Q's House of Speed

A Hot Detour

2009-11-28T16:27:00.001-08:00

So, after reinstalling the carpet, it was time to get back to the original source of trouble - the heater core assembly.

You may recall that I removed the heater core because it was leaking coolant fluid into the pedal area. This is bad - it can lead to my feet getting scalded, but worse, the pedals would get wet and slippery. Not something you want while pressing the brakes to stop and avoid hitting the guy in front...

To repair the leak, I removed the complete heater assembly, and tore it apart. The heater core itself is a small radiator-like heat exchanger, which heats up air with engine coolant. It looked in good shape, but I had it rebuilt and serviced, just in case. I also removed and replaced the valve that controls flow of coolant to the heater core, which is another potential source of leaks.

From Q's House of Speed

As for the rest of the assembly, it is mostly built of plastic, with a pair of metal doors that open and close in order to guide hot air through the heater core, and out to either the car floor (heater mode) or to the front windshield (defrost mode.) A pair of levers control these flaps. Both flaps were rusty, so I cleaned them up and derusted them using Evapo-Rust rust remover. I then applied some primer and a couple of coats of black Rust Oleum spray paint. This should help keep any new rust from developing.

From Q's House of Speed

The top of the box has a rubber gasket that seals and isolates the whole unit. In my case, there was no gasket, so I had to make one of closed-sell foam rubber material. Simple enough.

So, after all this prep work, the box was reassembled, and made ready for installation. The only problem was this: reinstalling the box requires access to bolts that are impossible to reach once the box is in place - unless you remove the dashboard. I also think that, with all the new insulation in place, the carpet is a bit raised, and does not provide enough room for the box to be installed into place - unless you remove the dashboard.

Sigh....

You know where this is going, right?

Carpet and Insulation

2009-11-28T16:13:00.000-08:00

So, with the third brake light installed, I was ready for installing the carpet.

Recall that I removed the carpet in order to replace the interior insulation, which was very grungy and smelly. After installing all of the new insulation, it was time to replace the carpet.

From Q's House of Speed

This is pretty straightforward - just spread the carpet inside the car again. The tricky part is getting the side door sills to install correctly. To do this, one needs to reinstall the rubber trim around the doors. For some reason, the rubber trim seems to have shrunk a bit, and it would not fit all around the door sill. Further, it seems to be too thick, and it is very hard to slip into the groove onto which it fits. After a bit of struggle, I was able to get it close, but it still gets in the way of closing the door.

Sigh...

The door sill themselves were easy to install, though.

The carpet does not smell bad anymore. Which is a good thing. Next up - reinstall the heater box, seats, belts, and the car would be ready to go. Little did I know...

A Light Detour - Part 3

2009-11-28T15:50:00.001-08:00

So I mentioned earlier that I was thinking of installing a third brake light on the car. The idea is to make it more obvious to other drivers when I am braking. I figured a third light would make things a bit safer for me. This is not necessarilly for the purists, since third brake lights probably had not been invented by 1974, and if they were, well, no one used them.

From Q's House of Speed

I ordered an LED third brake light from Daniel Stern Lighting. Mr. Stern seems to be fairly knowledgeable about car lighting, Plus, he stocks LED-based tail lights, which seem to work well on other cars I see on the road. There are various kits, depending on how steeply angled the car's rear window is. I picked kit XXXX, which seemed to match well with the Alfa's rear window.

The kit itself includes the third brake light, and some accessories to tap into the car's existing brake light wiring. It also comes with some fairly simple instructions. I tapped into the brake light wiring from the wire harness inside the car - the wiring to the stop lights run under the carpet, on the drivers side of the car. Since I had most of the carpetting and interior out of the car, this was simple. I then routed the wire through the trunk, and up to the light itself.

The light itself is taped to the rear window with an included adhesive decal, which you paste into the window, then paste the light assembly onto it. It is very simple stuff. The only thing about the decal is its ugly "Hella" logo. A nicer, flat black, unlogoed decal would have been nicer, but I figured it won't matter so much anyways.

Pressing the brake pedal now produces the typical three-light signal we are all used to by now. It looks bright enough, too, so I am hoping my chances of being rear-ended while driving the Alfa have been decreased a bit.

A Light Detour, part 2

2009-06-19T22:31:00.001-07:00

Before installing all the interior carpeting I wanted to install a third brake light. I figure this will make things a bit safer by providing better warning to folks when braking. However, while doing all this, I realized I really wanted to get rid of the rear speakers (which were cheapo/ugly units) and all the assorted wiring. After all, I did not have a radio installed anymore, and they were useless.

So, while removing the rear speakers I noticed things might be a bit simpler if I removed the complete rear deck. Removing it was simple - there are three sheet metal screws that hold the piece in place. Undo these, pull the thing out, and it's all done.

The vinyl cover on the tray itself was in OK shape, but it had been cut to make way for the speakers. In all honesty, I think I won't be installing speakers any time soon, which means the holes in the original vinyl just won't work well for me. Which means I have to replace the vinyl fabric.

Sigh...

Vinyl fabric is not uncommon, but for a newbie, it seems hard to find - especially for specialied applications such as automotive stuff. At first sight, I though this would take me a few days (maybe a couple of week) just to find the proper materials to do this.

This is where google comes to the rescue: after a few hours, I had found PerfectFit Wholesalers in in Tukwila, WA (down the street from work.) These folks advertised a variety of vinyl fabrics and the such, and so, I paid them a visit in person.

Sure enough, they stocked some automotive-grade vinyl fabric closely similar to the old vinyl in the car. I ended up with some from this product line They also supplied a sheet of headliner foam which, although not an identical match for the deck padding, serves the purpose very well (and it will be hidden from view anyways.) They even sold paperboard, which I can use to replace the original paperboard tray, which is already in pretty sorry state. Total cost for materials was about $40.

I highly recommend this place for any sort of fabric/upholstery need for your automotive project.

I had to glue two sheets of fiberboard together, as they were too thin by themselves. This took about half a bottle of wood glue, and a couple of days for the glue to dry. I then used the original tray as a template, drew an outline, and trimmed the board down to shape with a circular knife and lots of patience.

Next I cut the headliner foam to shape, and glued it to the fiberboard tray with spray-on glue.

I also drilled three holes for the fastening screws. I used 1/8" diameter aluminum spacers to line the holes and keep the screws from tearing into the cardboard.

Next, I stretched the vinyl sheet around the bard and fastened it using 1/4" tacks and a good-ol' hammer. Nothing better than pounding car parts into shape...

I had to figure out a replacement for the old paper trim piece at the rear of the tray. It looked old and ragged, and would detract from the look of the fresh vinyl.

I fashioned a replacement trim piece out of a long 6" wide strip of vinyl wrapped around a 2" strip of headliner foam, and held together with spray-on glue.

I then tacked the trim piece onto the rear of the tray. I used longer thumb tacks for this.

The end product looked very nice. The vinyl trim piece looked better than the original cardboard trim piece (in my opinion.)

Here is a look at the tray installed (with the brake light - more on that next time.)

Next up - third brake light gets installed.

A Light Detour, part 1

2009-06-15T23:35:00.000-07:00

A light detour.

One if the advances we've had in the past 30 years is how much better car lighting works. The brightness of halogens, xeon hi-intensity discharge, LED taillamps, all of these work way better than the stupid bulbs and lenses placed on cars 30 years ago.

And the Alfa is even worse than most cars from 30 years ago -- specifically, when it comes to the rear stop lights.

Yep, the rear stop lights are very weak - almost hard to see them turn on during sunny days. As I drive I notice folks seemingly oblivious to the fact that I am on the brakes and slowing down in front of them, and then reacting in half panic as they realize they are about to rear-end me. It's happened a few times, and after being rear-ended in my daily driver recently (another story), I really don't want to go through that again.

So, I figure helping others know when I'm slowing down will, in the end, help me. So I decided to install a third, high-mount brake light. And the best time to do it is while the carpet and the interior is all removed, since it will allow me to run any required wires under the carpet pretty easily.

Finding high-mount brake lights seems harder than it should - I could not find anything useful in any of the usual auto parts stores. However, I did find an online vendor of Hella LED brake lights (Daniel Stern Lighting.) After trading a few e-mails with Mr. Stern, I decided to order the Hella Model 37 LED Brake Light Kit. The parts got delivered in a very timely manner (back in January 2009.)

And there the kit sat, until now.

The brake light kit looks very easy to install - it uses dual-sided, very sticky tape to paste the unit onto the rear glass window. Connection to the wiring is done with these little adapters that are included in the kit.

The hard part is finding the actual brake light wire, carrying the voltage/signal to the rear lights.

It turns out the brake light cable is conveniently colored Red (get it?), coming from the 10-pin harness connector from under the dashboard. Connecting to this wire was very simply accomplished using the aforementioned adapter (again, included with the kit.)

Once I figured out all the wiring, well, I did not install the light. Why? Well, I decided to remove the rear radio speakers. To do this, I had to remove the rear deck/tray. Hmm... should I do that? Well, the deck looks old, and the vinyl looks like it could use a refreshing. So, I went ahead and removed the whole rear tray.

Hence breaking the first rule of car fixing - do not start a new project until you are done with your current project!

So now, I am stuck - I need to get some vinyl, paperboard, cut things, paste things, and replace things. Hmm... Just when I thought I'd be done with stuff soon...

Long time, no driving...

2009-06-07T22:39:00.000-07:00

It's been almost 6 months since my last post - time flies, doesn't it - and admittedly, I have not made as much progress since then. Yes, the car still is not running, the interior is not done, and there is no sign of having the car running any time soon - just like last time.

But I figured I'd update the blog and show where I'm going.

As you might recall, I needed to repair the heater core, as it was leaking coolant onto the pedal box. To do all this, I gutted out the interior carpetting, center console, and all the insulation associated with it. The plan was as follows:

- replace old/grimy insulation with something newer
- clean carpet and reinstall
- repair heater core and reinstall
- refurbish center console, and reinstall.

Well, I am still stuck in step one - replace insulation.

But before reinstalling the insulation, I had to deal with the bent jacking support, which had bent into the driver side floor pan. I took the car to Group 2, and they basically hammered the floor pan back into shape for me. It is not super strong, but for now, the repair is sufficient. The good news: the rocker/sill is perfectly good and strong, so structurally, the car is in good shape.

So, on to the insulation:

First, I cleaned up all the interior, basically lots of vacuum cleaning and good-ol' water and rags. The hammering of the driver side floor pan left a few spots with no paint, so I covered that area with Wurth Undercoating paint. This helps keep rust at bay, and it even helps with noise deadening! (Not that the localized application helps with that at all.)

Next, I started installing rubberized asphalt + aluminum sheets from B-Quiet over in Canada. Their Extreme product is similar to Dynamat, but at about half the cost. Since I saved so much money (right...) I also purchased their V-Comp product. The asphalt layer helps dampen vibration, while the V-Comp absorbs noise.

Installing the rubberized asphalt sheets is painstaking - a real pain in the butt (and the neck, back, arms, stomach, and legs. Seriously.) It is important to minimize any air pockets left between the sheets and the car body. To accomplish this, I cut lots of smaller pieces (about 6" x 18" sections) and pasted them inside the car. I started around the edges, worked my way up to the firewall, and finished the floor sections last. Using a wooden roller (and its handle for detail work) helps tremendously, but it still takes lots of work. I estimate I spent about 24 labor hours working on this.

A single 50 sq. ft. roll was sufficient for the job. The results look nice (so far.)

And that's all I've done so far.

Next up, I need to install the V-comp product. I ended up buying two 13.5 sq. ft. sheets for this task. This will not provide enough material, but I'll make sure to paste it onto the firewall, and the driver and passenger side floor sections. Any leftover material will be used around the transmission tunnel section, and then on the driveshaft tunnel section. I've already cut the pieces - I made templates out of newspaper, and cut to match - but I have not test-fitted them. I am very curious to see how it all comes out.

A few notes on this whole noise insulation thing:
- Again, this is very tedious work - especially in the cramped confines of my one-car garage. I see these kinds of material installed onto cars on TV shows all the time. They never say how long this takes - now I know why.
- The material is a bit messy - the rubberized asphalt leaves marks all over your clothes, hands, and skin. It's not too bad, but one has to be careful not to stain any parts of the house (e.g. the shower floor) when you are done working. (Don't ask me how I know...)
- The stuff is heavy. I estimate I'll be adding about 60lbs to the total weight of the car. On the plus side, it's fairly low in the car, but still, 60lbs cannot be a good thing.
- And I still don't know how well this stuff works. The GTV is a noisy car by nature, so I might be completely wasting my time with this. We'll find out soon enough.

Next up: A light detour...

Carpet comes out.

2008-12-27T09:11:00.001-08:00

With the heater core and center console removed from the car, I started thinking that removing the carpet would be faily straightforward. This runs counter to the "do only one project at a time" rule, but a few things became clear while working under the dashboard:

1) The interior carpet is pretty dirty
2) The insulation under the carpet looks old and ratty (at least, near the edges)
3) The carpet smells pretty bad. Actually, very bad...

Removing the driver and passenger seats involves removing four fasteners per seat. These fasteners are round-headed allen wrench types, and require a 7mm (?) allen wrench to remove. Once all four fasteners are removed, fold the seat and remove from the car. My seats were spaced with four 15mm or so plastic spacers. Make sure not to lose those.

The passenger seat worked the same way. However, due to space constraints, I had to remove it through the driver side. Although nothing bad happened, I would recommend not doing this if possible - it is annoying and difficult to get a good handle on things.

Removing the seatbelts was also very straightforward. I only removed the bottom anchors andleft the top anchor fastened to the side rear wall. My belts are old and somewhat frayed, so I think I'll replace those also.

The door sill trim plates do not need to be removed completely, but they need to be loosened up so that one can pull out the carpet from under them. They are held in place by four metal sheet screws. On my car, the screws use a square thread on the head, which required a few trips to the hardware store to get the proper-sized square key.

The E-brake boot comes out by pulling it. In the process, the boot itself fell apart. Again, another thing to replace. I may also pull out the e-brake assembly, just to clean it and refurbish it. Again, scope creep makes an appearance.

The rear seat plates are these L-strips of chromed metal which are screwed in place in the rear. Removing them is straightforward, but the strips' edges are sharp, and I ended up cutting myself ("it's just a flesh wound!") Very annoying!

Once all this is done, one just pulls out the carpet. The carpet is a single shaped piece, so pulling it requires a bit of finesse. Start from the farthest edge, pull back and fold towards yourself, then pull the near edges, fold away towards the rest of the carpet, and pull the whole "roll" out of the car.

Removing the carpet uncovered the insulation batting underneath. In my car, this looked very nasty - dirty, rusty, dusty, and just plain old. The batting seems to be made of cloth fabric, with a layer of bitumen/tar on top. My impression was that it was a pretty good quality piece, kinda like 40 year-old dynamat, with a 3/4 inch layer of fabric attached to it.
However, pulling the insulation batting would cause the top bitumen layer to crack. It also unleashed a dust storm inside the car. (Take the proper precautions if you ever do this.)

After trying to remove the insulation carefully, I realized I'd be throwing the old thing away anyways, as it was way too dirty and smelly, and the cracking of the bitumen was pretty much widespread. So I just started pulling the stuff without much regard for reusing it. It all folded compactly, and ended up going straight to the trash bag.

Underneath, I found a few things:
1) Lots of dirt - mostly dust from the insulation batting. I had to vaccum-clean and use wet rags to clean up the interior, and it came out OK.
2) No rust, just fresh red paint. This is good news, as any major rust under the carpeting would require major rebuilding measures
3) A bent floor pan area at the driver side foot well. This occured a few months back, when the driver side jacking point bent inwards. This will require a few strong sledge whacks, some welding, and a bit of paint. Fortunately, this all happens under the car, so the visible finish will not be affected.

After all this was done, I re-installed the driver seat. This allows me to drive the car in its current half-baked state. The interior looks a bit like a race car's, and driving it is even noisier. But this will allow me to drive the car to the shop to repair the jacking point/bent floorpan, and in case I need their help with anything else.

Heating and Cooling - Things to buy, things to repair.

2008-12-02T21:04:00.000-08:00

So, in the process of removing the heater box, I ended up removing the center console and shift boots. In this entry, I'll focus on these two things.

The shifter has three boots:

1. An "outer" rubber boot (right in the picture below), which attaches to the shifter tunnel and the actual transmission case, where the shift lever sticks out. It seals the insde of the car from the outside (lower) part of the car.

2. A "middle" rubber boot (left in the picture below), which mounts on top of the outer boot, providing further noise insulation.

3. The upper vinyl boot, which is the one mounted on the console and is visible to the inside of the car.

The outer and middle boot were mounted incorrectly. Not that it matters, since both rubber boots were torn and pretty badly degraded. Furthermore, the plastic attachment used to mount the middle boot in place is a bit torn up, and needs some repair.

The vinyl boot is also torn up somewhat. I will have to purchase a new one (or maybe upgrade to leather.) These are easily sourced, as well as the rubber boots themselves.

The plastic attachement, well, they are not so easily sourced. I'll probably have to hack something to make it useable again. If I knew how to make fiberglass, or even carbon-fiber parts (gasp!), I would be considering doing something crazy right about now.

The console itself is also in so-so shape. It is made of a plastic shell, covered with thin vinyl, and accented with wood and crome trim. The plastic shell is in usable shape, but the various attachment points are torn up. I will have to hack some attachments in order to bolt it onto the car firmly.

The vinyl cloth is OK, but I suspect I want to actually remove and replace it. This would entail sourcing similar vinyl (not sure where, yet) and gluing it in place. Not sure how to best proceed, yet.

The wood trim looks very sun-faded. Although it still looks OK, I suspect I will want to replace it. Replacing it will involve sourcing some wood veneer (not sure which kind yet,) sanding and varnishing it, and installing the new pieces in place. As far as the chrome trim, I'll probably polish the heck out of it, and call it done.

Again, one can only wonder at how a carbon-fiber replacement (with brushed aluminum trim) would look. I think it would look phenomenal. I really should learn how to make CF parts...

Next up: The heater box comes apart.

Heating and Cooling - Heater Box Removal

2008-11-30T22:17:00.000-08:00

The next thing to do is to remove the heater core. Generally, this tends to be a big pain. You see, removing the heater core involves crawling under the dashboard, usually half upside-down, with very littler room to maneuver, while unfastening nuts and bolts in very tight and hard to reach places. Being a contortionist is not a requirement, but it is very helpful.

On the GTV, the center console must be removed before reaching the heater core. Although this is not difficult, it adds to the amount of work needed to be done. The console contains switches for actuating the wipers, heater fan, and fog lights, as well as a cigarrette lighter. These have wiring that must be disconnected and labeled, making things a bit slower.

Plus, the shift lever sticks right through the middle of the console. Again, adding to the amount of work required.

So, to start, one removes the shifter knob. On this car, the knob is a simple slip-on knob. One then removes a few screws holding the center console in place. This allows the console to be moved around, providing access to the wiring underneath the console itself.

During this whole process, I jiggled the cigarrette lighter and the various switches, just to figure out how to proceed. To my surprise, smoke starting coming out from around the lighter wiring. Holy cow! I pretty much panicked - images of the car burning down my house flashed through my mind. After fumbling for the hood lever, finally finding it and popping the hood, then looking for an unfindable 10mm wrench (is that the right size for the battery terminals?), and realizing this was taking way too much time, I figured I'd try to disconnect the wiring from the lighter itself. With the heating element glowing red, I reached in (half expecting to burn my fingers,) found the wires, and disconnected the lighter plug. Smoke streamed for a few more seconds ("what else is burning?") but then it faded and stopped altogether.

Moral of the story: always disconnect the battery when working with the car!

So, I proceeded to disconnect the battery terminal, and caught my breath. Talk about dodging a potential bullet. This is a lesson that I keep forgetting, and keeps biting me in the butt!

I then detached the wiper, heater, and fog lamp switches from the console. This allowed me to keep everything connected (and functional) while freeing up the center console itself. I also removed the heater temperature control levers and cover plates, and pulled the console out of the way.

At this point, the shift lever sits by itself, covered by two rubber boot. One of the rubber boots is supposed to cover the transmission tunnel, while the other one rests above it. In my car, they were flipped - the lower boot sat on top of the top boot! Removing the boots just involves pulling them out of the shift lever.

On closer inspection, both boots were torn. The bottom one (which should have been on top) was covered in tranny fluid (which explains some of the odors inside the car.) These things will need to be thrown out and replaced.

Once all this is removed, one can tackle the heater box itself.

One starts by removing the two air ducts connecting the heater box to the defrost vents. Each air duct is attached to the heater box by two nuts. Removing them was trivial. So far, so good.

The next thing is to disconnect the heater box from the electrical wiring. Not a big deal, but it requires labeling the wires to make sure we can connect them correctly again.

Next, one disconnects the coolant hoses from the heater box itself. I had already bypassed them, so they were mostly empty, but a bit of coolant dripped from them, nonetheless. These will be replaced with fresh hoses when putting everything back together again.

Next, one needs to unfasten the four nuts that hold the heater box in place. These nuts fasten around four studs connected to the top inside of the dashboard. Needless to say, these things are buried deep within wiring, ducts, and other parts under the dash.

To gain better access, I found it useful to remove the heater valve. After removing the heater valve, access to the two studs on the driver side was tricky, but with some patience, the nuts came out OK.

The two studs on the passenger side were a bit more accessible, but still, unfastening them was slow, patient work.

Once the mounting nuts are removed, the box can be jiggled out of place. However, there is barely enough clearance to pull the box out from under the dashboard. I eventually removed the bottom part of the heater box (the actual heater fan, as it turned out.) This allowed me to remove the box in pieces. This worked OK for now, but in all honesty, I am not sure how I'll put this all together back in place.

Overall, the box looks old and a bit rusty, but very rebuildable. The plastic parts need a good cleaning, but there is no apparent damage to it. The flapper doors (which route air to the floor, or up to the defroster vents) are rusty, but the rubber edge trim on them feels flexible and without any cracks or damage. The box needs cleanup and maybe some paint, but overall, it looks in very good shape.

Another surprise, however: the fan is actually a six-bladed fan. For my model year, the fan should have been a cylindrical "squirrel box" fan. I am not sure how the wrong fan type got in there, or to which car it belongs. It looks like a fan from an older vintage GTV, but I do not know for sure.

After all this, I bagged and labeled all the parts, and put everything away. The car is still driveable, although the transmission boots are missing, allowing noise and air to come through the transmission tunnel.

Next up: Things to buy, parts to repair.

Heating and Cooling - Heater Bypass

2008-11-30T20:08:00.000-08:00

So, first, I figured I'd bypass the heater system in order to keep the car running without having coolant sprayed all over my feet. This buys me time to then remove the heater system, restore it, and replace it at a nice, leisurely pace.

First, I got a 10-foot length of heater hose from International Auto Parts. At $2.95 per foot plus shipping/handling, this can be a bit of a pricey option, but I figured I'd get something that works with the car. The ID is 13mm, so looking back, I figure I could source this locally and save on shipping.

The heater core is bypassed by disconnecting it at two places:
1. At the top of the engine, towards the back
2. At the water pump.

In order to avoid spills, I emptied the coolant from the engine. Raise the car high enough to fit a clean 5-gallon paint bucket under the radiator drain spout, open the drain spout, and wait. To hurry things, open the radiator cap.

Once the engine is mostly empty, close the drain spout, then open the two bleeder screws - one on the water pump, the other at the top of the engine (near the thermostat.)

Then, disconnect the coolant hoses at the two spots - at the top/rear of the engine, and at the water pump. Then connect these two places directly with 3" length of coolant hose. Make sure to route the hose away from any moving parts. Since hot coolant will flow through this hose, make sure to keep it away from anything that does not like heat.

Tighten all the various hose clamps, and refill the cooling system. As you refill the cooling system, keep the air bleed screws open until coolant starts seeping out, then replace and tighten.

That's it - it is really that simple.

Test driving the car verified that the coolant ceased to leak inside the car. Good thing. The flip side is that the car gets awfully cold at night, and with winter approaching, this becomes a major issue. But I suspect the car will be parked for most of the winter anyways, and so I will not worry too much about this yet.

Next up: removing the heater core; a few surprises.

Heating and Cooling - Intro

2008-11-27T19:47:00.000-08:00

Heating and cooling - part 1.

So, during one of my drives around town, I noticed a bit of water around my driving foot. Not to worry - it was raining, and I thought it was probably a minor rain-related leak. Upon further inspection when I got home, I realized this was not plain water, but actual engine coolant.

Engine coolant leaks inside the car are usually not a good thing.

You see, heater systems inside most cars work by circulating hot engine coolant inside a small radiator (a.k.a. heater core) inside the car itself. A fan blows air through it (heating the air), and then to the rest of the car. For the most part, this is a fairly straightforward thing to do, but after many years, heater cores will corrode and spring leaks. On occasion, the valve controlling the flow of hot coolant onto the core will also fail, also springing leaks. Plus, you have all these rubber hoses getting coolant to and from the heater core, and these tend to fail over time.

To address this, the only thing to do is to remove any leaky parts and replace and/or rebuild them.

The two most common failure points on GTVs such as mine are the heater core itself and the heater valve. The heater valve can be sourced fairly easily at Centerline and/or International Auto Parts. It costs about $40-$50, and replacing it is straightforward.

Dealing with the heater core is a bit more involved. First, removing it from the car involves removing the complete case around the heater core itself (which contains the blower fan and other related parts.) Once this is done, rebuilding the core requires specialized expertise, and about $150-$200 worth of repairs. Then there's the matter of putting it all together and making sure it all works.

Sigh...

On the plus side, now I know what Alfa my winter project would be.

I figured I'd address this problem in two parts:
1. bypass the heater system. This is very straight forward - one bypasses the heater system from the cooling circuit. This allows me to drive the car, but alas, the heater becomes useless.

2. repair the heater system itself. Basically, disassemble the whole thing, figure out what's broken and repair it. While at it, I will replace the associated rubber hoses and any wiring that seems worn or about to fail.

Over the next few posts, I'll describe my adventures doing this. I suspect this will take a few months, as the holidays are here and my free time will be somewhat limited. But if you are curious about this kind of work, here is an excellent Alfa BB thread explaining this whole repair:

http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/car-restoration/3922-heater-box-rebuild.html

Next: Heating and cooling - bypassing the heater.

Rebuilt Diff

2008-10-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

So, after driving the car around town for a while, I figured it was time to finish the rear end work.

Previously, I had replaced some of the bushings in the rear end with polyurethane bushings. However, I did not do any work on the differential. Also, the bushings in the rear sway arm end links had not been replaced. These bushings were in bad shape - they were somewhat compressed and hardened, and provided some free-play to the sway bars. This is not good - you enter a turn, and the car leans some before the sway arm does anything to prevent it.

Again, off to Group 2 I went. Group 2 has a technician (Noah? I think - I must confess, I forget some of their names) who's an expert at rebuilding Alfa diffs (among other things.) During my visit to the shop, he even showed me an extra diff they had at the shop, opened it up, and showed me exactly what he would do on my car's differential. Very cool.

The GTV diff is a limited-slip type differential (LSD for short), although it looks very much like a conventional open-type differential. However, the diff has friction plates on either end of the internal gears. When one axle moves more than the other side, plates press against the friction plates, preventing (to some extent) the differential motion between both end. Shims can be used to preload the friction plates, and to adjust how much friction the plates provide (from almost none, to almost locked.)

Why are LSDs a good thing? Open diffs will send torque to the wheel that moves the most. This helps when the car turns well within the limits of cohesion. For example, as you turn (say, to the left), the outer driven wheel (the right wheel, in this case) would move a bit faster than the inside wheel. This makes the diff send a bit more torque to the outer wheel, which helps the car turn in the direction it is turning already (left.)

For most typical situations, this is a good thing.

However, when one of the driven wheels looses traction (say, ice on one side, dry on the other), it will spin faster than the wheel on the other side. The differential then transmits more torque to the spinning wheel - the one with no traction. If this occurs in an icy road (ice under one wheel, dry pavement under the other), most of the torque is sent ot the wheel with no traction - the one over ice. The result: one wheel spins, the other does nothing, and you go nowhere.

By providing friction between both sides, the LSD ends up "connecting" both wheels (to some extent.) When one wheel spins, the friction between both axles will force the other (non-spining) wheel to also spin. In essence, the LSD will help even out the torque sent to both wheels, allowing some torque to be sent to the higher-traction (slower moving) wheel even as the other side spins.

Marisa Tomei explains this very well in the movie "My Cousin Vinny". It's a good movie, but if you are impatient, fast-forward all the way towards the end of the film to listen to her much-better explanation.

So, back to the GTV, the guys at Group2 replaced the friction plates (small little disks, made of very exotic materials, machined to perfection, and hence, somewhat expensive.) They also cleaned things up in there, replaced one of the rear bearings, and put it all together. They also finished all the bushings work I had pending.

The end result: the car rides much quieter now. Before the service, the rear end was very noisy. I suspect replacing the bearings and the worn-out clutch plates made things much quieter. The new bushings tightened the rear end much more. So now the car rides much better - the tail does not feel sloppy, and remains truer, with very little side-to-side motion. This helps with the car's steering - you point the car where you want it to go, and since the tail is tighter, the car follows your inputs better.

Admittedly, I've not pushed the car too much. As I get comfortable with it, I might start pushing the car more around some corners to see how it behaves (understeer vs. oversteer, predictability vs. twitchiness, ease of corrections, etc.)

At the end of the day, the car feels much better - especially when compared with how it originally ran when I first bought it, one year ago.

Next: Heating and cooling issues...

Alignments, Rear-End Work, More Driving Impressions

2008-10-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

Last time, we had just finished installing the front end. The thing is, parts of the suspension are adjustable to make sure the wheels point in the right direction, and to have them sit at the right angle with respect to the road. To do this, I needed a specialized alignment shopt to do this - this could not be done at home.

In addition the rear end needed similar repairs as the front end: replace bushings, springs, dampers, clean things up, and check bearings. In addition, since the rear wheels are the ones driven by the engine, there is a differential back there to deal with. I figured I'd have the differential inspected and serviced as needed.

Before these repairs, the car seemed to float laterally over the actual suspension and wheels while turning and during transition. So rather than "pointing" in a fixed manner during a turn, the car pointed left and right of your intended target during turns. This made for scary-interesting driving, since every time you steer the car, you needed to wait to see what the rear end did, then correct your steering inputs, then see how these corrections affected the car, and so on.

Bushings are one of those things that tend to wear out over time on solid axle, trailing arm suspensions such as the ones found on the GTV. Replacing bushings and tightening up things would help minimize the lateral play on the suspension, making for crisper steering inputs with minimal need for mid-turn corrections and the such.

Given all these repairs, I figured I'd take the car to Group 2 and have them do all this work for me. They are my favorite car shop, and they happen to specialize in all things Alfa Romeo. The problem is that in mid-summer, every other AR owner in the region decides to also drive their cars (just like me.) Which requires lots of maintenance work, making for very busy times at Group 2.

So, I figured I'd just have the front end aligned, and do part of the rear end work: bushings, springs, dampers. I would wait until later in the year to do the differential work, as well as any bearing replacements and the such. That way, I could get the car back on the road and start chasing any of the numerous gremlins lurking in the car. And besides, it helps spread the cost over a longer timeframe, which is always a good thing.

Unlike the front end, the replacement rear end bushings were the polyurethane types from Centerline Alfa. The shop replaced the trunion arm-to-differential bushings, as well as the bushings in the trailing/radius arms, and the bushings holding the rear sway bar in place. Polyurethane ("poly", for short) tends to be stiffer than rubber, and hence, helps keeps uncontrolled supsension motions to a minimum, but at the possible cost of a bit harsher ride. However, this upgrade is a very popular one in the Alfa community, and worth trying out.

The shop also installed the AR Ricambi springs I had purchased earlier in the year (which matched the already installled front springs), as well as Koni Sport dampers (again, matching the front end Konis I had installed already.)

The service was very much worth it. The car now rides in a much truer fashion. During turns, the car feels predictable and easy to point within the turn. There was still a bit of tail-end lateral slide, which can be tuned down by using these poly washers where the trunion arm connects to the chassis.

Regarding the rear springs, the car rides a bit higher in the rear than I would like (about half an inch.) The ride is not harsh, however, so from a spring rate perspective, I am very happy with them. Correcting the ride height involved cutting down springs, so I asked the shop not to do this for now, and see how the car rode before going drastic on the springs (one thing at a time...)
At first, the adjustable shock absorbers were set a bit too stiff (which was my bad - I had set them myself), which made the ride jarring and shakey - even over smaller bumps. After softening the fronts to almost full-soft, the car's ride became much less jarring while still keeping the car motions under control.

(I will be posting my spring rates, shock absorber settings, and other technical numbers in a future post.)

One thing that started worrying me were the brakes; they felt soft and spongy, with what seemed to me as too much pedal travel. This kept me from driving as I normally do - in traffic, I had to leave extra space between cars, brake earlier, and the such. This is something that needed to be addressed quickly.

But even with the soft brakes, I had a bit more confidence in opening up the car and seeing how it ran. And run it did - the car accelerated quickly and pulled strongly (for a 2.0 liter four-banger, of course!) Throttle response was quick and sharp. Steering inputs were much sharper and predictable. The transmission was loud, and shifting required very long throws and patient double clutching during downshifts (especially 3rd-to-2nd downshifts.) The clutch felt nice, though, engaging smoothly, linearly, and strongly. The sounds emanating from the engine compartment were nice - lots of fan noise at slow speeds, changing to loud engine intake noise, manifold growls, and a shade of valve clatter. Very good sounds indeed.

Highway driving was loud - lots of wind noise, road noise, engine noise, car noise. All this noise could be confused with music for Alfa addicts such as myself, however, and I was happy to put up with it during my short test drives.

Overall, the car drove very nicely, for a 34 year-old car.

I still needed to service the rear differential, and address the soft brakes. And I still need to chase all of them gremlins lurking out there...

Finally, Driving Impressions

2008-10-03T18:18:00.000-07:00

So, after filling up the car with gas, I finally got to drive the car.

It must be noted that so far, only the front suspension had been rebuilt, and further, it is completely out of alignment. So although I was hoping for an improved ride quality, I wasn't expecting much in the way of handling and ride. And sure enough, the car seemed very twitchy. Bad alignments do these kinds of things to cars.

Further, the rear end felt sloppy and very soft. Again, I had not worked on that side of the car, so the rear springs were still the very soft stock units, dampened by very tired and old shock absorbers.

But overall, the car felt better. The front end seemed much tighter, with less slop and play. And the spring rates were tighter but not jarring. The dampers seemed a bit stiff, due to the fact that I started with a bit stiffer adjustment than needed.

In addition, the coolant leaks were gone - woo hoo! At least that part of the repair was done with, and I would not have to worry about that.

The newly-installed fan shroud made the car ride a bit quieter. The fan noise does not drown the various other sounds emanating from the engine compartment, and so one can hear the intake noise, as well as the valve train softly clanging away. Very good sounds, if you ask me.

But even with the slightly quieter engine bay, the car was still very noisy. Wind noise at 60mph drowned out any attempts at a conversation at a normal volume. Rolling the window up or down did not make much of a difference, so it was better to roll it down a few inches to get some ventilation inside the car. The car transmited every imperfection to the driver, which considering the current state of suspension tune, proved a bit tricky and surprising at times.

Mashing on the gas pedal made the car swerve off line, probably due to lack of alignment on one or both ends. But it did accelerate willingly and strongly - the car loved riding at or above 70mph, although at this speed, the car needed constant steering inputs to maintain a fairly straight path.

Even with all this stuff going on, the car hinted some better potential in ride and handling quality. Bumps were easily absorbed, without upsetting the car too much. And the car communicated the road to the driver - the feedback on the steering wheel, the controlled dive during medium brake application, and the engine noise when opening up the throttle.

I really could not wait to get the car sorted out.

So, after all this, what comes next:
- align the front end.
- rebuild the rear suspension: this involves replacing the rear springs, shocks, bushings, and maybe painting the various suspension links and the such.
- rebuild the rear diff: the thing is loud, and wide open. It also leaks a bit of oil. Rebuilding it will make the car work better off the corners, quiet it down a bit, and keep fluids from leaking all over my garage.
- Then, the details: wiring, interiors, etc.

It did feel nice to put some closure onto this part of the job. From now on, things should march along nicely.

Next up: Alignment and rear end work. More driving impressions.

Catching up: Filling up the GTV with coolant, test drives, minor disasters.

2008-09-23T18:13:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've updated my blog. A lot has occured in the past few months, and hopefully, we'll catch up soon enough. So, let's begin where we left off.

First, adding coolant to the car is simple:
a) make sure all the hoses are connected, and all drain plugs are tightened. Inside the car, turn the heater thermostat open (all the way hot).
b) remove the water pump vent plug and the block's vent plug. These are screws found on top of the water pump and on top of the motor, which allow air to escape while filling up the radiator with coolant.
c) remove the radiator cap, and start pouring a 50/50 mix of coolant and distilled water.
d) While filling up the radiator, look for coolant to start seeping out of the water pump vent hole. When coolant comes out, replace the vent plug and tighten. Do not overtighten! The pump housing is made of very soft(cheap?) aluminum, and the screw's threads will strip very easily.
e) Keep filling until coolant seeps out of the block's coolant air vent. When this happens, replace the plug screw and tighten. Again, do not overtighten things!
f) Fill up the coolant reservoir tank to "Min"
g) top off the radiator, and replace the coolant cap.

Once this is all done, start the car and let it run for a while, and check for leaks. Simple, eh?

Now, If you recall from my previous post, we were done installing the whole water pump, cooling system, and battery together. If you look closely in one of the pictures, you'll see trouble a-brewin'...

You see, the tachometer cable connects to the water pump through a little gear that sticks out from the bottom of the pump housing. Well, I forgot to connect it. Right after filling up the car with coolant and cranking the car, I looked around and under the car, and saw the cable dangling loose.

Hmm..... Just when I think I was done.

So, after completing the coolant fill-up process (and waiting for the engine to cool down again,) I figured I'd connect the tach cable to the pump.

To get access to the water pump and connect the cable, I had to remove the alternator - just move it out of the way, really. Well, during the whole procedure, it seems I grounded one of the alternator connectors against the car body, and sure enough, sparks and smoke flew everywhere.

Que jodienda! Two bad things in a row. I had forgotten to disconnect the battery, and now the alternator might be fried, for all I knew.

It was turning out to be one of those days.

So, I disconnected the battery, removed the alternator, and figured out I could take it to a shop to test it and make sure it was OK. If I did not find out, this would be nagging me for a few months. And worse, if the thing was bad, the car would eventually strand me on the side of the road.

So, the next day, I went to a shop in Seattle, and they tested the thing, and all was good. Yippee...

So later that night, I finally connected the tach cable, alternator, and battery. I also made sure to purge all the air from the cooling system, checked all cables and such, and decided the car was ready for a drive - for the first time in over six months!

So, the next Saturday afternoon, I went out for a short test drive (20 minutes.) Now, keep in mind, the car's alignment was all shot. And for all I knew, my repairs may have messed things up more than they helped. So there was a bit of trepidation - it was a bit late in the afternoon, and I did not want to be out on the road at night. But I couldn't wait.

The car started right up. I let it warm up, got buckled up, and off I went. As I drove down the street, I ran a mental check through the various details needed to make the car drive:

"Clutch - check!" It seems to disengage/engage OK.
"Gas - check!" The gauge indicated half-full.
"Oil pressure - check!" The gauge seems to be alive, and indicate good numbers.
"Water temp - check!" The gauge started out cold, but came up to temp within a few miles.
"Brakes... - Check!" The car stops. Good thing!

And so on.

So, I drove for about 10 minutes, when I decided to head back home. To get there, I had to get onto this freeway that heads back towards town. As I entered the on ramp, the car sputtered a bit, then accelarated normally. "Hmmm... Maybe the carbs need adjustment..." Keep in mind, this was the first time I had driven the car in six months, so maybe this was a normal quirk, waited to be adjusted. I figured the car was fine, and I could check this at home.

About a mile later, the car died. It just shut down.

"Mierda! This car is a complete waste of time!" First time out in six months, and the car dies. What are the odds!?

So, I pulled over to the side of the road, took out my cell phone, and turned it on. The thing booted up, then decided to shut down, claiming that the battery was dead. "Mierda de nuevo!" Two dead toys!

So, here I am, stuck on the side of the road, next to my old p.o.c. italian car, with perfectly good and dead cell phone, and about 8 miles from the house. At that time, I had the erie feeling that this would not be the last time I'd find myself in this situation.

As I pondered my predicament, two motorcyclists pulled over to the side of the road. Rider #1 was very friendly and helpful. His first question was a bit annoying, though: "didn't you check your fuel level before you left home?" Well, the gauge indicated half full, but now that he mentioned it, maybe I had run out of gas... Hmmm...

He then let me use the phone to call a cab. Well, it turns out cab companies in Seattle don't pick up stranded motorists on freeways. Idiots!

Meanwhile, rider #2 walks over, and shared a somewhat sarcastic observation "a nice italian car, stranded on the side of the road - that's something you don't see every day!"

- "You've seen anything like these before," I asked.
- "Heck yea! We see them all the time."

Sigh...

So, after chatting about the car for a few minutes, I figured I'd have to walk to the nearest gas station, about 1.5 miles from where I was, call for a cab (again), and make it home. From there, I could pack up my tools, gas cans, etc, and see if I could get the car running again.

After my hike to the gas station, dealing with a operators, and a few cab companies, I eventually made it home. Afterwards I picked up my friend Gretchen, and we made it back to where the car was parked. I went ahead and added some gasoline car, just in case, and tried to start it.

Sure enough, the car started right up - it ran like new.

So yes, the car had run out of gas. We drove straight home, parked the car, and called it a night. I did learn a few things:

a) The gas gauge needs to be fixed (duh...)
b) When driving the Alfa, make sure your cell phone has enough battery charge. And for that matter, bring a spare battery with you.
c) I need to join AAA, and put their number my cell phone's speed dial list.

So, finally, after all this time, the car was back on its wheels. If you recall, the original reason for parking the car for this long was the leaky water pump. And I am glad to say, after I parked the car that night, there was no coolant leak/puddles under the car.

Now I need to figure out what's the source of the other oil puddles on my garage floor...

Next: Driving impressions... finally...

Putting stuff back together - part 2.

2008-08-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

(Note: I added a few pics to this post on 23 August 2008.)

The last time, we installed the front suspension. Once this was complete and tightened, it was time to get back to the original job - repairing the water pump.

As you may recall, I removed the old water pump (Which seemed to be leaking) back in December. To do this, I had to remove:
- the radiator
- the alternator
- the battery
- the crank pulley
- the accessory belt
- the coolant reservoir.

So, I had to re-install all these parts in addition to the water pump before I could restart the car.

So first, I worked on the water pump. First, one needs to remove the tachometer drive from the old water pump onto the new water pump. This must be done carefully, as the water pump housing is made of very soft cast aluminum. Any threads on the housing are easily stripped. How do I know? Well, I ended up stripping one of the threaded holes used to attach the tach gears. Very annoying!!

Fortunately, the threaded hole is fairly long, and I only stripped the top part of the threads. Sourcing longer bolts from the hardware store solved the problem. That, and very careful application of torque...

Next up, the pump is moved into place, and tightened with nine studs/nuts. Most of these were fairly straightforward, but a few of the nuts hide behind the water pump pulley, making things a bit annyoing. Again, one must torque carefully in order to prevent anything from breaking.

Once this was done, it was time to install the crank pulley. This required 150lb-ft of torque, which can be tricky. One must lock the engine crank somehow, which I was not able to do. So, I used my other good friend, the impact wrench, which coinidentally, is rated for 150 lb-ft of torque. A few seconds worth of torqueing (and a few drops of high-temp thread locking glue) took care of that.

Next up was the alternator. Of the three things so far, this was the simplest. I also installed the accessory belt simultaneously. Getting both the alternator and the belt instaled together simplifies things a bit.

Next up, I installed the engine fan. Even simpler than the alternator.

Then it was the fan shroud. I had just bought this recently, as the car did not have one installed when I bought it. It attaches to the radiator. However, there is not enough clearance to lower into place the radiator and shroud assembled together. So the trick is to place the shrowd around the fan, then slide the radiator into place.

Before installing the radiator, I took the time to clean up the radiator core and cooling fins. I figured I'd never have a chance to do this as thoroughly. After cleanup, I slid the radiator into place, attached the various hoses required, and attached the fan shroud in place. Things looked good.

Next up was the battery. I decided to replace the old, leaky unit with a smaller, gel-pack battery from Baker Precision batteries. These things are small, lighter, and supposedly can handle deep discharge cycles. Plus, it opens up the engine bay a bit.

After filling up the engine with fresh coolant (50/50 mix of ethylene glycol and water), I connected the battery terminals, cranked the engine, and crossed my fingers. Guess what - the car started right up! Go figure.

Next up was flushing any air trapped within the cooling system of the engine, then on to a test drive. Things were looking good so far...

Next: How to fill up your GTV with coolant; First test drives, minor disasters.

Putting stuff back together - part 1.

2008-07-14T22:16:00.000-07:00

So, last time I posted something, we done preparing all the parts - paint, cleaning, etc. So I finally decided to re-install things. This is the time you find out if parts fit together again, if one purchased the right parts, and such things. The other tricky thing is trying to remember how things fit together again.

So first, I started with the lower a-arms. I installed the lower bracket first, then the a-arm halves. I later discovered most folks assemble the bracket and a-arms, then install that onto the car chassis, which seems more reasonable. Either method works, though.

Then it was on to the upper part of the suspension. The upper camber arm was simple enough, but the caster ball joint was a bit tricky, since there is very little room for tightening the bolts that hold the ball joint onto the front fender. Using an box wrench worked OK, but it required a bit of patience.

Then onto the steering knuckle (which I've been calling the "upright" all along.) This was a bit awkward, since it's such a big, bulky part. The trick is to attach it to the upper caster arm first, then work the lower a-arm into place, then torqueing both joints.

Once this is completed, one installs the front brake dust covers. This are bolted to the steering knuckle. Other things are attached togehter with the dust covers: the steering bracket (which connects to the steering arms) and various brake lines and brackets.

Next up was the front hubs and brake rotors. This can be a bit messy, since it requires packing the bearings and the inside of the hub with enough fresh bearing grease. Again, light use of a rubber mallet helps seat the hubs onto the axles. Torqueing the hubs was simple enough - torque to 20lb/ft, then loosen up and retorque to 10 lb/ft, then loosen just enough to align the casellated nuts with either of the holes in the axle stub. Install and bend a cotter pin in place, and you are all set.

Next up was the brake calipers. This was also fairly straightforward, although care must be taken to route the brake lines correctly, making sure they do not contact any moving parts or anything similar.

At this point, the suspension looks pretty much ready to go. The only things missing are the springs, spring pans, dampers, and steering links. Leaving the steering links for last allows for maneuvering the steering knuckle out of the way when needed.

The springs and spring pans require the old "long threaded rod" trick described earlier in the blog, but in reverse. Again, it is important to grease the treads of the rods thoroughly to help prevent any binding or thread stripping. I also used only two rods vs. three, in order to save time.

This procedure went well (even though it took a while - about 90 minutes per side.) The only hiccup was making sure the spring pans aligned correctly. Once the spring pan is close enough to the a-arms, use of a rubber mallet can move the pan onto proper alignment.

The threaded rod process works well, but the rods are good for one remove-install cycle. Afterwards, the threads do show some wear, at which point it's better to throw them away and not risk any major incidents.

With the springs installed, the last thing required is attaching the steering rods. Again, this is a very straightforward operation. With all things tied up, the car can be lowered onto its wheels, and final tightening of all nuts/bolts can be done.

Lowering the car is one of those "moments of truth". Consider that we are installing new springs, and although one has an idea on the resulting ride height, one does not really know for sure until the rubber hits the road - literally. The initial results were very encouraging - the ride height is just lower than the original ride height. The hope is that, even with the slightly decreased ride height, brake dive will be controlled and limited by the stiffer springs and fresh dampers. I won't these results until I test drive the car, but for now, I am very encouraged with what I see.

Once the car is settled on the floor, I tightened the lower a-arm nuts, and the upper caster arm bolt/nut. This helps remove any pre-stressing of the bushings, which helps keep the car's ride height nicer, and helps the bushings to last longer.

Next up - water pump, radiator, battery; the car lives...

Another Detour

2008-05-15T21:33:00.000-07:00

A few folks on the AlfaBB have indicated the presence of "might as wells" when performing suspension work of any kind. You know, "might as well repack the hubs and bearings", or "might as well paint stuff."

Over the past week, I've been distracted with an unplanned "might as well." In this case, it involved the inner fenders.
You see, the inside fenders were coated with lots of dirt, over which a layer of undercoating was sprayed. On top of that, some of the body paint oversprayed into the inner fenders, making things look a bit strange. However, there was no sign or rust or any other nasty/terminal things. To my untrained eye, everything looked functionally OK (if not necessarily pretty.)

Given this, I originally planned leaving the inner fenders alone. But the thought of trying to paint the inner fenders started creeping up on me. And the guys at Group 2 gave me enought pointers that I felt I'd be able to try this without hurting myself too badly.

First, one must clean all the gunk and dirt. Since the car was parked inside my garage, I used a few drip pans, a big bucket of water, a few spray bottles to limit the amount of water getting sprayed all over the garage, as well as a big cleaning brush and tons of paper towels. To clean the inner fenders, I used a degreaser called "Krud Kutter." Since "krud" would be a good description of the stuff facing me, I figured this would be useful. I diluted the degreaser down 5:1, and sprayed it all over the inner fender, scrubbing with the brush and paper towels.

Cleaning the inner fender area exposed the car's original color - which I can't still figure out. The original color is either Rosso Amaranto () or Prugna (Plum Purple). The current car color is Alfa Red; if I ever restore the car, I'll probably go back to the original color - I think it would look great.
(Note: here is an Alfa Bulletin Board post of a much nicer GTV in Rosso Amaranto. )

Cleaning was tedious, messy, wet, and uncomfortable. It took me three nights (1.5 hours per night) to get the fenders clean enough for spraying.

Once clean, I masked a few sections, and coated the inner fenders with Wurth High-Build Underseal (this thing sticks to everything!) Again, the lack of room made spraying very uncomfortable. But with a bit of patience, I was able to spray things OK.

After about 90 minutes, the undercoating had dried enough to remove the masking. Also after 90 minutes, the buzz from all the chemicals started to wear off, too!

So now, the inner fenders look much better - not councours quality, but good enough for daily driver car. And I am hoping the undercoating will help keep rust away for a bit longer.
And again, the guidance from the guys at Group 2 was very dead on - this is something that was doable, and seems to have worked well (so far.)

I left parts of the inner fender without painting, in order to leave the original color exposed. These areas did not look rusty at all - the paint was holding up very well. I figured this way, if/when I repaint this car, I'll be able to match the original paint.

Given the limited space, I am happy with the results. I give myself a C grade - not necessarily great, but passing nonetheless.

Next up: I start putting things back together. Really... I mean it this time... Seriously...

Item C, Revisited.

2008-05-15T20:57:00.000-07:00

A few postings ago, I described the process of fixing the suspension as:

a) Take the suspension apart - remove every part from the car.
b) Clean up the parts
c) Replace any non-usable parts with new parts
d) Put it all together.

So, a few weeks back, I ended up buying a set of springs for the car from Group 2 here in Seattle. The folks at Group 2 also sourced a bunch of other parts for me. I figured I'd list some of them here:

- Koni Sport dampers - these things are beautiful

(A note about shocks: again, dampers are one of those things different folks have different opinions about. Unfortunately, in some cases, dicussions about the benefits/drawbacks of specific dampers turn into religious wars, of the sort: "My damper is better than yours." There is a lot of irrational dicussions about dampers out there on the web.

As for me, I'll admit, I probably can't tell the difference between a Koni damper from a stick of crap -- seriously! But for some irrational reason, I like Koni dampers. I can't tell why: maybe it's the name; maybe it's the adjustability; maybe it's the fact that they come from Holland. They are like a safety blanket. Go figure...

I guess I am not immune from irrational sentimentality, either.)

- Bump stops

- Adjustable upper camber arms (the bottom piece.)
Note: the piece at the top of the photo is the upper caster arm, painted and ready to install. I did replace the ball joint at the far left of the caster arm.

--Ball Joints.

Just looking at all these parts makes me drool.

Painting

2008-05-10T14:27:00.000-07:00

The main reasons behind my work with the suspension are mostly functional: better spring rates to help keep the car from bottoming out; replacing old bushings and ball joints to make sure the suspension is tight and taught.
In order to do all this, pretty much every part of the suspension is removed from the car. With all these parts out, there are a few "you might as wells" lurking out there. One of them has been mentioned: servicing the hubs and bearings, to make sure they all work nicely.

But the big one is re-painting all the various suspension parts. This serves a functional purpose: keeping rust from attacking the suspension parts. Admittedly, this is not the main reason; rather, painting the suspension parts makes the suspension look good.

Repainting the parts involves three major steps:
1. Remove old paint, dirt, junk from parts
2. Paint the parts
3. Inspect and repeat as necessary.

These pictures show some of the parts before cleaning, with all the dirt, old paint, and overspray all over them.

For removing the old paint, I used a few gallons of industrial purple degreaser (shipped in
various brands.) I dilluted it down with water 1:1, to make it a bit easier to handle (i.e. it burns my skin a little less quickly.) Even then, this is nasty stuff - the thing will burn skin, ruin your eyes, kill grass, dissolve aluminum, and do all sorts of nasty things. But it "melts" paint and grease, and is fairly effective at removing paint.

Even then, I still had to use a few metal brushes to scrape paint and rust from the various pieces. This was tedious, messy work. Once done, I sprayed everything with WD-40 to help prevent rust from forming on the bare metal pieces. The pictures here show the parts after cleaning/degreasing, and masked for painting.

Once the weather cooperated, it was time to paint things. I used Brakeleen brake cleaner to remove the WD-40 from the metal pieces. I also used lacquer thinner as a final prep step.

For paint, I used VHT Chassis and Roll Bar Spray Paint (Gloss Black.) This is an epoxy paint, that in theory forms a nice, strong, rust-protecting layer. Initially I used two and a half cans of the stuff. Unfortunately, some of the parts got scraped up (more on that in a future post.) So I had to repaint a few of the pieces.

The results are pretty neat: shiny black parts, some of which look almost new. I'll be honest: this is the first time I've painted anything this involved in my life. Although the color is not perfectly uniform or concours-grade, I am very happy with the results.

Things I would do different if I had to do this again;

a) Find a sandblaster shop, and have all the pieces sandblasted. Again, degreasing/cleaning the parts was time consuming, tedious, and tiring. It took a few weekends for me to do all this. I suspect a sandblasting shop can have these parts shiny-clean in a few days.

b) I would re-consider powder coating rather than painting. The most annoying part of painting these parts was waiting for the proper weather conditions. This spring has been particulary wet and cold, which has stretched the paint job by a few months. I suspect a powdercoat shop could have turned this job around in a week or two.

Doing all the work myself did save me some money, but if I had known how long painting was going to take me, I probably would have had a shop paint/powdercoat all the stuff for me.

Springs, Part 5 - New Toys.

2008-05-04T20:18:00.000-07:00

So, in the last post, I mentioned my adventures with hubs and wheel bearings, and how Group 2 helped me with this. During my visit, I figured I'd ask Joe English, Group 2 proprietor, about springs.

Remember the springs? I removed them quite a few posts ago. Replacing them was one of the main reasons for working on the suspension, remember? I must admit, I have not kept up with springs recently. That ends today.

So, as you may recall from a previous posting, when buying new springs, the two main issues are:
- spring rate
- spring free length.

The main equation that ties all this together is:

k = Fs/(Lf-Lc)

Where:
k = spring rate
Fs = load at spring
Lf = free length of spring
Lc = compressed length

At normal ride height, we measured and figured out:
Fs = 1879 lb
Lc = 8.0315" (204mm)

During my visit to Group 2, I mentioned to Joe that I was looking for a set of springs that would keep the front end from bottoming out during heavy braking (which tends to require stiffer springs) while keeping the road ride quality reasonable (which tends to require softer springs.)

Well, Joe thought that was a good plan, and suggested a set of AR Ricambi Super Sport springs. He felt these springs are a great compromise for the road (not too stiff, not too soft), keep the car much more stable than the stock springs, and helps with the bottoming out issues. He also indicated ride height issues can be fine-tuned by adding shims to the springs; this is something they do all the time at the shop. Joe also indicated they had this spring set in stock.

So, I was curious: what were the spring rates for the AR Ricambi springs? I'd been looking for something in the 600-800 lb/in range. After a bit of digging through his records, he found the front springs are rated at 580 lb/in. These rates are close to the bottom end of my "pulled-from-thin-air" range, so this was very encouraging.

A decision needed to be made: do I go with the AR Ricambi springs, which have been used and tested by countless, more experienced Alfisti before me? Or do I keep spending/wasting time digging for springs shops on the web, hoping to find someone that could custom make springs for my very special needs, pay tons of money, hoping that I alone know better than fellow, more experienced Alfa experts?

So, I went ahead and bought the AR Ricambi springs. Admittedly, this is very out of character for me ("you mean, there are folks out there that know more about this stuff than I do?") Besides, Joe and the folks at Group 2 have never let me down before, and I had no reason to start doubting them now.

I must admit, I was curious to see how the springs fit with the numbers and computations I've shown so far. So, I measured the front springs' free length, and punched in the numbers.

Free Length (Lf) = 11 5/16" = 11.3125"

Rearranging terms from the above equation:

Lc = Lf - Fs/k
= 11.3125" - (1879lb / 580lb/in)
= 8.073 inches
= 205 mm

This is very close to the measured spring compressed length of 204mm - almost a dead-on match. This tends to support the analysis and measurements done so far.

At the end of the day, though, these numbers don't mean anything until the car is back on its wheels, and we can measure and test the end result. Once this is done, I'll re-measure everything, and summarize all of this analysis. I guess I should start putting the car together sometime soon...

(Next up: parts get cleaned and painted. Stay tuned.)

Hubs and Bearings are not my friends.

2008-04-14T18:54:00.000-07:00

While taking apart the front suspension, I kinda glossed over the disassembly of the all-important hubs, front brake rotors, and suspension uprights. In a sense, these do most of the work up front - they spin the wheels (hubs), stop the wheels from spinning (rotor/brakes), and steer the car (upright members.) This is all pretty important stuff, if you ask me, and so I was extra careful (and hesitant) when dealing this these.

I also did not know much about how these parts came apart, which added to my hesitation.

First, one needs to remove the dust cap at the center of the hub. One can remove this by using a metal chisel and a Big Freaking Hammer, and tapping the dust cover away from the hub. The dust cover has a lip that makes this fairly straightforward.

After removing the dust cover, one can see the actual stub axle around which the hubs and bearings spin. They bearings themselves are covered with a ton of axle grease, and are held in place by a castellated nut, which is held in place by a cotter pin.

At this point, the smart thing to do is to loosen and remove the two metal screws holding the brake rotor against the wheel hub. This is a royal pain! The screws tend to rust in place, and removing them requires a flat-head screwdriver. These tend to strip things more than anything. PB Blaster (my good friend) tends to help, but it's not a panacea for these things.

On the driver side, removing these screws required some effort, but they came out OK. I used the biggest screwdriver I could find, and I actually tapped them into the flat-head slot a few times before trying to break the screws loose. This worked the screwdriver into the screw head a bit, and helped in keeping the screwdriver from slipping all over.

On the passenger side, however, one of the screws refused to come out. After trying for about ten minutes, I just gave up for the time being.
(I hate flat head screws...)

Once done with this, one removes the castellated nut from the stub axle. This requires a few sheets of paper towels to remove as much of the axle grease as possible. Then you cut the cotter pin holding the nut in place, and you remove the nut. The nut itself is torqued to about 15-20 lb/in, so removing it is fairly straightforward.

Once this is done, you pull out the hub from the stub axle. That's it! The hub and brake rotor are removed, and you can do whatever you want with them. On the driver side, the rotor and hub separated as I pulled them (since I had removed the rotor screws.) On the passenger side, they came out as a single unit (and stayed together as a single unit, since that one freaking screw would not budge.)

After the hubs are out, one removes various brackets connected to the upright, as well as the brake rotor dust cover, and that's that. All of these parts were very dirty and somewhat rusty. Again, these parts would need some major cleaning and repainting before I put them back in the car. On the pictures above, one can see the hub right above the brake rotor. One also sees the outer bearing next to the brake rotor dust cover.

This is where the easy part ends, and the tricky stuff begins.

The hub unit itself houses two roller bearings (an inner bearing, and an outer bearing.) Each bearing is made up of three parts:
- an inner race ring, which sits around the stub axle,
- the roller bearings themselves
- an outer race ring, which is pressed inside the hub assembly.

At this point, one can do one of three things:
a) remove the bearings and inner race from the hub, while leaving the outer race rings pressed inside the hub; clean the bearings, re-pack them with grease, and replace them inside the hub
b) replace the bearings with new bearings; this requires removing the bearings, inner race rings, and outer race rings from the hub.
c) do nothing.

(A) sounds easy. And it is, for folks who have done this before. Unfortunately, I had never done this before.

The tricky part is that the inner bearings have a metal and rubber grease seal that must be removed in order to remove bearings themselves. This grease seal is pressed into the hub itself, and removing it is another one of those sounds-simple-until-you-try kind of things. Seriously. Most information on the web claimed this seal could be easily pried out with a screwdriver. Well, the WEB IS WRONG. I must be the dumbest guy in the world, but removing this seal was a royal pain in the ass. I had to buy a special prying tool, and use all the strength I had to remove the stupid thing. Grease seals are not my friends.

By the way, all that prying destroyed the grease seals. Make sure to order a new pair before you do any of this.

All that prying brought out a tiny spring that seemed to run along the inside of the inside bearing itself. At this point I thought I had ruined the inside bearing (since I could not tell where the spring came from.) Since I could not tell for sure, I figured I had to replace the bearing and play it safe.

Which brings us to option (B) from above. Which makes things worse; much worse.

You see, the bearings must be replaced as complete, matched set. Which means removing the outer race ring from inside the hub for both bearings. Again, the various online sources seemed to indicate this was a simple thing - just pry it out, and the thing just slips right off. Again, being the dumbest guy in the world, I could not pry this off. In actuality, it turns out, one needs to get a metal punch and a big freaking hammer and pound the outer race ring out of the hub - you "walk it out" by pounding around the circumference of the ring itself.

So I figured I'd give it a shot. After pounding for a few minutes, I realized the outer race ring had not budged in any perceptible way.

Stupid thing...

So, now I was faced with a potentially bent-out-of-shape inner bearing, a ruined grease seal, and a stripped screw that kept the right rotor and hub together, and no clue on how to proceed.

Desperation calls for desperate measures. And a bit of creativity. So, I brought the parts to Group 2 in Seattle (the local Alfa Romeo specialist shop), and begged for their help. As always, Joe English and the rest of the crew were very happy to help me out, answer questions, and all-in-all, allay all my fears and worries.

After chatting with them for about 10 minutes, we figured the bearings were OK to begin with. The mystery spring was actually part of the grease seal, which had to be replaced anyways. But after all this hassle, I figured I'd let the shop replace all the bearings with a fresh set. In all honesty, the bearings looked great, but considering I don't know how long these bearings have been around, replacing them seemed like a good idea.

The guys at Group 2 turned the thing around in an afternoon, and I ended up picking up everything a few days later. The shop installed and packed new bearings onto the hubs, and the pesky rotor screw was removed. Everything was A-OK again.

So, all in all, I have mixed feelings about this part of the repair. I think I could tackle removing the hub/rotor assembly from the stub axle, and I could probably repack the bearings if needed. But at the end, calling the experts saved me a lot of trouble and added frustration.

I think from now on, I'll stay away from hubs and bearings...

Front, Pass Side Work

2008-04-05T12:07:00.001-07:00

So, last time, I was removing the front driver side suspension. I had left the hub, brake rotor, and upright/axle section in one piece. I eventually took those apart; I'll describe that on my next post.

On this post, I'll chat about the passenger side.

I must say, there's not much to say.

Although I must start by saying that side of the car was nasty-dirty! On the picture you can get an idea for the layers of dirt, undercoating, and overspray resting on the whole suspension. Again, the idea is to clean and paint all this stuff up, and hopefully, make it look nice again.

Removing the passenger side suspension was basically the same as the driver side (duh...) This time around, though, I removed the hub and brake rotor from the upright/axle before undoing the rest of the suspension. (again, more on that in the next post.) I then removed the brake caliper, disconnected the steering tie rod, removed the suspension upright, then the lower a-arm, then the upper A-arm components. This all took about 2.5 hours - not bad for a rookie such as myself.

A few things of note:

-- Removing the upper camber arm (part of the upper a-arm) was a bit tricky, since it involves reaching underneath both carburetors to get access to the bolt to which the arm is attached. This was tricky - it required long socket extensions, as well as long breaker bars. I also had to remove the air filter, which requires disconnecting some of the engine vent hoses that connect to the filter housing. Once all the stuff was removed, access was still tricky, but eventually it did come out OK.

Having the radiator out of the way really helped. Again, I am not sure how to do this with the radiator in place (I am sure there is a way, though.)

-- Running my hand over the inside fender near the suspension pick-up points would remove all the fresh red paint, undercoating, and dirty. I could have filled up a 16-oz. cup with all the stuff that came out.
It seems that, when the car was painted recently, the suspension was not cleaned up much. So it seems the body paint got oversprayed over the dirt and undercoating, and hence, the paint has nothing solid to grab onto.
I am not sure what to do - I am almost tempted to scrape all the old stuff away, grab a few cans of paint, and spray the whole inner fender again. I am not sure I'd make things better, though.

So for now, the passenger side inner fender has two tones: parts with the newly-applied red paint, and parts with the original dark-red color. (I think it's Rosso Amaranto, but I'm not sure.)
(http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/car-restoration/3895-1972-alfa-romeo-color-chart-reference-materials-2.html#post33453)

I'll admit - I tend to favor the original darker red than the current red color. Maybe in a 20 years, when I re-restore the car, I'll go back to the original shade... Hmm...
(yea, right...)

-- I have not found any signs of rust in the body, inner fender, or anywhere else near the suspension. This is really good news.

Now I have a bunch of parts that need to be cleaned, re-painted, and re-installed. I'm still not halfway there...

Now, on to something completely different...

2008-03-31T12:02:00.000-07:00

So, now that I own an old Alfa, I've become an Alfa snob. It tends to happens to owners who drink from the AR cool-aid bucket, and God knows I take a few swigs every day. And so, I'll post a few Alfa-related tidbits in between my car work posts.

Here is one of the new Alfas that may be coming to the US in the next few years - the Mi.to:
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/03/14/alfa-romeo-releases-the-new-mi-to/

This one may be sold starting in 2010. It's supposed to compete against the Mini pricewise and segment-wise. I'll have to wait and see, but I like its looks (although I don't like the name at all.)

In the interim Fiat will probably import the current Alfa 159, and the Alfa Brera.
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/05/04/alfa-romeo-returning-to-the-u-s/

The 159 is a bigger Sedan, while the Brera is a mid-size hatchback. They are both higher-end cars (BMW/Audi range).

All of these cars are built on platforms shared with other Fiat models. In essence, Fiat (which owns AR) and Alfas are pretty much the same cars nowadays.

I am hopeful they Fiat/AR will be successful in their return to the US. I might have to get a bigger garage...

Undoing the Front Suspension (driver side)

2008-03-27T18:06:00.001-07:00

Last time, we removed the springs from the front suspension. We also saw indications that the springs are stock springs. The eventual goal of all this excercise is to renew the front suspension and make any changes necessary to prevent the car from bottoming out.

So, in order to renew the front suspension, you need to:

a) Take it apart - remove every part from the car.
b) Clean up the parts
c) Replace any non-usable parts with new parts
d) Put it all together.

Part A is easy, especially now that the springs have been removed. Basically, it comes down to: "if you see a nut or bolt, remove it."

Part B is a bit more involved, since it involved removing years of dirt, undercoating, overspray paint, rust, and other nasties that have deposited themselves on the suspension.

Part C is simple: order needed parts, use a credit card to pay. How simple is that?

Part D is the reverse as A. Easier said than done. I hope not too bad, though.

I think a brief description of the suspension is in order:
- The front suspension is made up of two A-Arms and a vertical upright member. The upright holds a spindle/axle on which the front wheels revolve. The spindle carries a hub and rod bearings, as well as the disk brake rotors. The brake caliper is attached to the upright as well.

The lower A-arm is made up of two separate arms, bolted together with a ball joint assembly which connects the lower a-arm to the upright.

The upper A-Arm is made up of a single control arm mounted almost transversely from the upright to the car chassis, and a diagonal caster arm, connecting the top of the upright to the front inner fender, towards the front of the car.

The lower A-arm have rubber/metal bushings that attach them to the chassis, as well as a lower ball joint that attach the arms to the upright. All three of these (ball joint, bushings) need to be replaced in my car, since they are worn and dirty and all.

The upper A-arm also has two ball joints that wear out (at the inner fender, and at the top of the upright.) There is also two bushings on the transverse control arm that need to be replaced. However, this control arm is not adjustable, and there are aftermarket replacements that allow you to adjust camber and the such. So rather than replacing the control arm bushings, I'll just buy a complete control arm assembly.

So, the total number of parts I need to get (per side)
2 A-arm bushings
1 lower ball joint
1 upper ball joint
1 inner fender ball joint
1 adjustable control arm.

This takes care of Part C - see, simple! And we were not even trying, yet.

Back to A:

First, I removed the brake caliper. This adds some clearance, allows me to move the brake lines out of the way without worrying too much about breaking it. Of course, the line want to spill all of its contents out, and so I had to collect it all with a spill tray. Note that brake fluid is corrosive, and will eat paint! I did not catch this in time, and some of it spilled on parts of the suspension.

After the brake caliper was gone, I wanted to remove the disk brakes. On this kind of car, the disc rotors are bolted to the inside of the hub. Which means: you must remove the hub before removing the rotors.

Hmmm.. how does one do this?

Well, I decided - "I am not sure how to do this, so I'll just remove the complete upright first - hub, disc rotor, and all." After removing a few brackets from behind the upright, I used my handy tie rod ball joint separator, and separated the bottom and top A-arms. Of course, the whole thing fell down onto the ground, making a big racket and scarying the crap out of me.

So, I picked up the complete upright assembly, and after pondering for a few minutes, I decided to put it aside and work on the A-arms.

One thing I noticed right away was how badly worn were the a-arm bushings. The A-arms are supposed to rotate up and down. They did this OK on my car, but they also could be slid about 1/2" forwards and backwards! Holy cow - can only guess how much they slid under heavy breaking! Thinking about it, I am a bit lucky I made it home when I bought the car.

The bottom A-arm is held in place by a cast-metal pivot arm, held in place with the chassis by for bolts. Taking them out was simple - soak in PB Blaster, get a breaker bar, and undo the bolts. This took about 10 minutes, and the whole lower a-arm assembly come out.

The upper a-arm was not as easy. The front caster arm was simple - unscrew the two bolts from the ball joint, and the thing comes out. The problem is that, once you do that, you must loosen the adjusting nuts and rod. This is tricky once you take these out of the car. So, first, add a bunch of PB blaster to the adjustment rod and nuts, and loosen them. Then, you proceed to removing the front arm. Once removed, undoing the adjusting rod is simpler, since it's already loosened up.

The next thing was removing the control arm. This involves loosening a nut and bolt from the inside of the engine compartment. To get to it, I had to go through the front of the car to access it (the radiator, alternator are not installed, as I am also replacing the water pump - see older post.) I must admit, I do not know how anyone can remove this without removing half the engine - I am sure there is away, though. After a bit of work the nut/bolt came loose, and out came the control arm.

At this point, all the parts were separated from the car. I must admit, it is kind of weird to not see anything in the wheel well. Kinda scary, too!

Next up, it's time to separate the lower a-arms from the pivot rod. The a-arms are held to the pivot rod with a pair of nuts, which are covered by metal caps. These metal covers are pressed into place - how to remove them? Hmmm..

- First, apply liberal amounts of PB Blaster (penetrating oil.) PB is my friend.

- Then, I tried vise grips. After about 20 minutes, I gave up. These things are a pain in the butt!

- After chatting with a few folks (including my dad), we figured a chisel and some encouragement provided by a Big Freaking Hammer might help. And guess what - it worked. Chisel and hammer take the things out in about five minutes

What I found under the caps was depressing - tons of dirty, old grease, and nasty goo. Hidden in there were a nut and a washer. After cleaning things up a bit, I went at it with a 24mm wrench (and my little friend, Mr. Impact Wrench) and took the nuts out, and separated the A-arms from the pivot.

Finally, the hub and upright remained, waiting to be taken apart. The hub and disk assembly has a metal cover similar to the suspension metal caps. So I figured, if the chisel/hammer worked before, maybe they will work here, too. And guess what - they did. The cap came off in a minute. Inside the hub, I removed the castellated nut/pin, and the whole hub/disc assembly came off from the axle/spindle. Piece of cake. Removing the two screws that hold the rotor to the hub freed them from each other.

I also took a picture of the caster arm (the front member of the upper A-Arm,) just in case how it goes together. The whole thing was covered in grime, overspray, and greasy dirt. I am assuming the notch in the middle of the arm is there on purpose (to allow mechanics to use a wrench to adjust,) and not some overly-zealous alignment specialist...

That's it - all the pieces were now separated. They all look nasty dirty! Part A is now done - for the driver side. I still have the passenger side left to go. That will be next.

Springs, Part 4: Finally, some work gets done.

2008-03-25T12:09:00.000-07:00

So, I've been away from the keyboard for a while. But things have been a bit busy at the House of Speed. It's time to catch up on things online.

If you remember, I was wondering about spring sizes and the such. The two important things to figure out are:

- spring rate
- spring free length.

Once we decide on spring rate, we can compute the required spring free length using the math I've discussed in previous posts.

Online, there are two main schools of though regarding springs:

a) Go with stiff rates, and keep the stock sway bars
b) Go with medium stiffness rates, and make your sway bars heavier.

(I'll explain sway bars in a future post.)

The problem I run into is that most folks seem to favor a racy, stiff, ready-for-racetrack setup. In all honesty, I do not want to race the Alfa; I just want to drive the car around during the weekends, and hopefully not have to work too much on it (once the thing is ready to run, of course.)

So I am of the school of though of "go with springs as soft as possible, as long as the front of the car does not bottom out too badly, and the handling is not too numb". The current springs allow the car to scrape with the ground under heavy breaking, so any replacement springs should probably be stiffer (to prevent nose dive) while keeping a similar ride height (lowered cars tend to scrape on the ground more than non-lowered counterparts.)

So, what what kind of springs do I have in the car, currently? Well, the best way to find out is to remove them and see what I've got!

At first, this sounds a bit scary, since you have to deal with fairly stiff springs (450+ lb/inch; for comparison, my Miata's front springs are 375 lb/in.) And compressed springs are dangerous - if they break loose while you are undoing things, they can get launched like a projectile and hit stuff and people. Dangerous stuff.

Fortunately, there is a cheap and fairly safe way of dealing with this, as explained here: http://www.centerlinealfa.com/tips/images/installation/spring_install.pdf

Basically, this method involves using two 12" threaded rods to replace two of the bolts that hold the spring pan in place, removing the other two bolts that hold the spring pan in place, and slowly lowering the spring pan with the remaining threaded rods until the spring comes free. I used this method, with two variations:

- I used three rods.
- I greased the rods once the upper double nuts were tightened, to prevent any wear on the threaded rod (and potential binding or jamming up.)

The extra third rod was a bit redundant, but it did make me feel a bit safer. It does add to the total time it takes to undo each spring, since you have to do 50% more work (3 rods vs 2 rods.) I also highly recommend adding some grease, as jackscrews will wear quite rapidly and either jam or break the thread (airplanes have crashed due to poorly greased jackscrews - no kidding!)

The whole process took about 1.5 hours per side. I was taking it easy at first, learning the process and all. I suspect once you learn the ropes, you can bring this down to about an hour (with three rods - probably less if you use two rods.)

I did make a mistake: I forgot to loosen the antisway bar at first. That added a about 30 minutes worth of agravation, but I lowered the opposite side enough to loosen up the sway bar and removed it. After that, everything was cake.

Once you are done undoing the springs, you are left with a lower spring pan (which is secured to the lower A-Arm of the suspension,) a spring, and upper and lower rubber isolator pads (two per side.) These rubber pads prevent metal-to-metal contact between the spring, the chassis, and the spring pan. This helps prevent squeaks, and makes the ride a bit more comfortable.

Well, both spring pans were very dirty, and a bit rusty. Plus, the paint and undercoating overspray made things look nasty. On the passenger side, the lower pan had about 1" worth of dirt, and you could barely see the rubber isolator buried in all that dirt! On the driver side, however, the rubber isolators were completely missing (both of them!) Hmmmm...

The spring themselves were dirty and a bit rusty, too. All the overspray covered any present marking (e.g. spring type, part no., etc.) So, I went ahead and measured the length of springs, and they came out to about 12.5 inches. This matches the length of the stock springs. I am starting to think the springs are definetely stock. Go figure.

So, assuming these are stock springs (about 450 lb/in), we know a medium-rate spring (600-800 lb/in) would help with the bottoming-out issues. This is a bit reassuring - I was concerned the already-mounted springs were of the 1100lb/in variety, and any decrease in rates would make the car more likely to bottom out.

Next up - the front suspension comes apart.

Springs - Part 3

2008-03-01T08:37:00.000-08:00

On my last post, I mentioned the next step would involve measuring the compressed length of the springs at the stock ride height. How does one do this, you ask?

Well, in theory, it's not too hard: one just needs to set up the suspension to the stock ride height, and measure the distance between the top spring perch and the bottom spring perch.

The problem is that when the car is sitting on the ground, it is hard to get under the car. But if you lift the car and rest it on jack stands, the wheels come off the ground and the suspension droops towards the ground.

So, the best way (given my tools/resources) is to lift the car onto the jack stands, and remove the springs. One can then raise the suspension up/down with a hydraulic jack until one gets the proper suspension ride height. Once this is done, you can use a string and a measuring tape to get a read on the perch-to-perch length.

The stock ride height is determined by measuring the distance from the lower A-arm pivot to the ground (measurement A) , and the distance from the lower ball joint to the ground (measurement B). The difference between A and B should be 34mm +/- a few mm. (I'll have to post a link to a diagram illustrating this -- stay tuned.)

So, by raising the suspension up/down with the hydraulic jack, one can zero-in on the proper ride height and measure the compressed spring length.

(I'll detail the removal of the springs on my next post.)

The compressed length came out to 204mm, or 8.0315".

This is very close to the 200mm test load used in specifying the spring rates (see my previous post.) At this stock ride height, the distance b/w the center of the hub to the fender lip came out to 14 5/8" (371mm.) Furthermore, compressing the suspension 1 1/8" (18/16") caused a compression at the spring perch of 7/16", giving a 18:7 (2.57:1) ratio in travel b/w the outside of the hub and the spring perch.

Why is this useful? Well, these numbers can be used to compute the amount of force with which the spring is compressed at the stock ride height. Assuming the following spring rate and free length (from my previous post):

Front: spring rate = 7.797 kg/mm, free length = 313.5mm

With a compressed lenght of 204mm, then the spring is compressed a total 109.5mm with respect to the stock ride height. The amount of force on the spring is computed with the spring equation:

Fs = Spring Rate * (Free Length - Compressed Length)
= 7.8 kg/mm * 109.5mm = 854.1 kg = 1879.02 lb (aprox.)

This can be used to compute the required free length for springs with different spring rates. Recall:

k = f/(Lf - Lc)

Where:
k = spring rate
f = load at spring
Lf = free lenght of spring
Lc = compressed length

Clearing out Lf, we get:

Lf = (f/k) + Lc

For example, take an 800lb spring (and rounding out a few terms):

Lf = (1879lb / 800lb/in) + 8.0315 = 10.38025"

So, in theory, obtaing a spring with a rate of 800 lb/in and with a free length of 10.38" will yield a ride height very close to stock ride height. This is a big piece of the puzzle - I can now pick my rate, and by plugging in numbers into these equations, I can compute the free length required for the spring. Wee!

(A caveat: the springs are installed with rubber isolators on the top and bottom of the spring. This effectively decreases the actual compressed length somewhat. I wll have to measure these and correct the compressed length before doing computations "for the record". I will do this in my next post.)

A new problem arises when one asks: "What if I want to lower the ride height by X inches?" Well, we have a numbers for that.

Recall that the ratio between the hub-to-fender length and the compressed length is 2.57:1. We can then assume that a 25.7 mm (about 1") decreased ride height implies a 10mm decrease in spring compressed length. We further assume that the force on the compressed spring remains the same (big assumption - probably off by a bit.) We can then punch the numbers into our previous example:
(Note: 10mm = 0.3937")

Lf = f/k + (Lc-10mm)
= (1879lb / 800lb/in) + (8.0315" - 0.39") = 9.99"

Pretty cool, eh?

So, in summary, the numbers to remember are:

f = 1879lb = 854.1 kg
Lc = 8.0315in = 204 mm
Motion at hub:Motion at spring = 2.57:1

And the key equation:
Lf = f/k + (Lc - (correction))

The "correction" term refers to any adjustments in ride height we may want to do, as described above.

The bigger moral of the story: algebra and high school-level physics are actually useful in real life!
:-)

Next up: Back in the garage, removing parts from the suspension.

Springs - Part 2

2008-02-18T22:21:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I mentioned I would be discussing:

1. Figure out the stock spring rates and free lengths.
2. Figure out the compressed length of the springs with the car riding at stock ride height (as described in the owner's manual.)

I'll do part 1 first; I need to get under my car to be able to do part 2.

The information to figure out the stock spring rates and free lengths can be found in one of of the books I purchased last month at Books4Cars.com, The Alfa Romeo Technical Characteristics and Principal Inspection Specifications Manual for the 2000 Berlina, 2000 GT Veloce, and 2000 Spider Veloce. This manual is very nifty, as it provides (as the name suggests) a lot of specs numbers regarding a bunch of aspects of my car. Among these, we can find (guess what): spring free lengths, and compressed lengths for given test loads.

First, free lengths:

The front spring's free length is listed as 313.5mm; the rear spring's free length is listed at 445mm.

Next, spring rates:

The spring rates are not listed directly. However, the manual shows values of length under test loads(i.e. compressed length) for various test loads depending on the kind of stock springs installed on the car. It seems the GTV had five varieties of front springs and three varieties of rear springs installed at the factory (one assumes lucky customers would end up with slightly stiffer springs than less-fortunate brethren.)

For the front springs, the "Length under test load" (i.e. test compressed length) is 200mm. The test loads for the various stock springs are:

- 858.5kg - 868kg (Spring ID no. 43)
- 869kg - 879kg (Spring ID no. 44)
- 880kg - 890kg (Spring ID no. 45)
- 891kg - 901kg (Spring ID no. 46)
- 902kg - 911.5kg (Spring ID no. 47)

For the rear springs, the "Length under test load" is 252mm. The various test loads are:

- 280kg - 285kg (ID no. 18)
- 286kg - 292kg (ID no. 48)
- 293kg - 298kg (ID no. 49)

I suspect these ranges exist due to the variation in tolerances allowed during the manufacture of the springs used in GTVs. The factory probably winds a few hundred spring coils, tests them, and depending on the resulting rates, it stamps a different ID number on them.

How is this useful?

Well, these numbers indicate how much the springs are compressed under a standard load. This information can be used to determine the spring rates values for the stock springs.

First, the front springs.

Difference in length = Lf - Lc
(Lf = Free Length, Lc = Compressed Length for a given load)

Lf - Lc = 313.5mm - 200mm = 113.5mm

From my previous post, the spring constant (k) is defined as:

k = load/Lf-Lc

For the various springs listed above, I'll use the midpoint values for computing the spring rate (k)

Spring ID no. 43, k = 863kg/113.5mm = 7.604 kg/mm = 425.778 lb/in
Spring ID no. 44, k = 874kg/113.5mm = 7.700 kg/mm = 431.205 lb/in
Spring ID no. 45, k = 885kg/113.5mm = 7.797 kg/mm = 436.632 lb/in
Spring ID no. 46, k = 896kg/113.5mm = 7.894 kg/mm = 442.059 lb/in
Spring ID no. 47, k = 907kg/113.5mm = 7.991 kg/mm = 447.486 lb/in

For the rear springs:

Lf - Lc = 445mm - 252mm = 193mm

For the various rear springs listed above:

Spring ID no. 18, k = 282.5kg/193mm = 1.464 kg/mm = 81.965 lb/in
Spring ID no. 48, k = 289kg/193mm = 1.497 kg/mm = 83.851 lb/in
Spring ID no. 49, k = 295.5kg/193mm = 1.531 kg/mm = 85.737 lb/in

So, to summarize, here are the specs for stock springs (using mid-point values):

Front: spring rate = 436.632 lb/in, free length = 12.343 in
Rear: spring rate = 83.851 lb/in, free length = 17.512 in

In metric:

Front: spring rate = 7.797 kg/mm, free length = 313.5mm
Rear: spring rate = 1.497 kg/mm, free length = 445.0mm

An observation: I suspect the folks at Alfa Romeo probably sourced springs with rates of 7.8kg/mm and 1.5kg/mm for the front and rear ends, respectively. If so, we can use these values whenever we talk about stock spring rates. This converts to about 437 lb/in and 84 lb/in for the front and rear springs, respectively. I'll settle on these values when refering to "stock spring rates."

One thing down. Next, we need to figure out the compressed length of the springs when the car is riding at the stock ride height. How is this done? Stay tuned...

Springs - Part 1

2008-02-17T20:40:00.001-08:00

So, the car remains half torn apart as I wait for parts to arrive - a new water pump, suspension bushings, ball joints, and adjustable control arms. I figured while I wait, I might as well read some of the books I've bought, and see if I can learn something useful.

Well, I think I have.

As you may recall, I've been a bit worried about the current springs installed in the Alfa. For starters, under heavy braking, the sump guard scrapes against the pavement. So I suspect the current springs might be too soft and/or too short. (I also suspect the shocks are worn out, but that's another story.) So, I am trying to find out what to do about springs.

(What follows is a newbie's interpretation on coil springs as used on cars. I am not 100% sure this is accurate, but here it goes.)

You see, springs affect how the car rides (the stiffer the spring, the harsher the ride, kinda), how it handles (stiffer springs can improve handling capability, and keep the car from leaning away from curves and the such), and how high the car rides (longer springs make the car ride higher; shorter springs make the car ride lower.) So, getting the proper stiffness and length of a spring is pretty important in determining how happy the owner feels about the way a car rides and handles.

So, I need to determine which spring stiffness and free lengths to specify for any new springs I install on the car.

What do these things mean, you ask? Well, let's start with stiffness:

Spring stiffness is basically the resistance of a spring to be compressed (or stretched) under a give load or force. Spring stiffness is specified by measuring how much force it takes to compress (or extend) a spring by a certain length. This value is known as the spring constant. For example, if it takes 100lbs to compress a spring by 1 inch, this spring would be said to have a spring constant value of 100 lbs/in. To figure out the spring constant, the following equation suffices:

spring constant (k) = force / difference in length

Or:
k = f/lf - lc

Where:
k - spring constant
f - force
lf - free length with no load
lc - compressed length of spring under the force f.

(This assumes a linear spring, where the spring constant for the spring actually remains constant throughout the range of available compression. Note also that the range of compression is limited - as you compress the spring, the individual coils get closer and closer, until they eventually make contact. Once this happens, the spring is not a spring anymore - it's more of a column of metal which does not behave as a spring would.)

Note that suspension springs do most of their work while being compressed. So most of my discussion will only address springs under compression only.

How about length?

Well, length is just that - the length of the spring. However, you can measure length when the spring is unloaded, or when a certain force is applied to it. The unloaded length of a spring is its free length, while length measured under a give force f can be referred to as compressed length.

Once you know the spring constant (k) and the spring's free length (lf) you can compute the length of the spring for any force using the spring equation shown above. For example, assume:

k=500 lb/in
lf= 10 in

Then, under 1000lbs of force, the spring's compressed length will be:

500 lb/in = 1000 lb / (10inch - lc)

Moving things around:

lc = 10 inch - 1000lb/500(lb/inch) = 8 inches.

Also: once you know a given spring rate (k) and a given free length (lf), you can use these values to order springs from vendor and/or manufacturers. (In short, these two values serve as the initial "size" for specifying and obtaining automotive springs.)

Why does all this matter?

Well, using these relationships and measuring a few things in the car, I can determine which spring rates and spring free lengths I need to use for a given car ride height. In other words, given:

a) The ride height I want to have on my car
b) The spring rates I would like to have on my springs
Then I can determine:
c) the free length of the springs.

Once I figure (B) and (C), I can order springs and be all happy.

Now, my goals with respect to springs is to:
a) Keep my ride height as close to stock as possible--within half an inch lower than stock, but not any higher.
b) Install springs that are stiffer than stock - this will help keep the car from bottoming out during heavy braking, and will help the car handle better
c) Make sure the springs are not so stiff - this would make the ride quality harsher.

So, my approach to deciding on springs will be as follows:

1. Figure out the stock spring rates and free lengths.
2. Figure out the compressed length of the springs with the car riding at stock ride height (as described in the owner's manual.)
3. Survey the various spring kits available for my car, as well as comments posted on various BBs and the such, and figure out what folks think
4. Based on (3), decide (guess, really) which spring rates I want to use
5. Once I decide on spring rates, figure out the free length required for my chosen spring rates.,
6. Order the springs from someone.
7. Install the springs, cross my fingers, and hope this all works.

That's enough babble for now. I will babble more regarding items 1-3 on my next post.

Waiting...

2008-01-25T11:45:00.001-08:00

So, I've been waiting for parts to show up in my house. It turns out, the water pump is back-ordered, and the shipment to the vendor has not arrived from Europe. It seems both Centerline and IAP are in the same boat, and so, I have to wait.

In the meanwhile, I figured if I can't work on the car, I can read about working on the car.

So, I went to the Books4Cars.com store. No, not the online store, but the actual physical store. It is found right here in Seattle, in the Columbia City district. They listed the actual Alfa Romeo shop manual for my car, so I figured I'd go there and buy it.

The store is this small, 1-story building right off Rainier Avenue (the main drag in Columbia City.) It's very easy to miss. But inside, it's a walk into auto-book heaven. They have plenty of shelves full of shop manuals, user guides, automobilia books, magazines, parts catalogs, anything imaginable.

The staff is very friendly (even when busy servicing online and/or phone orders.) I just showed up to the store, and they immediately guided me to the Alfa Romeo section. I spent an hour just browsing everything I could find. I ended up buying the Alfa Romeo Shop Manual (looks authentic enough, and very informative,) as well as a used Alfa Romeo Technical Specifications manual. This latter one is a must have, as it lists all the important specs on the car: suspension ride height, nut torquing numbers, maintenance instructions - all sorts of important stuff.

I then spent about 45 minutes looking at the Mazda manuals. I could not find a shop manual for my Miata, however. They may not have every car book in existence, but they did indicate they can order it for me if needed.

I must say, this is the coolest car shop I've seen in a long time, and it's become my favorite bookstore. Who needs a latte when you have a rack-full of Porsche books to browse?

Books4Cars is located at 4850 37th Ave. South in the Columbia City district of Seattle. If you live in the Puget Sound you must check out this place. If you don't live around here, check out their online store at http://www.books4cars.com/

I think I will list a bunch of vendor links on this blog. This store will be right at the top.

Water Works, Part 1

2008-01-14T20:13:00.000-08:00

So, I've been out of town a lot over the past six weeks - Thanksgiving, Mexico, and the Xmas Holidays. But I finally got back home a week ago, and decided it was time to work again on the Alfa.

Last time I posted, I had found a water/coolant leak in the car, and decided that I had to either replace the water pump, or maybe just tighten it a bit more. Going over the Previous Owner's receipts, I did not find any evidence of the water pump being replaced when the engine got rebuilt. So, I figured, I might as well pony up $85 and buy a new water pump from Centerline. The thing is back ordered, however, and it will be a week or two more before I get it.

So, I figured, I might as well do a bit of prep work and remove the old pump.

Now, this sounds easier than it is. See, to get to the water pump, you need to remove the engine fan. To get to the engine fan, you need to remove the radiator. And so on -- you get the idea. So, at about 9:30am on Sunday, I marched to the garage, cleaned up a bit, and got to work.

First, I raised the car onto jack stands. This provided a bit of extra access to the front of the engine from the bottom of the car, and allowed me remove the oil sump pan guard grill. See, the bottom of the oil sump rides fairly low on this car, and in order to protect it, the car comes equipped with a metal undertray.

Another part needing a bit of cleanup...

I then flushed the radiator. This is done by reaching under the radiator with a 12mm wrench, and unbolting the drain plug found underneath. Of course, once the plug is gone gravity took over, and a bit of coolant got sprayed all over the garage floor. To my surprise, the fluid came out yellow (as opposed to very tasty/shiny green.) But it came clear enough, with no oil or anything. This is a very encouraging thing.

I ended up draining about 2+ gallons from the engine! For a small motor, there's tons of coolant in there.

Then I removed the front grill of the car. This allows even more access to the water pump assembly from the front of the car without having to remove the hood. This also allows me to really clean up the grill, and make it really shiny and all.

Next, I had to remove the radiator. It quickly became evident that it might be easier to access the various fasteners and hoses attached to the radiator by first removing the car's battery. So, I figured, what's another part? So, I unplugged the wires connecting to the battery, and removed the battery.

This is when I encountered my not-so-good surprise - the plastic tray holding the battery was covered in some sort of gooey slime. Some of it had migrated to the metal tray holding this whole thing in the engine compartment. This is worrysome, as a) gooey stuff coming from batteries tends to be very acidic, b) acidic stuff eats through metal, and c) Alfas tend to have very rust-prone metal to begin with.

Hmmmm....
So, I put on fresh gloves over my dirty gloves, grabbed a rag, and cleaned up as much as I could of the metal tray. I'll have to pour some Baking Soda on the metal tray, too, in order to neutralize the acidity, then rinse the whole thing. For now, though, most of the acid was out of the way. Fortunately, the paint on the tray did not seem to be damaged at all. Good thing there...

I then added to the list of things to do: buy a new battery...

I then moved on to the radiator (finally.) Removal was pretty straight forward: remove two nuts from the top, untie three hoses, then pull the thing straight up. The thing looked a bit dirty, but otherwise in good shape.

Then on to the engine fan. To remove it, you undo five small bolts (10mm?) on the face of the fan itself. Removing the front grill allowed excellent access to the fan itself. Then I loosened up the alternator (19mm wrench, 17mm socket for the main pivot bolt) for added clearance, and removed the fan belt.

By now, I was feeling all confident and happy. I did take my time (about two hours), but I had encountered no show stoppers so far. So I figured, time to remove the water pump.

The water pump is a very annoying thing. To remove it, you need to disconnect three hoses from the pump housing. Upon removing each, a few ounces (maybe a pint) of coolant would start pouring all over the place. Again, this tends to splatter all over the floor, making a mess, and breaking things. Once the hoses are undone, however, it got worse.

There are nine studs sticking out of the timing belt cover that hold the water pump in place. I needed to remove the 10mm nuts fastened to each stud. Although access was a bit tricky, removing the nuts took all of five minutes. However, as I pulled the pump out, the thing did not clear the crank pulley right underneath the pump itself. As it turned out, the two lower studs prevent you from clearing the pump out of the way. I recalled reading about this on the AlfaBB, but I did not understand what folks had referred to. (See picture towards the end, after removing the pump. The bottom two studs are the annoying ones!)

Until now, that is. How freaking annoying! Who comes up with this!?

After perusing the online BBs for about an hour, I found I had two options:
a) remove the studs
b) remove the crank pulley.

To remove a stud, the typical process calls for threading two nuts onto the stud itself, tightening them against each other, then turning the **bottom* nut counterclockwise, with the hope that the now-very-tight nuts will, in turn, rotate the stud out from the timing belt cover. This assumes that there is enough thread on the stud to place the two nuts, and enough room to get two hands to work two wrenches simultaneously.

After trying for about 45 minutes, I realized I could do neither effectively.

How freaking annoying!!

So, time for option B - attack the crank pulley. For this, one needs to source a 38mm socket (some GTV models use a 36mm socket - not mine, though) in order to remove the gigantic nut holding the pulley to the crank. I found one such socket at the local Shucks store for $19. I guess that's one more thing I don't need to buy anymore.

There are two main challenges when removing the nut that holds the crank pulley:
a) As you apply torque to the nut, the engine rotates. After all, you are applying torque to a nut that is tied to the crank itself. And guess what, the crank is supposed to rotate, right?
b) The nut itself is tightened with a lot of torque - 180ft-lbs is the spec. That's a lot of torque!

The trick to solving (B) is easy: grab the biggest breaker bar you can find, and pull on it as hard as you dare. Or even better, buy some air tools and go at it with an impact wrench. I do not have air tools nor impact wrenches, so I had to settle for the breaker bar option.

The trick to solving (A), however, is to shift the transmission into 5th gear, and applying the hand brake. This effectively prevents the engine from turning, as the crank is connected directly to the wheels through the now-engaged transmission. So, I tried that first, and as I pulled on the breaker bar, I came to the realization the parking brake did not work, and the car rolled backwards about six inches.

How freaking annoying!! Another thing I have to fix!

So I chocked the rear wheels with a few 2x6s I had lying around, and tried again. This time around, the car did not move much. At first, the nut did not budge. So, I pulled as hard as I could, and just when I started to think "I must be about to break something", the thing started to give way. A few more tugs, and the nut came loose.

Wee!!!

Once the nut came loose, I tugged on the crank pulley a few times. At first, the thing did not budge. However, a few hard tugs later, the thing came loose. I got lucky - some folks require a bit more light tapping and the such.

Double-wee!!!

I then tugged on the water pump, and the thing came out easily.

Triple-wee!!!

By now, it was 5:30pm. I figured it was time to clean up the garage a bit, gather/organize all the parts I disassembled, and call it a night. I did accomplish the goal for the day. But man, I sure felt I'd be sore the next morning.

So, the car is still dead, with no battery, no water pump, and a few parts removed. I suspect getting all this stuff together again will not take as long, once all the parts are cleaned up and ready to go.

A bit of cleaning up around here...

2008-01-14T19:48:00.000-08:00

Just a note: I created a new blog in which I'll post non-car related stuff. I suspect some of my friends and family don't care so much about my car adventures, so I figured I'd move non-car stuff over there.

How to get there? Click the link on the top right (My Non-Car Blog.) You can also type the blog's name: http://MyHouseOfBacon.blogspot.com

I also moved my post from December 14 (T-giving trip, Cancun trip.) to over there (well, copy/pasted it, really.)

More car news, including my adventures with water pumps and suspension, will be added soon to this blog. Stay tuned...

Time away from the car/work/etc.

2007-12-14T18:23:00.000-08:00

This posting can now be found on my non-car blog. Sorry for the inconvenience...

Kinks in the plan

2007-11-28T17:43:00.000-08:00

So, a few weeks ago, I decided to park the car and pretty much put all my suspension work on hold until the new year. I figured I would not have much time before then, with all the holiday season ongoings and all.

However, I did decide to replace the ignition cables. The old ones were cracked and weird looking. So, I went ahead and replaced them. Really simple stuff, although figuring out how to route them through the engine compartment took me a while - I wanted to get them just right!

Afterwards, I turned on the engine, and let the car warm up for about five minutes. Everything idled well, so I shut down the car, and went to bed.

A couple of days later, I was doing laundry in the garage, and I noticed a puddle of water on the floor. My first though was that the garage roof had sprung a leak. After looking around for a few minutes, it hit me - this could be coming from the car.

Sure enough, it was engine coolant. D'oh!

So, I looked around the engine compartment for a bit, and I figured it seems like there is an issue with the water pump. I also noticed the car was missing the swivel nut on the alternator bracket that is used to adjust the belt tension. Very weird. So, the belt was loose, and the pump (or something in the vicinity) was leaking...

I've also noticed that many bolts tend to be a bit loose - I can easily add torque to many of them. Which leads me to think two things:
a) The water pump is bad
b) the water pump was not torqued correctly, and water/coolant is leaking through the seams.

How annoying!

Since then, I've been buying bolts to replace the missing ones, and have been doing a bit of research on how to proceed. The most mentioned course involves removing the radiator, fan, and pump, in order to ensure the pump is A-OK. I suspect I might buy a replacement pump anyways. I am also considering getting an electric fan, since all parts will be disassembled and all.

And all these repairs will have to wait until after the new year...

And theeeen, I can work on the suspension...
Or on whatever breaks next...

Work continues: steering linkage, part 2

2007-11-15T17:22:00.001-08:00

So, last Saturday I left the car up in stands, with the steering linkage all disassembled, while I waited for the newly-painted steering rods to really dry up. I also wanted to buy new left-hand threaded lock nuts, since the old ones were really beat up. I figured I'd wait until the next weekend to reinstall things and wrap things up for now.

Well, I could not wait.

On Monday, I went to a few local stores in search of the rare left-hand 14mmx1.50 nut. I finally found three at High Strength Bolt Co., in Kent. This was the last pieces I needed, so I was ready to re-install stuff.

Monday night I reassembled the steering links and ball joints, and set them to their original length (which I captured when I was disassembling things last week.) I then crawled under the car, to get everything back together.

Re-installing incurred three main things:
1. Get the ball joints back into the steering knuckles and other locations.
2. Pound them a few times with a rubber mallet, and thread the upper castellated nuts to secure the rods to the suspension.
3. Secure the nuts with wire pins to make sure the nuts don't spin off.

Steps one and two were easy enough - just get things in place, pound, then thread the nuts. Torqueing them correctly required using a few extension bars with my torque wrench, as you must access the nuts from the top of the engine bay. All this was completed in about an hour.

Threading the lock pins in place, though, was another story. First, the castellated nuts had to align with the securing holes on the ball joint stud themselves. This was tricky, since some of the ball joint studs are hard to see from under the car (especially the inner tie rods.) On top of that, the pins I bought were a bit too large, and they would not fit properly. Aargh! After trying for about an hour, I decided to give up, and try again the next day.

So, the next day, I bought thinner pins at the local hardware store. Then under the car, and after about ninety minutes, all the pins were installed and locked in place. Finally. I must say, I see the need for castellated nuts, but I really hate dealing with them.

I then reinstalled the wheels, and took the car for a ride. The steering feels a bit less unresponsive - like there is a bit less play on the steering wheel. This maybe all a placebo effect going on, though. The suspension still creaks and feels weak. But I think there is a bit of an improvement.

Next up will be dealing with the front suspension. I still don't know if I will tackle this myself, or send it to the shop and let them do this. I also need to decide what to do about springs and dampers. I'll have to keep looking around for recommended rates and the such.

Then it's onwards to the rear suspension. I am really thinking I do not want to tackle the rear end at all. It seems dealing with the large and heavy differential requires tons of room, and tons of help. Hmm...

So maybe I'll do the front myself, then go to the shop for the rear end work.

I think I'll be waiting until after Xmas for this, though, as I have a few trips coming up, and very little time to work on the car. Oh well.

Work continues: steering linkage, part 1

2007-11-11T12:11:00.000-08:00

I finally started working on the steering linkage of the Alfa. The idea was to replace just a few things in the front end, and then decide whether I want to tackle the whole job or not. One side of me wants to do all the work, since I find working on cars to be fun - I like the challenge (both mental and physical,) trying to figure things out, and engrossing myself in a task so much that I end up losing track of time (or the real world, for that matter.) And with a bit of luck, you end up with a better working vehicle.

On the other hand, this is the front suspension of the car, which can be pretty complicated stuff. Taking it to a shop will ensure that the work will be done right, and fairly quickly (1-2 days max.) Just drop off the car, come back the next day, and everything is A-OK. There is a lot of benefit in this - just drive the car and have fun.

I am still undecided as to what I will do. But in the meanwhile, I figured replacing all the steering ball joints should be straightforward enough.

So, last Wednesday night I jacked up the front end of the car, placed it on stands (ratchet-type jack stands), and went to work. I had borrowed a gear puller from my friend TJ (the puller on the left,) and was able to pull three of the six ball joints required. This puller worked well, but it was a very tight fit for the inner tie rods (four of them). I spent two and a half hours trying to figure things out! At this pace, I would be done sometime around Xmas.

So, I stopped for the night (11:30pm) and decided to look for the puller on the right (called a "ball joint lifter" - not a puller.) A few folks in the Alfa Bulletin Boards (www.alfabb.com) have recommended this type, and a few stores had them online. But I wanted it now, so I ended up going to Napa Auto Parts, and wouldn't you know it, they had it in stock. It only cost $12 with tax, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

So, Saturday morning, I got under the car at about 9am or so. Within 30 minutes all three remaining ball joints had been pulled off. Wee! I must say, having the right tool for a job saves a lot of time and effort. I highly recommend obtaining this kind of lifter for this kind of job, as it made the whole ball joint pulling (lifting?) experience a very simple one.

So, finally, the steering linkage was all out. I left the steering box and idler box in place, as I think servicing these are a bit beyond the immediate scope of things. I suspect the steering box could use a bit of maintenance, but for now, I'll just play with one thing at a time.

Before disassembling anything else, I measured the distance between ball joints, so that I can reset the length when I reassemble the whole thing. I'll have to align the car regardless, but hopefully the front alignment will be within a reasonable ballpark in the interim (what's a bit extra tire wear?)

The next problem was disconnecting the tie rods from the main rods themselves. At first I thought the locking nuts where part of the middle rods themselves. After much pounding at wrenches and the such, I realized the nuts and the rods were separate parts. Duh! They are locking nuts, after all. So I started pounding in different directions, and within 10 minutes, everything was disconnected.

The joints themselves were to be thrown out, but the middle rods themselves will be reused. They were all grimy with grease, undercoating, paint, and rust. So I figured I'd clean them up and paint them.

I started by cleaning the rods with brake cleaner and a stiff wire brush. After about 1o minutes of scraping away, the things were fairly clean. Brake cleaner is nasty stuff, but it does clean everything in sight. I then sanded the rods with medium grit sandpaper, and re-sprayed with even more brake cleaner.

Afterwards, I rinsed everything with hand clener (Fast Orange) and plenty of water.

The results are shown on this picture. One of the rods was pretty much striped down to bare metal. The other two were down to the original paint (?) with some spots of bare metal. All signs of grease and undercoating was gone, as well as most of the rust.

I then painted the rods with a few light coats of Rust-Oleum Semi Gloss paint. The things look pretty nice now - not bad for the first time I've ever spray painted anything in my life. The whole paint work (prep, and painting itself) took about 45 minutes.

I would have done a few things differently:
a) I would have used a finer grit sandpaper, as the finished surface looks a bit rough, and not shiny smooth.
b) I would have used a full-gloss paint. I am realizing I want the suspension to be glossy and shiny.

Before re-installing all this back onto the car, I want to replace the lock nuts used to lock the rods and the ball joint links together. I abused the crap out of them when I was removing them earlier, so I figured it would be better to replace them. The lock nuts are sized 14mm x 1.50 thread pitch (for those keeping score at home,) but I need both right-handed and left-handed thread nuts. I did find the RH type at the hardware store down the street, but they did not stock the LH kind. I will be looking for the LH nuts during the week.

Once I find them, then I can re-install the tie rods to the main rods, then install stuff back onto the car. Hopefully the car will be back on its feet next weekend. We'll see how that goes.

Repairs and updates begin - master brake cylinder

2007-11-09T17:29:00.000-08:00

So, the first thing I did when I purchased the car a few weeks ago was drive it straight to the local Alfa shop, Group 2 Motorsports. They are up in the Magnolia district of Seattle. They are very knowledgeable, and very friendly. It is truly a joy to stop by there and chat with the shop's owner, Joe, and the rest of the gang (Keith, Chris, et. al.)

I figured I'd show up, show off the car, and make an appointment to have the car inspected. However, within five minutes, Keith was test driving the car, placing it on a lift, and looking all over. Within half an hour he pointed out things to fix on the car.

The first thing was the brake master cylinder. The thing was leaking, and so the brakes felt mushy and not very strong. They were OK to drive home, but Keith recommended not to drive the car much until the thing was fixed.

So, I made an appointment, and the following week, I replaced the old master cylinder with a new set. The brakes don't leak anymore, and the car stops. One thing down, a few hundred little things to go.

Suspension work - description and thoughts.

2007-11-09T11:02:00.000-08:00

So, my friend Brett asked me about the kind of suspension work I'll be doing/paying someone to do over the next few months. As I typed a response to him, I thought: "I bet this would be a good post on the blog." So, I went ahead and added this.

As bought, the car came with a very tired suspension. Most bushings and ball joints around the front suspension are shot. Most suspension parts are covered in undercoating, oversprayed paint, and dirt. So basically, I'll end up replacing bushings and ball joints all over the place, and cleaning up parts as much as practical.

As far as the current work goes, the steering linkage has 6 tie rod ends that need replacement. Fairly simple stuff, except that separating the tie rods from the various knuckes in the suspension and steering mechanism can be a pain in the ass, since there is not much room for maneuvering. I borrowed a ball-joint puller from TJ, and it works OK, but again, space is limited. I am trying to find a tie rod lifter, which is smaller and would fit better under the car.

The suspension work seems very involved, but given enough time, it's very doable. I can take out suspension parts one or two at a time, without tearing the whole thing apart at once (take out lower a-arm parts, replace, reinstall, move on to upper arm and repeat.) There is that "minor" issue of dealing with a compressed spring, but I just use twine to keep it compressed. (not!)

I'll have to replace the dampers, too. But that's really easy to do on this car, so I can leave that for last. I'm still undecided b/w Bilsteins, Koni Classic, or Koni Sport. Both types of Konis are adjustable, but I am not sure what kind of spring rates they like. A lot of folks like Bilsteins, but a lot of folks like the Konis, too. Most of the discussion out there seems to go like this:

Question:
"What kind of damper would you recommend?"
Responses:
- "I like my (brand A of damper)"
- "Well, good for you, but my (other brand of damper) is better"
- "Oh yeah? Well, my (brand A) is better."
- "Well, obviously you don't know what you are talking about."
- "Well, I can adjust mine."
- "Oh yea? You would not know how to adjust a damper if it was stuck to your arm."

And so on. Sounds familiar? Lots of subjective zealotry, and no numbers to back things up (as in: what spring rates for each damper type, etc.)

Ditto with springs. "Buy brand A", or "I like brand B", but no one talks lbs-in or anything like that.

(It's even worse with the Miata community, since there are even more options -- Tein, Ohlins, KYB, JIC, Koni, Bilstein, yada yada -- although you do find some folks post good technical info. )

I tend to like Konis (I am a Koni zealot, admittedly), mostly because my dad likes them, and I am familiar with them. I like the idea of being able to adjust things, though.

Oh, and yes, after all this is done, I'll have to move on to the rear end...

Trying out posting a picture

2007-11-07T18:53:00.000-08:00

So, I figured, I'd post a picture. Let's see if it works.

Yep, it seems to work OK. It's kinda weird, since Blogger asks you agree to their terms of service before you are allowed to upload the photo. I went ahead and agreed without reading the terms. I wonder what I just agreed to.

Anyways, the car is right there.

I think it's pretty.

A bit about myself

2007-11-07T18:28:00.000-08:00

So, I suspect I will be posting a few notes about my latest car project, an Alfa Romeo 2000 GTV. The car's model year is 1975, although it: a) was built in october 1974, and b) it was sold in Canada (not in the US.)

This creates a bit of an identity crisis, since there were not 1975 GTVs sold in the US. So every time I look for parts, I have to think " '74 ". Kinda confusing. '

The car itself is in generally good shape. The paint looks OK, with only a bit of rust. The interiors are OK - worn out a bit, but normal for a 34 year old car. The motor seems to run well; however, the transmission needs a bit of work in 1st and 2nd gears (they tend to grind.)

The immediate work focus will be on suspension parts. The suspension is mostly shot: very soft dampers, and most bushings are blown (or at least, very worn.) Driving the car is an exercise in predicting where the car will go, and hope for the best. It's not too bad, but Alfas are meant to turn well.

I mean, the other day, I stopped rather suddenly for a yellow/red light, and the front sump cover was grinding against the pavement. Folks saw sparks and all. Not really an ideal situation for the car (or for me.)

This is something that needs to be addressed soon.

So, the plan is the following:

1. Replace all the ball joints in the steering rack.
2. Replace all joints/bushings in the front suspension
3. Ditto for the rear end.
4. Get new shocks.

I am still not sure what to do about springs. The springs on the car are not stock but I am not really sure how they compare with other offerings. I might have to address this at some point, but for now, I'll leave them as they are.

Hopefully, as I do this, I'll be able to figure out how to post pictures and the such over here. Maybe this will help folks pursuing similar adventures. Who knows. If anything, it will be a good place for me to rant and voice my thoughts. I suspect this will be very therapeutic.

First Post

2007-10-31T12:55:00.000-07:00

So, I've decided to try this whole blogging thing once again. I had a blog once, detailing my autocross adventures and the such, but the site at which it was hosted went away, and I gave up.

For some reason, blogging seems like a quaint, old-fashioned thing to do; the rotary-dial phone of the internet. Oh well. Here goes nothing.