A Zagato like no other!

[akitaman]

Hi Jim! Thanks for the kind words. I enjoyed our meeting as well. My voice was shot by the end of the day. I took the windshield out a few months back. Yes it was a vary tasking job. In comes out from the inside. It took three hours to do! Because of this, we have not taken the rear out yet. I will in the coming weeks. BTW, I told a very nice local person about you. He is in the market for one and I told him you might know where to find one.

[180OUT]

Daron,

I knew that getting the windshields out of Zagato bodied cars was a royal pain, but three hours for just the front windshield. . .??? Wow. Your descriptions and photos are so good you would do Zagato owners around the world a huge favor by posting instructions on how to get the windshields out. Maybe it could be an addendum to your current Zagato restoration documentation? It would be a real help to show with photos and descriptions exactly how that's done.

I can well understand loosing your voice at the Concourso. Your tent was a popular place. I thought Max's 15" Campy replicas were seriously cool.

[akitaman]

We're waiting on special tooling to arrive to finish the rear end location points. So Steven started in on the spare tire tub.



as you can see, rust was working the edges




and the new one being made.

[akitaman]

We have some highly detailed panels we are in the middle of making and our new bead roller finally came in. It took a long time to get here. It was a special order because I wanted it to be able to shape 18 gauge cold roll steel. This is very hard to do with most rollers.

[akitaman]

The transaxle location points are the most complex part of this car. It requires tons of measurements, nerves of steel and time. You get this wrong and the car will drive of track. The transaxles location points are tied to the rear seat flooring, wheel well and is many complex bends in the steel.

Heres the passenger side, most of it is rusted away but you get the idea of what it is supposed to look like. There are three levels of sub flooring to this.


Heres the driver side, and you can see the perimeter is worst for wear.


Here's the repair metal of the rusted corner.


This is how it looks with the floor section sitting in place.


Heres the transaxle perch frame being checked for fit.


From the bottom, heres the seat floor to transaxle perch relation. This get much more complex in a minute.


One side of all this is welded to the outer wall of the rear wheel well. As you can see that was rusted out too.


Once cut out, this is what was inside.


cleaned, etched and cavity waxed.


replacement panel made and set in place for fitting.


Now with the perimeter strong, it was time to move on to the bracing, sub flooring and reinforcement blocks.



What all that looks like from the bottom.


This is about half of the way through one side.

[Subtle]

Rear suspension and transaxle sub-assembly.

On the Monte Shelton Classic North West Rally in August, a very well prepared and driven Lancia Aurelia B20 crashed badly-no injuries.

The mount for one side of the rear suspension failed.

[akitaman]

Don't think for one minute, I don't worry about these things. That is exactly why we are going through this carefully and improving the set-up. The old one (see photos) was about to break away. It was rusty, collapsed and brittle. You would by chance have photos of that car would you?

BTW, how did you do in the wind storms last night? Or did you even have any. We lost power at the homestead....... again. Thats the price you pay for lake land.

[hdavis]

I'm amazed at the amount of rust on this car, was this car actually found in a lake?

But I'm more amazed at the quality of the work you're perfroming, wow!

[akitaman]

Ah, we have power again! The wind storms took our power out at the house. So at the shop I completed the transaxle mounting system on the driver side.

This is all that is left of the original unit.



Next we cut away the only part we needed. And put it in the blast cabinet.



I then welded it in place with the other sections.






Now that is complete, we will replace all the area around it. For example rocker, floor pan and bracing's.

[1750GT]

Very nice Daron! thanks for the upates on this project.

[Subtle]

Quote:

Originally Posted by akitaman Don't think for one minute, I don't worry about these things. That is exactly why we are going through this carefully and improving the set-up. The old one (see photos) was about to break away. It was rusty, collapsed and brittle. You would by chance have photos of that car would you? BTW, how did you do in the wind storms last night? Or did you even have any. We lost power at the homestead....... again. Thats the price you pay for lake land.

[akitaman]

Picking up with the updates made over the last month. The driver side floor was made (not installed yet).







The welds were cleaned and the floor was put away until ready to install.

The other rocker was made too.











We then went after the door frame. Doesn't look bad right?


Once the skin was removed


In the blast cabinet it goes..


after the blasting




The hinge set up on this is a part of the door frame. It's not adjustable, nor removable. That means I had to make a hinge pocket, door frame and mounts that would be dead on.

Checking the fit. The hinge is welded on the other side of this.



next it was tack welded to the old frame and checked for fitting again. The original has factory shims welded to the leading edge of the frame so the skin fits perfect. We did the same after this photo was taken.

[1750GT]

Man, is there any part on this car that isn't severely rusted ? It's scary to think that this car was still being driven around on the road.....but fantastic knowing that you guys are putting it back properly! Daron, how do you manage to post up more than 4 pics at a time? are using the jpeg format or some other format?

[PSk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1750GT Man, is there any part on this car that isn't severely rusted ? It's scary to think that this car was still being driven around on the road.....

[mbaum]

This is scary (And fascinating). I will never, ever disassemble mine, not a single part, unless it will fall off.

And if I do, I will ship it to you, Daron.