A Hot Detour

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

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

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.

Long time, no driving...

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Alignments, Rear-End Work, More Driving Impressions

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...

Putting stuff back together - part 1.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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...