cross member seperating from chassis

[emerald]

Wife comes home from a drive the other day and says the car doesn't seem right in the front end. Hhmmm. Yes, I know the lower A-arm bushings are shot and are on order. She replies it's different, something else is going on. So, a trip down to the garage to have her turn the wheel while I look. Not good. In fact, maybe really bad. Looks like the tabs on left and right sides on the back of the top of the spring seats are tearing off the chassis. Looks like time to get out the mig welder, but before I dig into this, I'm hoping some might have some input.

Is this common? It looks like the only attachment is fore and aft. The front side is fine but obviously the back side is torn on both sides. Yes, this car has the signs of a fender bender in the front left, but it doesn't look like it was that severe a hit.

My plan is to pull the engine, pull all suspension, clean it up, weld the cracks, and then add reinforcement tabs over where it has cracked. Thinking should drill some holes in the reinforcement tabs to plug weld as well as welding on edges. Thinking it would also be good to weld the inner fender edge to the cross member, at least on the wheel side, but perhaps not the engine compartment side. In the course of looking at all this, the inner skirt where the steering box attaches is flexing under load. Thinking I should fabricate a reinforing plate to either bolt on between the box and skirt or perhaps even weld a reinforcement on.

Thoughts? I'll happily take any pointers from someone who's been here before. I've pulled off redoing rockers before, cutting out/redoing rear shock towers in a long gone BMW etc., so think I've got the skill to do this, but it's definitely a new adventure here


Thanks in advance!

[Andrew]

This is not that uncommon. The chassis looks to have a fair amount of surface rust in the pictures. Once disassembled and cleaned up, I would make sure you don't have any structural areas that need reworking before rewelding. That is, maybe you'll need to make some new areas of metal, and add reinforcing pieces. I wonder if it might be better to get good donor pieces off another car?

I would want to understand why this occurred: rust, fatigue, accident damage, or something else of some combination?

Andrew

[daveydog]

Andrew, I'll bet it's a combinaton of all those factors you mentioned. This car may have been "curbed" while whipping into a parking stall, or maybe there was some previous accident damage but those pics really don't look too encouraging. Maybe with the motor out there will be some further thoughts.

[dan farmer]

Both my 105 cars came to me with similar issues. The crossmember was separating from the subframe front-to-rear pieces, there was cracking around the steering box mounting holes, and the inner fender sheet metal was separating from the subframe front-to-rear piece. check the whole area carefully. Take a look at one of Akitaman's recent huge threads for pics of a steering box reinforcement he's designed. Others, including Jack Beck, sell kits of reinforcing gussets to beef up the area.

Good luck-
-df

[PSk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daveydog Andrew, I'll bet it's a combinaton of all those factors you mentioned. This car may have been "curbed" while whipping into a parking stall, or maybe there was some previous accident damage but those pics really don't look too encouraging. Maybe with the motor out there will be some further thoughts.

[emerald]

Hi,

Dan - I had a feeling this was highly due to metal fatigue and age, and your experience would seem to mesh. Did you weld all the seams e.g. inner and outer fender as well as in the channel where the original tabing has fractured? Weld up the tears by the steering box mounts or cut out the skirt and put in all new metal? I did stumble on Akitaman's reinforcing U shaped piece, and thinking I need something like that. Not familiar with Jack Beck - any contact info? Pictures of what you did?

Pete - sounds like you are planning on welding all the way around inside and out on the fender skirts, which is my gut on this. I've honestly got to recheck on my bolt pattern - think it's three, but it's not one of those views I can shut my eyes and visualize like some parts of these cars

Thanks for all the input - please keep any recommendations /past experiences coming - it all helps to get my head around this. One of my dilemmas is the current desire was to drive this car awhile and probably not this upcoming winter, but the following, pull it off the road and do rockers and other body work. A part of me wants to make this solid, safe and functional right now and save something like new inner fender skirts for the big makeover. Think there is a balance here that should work. The goal is a good solid nice driver, not a show car.

[Andrew]

I have had many 105/115 Alfas, and none had this kind of damage, though I've seen it on cars for sale and others' cars. So I don't know that it's just a function of age. My daily driver is a 67 Super with god knows how many miles on it, and this area on it looks fine, if not new. My car has been in Calif since new, which may make a difference.

There are documented issues with the two-bolt attachment of the lower A-arms to the crossmember, but again, I've never had problems with probably a dozen two-bolt cars, and I thought the issue there was the A-arm separating from the crossmember, not the crossmember pulling away from the body. This is covered elsewhere on the BB.

Andrew

[dan farmer]

Sorry, no pix of the finished work. On the road car ('73 GTV), the cracks were welded up and the inner fender sheet metal was re-welded to the subframe channel sections (front-to-rear piece). On the track car ('67 Giulia Super), all the cracks were welded up, the separating places were re-welded, and then a bunch of reinforcing pieces were added. I got them from classicalfaparts.nl and from Orion motor Sports. The classic alfa parts outfit is in the Netherlands, but their website has an English version. They're good with e-mail. Their parts reinforced the steering box mounting area with a doubler plate for the inside and outside of that wall. The outside plate also braces the shock mounting bracket, as do some other small gussets. Orion Motor Sport is run by Jack Beck in Omaha, Nebraska. He's good on the phone. His pieces reinforce the inner fender well around the upper control arm mount and gusset the crossmenber to fenderwell connections down low. Both kits are expensive if you think of them as just plates of steel, but cheap if you value your time and the expertise of folks who have lots of experience with these cars. good luck with whatever route you take.

-df

[GTV-GR]

You got serious rust issues my friend

[PSk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew ... I've never had problems with probably a dozen two-bolt cars, and I thought the issue there was the A-arm separating from the crossmember, not the crossmember pulling away from the body. Andrew

[emerald]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTV-GR You got serious rust issues my friend

[Alfa]

Or find a bodyshop that does welding maybe.

[emerald]

Had a busy couple weekends. Pulled everything and welded up all the cracks seen in the prior posting plus some found on the way. In some areas, tried to build up some metal for good or bad - not the prettiest, but I think it will work. I then cut and bent some gussets to fit inside the inner skirts where the major cracking was and all the flexing was appearing. Last time I did anything like this was '95. Think I'm pretty happy with the way it's come out. Got a hunch that while it's not show ready, for being a driver, I'm in good shape : )

[emerald]

And the final pictures with the gussets welded in place.