also corrosion of the heads around the valve seats can occur from coolant getting into the cylinders - in this case all was fine. I don't think the engine had ever been apart before as it still had they grey head gaskets which were the ones that failed - new newer ones were brown

All the valves were fine after being lapped in and no wear in the valve guides

New valve guide seals fitted from the new gasket set

More of the new parts that I have been keeping for this project !

[Kegsti66]

Great to hear things are moving along nicely Gary.
Will you show her when she is finished as your attention to detail is second to none.
We need to get a Sud on the winners table, I think Kev's was the last one.
Looking forward to the re-build.

[Johnboy]

Just catching up on this . Wow this is going to be cracker god I love the builds on this forum . If calsberg did car forums .....

[Gary Orchard]

Hi Keith - so long as it all comes together ok I will enter the AROC concours at least for the first year that it is finished - I will see how it goes after that as I don't want to spend too much time cleaning or worrying about using the car !

A few more pictures of the top end of the engine

Hopefully this will show how to make sure the valve springs are fitted properly - the coils are slightly different at one end where they are closer together - the closer together end of the spring should be fitted at the bottom i.e. touching the head - not the spring cap.

Also the cams were checked for any wear and also to check they were the right ones

The veloce cams have .5mm higher lift on the inlet side - in my case there is no wear on any of the lobes and they are the right ones and also the cam followers and housings are all in good condition.

New seals fitted to the housings using the proper tool which uses the cam pulley bolt to wind the seals into the housing keeping it square and making sure it it fits flush but not too far in

Next the bottom end

[Gary Orchard]

As the cooling system was a bit rusty inside when stripped I took all the core plugs out and then had the block hot chemically cleaned to remove as much as possible of the rust in all the water passages - also a "glaze buster" was lightly run in the bores to let the new piston rings bed in

The bores and the crank were measured and found to be well within the standard wear limits so after a good clean up all new bearings,piston rings and gaskets were used for the rebuild

Even though they were genuine Alfa parts I always check the bearing clearances before fitting using plastigauge first - for those of you who have never used it all you do is put a strip of the plastigauge into the bearing - then tighten up to the correct torque without any oil and also without turning the crank - then you undo the bearing again and check how much the plastigauge has been squashed

The wider the plastigauge the smaller the bearing clearance - I find this gives peace of mind that the measurement of the crank was correct - I once had a crank reground and was supplied the undersize bearings to go with it which turned out to be wrong, I did not check and the first time the engine started it was making a knocking noise so ever since then I always have double checked.
Not really needed but I also fitted a new set of big end bolts as I had some - if this was to be a competition engine then best to fit the 16 valve bolts or better still convert to take ARP competition type bolts as the originals are weak under load.

[Kegsti66]

Thanks Gary an interesting read and I think your thread will be a useful guide to future restos.
Looking forward to the rest of it and I am sure she will be a winner when completed .

[Alfasixnut]

Your attention to detail is second to none! Many thanks for sharing. Keep up the great work.

[Gary Orchard]

Last few checks before reassembly

New piston rings end gaps were checked with a feeler gauge - insert the rings one at a time into the bore and with the top of the piston push down about 1cm keeping the ring square in the bore - the maximum gap is 0.50 mm for a new ring

Then the new rings were fitted to the pistons - a tool like this makes this much easier and less chance of any damage to the piston when fitting

Double check the pistons are fitted the right way onto the con rods - the arrows on the piston crowns go in the direction of rotation of the engine i.e. the right bank (cylinders 1 & 3) face up and the left bank arrows face down

Then stagger the ring ends, lubricate, compress the rings and fit the pistons - the picture shows the best type of ring compressor I have ever used - It is a tapered sleeve and makes fitting very easy - no good for oversize pistons but great for standard size

One last picture that is much easier to do with the engine apart and makes a big difference to how the engine runs is to remove and clean the breather pipes in the inlet manifolds - these tend to get blocked and an easy check to see if they are blocked is with the engine running pull off the 4 small rubber pipes from the white plastic tee piece and see if you can feel suction on each of the rubber pipes - if not then these will need cleaning

The hole in the end is very small but makes a big difference to how the engine will idle if they get blocked

[Gary Orchard]

Got a big pile of bits back from being zinc plated a while ago so thought it was about time to get the engine finished over the holidays

I did find 2 engine lifting brackets in the end

Fitted the new water pump and pulleys onto the crankshaft yesterday

Then today fitted the rebuilt heads and put the timing belts on

Then set the valve clearances and you can see why the lifting brackets get taken off as they get in the way when using the tool to check the clearances

Not too much left to do now but every time I put on a new or re-plated part it then makes some of the other original bits look shabby !

[KevJTD]

loving the zinc coating mate, really makes it look the part.
think i'll gather a load of parts together for the 'grale and have them done

[Kegsti66]

Looking fantastic Gary.
Any news from the body shop ?
Thanks.

[alfachris]

The plated bits look good. How's the bodywork going?

[Gary Orchard]

I was very pleased with the zinc plating - it was done by a company called Collins Chemical Blacking who are in Carshalton,Surrey - good service and reasonable prices so I would recommend them

I spoke to the bodyshop this week - they say it should be done by the middle of Febuary so I how this will give me enough time to get it on the road this year

The gearbox is a bit like the engine - nearly finished !

Most of the job was done a few months ago now but need to fit the sump back on now that it has come back from being powder coated

I wanted to renew all the seals and gaskets and have a look inside - did not expect to find many fault at the low mileage covered and that was the case

There was a bit of wear on the 2nd gear syncro so that was renewed but all the other syncros and bearings were fine

New syncro ring ready to be fitted

To fit the big circlip on the top of the gear has to be removed and then fit the new syncro ring - quite an easy job so long as you have a big pair of circlip pliers as the clips are strong !

[Gary Orchard]

The output shaft seals were both replaced but to get the shafts apart you do need a special puller to remove the locking ring (and also the speedo drive gear on the right side shaft)

The tool screws onto the locking ring and then you wind in the handle to pull the locking ring off

The ring on the right is the locking ring and this is the right side shaft with the speedo drive which is the gear on the left

Stripped and cleaned/checked and ready for the new seal to be fitted

Then the new seal is fitted to the housing and then all fitted back together again using a press

Looking forward now to the body coming back so all these nice clean bits can start to be fitted back together again

[Gary Orchard]

At last some good news from the body shop !!

Today the shell was being flatted and polished - not too flat as I have tried to replicate the original factory paint with a bit of "peel"

All the shell and the doors are now painted - just the bonnet and the tailgate to paint now

Then all the cavity wax etc. will be done and then the fun bit of putting it all back together again