Alfetta GT street car update

["Zacharey Cox (Siemens Business Services Inc)" <v-ntxzco@domain.elided>]

Happy New Year Digestibles, another year of Alfa motoring is ahead of
us.  I've been off work last week & Monday & Tuesday of this week so I
had time to make good progress on my Alfetta GT street car project.  Two
Saturdays ago I was able to convince a fellow NWARCer Thomas Moll over
to help out installing the drive shaft.  Since mine is an early car it
had the early, small donuts, & the motor was from a later car.  Well,
the center support was dead & the front & rear donuts were cracked
fairly good.  After initially thinking we would buy new parts Thomas
spotted an extra driveshaft under the rear of my track car.  That was a
bonus unit from the street car & I had completely forgotten about it.
It was a late model driveshaft with everything in good shape except the
center donut.  The center donuts for both drive shafts were the same so
we just swapped them out.  The drive shaft went in w/o too much trouble.


The next thing we looked at was why the clutch pedal had no resistance
at all.  After pumping the pedal for about 10min bubbles starting
appearing in the clutch master reservoir.  It finally built up pressure
& the clutch felt good.  But, about 20min later I noticed a puddle of
fluid under the clutch slave cylinder.  I picked up a replacement from
Ferrari of Seattle along with the rubber boot where the shift forks come
together under the shift lever.  FoS did not have the rubber boot that
covered the slave cyl to transmission but I was able to get Centerline's
last available one on their shelf.

While waiting for the boot to arrive I was able to con another local
Alfetta owner for some electrical troubleshooting.  Most of the
taillights did not work & the passenger side headlights only worked when
the wires were wiggled.  So, Webster Cavanaugh came over & we started on
the rear bulbs.  A trick he learned from fellow NWARCer John Case for
cleaning contacts:  Take the stainless steel strip of metal out of an
old wiper blade, cut it in half, then file it down to a sharp edge.
It's the perfect tool for getting into those tight places & cleans the
contacts very nicely.  This did the trick mostly & after reseating some
of the plug connectors all the bulbs were working, with the exception of
the reverse lights.  Next step was to clean the fuse box & install new
fuses.  Buss makes glass replacement fuses that are much easier to use
than those crappy plastic with pot metal strips fuses.  The Buss fuses
have the correct pointed connections as well.  We cleaned the fuse box
with spray contact cleaner (Wurth OL) & scrubbed with a metal toot
brush.  Then sprayed it off with Brake Kleen & blew it dry with an air
hose.  An application of dialectic grease was used to prevent future
corrosion.  With the new fuses in there the reverse lights work & most
of the interior stuff works now.  The headlight issue was a simple
ground.  There is bolt that mounts about 3 or 4 grounds that was
slightly loose.  Headlights work great now.

Yesterday Webster & John Case came over & we installed the clutch slave,
reconnected the rear driveshaft donut, & buttoned it all up under there.
After words we made a quick parts run for some brake fluid to bleed the
clutch & brakes.  Clutch pedal seems good now & there was a bunch of
crap coming out of the brake lines.  The car had previously sat unused
for about 2 years.  I also installed a new leather shift boot I bought
from Centerline but it does not fit very well.  There is too much
material in all directions & the leather is too thick!  The clips are
not able to grip the thick leather & securely attach to that flimsy pot
metal trim ring.  I think they made that out of the same stuff they used
for original fuses ;-)

So, I guess next on the list is to swing by FoS after work tonight for a
plug wire set & then fill her up with fuel, coolant, & oil.  Then
install the alternator, & button up the last bits before giving the
almighty command:  SPICA TO ME!!


Cheers,
Zach
Redmond, WA (the rains have returned)

PS- A huge thank you to those guys that have helped out with this mess,
beers are on me!

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