Ongoing restoration of our 1967 Giulia GT Sprint Veloce

[alfa_corsa]

KPC-I'm definitely interested. What year is it out of? Does it have any bad rust? The rim where the gas tank mounts is completely rusted on mine as was the spare wheel well. If it's rust free and will fit my car I will buy it from you. Where are you located?

-tj in Los Gatos

[kpc655]

Quote:

Originally Posted by alfa_corsa KPC-I'm definitely interested. What year is it out of? Does it have any bad rust? The rim where the gas tank mounts is completely rusted on mine as was the spare wheel well. If it's rust free and will fit my car I will buy it from you. Where are you located? -tj in Los Gatos

[alfa_corsa]

KC-thanks for the update. I believe there are no differences between an early and late model trunk floor but I'll try to do some research to figure it out.

Ciao!
-tj

[alfa_corsa]

Recent hours in the Cowpoke Racing garage have been dedicated to getting the tail section fitted properly to the body. I'm learning how very tricky it is to get the new piece matched properly to the body. I left lots of room for error when I cut the original metal out, and went very slowly with my angle grinder, taking off only sixteenths of an inch at a time. Obviously taking too much metal off could really make things tricky. The nice thing about this panel is that, provided they're straight, you can use the bumper brackets as reference points for the entire tail section. Also, where the trunk lid closes is a good reference point for the top. What I wasn't certain about was how much overhang the trunk lid has over the tail section, and thankfully my friend Carl sent me some pictures of his very nicely restored 66 Veloce for reference. I also visited a local friend with a 74 GTV so I could see what the panel looks like in person.

My job was made a bit easier with the arrival of some panel clamps that I got from Eastwood. These hold the panel in place, with a very small spacer, which guarantees proper fitment and alignment of the two panels. Here's a picture of one corner of the rear before I put the finishing touches on the metal. As you can see, there's a big gap, one that is too big to weld.



A few more passes with my flap disc and the gap is much closer now. Obviously I am still a few hours away from welding the panel in permanently as I have to remove rust from the trunk floor, prep it with primer and remove the paint from the replacement panel.

Here's a profile picture of the rear, illustrating the overhang with the trunk lid that I was trying to achieve.



Feeling confident in my ability to cut and fit body panels I decided to move to the front of the car. The nose has been damaged so many times that I knew there was no way I'd ever get it straight. I'd been holding off cutting it out because it's a bit complex and I didn't want to cut through the wrong parts. The trick is to leave the upper support piece (to which the hinges mount) in place, which is a little hard as it's spot welded to the entire section. I started at the bottom, with plasma torch in hand, and started removing metal. I've learned that trying to remove whole sections at one time is not the way to go. It's better to take out smaller areas, piece by piece, thus ensuring you don't cut through the wrong part. This front end has been buttered and leaded and brazed so many times it was incredible. Plasma cutting through body filler is interesting. It smokes, catches fire, and turns to good. I know the front end had been replaced, but it looked like whomever did so just laid one nose on top of the other, at least at the bottom. The entire lower valance was double thick metal. It was a dirty, smoky, messy job, but within a half an hour or so, this is what I had.



And this is what I cut out.



I still have to remove the top section, carefully I might add, as the piece beneath it must stay in place. Then I'll start removing rust, straightening the bent panels (and there are a few) before I start trimming more closely for the new panel. I also have a new section for the driver's side corner which will replace the original, very damaged metal. I think that piece will go in before I weld the entire front panel in, but I'm still working on figuring that out.

Ciao!
-tj in Los Gatos

[Biscione]

Save these little cast parts - you might need them later

Peter

[alfa_corsa]

Aren't they part of the headlamp ring? I've got new ones, I didn't think there were any other pieces that weren't part of the rings themselves?

[alfa_corsa]

I'm feeling pretty good about the front end of Chela's Alfa. I've spent about 10 or 15 hours over the past few days removing the original nose of the car. This time I decided to use a flap disc in my angle grinder to slowly grind off the old skin, rather than trying to drill out each individual spot well. Combined with my plasma cutter, a cut off wheel in my pneumatic angle grinder, and a hammer, I was able to get the original sheet metal off without doing any damage to the metal underneath. There is a stringer that locates the top of the nose panel and which has the hinges for the hood attached to it. This needs to stay in place in order to get the nose fit properly.

The nose, despite being a more complex piece, is actually easier to locate than the tail because of that stringer. It locates the entire piece very accurately, and as long as your bumper mount points aren't too bent (mine were) everything should line up fairly nicely. Since our car had sustained numerous concussions to the front end, both bumper mounts were off by about a half an inch, but some gentle persuading with a hammer, dolly and c-clamp reinforced with some square tubing to distribute the load were sufficient to get them in the proper location.



I still have lots of trimming work to do on both fenders, and also will have to graft in the corner section on the driver's side as there was a ton of unfixable damage there.



I am going to check alignment on every joint over and over until I'm sure I've got it proper before I start tacking it in place. But before that I've still got lots of metal prep and bumping to do around the headlight rings and in the sheet metal around the bumper mounts. I'm also a bit puzzled as to how exactly the headlight rings mount. As you can see, I've got the passenger side on in place, but it's just propped there, and I don't think it's in the right position. I'll have to check the pieces I cut out to try to get the orientation and alignment.

Ciao!

-tj in Los Gatos

[PSk]

Fnck!!

Good stuff. Yes patience is the key. I've not replaced a whole nose like that but have done the rear panel. I think by memory you can see the original seam on the inside of the panels and I cut to say 10mm from this and then started doing what you are doing.

I eventually trimmed the car to the original seam and made the rear panel fit that as I wanted to maintain that single welded seam.

Best of luck ... and remember tack welds can be cut, and you can start again if necessary .
Pete

[kpc655]

TJ,

here's a link to some more pics of the trunk floor. I got the skins off and a few patch pieces i needed..pretty much everything else is up for grabs. Without the skins i can see a few issues...but mostly in the way of surface rust. there's a few holes where someone previously drilled out spot welds and they've rusted up..those aren't rust holes.

If you're interested..let me know.

Picasa Web Albums - KC - 2009 09 Stayc...

[alfa_corsa]

I'm interested in the entire trunk floor. I'll contact you via email to discuss.

Thanks,
TJ

[AXELCARAVIAS]

TJ,,, Great work!, I will follow your steps soon!!!!!
I am learning a lot.!
Thanks

[1750GT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by alfa_corsa ...I'm also a bit puzzled as to how exactly the headlight rings mount..... Ciao! -tj in Los Gatos

[alfa_corsa]

Over the past few days I've spent about 20 hours on the nose of the car. With the new panel trial fit in place I've focused on the driver's side front fender which I'm replacing with a panel I got from the good folks at Alfaholics. After lots and lots of measuring, fitting, measuring, fitting, trimming, measuring and fitting, this is what I have. Not quite there, but getting closer.



I also used a combination of wire brush and Zinc rust condition on the stringer that the nose piece mounts on, followed by a few coats of Wurth self etching primer.



The front has been banged up pretty good over the life of the car so I spent lots of time dollying and bumping the area around the bumper mounts, as well as on the bumper mounts themselves. This is crucial to ensure that the nose panel has proper orientation to the rest of the car. Combined with the stringer between the fenders, they're the only reference I have for getting it straight.

With a spirit level, masking tape, and a measuring tape I spent a good amount of time trying to get everything as straight as possible. There's some damage to the passenger side bumper mount which made it tricky, but I managed to get it within about a sixteenth of an inch of the driver's side mount.

I also ground off old welding material and removed rust from the cross member which the lower part of the nose piece is welded. With that in place I could again fit the nose and start working on that repair panel.



As you can see, the bumper is temporarily mounted in order to make sure that the fenders and nose piece are properly oriented. Assuming that everything will lined up and painting the car is not the right way to approach this. Essentially every component that attaches to the body must be trial fit several times before the car ever gets painted in order to ensure it will be right when the time comes for final assembly.

Here's another picture of the repair panel temporarily in place, during one of the 25 or so times I installed and removed it before taking another 32nd of an inch off the surrounding metal to get the fit right.



As you can see, the crease along the top of the fender as long as the waistline crease are still not lined up properly, so I've still got more work to do.

On another topic, Chel and I finally got around to measuring the valve clearances this afternoon. I was not surprised to find that nearly all of the shims that came with the head were not at all close to the right size. The head has a fresh valve job and the only shims I had were from before that happened, so as you'd expect, the clearances were all way off. At least I have a reference point now, and I know what size shims I need to get to set them properly. On a disappointing note, I could not get one of the studs that holds the rear camshaft cap on the intake size to torque down. The stud is pulling up through the head. I will have to take the head back to my machinist and see if he can install a timesert of do something to prevent it from pulling out. They're only torqued to 15 foot pounds but they need to hold that much torque.

I'm expecting at least 5 or 10 more hours of work trimming and fitting the metal on the nose before I can get serious about welding it, but hopefully I'm getting closer.

Ciao!

-tj in Los Gatos

[alfa_corsa]

Rossano-thanks for the input. I just posted the above update and am about to post some photos of the headlight rings. I'm still confused about how they're supposed to line up. I see that they're angled in the the nose, so that they are actually facing straight ahead, rather than flush in the nose. The flange that runs around the headlight ring appears to be located by the flange on the nose piece itself. And then there's a tab at about 12 o'clock, which seems to be meant to match up to a tab on the nose piece itself. Have you seen this? With regard to the "card stock". Do you mean that you welded a metal shim in between the nose piece and the headlight ring itself? I'll have to go back through your thread to see if you've posted some pictures of this.

Ciao!

-tj in Los Gatos

[alfa_corsa]

The proper mounting of the headlight rings has had me perplexed since I got them. Replacement nose pieces do not come with them installed, and you need to purchase them separately. It also seemed impossible to remove the old headlight rings from the damaged original metal as they were bent pretty badly themselves. So what I have are three pieces of metal (one nose piece and two headlight rings) which need to be fused in to one. Welding them in with the nose panel still detached from the car is not possible as the nose piece has very little structural integrity when it's not part of the rest of the car. Unfortunately, welding them in place once the nose panel is installed looks to be equally daunting.

The biggest problem is that the rings themselves do not have any easily visible reference marks, and they're angled in relation to the nose panel itself. Obviously they must be perfectly in line with each other, and be perpendicular to the horizontal and vertical axis. Putting this in to practice however, is not so easy.



Here's an attempt at a close up of a couple different areas of the headlight mounting ring



The boss where the chrome trim ring is screwed on is a bit off as it's supposed to be at 12 o'clock (I believe) but you can see where the ring meets the nose panel.

Then this.



It's hard to see in the photo, but on the right side, the flange of the ring is behind the flange on the nose piece while the left side is in front of it.



Finally, there is a tab on the ring, just behind the boss for the trim ring screw which appears to mate up to a tab on the nose panel.



Does anyone with a step nose have any experience welding these pieces in? I'm rather clueless about this area of the nose.

Ciao!
-tj in Los Gatos
"when I grow up I wanna be like Rossano"