Giulia Spider 1962. Norwegian re-restoration.

[Subtle]

Elsa Lanchester in "The Bride of Frankenstein" , 1935 movie.

[Gordon Raymond]

Hello Einar,
Though you hopefully have my E-mails by now, these pictures and measurements belong on the BB for others to use! My friend, Terry Rushbrook was kind enough to take a 20 mile drive out to his restoration shop and take photos and measurements, so I will submit them here with notes.
The hood to grill mounting on the nose is 11.5 CM
The top of the fender to the arch is 17 CM
The wheel opening to door edge is 19.5 CM.
The wheel opening itself is 70.5 CM

Terry took a bunch of pictures I will attempt to post here and in the following post. THANKS!!! Terry

Gordon Raymond

[Gordon Raymond]

More. GR

[ESjaavik]

Thank you Terry and Gordon!

And you're right, they do belong here. I'm sure I will not be the last one to benefit from them.

The first picture also shows the relations better than any I've seen. The Headlight openings seems to be on line with the front of the hood opening. Since I have to make new the first 10cm of the fenders, that is a good reference to check. I don't feel I can rely on the remains of the front placing the headlights right. Now I have a check on that. It also shows the slant of the grille better than any picture I already have, and I have a lot by now.

Here's how I left it half an hour ago:


The nose is now off and I'm almost done grinding the edges clean. Here it's just stuck onto the bumper bracket tubes. When everything is cleaned up there will be around 7-10cm missing between the front piece and the body. And as mentioned the headlight openings also needs to be made. The missing steel is partly because it was not shaped, just bent. And partly because the position and angle of the front was wrong.

Then I will establish the 11.5cm by putting in a strip of steel along the top of the "nose". This strip will flex enough to establish the rake of the grille. Terry's first picture will be my primary guidance. Another measure I've seen in other pictures is the distance from top of the bumper support tubes up to the grille opening. It's just a bit more than the diameter of the tubes. And the angle seems to be right when a vertical beam is touched to the grille opening and the touch point is in the same height as the top of the "eyebrow".

This placement of the front will be temporary while I make the necessary parts, which will take some time. In the mean time I will hopefully have had access to an unmolested Spider to check several measurements to get it right before welding in the parts.

One of the reasons for these rantings is that if someone see something wrong in what I wrote, then hopefully I will be corrected here.

[Gordon Raymond]

Einar,
I have another idea, I will try to photograph tomorrow. It is not a problem to remove the grill on my car in my shop. Then I will put a large RT angle square on the floor, center it in the grill opening, and measure the offset from perpendicular from the shop floor. These measurements should give you an exact angle.

More tomorrow. Gordon Raymond

[ESjaavik]

It would be very nice if you would do that Raymond. Getting access to the lower bolt on mine was not easy. Or rather the fact I had to at the same time hold a scewdriver on the outside. But maybe the original grille have a fixed bolt? If that's the case, give it a nice dose of copper grease when having it out. The low location and mix of different metals promotes corrosion.

If you do this, then also bring a carpenters level and measure the angle of the chrome trim below the door. This angle can change quit a bit, especially on such a light car.

[Gordon Raymond]

Einar, Here we go! Here's some pictures that will help. First is my set up with the square, centered on the grill mounting holes. Then a couple of pictures of the measuring set up. Though it does not show clearly in the photo, when the square touched the top hole, the bottom edge of the lip for the grill was 33 mm away from the square.
Next the seam of the sill or rocker panel on which the trim is centered is level using a carpenters level. It is a straight line from the front fender, under the door to the back. Notice the bottom of the door sill is level with the trim and about 5 mm lower.
More in my next post.

[Gordon Raymond]

Here are some more Einar, first the side trim picture, then a couple out of focus, that try to show both, the upper and lower captive nuts for the grill mounting screws. These are 5 x .8 thread four sided nuts, held in three sided boxes so they can move around to center the grill but not turn. Then a picture of the screws, 5 x .8 x 25 mm, the top a blued flat head, the bottom a chrome oval head. I hope these will help you get the nose back on with less guess work!
Yes my wheel arches are rolled on wire, english style, or as Ferrari does it. As I have only seen one other factory example like this, I felt Terry Rushbrook's measurements would be more accurate for the majority of these cars. My car also features lighter gauge sheet metal from the cowl forward than in the rest of the car. The other car with rolled on wire wheel arches also had the thinner front end body work. I saw this other car in New York, about 40 years ago. It was painted a light straw yellow.

[ESjaavik]

Thanks again Gordon!

I tried the nose on using steel sheet strips and pliers. The strips makes sure the missing piece can be made with flowing lines. They should have at least 3-4cm overlap on each of the panels to be aligned, and wide enough to not be bent too easily.


I was not able to make the upper portion flow and get what I thought was a sensible slant on the grille. The bumper support tubes did not end up where they should be. On closer inspection, the right tubes have taken a hit and made some dents in the U shaped front frame. Some previous repair was made where these tubes attach to the frame. And as usual the welds looked like chickenpoop. Which made it easy to take it all out. That kind of weld lets go pretty easy. Once open, I found the whole frame filled with something appears to be excellent for planting flowers in. Although no holes, the forward facing part of the U frame looks both beaten up and crusty, so I'll make a new part. The part with a red circle around it is the support for the steering endstop.

I think you should be aware of it and where it is, so you can drill a hole above it and in the bottom of the U frame. Then flush out the crud. A rust treatment will get nowhere if it's full of dirt. Let dry thoroughly (several hot and dry days) then spray in very thin Tectyl. There is one with consistency like CRC with excellent creep abilities. Let dry for a couple of days and follow up with a rust treatment that flows easily. That support inside there will prevent a wax like treatment to get past it.

I'll take some pictures after opening the frame so you can see how it looks inside. Hopefully that will help you improve your rustproofing. You can make holes in the frame if you plug them with plastic plugs when done.

[ESjaavik]

And here's how it looks inside. It was almost completely filled with crud. And then with some welding being done some of it had taken on a consistency it's hard to describe unless you saw the film "Alien"!

If you see some use in the pictures, grab them now. I may lower the size and/or quality to save space on the server if needed. If you have questions or need measurements, ask now before I close the frame again. I will keep patterns that I make in case need arise in the future. That will be the front part of the frame wrapping under and back.







What is not so easy to see in the pictures is that since it obviously took a hit in the front at some point in time, the remaining part of the frame is (was) bent back a bit. The red circle highlights a crack that needs to be welded as it is part of the support for the steering box. Due to the vibration and stresses in this area the crack will be welded using OxyAcetylene. The crack have probably developed because the repair was done more to restore the looks than the load and stress carrying capabilities of the frame in this crucial area.

So far this has been mostly ripping things off. Pretty soon now there will be some parts going back in. I look forward to that of course. But I just cannot leave these things I find on my way. It's not just the goal, but also the lessons learned on the road there that makes this worth doing.

BTW: In one of the pictures you can see the roof of a 1964 Ford 350. If you know any resources on this car, contact me in PM or email. We have some unanswered questions and part needs for it. It belongs to my friend that owns the workshop.

[ESjaavik]

Not that I'm done cutting out yet, but still it's rewarding to see something going back in. This is the corner of the front frame that I wanted to restore to full strength. The corner piece have too much shape to do in one piece. At least not for any valid reason. So here is the first part:



And after the second part is welded to it:



It was welded in using OA and the bracket for the steering endstop was MIGged in place.





Just a touch with a grinder on the outside where the MIG cooked through and when painted the weld seam should not be easy to find. If you cannot see the full penetration of the weld, it was too cold and could be just "glued" in place ready to fall off when stressed.

The butt weld where the new piece meets the old steel is hammered after welding to stretch out the crimp caused by welding. That will leave it with very little stress in the steel. This was not the case as it was. When I cut out the corner the cutout piece would not fit right in. That's a sure sign this corner have been under constant stress.

[ESjaavik]

I was contacted on email referring to this thread. I hope it's OK to copy this to the thread without identifying the person. I do that since it seems I may have written something that might not come out as good purchasing advice. And anyway it was a very good question.

Quote:

We have gas, (O/A), Arc & MIG, (Miller 151 Mig-matic) at home. I see on the BB you recommend TIG, rather than MIG – why is that ? The reason I ask is that TIG is very expensive {local price deleted} I understand is has to do with heat being able to work the metal afterwards.

[Ian Evans]

Einar,

I can't speak for everyone, but I'm anxiously awaiting the next update...


Ian

[pathung]

Einar, you lost me about 2 pages ago with the technicals of metal working, but I enjoy the pictures nevertheless