Jobs for the weekend.

[Steve Webb]

First jobs to get done on the GTV will be getting the brakes freed up so I can push the car around a bit easier. Should be straightforward enough, but it is an Alfa after all.
Then its a check of the propshaft to see what need replacing to stop the awful knocking sound when the engine is idling.

After that I'll be giving the carbs an overhaul, and checking the motor over. The odometer is reading 57k km and to be honest given the state of the pedal rubbers, this might actually be the actual mileage.

I'm looking forward to lifting the car off the ground so I can get a good look at the whole of the floor.

[jimnielsen]

You could put some new oil in too ....

[Steve Webb]

Work on the engine this weekend is going to be restricted until I replace the dipstick tube grommet. Its sealed with what looks like hylomar blue at the moment.

Probably just check the compression and take a look at the condition of the cams this weekend.

[AlfaJack]

I thought the engine was being replaced by the turbo?

[Steve Webb]

I thought the engine was being replaced by the turbo?

Oh it will be at some point in the future. The thing is I didn't expect to get a GTV this good within my budget. At the moment it looks like the car only needs a few minor things sorting to get it up and running and through its CT (MOT) so the (revised) plan it to get the car back on the road with the current engine\gearbox sort out any remaining mechanical probs, then drop in the turbo lump.

Might take a little longer than the original plan, but at least I'll be able to use the car whilst I'm doing it.

[Steve Webb]

First job that got done today was get rid of the rear box from the car as you can see its probably a little past welding.



amazingly with a little Facom release fluid, not only did all the bolts come easily undone, but also I managed to split the back box section from the rest of the exhaust. The only problem then was getting the pipe over the rear drive-shaft. Is there a knack to this?
As I needed to get the calipers off the drive-shafts needed to be dropped from the transaxle, which made getting the old exhaust out a little easier.

Whilst under there I grabbed a couple of pics of the underside, as you can see, its all pretty good.



And even the wheelarches are in near as dammit perfect condition.



After that it was just a case of working out how to get the calipers off, (including having to hammer out the old pads) removing the handbrake cable resulted in the only problem of the day, a seized adjuster means a new handbrake cable is now needed.

One of the calipers is now on the bench, the other one should come off nice and easy tomorrow. Then its just a case of strip them down, clean and rebuild them.

I seem to have managed to collect 3 pairs of rear calipers, so I should be able to get at least 1 good pair out of them.



All going well so far.

[Steve Webb]

Yesterdays work on the car was somewhat cut short due to other jobs that kept appearing round this place, cutting wood for visitors, chopping up fallen tree, fixing leak in the roof etc.. so it was quite late when I got to get into the garage.

And from that point on things didn't get any better, removing the spacer between rear disk and driveshaft, 5 of the 6 bolts came out no trouble. The 6th, well thats still in there, spent 2hrs on my back trying to get the bloody thing out. Its been soaking in releasing fluid overnight so it it doesn't move today its having its head cut off.

Theres always one isn't there.

[jimnielsen]

If they are in really tight - and you have not yet rounded out the hex head - then I have had a lot of success with using small vice grips around the head of the bolt at the same time as the hex driver..

[Steve Webb]

The early ones are a little different Jim, they use regular 10.9 bolts, they isn't enough space to get a ring spanner on, and not enough clearance to get a socket on there. So its a case of trying to get a good open ended spanner in there.

As you can see after a couple of hours buggering around the thing still wouldn't budge.



At this point I got the angle grinder out and chopped the head off, finding out in the process just how hard a 10.9 bolt is.
I thought I might be able to get some grips on the remaining bolt and twist it out with the tension taken out of the bolt, but in the end I didn't need to, I just unscrewed it with my fingers.
The bolt wasn't seized at all, it had just been done up by a gorilla with an airgun set on Max.

[AlfaJack]

I would have suggested heat and lots of it - it solves everything bolt related!

[Steve Webb]

Gee, i lost enough skin from various parts of my body yesterday without adding red hot pieces of metal into the equation.

To be honest the head of the bolt was already rounded to the point that i wouldn't have reused it again, so i thought cutting it off would be easier, of course that was before i'd noticed it was a 10.9

[wrinx]

Be sure to let us know how you get on with adjusting the rear calipers..it's supposed to be "a challenge"

wrinx

[Steve Webb]

Be sure to let us know how you get on with adjusting the rear calipers..it's supposed to be "a challenge"

wrinx

And the award of understatement of the year goes to.....

Yes I've heard its a fun job, just wondering if it would be worth dropping the whole trans-axle and rear suspension so I can replace all the bushes and adjust the brakes at the same time.

[Steve Webb]

Got absolutely nothing done on the car for the past week now, been struck down with a bloody cold that won't shift. Any mention of going down to the garage is severely frowned upon.
Hopefully I'll be back underneath the car again soon, but we've got people visiting this weekend, so popping down to the garage then would go down like a lead balloon.

[jimnielsen]

Actually, the rear brakes are a bit of a pain - but you get used to it.. and then its not so bad.. you can make up a could of small, free 'special tools' that help!

[Steve Webb]

I'm hoping that trying the job with fresh rebuilt calipers is going to help things go to plan as well.

[the wombat]

Adjusted the rear brakes on my 75 for its MOT 3 weeks or so ago. I had heard it was a pain, but went OK.

A couple of things I learned:
- The outside adjusters went the opposite way from what I logically expected to move the brake pads in
- The outer adjusters can be wound in the the point that fluid leaks past the seals
- As long as the adjusters are not seized, its pretty easy to get everything sorted

Certainly an interesting set up!

[Steve Webb]

Things have been conspiring to keep me out of the garage recently! And its not going to change this weekend. Hopefully next week I'm gonna get back down there, there are a stack of jobs need doing.