Re: Alfetta sedan bumper possibilities

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

In AD8-0138 Jay Negrin writes "Another possiblity would be to retrofit Berlina
stainless bumpers to the car.  I understand that they do fit.  Am I correct on
this, or that an old wives' tale? They are a whole bunch lighter than the 5mph
jobbies that showed up on the US cars.  May have to fabricate mounts,
though."

 "Have to fabricate mounts" is a 'given' with virtually any bumper swap, but I
did a quiet Eureka! and rushed out to check the Berlina bumper. Yup, it was an
old wive's tale. At least my spare Berlina rear bumper is a tad too narrow to
clear the fenders, at bumper height, on the bumperless Sport Sedan (second
series Alfetta Berlina to non-US people) in my hulks collection. Grinding the
top edge of the bumper out about half an inch on each side would do it, but
hard to do neatly, and there would still be problems (like anchoring the
tips).

 The first-series Alfetta EuroBerlina bumpers do look very similar to Berlina
bumpers (except for a much shorter wraparound at the rear), and it would have
been easy for a person familiar with both 115 Berlinas and US 116 bumpers to
think that a first series Euro 116 he saw was wearing 115 Berlina bumpers -
close enough to have started the story.

 Second-series Alfetta Berlina bumpers outside the US followed a format which
many cars in the late seventies and eighties used, familiar here on the GTV 6
and on late Fiat Spiders, of having an extruded or rolled or formed-tube
section for the width of the bumper and some sort of plastic or synthetic
rubber end cap to finish it off. One of the north-west Alfa people had a Sport
Sedan with such bumpers from (I believe) a Plymouth Horizon, which didn't look
too bad but he did leave off the end finishers. The end pieces may offer a
possible avenue for trim-to-fit alterations.

 If any of my 116 projects, coupe or sedan, ever reach fruition I will be
looking hard at damning the expense and getting either European bumpers or US
aftermarket fiberglass bumpers, but an alternative is to make a set of
templates and start combing boneyards for possible fits. There are bound to be
many bumpers which 'might', a smaller number that 'would' fit, and among them
options which would look least bad and/or be easiest to modify and/or to build
brackets for. Alternately, if one had heliarc equipment, some modest skills,
patience, and desire it would be possible to use sections of a scrap GTV 6
aluminum bumper to finish off the ends of a pair of good ones. There is no
shortage of possibilities, but unfortunately the 115 Berlina bumpers (which
would be nice, 'if') are not among them.

 Good Luck-

 John H.

Raleigh, N.C.

--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided