Giulietta Berlina restoration

[Andrew]

No cable on a Giulietta, but rather a rod. It's a full adjustment, but it's immaterial, because even if it could pull farther, the TO bearing arm is hitting the front of the bottom of the bellhousing, and can't move any farther back.

More pics:
1. Serial number on bottom by sump.
2. Trans looking much better after a bath.
3. Fore/aft shifting arm. Should this hole be a slot or a round hole?
4. All three tunnel transes jus' chillin'.

Andrew

[rogerspeed]

Andrew, great project, a real keeper. A few ideas on the clutch: an 1/8" may make a big difference towards releasing the pressure applied by the pressure plate surface to the driven disc. You may want to try a different flywheel, it is crucial that the mounting surface for the pressure plate and the contact surface area have the correct relationship/distance (ie- from sideveiw perspective). Here in Socal I use a clutch rebuilder, he is able to take Sachs coil spring type clutchs and adjust the fingers to operate propperly.

[Andrew]

You haven't seen the rust crossmembers at the front jack points... Or the lacy doors.

I think you're right about the distance. There is about a 4/1 leverage on the clutch TO bearing arm, so the pressure plate center ring being 1/8" closer means the bottom end of that arm where the clutch rod attaches ought to move forward about 1/2". I have heard more than once that they bend over time too, so I'll check that and see if it can be heated and bent back any.

I'm mystified by the 8/55 clutch pressure plate. The rest of the car looksl like it has a million miles on it, but how did the original pressure plate last so long? Granted the car could have rusted without accumulating miles, but the grease and crud on the underside comes from use, not sitting. That said, all the bellcranks and whatnot for the clutch and shift mechanism are in pretty good condition, other than one missing bushing.

I'll persevere on the mechanicals and leave the cosmetics for the distant future. Maybe we'll run out of gasoline before I have to decide what to do.

Andrew

[AR58SprintV]

Dear Andrew,
The most probable cause from your description is a heavily worn carbon thrust face on the TO bearing. Originally the TO bearing was not ball-thrust, and carbon TO's will not last as well with the clutch pedal held in at long stops etc. Otherwise they are fine and I have one with my 750E. The clutch fingers are adjustable, there is another thread somewhere here on that topic, and in the shop manual.
HOWEVER, since you wish to drive the jewel, clean the box, pull the base cover plate and check that all is well (call me if in doubt), install a new clutch, pressure plate and TO bearing from Jon Norman and carry on with your programme as outlined in post #20.


Laurence

[rogerspeed]

Is the pressure plate a Sachs? I've converted several BMW 1600-2 from four speed to five speed. The 1600 uses a coil spring Sachs pressure plate very similar to that used in the Alfa 105. In the past I had always replaced the complete clutch but with this specific pressure plate listing above $400 I've gone the refurbishing route, basically they take it apart, clean and adjust it, they seem to last forever; the breakage happens when the t/o beaing fails and then chews up the fingers.

[AR58SprintV]

PS-
Fore-Aft shift arm hole should be elongated as it is to allow the spring load detent ball in the trans shift rail to hold fork location rather than external movement of the rods. This is not required in the floor-shift since the lever just floats near your knee!
Laurence

[Andrew]

Thanks all.

It appeared to me in the parts manual that the fore/aft shift arm hole is elongated, so that's nice to confirm.

I do plan to pull the sump pan off and look inside. When I drained the oil, it was very clean. And in the limited "driving" I did the trans felt OK and got all gears.

I think the clutch pressure plate is F&S. I have a new TO bearing, and I may use the good pressure plate out of a 101 Giulia setup I got. It looks perfect. The friction disk that came out appears to have a solid center, not sprung. At least if it has springs, they're covered by a tin plate. It's German, but doesn't say F&S on it.

Wrench in the works is that the cooling system shows mayo, oil system does not. So after a compression reading, I will decide whether to pull the engine, and then once it's out decide how far to tear it down and what-all to do. I'd prefer not to do a full rebuild for $$ sake right now, but if it needs a head gasket to solve the mayo issue, once the head's off it might make sense to do a valve job, and rings, etc., and there's the mission creep I was worried about.

Or drop in the 101 1600 I have and rebuild the 750 engine slowly. So many options, so little time.

Andrew

[GTD]

Quote:

I'm mystified by the 8/55 clutch pressure plate. The rest of the car looksl like it has a million miles on it, but how did the original pressure plate last so long?

[Andrew]

Could be, though I don't think anything has been done to this car since 1978, when it was last licensed for the road.

I am not one to religiously replace pressure plates if they still seem good, and perhaps this car's owners weren't either, so maybe it's been through a number of friction disks over the years and kept the same pressure plate. Though from looking at the shop manual last night, I think it's an original-style friction disk too.

Andrew

[Andrew]

I've got the front cover and sump plate off the trans, and it looks immaculate inside. The oil was clean, and there are no scary bits on the drain plug or sump. My plan is to get new seals and install them, and pop the trans back in with a new clutch.

In other areas, I've got the whole pedal box out to clean and lube, and to rebuild the brake MC. Plus I removed the brake fluid reservoir and will pretty it up.

Fighting to get the exhaust off, to sort its few issues, and I figure I'll never have better access than now to get the six manifold-to-downpipe bolts (American, not metric) off. One to go that I may cut or chisel off.

On the engine front, I forgot to do a compression test before I removed the trans, but 1300 and 1600s have the trans/engine adapter plate, so I just bolted the starter back into that, fired it up and let it warm up, then did a compression test. Engine ran fine with no trans installed, and balanced no problem on just the two motor mounts. Probably not recommended, but it didn't seem to present a problem. Engine, slightly warmed, showed 145 pounds in each cylinder. That's good enough for me. So I won't be pulling the engine out. I need to do further exploration on goo in the radiator. Perhaps it's residual, perhaps it's a head gasket issue. I can sort that with the engine in the car though. I'm trying to keep from having the entire car disassembled at once. Once I get clutch, trans, and brakes sorted, then I'll worry about the possible head gasket.

Making progress!

Andrew

[rcess]

Andrew,

145 psi is actually very good for a Berlina, since it has a lower compression ratio than the sibling Sprint and Spider. My Giuliettas produce 150 psi for the Berlina and 180 psi for the Sprint and Spider.

[Andrew]

I have not dug into this engine, and don't know what its guts are. Externally, it has the original single-throat intake manifold, but over on the exhaust side, it has a two-piece 101 manifold, which I successfully removed today after Dremel-tooling off one the last of the rusted bolts. No idea what cams or pistons it has, but presumably they're stock.

Andrew

[Andrew]

More progress over the weekend. Getting the exhaust off was a chore due to rusty old bolts holding the downpipes to the headers, and more confirmation I think that the downpipes are shop-made, due to some pretty scabby welding at the flanges that precluded wrench access to a couple of the nuts. I ended up cutting/drilling one off. Once that was off, I took the headers off too just to get everything cleanup up, with new hardware.

Also pulled out the pedal box and disassembled it. Took off the brake MC and am fighting with it at the moment, in an attempt to rebuild it. Getting the large cap at the end off has defeated me so far, so I will probably enlist Glenn Oliveria's help there. Glenn also has the rear half of the driveshaft to replace one slightly loose u-joint. Also took off the brake reservoir and will clean it up. There is the faintest evidence of the Girling sticker, so I'm torn whether to leave as is or repaint.

Having the exhaust and pedal box sure makes access better. I now greatly appreciate how much space you have in the 105/115 engine compt compared to 750/101 cars.

I took the front half of the driveshaft to Norman Racing to replace the center bearing. Dan Marvin said it was a Titanic struggle with their big press and a lot of heat to get the piece apart at the taper joint, with a loud bang when it let go. Ah, the glamour of working in a racing shop. Dan installed the new bearing, which is the same as later cars, but he says the carrier is different from later ones, with the bearing just being pressed in, and no circlip to retain it. Plus it needed a shim made. The bearing appeared to be original, 52 years old.

Glenn Oliveria and I pored through his 750/101 parts book and it looks like the first 7000 approx Berlinas had these different driveshafts with the 10mm bolts for the donut, and maybe this is part of that difference too.

Pictures below include:
1. Various cleaned and painted bits from underneath (driveshaft center bearing carrier cap (original paint), driveshaft safety loop, exhaust mount, front crossmember, transmission mount crossmember (original paint).

2. A whole ton of pedal-box related bits, including the box itself, above it the column shift bellcrank for the fore/aft shift rod, below that the clutch rod pivot, the two clutch rods on the right, the two pedals at the bottom left, and the pedal shafts at the center bottom, reasonably cleaned up and working smoothly. Hardest part here was getting the little metal cap (which gives access to the clutch shaft cotter) off the bottom of the box without destroying it.

3. Maybe I'll put Veloce headers on the Berlina and have a Giulietta Super? Haven't decided what to do on the exhaust yet. Most likely I'll put back in the 101 4/2/1 manifolds that were on the car, with new exhaust pieces. But I'm tinkering around.

4. Front driveshaft piece back from Norman Racing with new bearing installed. It'll need a new rubber carrier. The 10mm-bolt donut looks OK, so absent finding a new one sitting in front of my house, I'll probably reuse this one.

Andrew

[Andrew]

More progress. Glenn Oliveria and I got the rear u-joing replaced with a Jon Norman kit, and the shaft is cleaned and painted. Got the center bearing rubber carrier and installed it, and the pedal box is all back together and working nicely.

Brake MC is rebuilt with a kit from Jon Norman, and wheel cylinder kits are on the way from Centerline. I got new front brake hoses, but still have to get a rear hose.

Pulled out the pilot bushing yesterday with the factory tool (so cool), and have one coming from Centerline. Still waiting on trans seals to arrive from Bearing Engineering.

Got two NOS shift-linkage bushing on ebay last week, so those should help the shifting a bit. Lubed the bottom slide bushing of the shifter shaft on the steering column, but I have to take the steering wheel off to get at the upper sliding bushing, which I'm not quite ready to attempt yet.

Also pulled off the brake reservoir canister and cleaned and painted it. It had just a hint of the Girling label left, and I tried to clean it, in an effort to preserve the originality, but it was too far gone. I'll put one of Bill Gillham's repro stickers on.

Moving along. The car will not be at Monterey, but maybe next year?

Pics show some archaeology before painting: arrow alignment mark on driveshaft, and stamped info on factory driveshaft weight. Sorry for my poor autofocus camera.

Andrew

[Andrew]

Some progress but no pictures. My family and I went to Italy for two weeks and I got somewhat inspired by going to the Alfa museum (a surreal experience), but saw zero old Alfas on the road. The museum has the funny orange/pink Giulietta Berlina that's in a number of Alfa books, and it's in fabulous condition, if not a color I would pick. My fave car was the 103 FWD prototype (750cc transverse twincam), abandoned in favor of the 105 Giulia. Many Giulia details on it, and you can see that the bodywork is a prototype. So cool.

Got the front and rear brakes all off the car. The shoes and drums all look good, but all six wheels cylinders are utterly frozen. I am soaking them, and will apply some heat, per Conrad Stevenson's suggestion, to see if I can get the pistons out. I broke on front wheel cylinder through stupidity on removing the drum (got the shoe cocked sideways), and I find the LR brake pipe on the axle has a preexisting kink in it, so I'll have to make a new one or find a replacement. Also, the short S pipe from the brake MC to the union just above it is also kinked, so I'll probably be making one of those too.

Still waiting for trans seals (ordered them for the second time last week) so I can reinstall the trans. Clutch is in and driveshaft, etc., are sitting and waiting.

Freed up the parking brake mechanism by using Jaan Hjorth's trick of suspending the cable from the rafters and dribbling oil down the cable housing for a week. Freed it up nicely and now I have mechanical brakes, if not hydraulic brakes. Did the same with the column shift cable, and it's nice and smooth now.

Andrew