Classic Alfa Forums

Hey Shrew, they look superb.
I have always loved the design of those wheels.
Kev needs to print off a photo of them to stick on the workshop wall. love 'em.

Thanks Keith


The hard work is yet to come, but its nice to get to this stage anyway.

The stock wheels as i'm sure you know, have the rim and inward short spokes polished, well, diamond cut originally bit i sadly don't have one of those machines up my sleeve, and at £60/£70 a wheel at a guy i know who does have a machine, its gonna have to be done the old fashioned way

bugger the picture Keith, I'll nail one to the wall



just gotta find a few mins to build up a car to fit them on

Nice work shrew . They look great

Just catching up on your progress Kev - Impressive as ever - Well Done!

progress has been slow of late phil, hope it improves a bit now as really do need to at least get it welded this summer.

on that end and with an in between situation with the other cars on the go at the moment I took the opportunity to have an hour or two down at jims on the integrale.

assessed the front panel, how to go about it, and we came up with a plan which should work nicely. Jim pointed me into a slightly different way of doing it than i'd planned but I think it'll work better his way

did then get a bit of welding done to the floor section where the sill will go, a bit of repairs to the strengthener where the central jacking point goes, a bit more repair to the central sill

at the moment I've tools and equipment spread out all over the place, some of it here at home, some at jims, more at my unit and even more at work. I need to either cut out the locations or get one big one!



rob's imp is going up to my little unit this Saturday for extensive welding, my time will be split between the imp and 'grale for a little while. until the parts arrive for the fulvia at any case

a quick visit to the 'grale this afternoon.

got the wing off on the drivers side, not as bad down at the bottom of the pillar, plenty of scope for repairs around the strut top
finished off repairing the central sill and also reinforced inside the cavity where the front jacking point is

then I ran out of welding wire, idiot!

been on my mind for a while that I need to get a spare spool but never got around to it....

this was followed by a clap or two of thunder and what is very unseasonal for almost May....a big drop in temperature and hail followed by snow!!
I took the hint then and packed up for the day

barely worth going but at least it keeps things ticking along...

10 out of 10 Kev for drive.
Didn't see any of the white stuff here mate. Still cold but a bit of blue and some sun this afternoon. Had hail yesterday.
Better check your gas while you are at it.

Hi Kev. Have found you a good length of rope rather than the twine I have spotted you lifting engines with.

If you want it PM me your address and I will post it over to you. Don't want easily avoidable accidents and need to keep your threads going.

lol.
I haven't any big rope at the moment mate, but I have no need for it for a while.

next time we meet up it'd be appreciated

tidied the shed out a little this morning and came across the box full of the headlight parts so whilst just fiddling around I thought i'd paint and re-assemble them.

first job was to clean down the backing plates a bit more then give them a coat of hammerite
the plastic headlight surrounds were next to be cleaned up of years worth of grime and slime, quite grubby and green in places

with all that lot drying off in the sun I sorted through the headlights to find the best ones to use, getting all the little clips ready to fit onto the adjusters as some had broken and some were missing on the new units. thankfully I had enough, not easy to find correct new ones

with a bit of 'bike racing to catch up with on TV and a general relaxed bank holiday sunday to slow things down I let stuff settle down.

later on this afternoon the backing plates had dried enough to be handled without leaving imprints, so why not build them up..
the passenger side dip light is a new old stock one i'd bought but the glass lenses wasn't glued in, a seam of my favourite bonder that's incredibly strong has soon sorted the problem
tomorrow i'll build that side up then they go go up in the loft for safe keeping until they're needed

quiet of late with the integrale, done a little bit of welding but so much else going on I've not got much done at all to the car

had an hour or so to myself this afternoon and with the impending arrival of paul's 33 doors for repair I thought i'd better make some space in the shed as the 'grale engine has been sat on the engine stand for months
the timing belt end contains the cam-belt of course but also the balance shaft belt, similar to how alfa did it later on with the twin-spark motor
turbo, manifolds etc removed and the head is off
a bit of a lip in the bores so will have to get it measured, contemplating getting a rebore and searching out some forged pistons....future proof it against any increases in boost etc
mission accomplished, the lot will now fit under the bench out of the way whilst I search out parts and make my mind up what direction to go whilst being able to get the 33 doors mended

another jumbled up afternoon, this time the integrale got some welding finished off.

I'd had to rebuild the suspension mounting point and chassis rail section at the rear, the jacking point had already had two previous attempts to make it useable before by how much metal had to be chopped out but now it's all solid again complete with jacking point made up from 3mm steel

so now the central sill and everything else that sits inside the sill cavity has been rebuilt the time finally came to fit the outer sill.
these came with the car and are a decent shape, just not the full step sill so need to be joined with a joggled section

I use these cleco fasteners which are perfect at holding the overlapped panels together as it's impossible to get any clamps that are long enough to travel half way down a sill !
the sill tacked into place along the top edge, bottom edge got a combination of spot welds, plug welds and tacks
sill all ground smooth, cleaned up and given a coat of protective primer

been doing a few bits to the car, more than is listed here in fact, I seem to have been uploading updates to my workshop projects thread

so, back to this thread.
as described before I had chopped off the front lower cross-member and repaired the second-hand one to be ready for fitting..

after a bit of checking and double checking plus a helpful tug with a ratchet strap the welding could start
the ends of the chassis rails should really join up to the cross-member but there is a bit of fresh air to fill in...this is what remained of the o/s lower end, a good 4" short...
a section of 2mm steel was cut to fit butt weld up against the original chassis, needed to be flush as the engine mounting plate fits against this area
a couple of little areas tidied up then some etch zinc rich primer
the inside will need quite a bit of re-creating but it won't need to be as accurate so using strong steel is ok, not so easy to shape but much more stronger

other side filled in on the inner face, nice and solid now without doing the meaty pieces

gonna try to keep it ticking along now, do an hour or two after work a few more nights after work. car is in serious danger of stalling....
gotta study a few pix to see where goes where on the inner face, was all fresh air so hard to know! plastic arch liner will help

Coming together nicely Kev

as the motogp was on a bit later I thought i'd make some more progress, try and keep things moving and all that..

the drivers side cross-member/chassis end area had a fair bit of corrosion to sort out but also had a few holes in the inner wing which didn't hurt really as a large slice could be taken out making access a bit easier

a section under the headlight wasn't great towards the edge of the front panel so that got chopped out and a new patch welded in
filling in the rest of the box section with some 1.6mm steel, much easier to to shape than the 2mm stuff but still takes some beating into submission
as can be seen in the above picture the rot in the chassis end was chopped away revealing the pair of tubes that line the bolts for the engine mounting bracket

a plate was made up with a fair few folds and importantly it sleeved over the tubes to be welded through
a few plug welds, some seams and the chassis has it's strength back
a bit of grinding but no need to get carried away then some protective zinc etch, it'll get seam sealed at some point. higher up was a handy hole i'd cut in ready to be welded up so plenty of etch got blasted in

Coming together a treat Kev.
Bit of seam sealer and stone chip and you will never know.

with the aim being to keep things ticking along I tackled the inner wing last night

i'd already cut a plate to length and put the curve in it at the weekend as the shrinker was up at the unit just had to fold the front flange then joggle the edge where it met the original metal before welding it all in, on top and underneath.
only a quick trip after work so etched it after grinding back and left it to tonight to finish it off..

so tonight the plate i'd started to make up to close the end in got all the holes drilled ready for the plug welds (spot welder is up at the unit or that'd have been easier..) and shaped to have a folded bottom edge to match the original and be right for butt welding to the original.
just about it for that corner, seam seal to go over every joins, etch has been blown into and space where it can creep into joined sections

last little job was the bumper mounting bracket which has a bit of rot where the arch liner fixing goes.

usual process, chop a big hole with the grinder then weld a new bit of metal in little hole shows where the square mounting point will go

i'll dip the whole thing in the electrolysis tank tomorrow then etch it, kill off all the little flecks of rust for good
day off work tomorrow but no progress for the 'grale, imp will get some more done to it. can't wait until I finally get everything in one place!

Done a really nice job of that mate.
Once again, top work.

cheers mate.

always a juggling act between making progress and trying to repair it fairly accurately, I usually end up on the having to show some sort of progress for given time spent side of the fence

I can accept a little flexibility in repairs especially in the hidden areas, hope to use the car one day

the passenger side wasn't quite as bad, but still needed a fair portion chopping out from below the headlight mount area and inner wing where all the crud had gathered and let rust set in.
although the front panel section didn't clean up too bad it was a bit thin so I cut the whole section out to clean metal
with a big gap to fill a big plate was made up, again in the thicker steel which makes it harder to fold but makes for a much stronger repair section
plug welded with some seams for luck

as ever, if the time isn't put in then the projects tend to stall...

so with the imp coming along nicely and winter approaching it's time to make an effort to get things moving again.

as the front cross member is now fully welded in place it seemed time to test out how strong it was and jack up the front of the car, happy to say no flexing or creaking
the whole point of moving the car from resting on its wheels was to asses the corrosion to the strut top area
with the strut off I could better see what I am dealing with...
hoping to get down there tomorrow for an hour or two after work and finish off the lower floor/jacking point area.

the strut top I'm still toying with repairing or replacing...

Ouch more tin worm . Will you be making new strut towns or can you buy those ?

not sure yet JB, a guy I've bought bits off before in Denmark reckons he's maybe got a decent used panel, should know this weekend. if not it'll be a repair job...

Hopefully he's got a panel.save you some work chap

Johnboy wrote:Hopefully he's got a panel.save you some work chap

yes, fingers crossed.

Hi Kev,
I saw your comment on forged Pistons. You probably know about this website but just in case you don't you can get some great kit here

https://deltaparts1.wordpress.com/delta ... ale-parts/

485bhp out of an 8v integrale engine!

That's Turbos and intercoolers for you!

All the best,
Simon

Marlow Sud wrote:Hi Kev,
I saw your comment on forged Pistons. You probably know about this website but just in case you don't you can get some great kit here

https://deltaparts1.wordpress.com/delta ... ale-parts/

485bhp out of an 8v integrale engine!

That's Turbos and intercoolers for you!

All the best,
Simon

Had seen the website Simon, good results indeed.

In fact I was approached by them to do some welding on an integrale for them this Summer but the timing was just so wrong. One day I'll get my act together enough.....