AFrench Blue '69 GTV Restoration

[PSk]

Subscribed

Pete

[Hodges]

Hello Ken,

Being the boring traditionalist that I am, it's going to be AR-501 with either a white or green nose. Don't have to decide for a while yet.....maybe something else?

Cheers,

Roger.

[GTV4EVR]

In almost 40 years of GTV ownership I've never owned a red one, so that would be my choice too.

[1750GT]

Daveydog...I'd love to come out to the West coast and check out the landscape there but I've got way too much work out here at the moment so I'm grounded here for now. Did your buddy give you the MIG 101 course yet?...one thing I can say about MIG is that it's great for welding up the thin sheet metal but is very tricky to control the weld shape since the wire feed is difficult to control (probably due to the fact that I'm not a pro welder doing this kind of work day in and day out). Of course your next best friend will be a nice angle grinder with a flapper disc....to clean-up all the not so nice looking welds. Good luck on your repair.

Steven....thanks for the nice comments. FYI my car came from Arizona and still suffered due to storage neglect. I thought I was lucky compared to most of the ALFAs we see around our snow belt regions....so you guys in SA have it real easy compared to some of us folk here.

Hodges...needless to say these projects are priceless!...So who's doing your paint then? You should start a thread showing your project...I bet a lot of folks here would love to see the progress. As for color selection on yours...I've owned a RED GTV in the past and it's hard not to like this color...your car will look great when finished...I can't wait to come over and check it out.

[1750GT]

Yes progress has been belayed...but there is progress. I finally got to weld the first floor panel piece in for good....hee haw!



...I'm finally getting comfortable with doing these rosette welds now...



...and the corner welds are also coming along.



...etch primered the lot of them. My plan is to do the all the inside welds this way, then follow up with outside rosette welds on the tranny tunnel flange and the inner sill member.



....I'm also almost finished building a 90 degree chassis tilter.

[GTV4EVR]

Looking great Rossano!

[daveydog]

Oh man, Rossano, you're doing a very good job on your car!!! I can't imagine all the preparation it took to get to this point. (Well actually I think I have a small idea ). I know on my car it seems it was ALL preparation and then a few minutes of welding and another few minutes of grinding and then a coat of paint. My friends would come over and seem to be fairly unimpressed with my progress. "Looks good", they'd say "But it's sure taking you a long time for those patches in the floorboards."
But they don't know about the hours of cutting out, derusting, scraping, wire wheeling, fitting, re-fitting, welding, grinding, re-welding some spots that were missed, more grinding, metal prepping, and finally primering and painting.
I think my 8 hour a day "real job" is getting in the way of what really matters in life. Restoring our cars .
Please keep the pictures coming, they're an inspiration to us all!
When do you think your car will be finished?

[1750GT]

Thanks Ken!

Dave...I couldn't have stated that better! you know I no longer explain the finer details of the restoration work to friends and family (I'm sure they think it's all a grand waste of time and money). Now as for when I'll be finished.....I no longer wish to make a prediction on that either! You see when I bought this car 4 or so years ago, I thought I'd be done by now!...oh well...

[1750GT]

With all the wetness we've been getting this summer (and again this weekend), the one benefit is that I didn't couldn't work on my deck reconstruction or yard work....yippee!...I got to spend quality time on the Alfa. So Saturday I was able to weld in the rear section and the underfloor cross member.





one side done.....one more to go. I will be rotating the car on it's side so that I can finish all the welds on the perimeter flanges and close up the outer sill again. So I need to finish my car "tilter". I'll post pic of this when it's done.

[PSk]

Nice.

Pete

[daveydog]

Oh Yeahhh... REALLY NICE! If only I could approach this level of welding I'd quit my day job!

[1750GT]

Pete...thanks, it's starting to come along finally.

Dave...I still feel like I'm just a beginner with the MIG and sure would like to be doing it on a daily basis but preparation takes so much time, that it seems like I'm only getting around to welding every couple of weeks or so....cheers.

[kinchu]

subscribed!

[1750GT]

I know, I know...it seems like I've been talking about this chassis tilter for a year...but I can finally say it's done! All the material I used was free....I just managed to grab enough of these 3"x6" rectangular tubes from some demolition that was taking place in our office building...but I missed out on some 6 ft stainless counter material that would have made a fantastic top for my workbench! Tilting it was a lot easier than I thought it would be and although we did it with 3 people...it really only needs 2 able bodies.







First task is to scrape off all the sound deadening material...then more welding!

[SuperFab]

Now the fun begins!