A new 105 ready for Restoration

[Tim Jobson]

Hi Guys,

Well I have had an interesting first weekend with my new (or not so new ) 105!

After successfully getting Angie (I name all my cars) home my first job was to remove the plugs and put some light oil down the plugs.   I would like to crank it over by hand but there does not seem to be much space to do this.

I then took the fuel sender out and found it was rusted and the tank after being removed was full of pin holes, new tank and sender are on the shopping list.   The good was that the boot is in excellent condition, no rust in the rim housing the fuel tank or the spare or the boot lid!

I took the fuel filter out and cleaned the sludge out of the glass bowl, are these little fuel filters easy to obtain or do fellow 105 owners convert them to fit a generic in line fuel filter?

The good news in the boot was reversed when I began to investigate the extent of the rust in the bottm A pillars and the sills.   As you can see from the pictures I will need to replace both sides with those aftermarket replacement panels.      The sills are also rusted in places and iam tempted to replace both cills as well, has anyone done this and are replacement cills available to purchase?

I put power to the electrics and to my surprise all the systems worked even the interior, bonnet and boot lights, except for one high beam light and the horns, they seem to click but no noise comes from them.

Ciao for now, Tim

Ps I am having more problems trying to attach pictures to this post than tackling the probems on my car.   Evan said to reduce the size of the pictures to 257kb my pictures are 375 ea so how do you do this!!!,  i only have the standard microsoft programs

[Davidm1600]

Hi Tim

Good man, another GTV to be saved, as it is always good to see how another person's experiences pan out. I have yet to tackle my '69 1750 GTV series 1, as I still need to finish off the Super's restoration.  The missus and my bank account, let alone my brain couldn't cope with two car projects at once.  It is crippling enough to tackle two historic house restorations at once !!

Re your rust problems, as the photos didn't seem to be attached it is a little hard to comment on what may or may not need to be done.  However, the excellent news is that all the panels including cills, floors etc you could possibly want to restore your GTV are available.  Check out the following websites for parts and prices, Alfaholics run by Richard and Max Banks or alternatively Classic Alfa run by Richard Norris.  I met Richards Norris a few years ago and he is really helpful guy.  I have bought a couple of repair panels for my GTV off him already, let alone a huge range of parts for the Super from him.  For some reason his prices seem to be a little cheaper than Alfaholics.

Having said that, if I were after performance parts or knowledge, Alfaholics seem to have this area covered extremely well.  Their GTA replicas are awesome.  Max also seems to be from the postings I have seen on Alfabb to be really knowledgeable ad helpful.

Speaking of the Alfabb, do check it out since there are a range of GTV restoration stories listed, complete with photos of every step conceivable.  I am sure you could find all you need to know there.

The best thing is to compare between the various parts suppliers to see which has what you need and the best price.  Delivery time from the UK is fast and postage costs very reasonable.

There are of course other suppliers in the UK who have heaps of 105 stuff including, EB Spares and Highwood Motor Co.  I havn't dealt with these but I have read plenty about them too.  There are a range of suppliers in the US and also in Europe which you should be able to track down via the web.  Also of course ebay for some things.

Lastly in Australia the only two I am really aware of are Milano Spares (Marc, Mario etc) and again I have bought plenty off them over the years, prices fair and delivery quick.  Also the 105 Factory but I have no experience with them.  Then there is Turin Imports in SA but I have no experience with them.

Re your cills, if the outers have gone then the middle and inner cills may also need replacing.  Also check your floors since these typically rust out.  Thats where the new floor panels come into their own.  Obviously as you take the car back to bare metal, plenty of other surprises may be uncovered.

From memory, both Alfaholics and Classic Alfa have a lot of structural repair sections, but where not the only choice is to cut all the rust out and fabricate new panels.  As I mentioned above have a look at the Alfabb site for all such repairs.

Hope you get to post some pictures and keep posting work done, before and afters are always really helpful.

Cheers Dave

[Mat Francis]

without trying to get off the topic of alfas too much, here's a link to a free photo editing program i use. it's a pretty small file to download and easy enough to use.

http://photofiltre.free.fr/download_en.htm

once you have it installed, run the program, and then open the picture that you want to change. if you want to do a whole bunch at once, go into tools, then select the automate/batch option and choose your options from there.

presuming you have opened a single photo, open the image tab, go down to image size and click that. adjust image size to 640 by 480 pixels, which is a good size for this forum, and hit ok or whatever it comes up with.

next, go file, save as, and choose where you want to save your reduced image.

640 by 480 pixels should reduce the file size to well below 250kb or whatever it was, so you should be able to just post the resized photos as normal now!

[Tim Jobson]

Thanks dave, what is alfabb.

Mat, I hope this works

[Mat Francis]

well done tim, pics worked great.
www.alfabb.com
as far as i'm aware biggest alfa forum in the world. if you have a spare six hours or so one day take a look, chances are if you can't find what you're looking for on there it probably doesn't exist. a terrible place to visit i find, very addictive.

[Davidm1600]

I will 2nd Mat's comments, the Alfa bulletin board (bb) is extremely addictive.  I seem to spend far too much time on it for my own good.  But seriously, there is so much useful information, contacts, restoration threads on it for all of us Alfa owners on it.

Ouch your rust looks a bit nasty but I have seen plenty worse.  You will defnitely need the same repair panel I have already bought for my GTV (base of front guard cill section), ditto I would suggest new cills.  Unfortunately the rust goes a little deeper into the base of the A piller (as you previously mentioned) and so as I mentioned in my previous reply do check out the various webstes, since the have pictures/drawings of the available repair sections.  If not available for what you need fabrication of the various sections will be required.  Do check out your floors since they often are rusty at the front where they butt up to the inner cills.  If this needs to be done this is quite a techncal job since in removing cills you need to keep your car body rigid.  The cills are integral to the structure of the car.  I have seen pictures of how this is done, eg. tack weldng a cross brass across the door aperature. 

The rear floors similary go rusty in the opposite corners and also at the base of the kick panel for the rear seat. 

I have yet to investigate my GTV, apart from the obvious rust, but I am expecting the worse.

Cheers Dave

[Tim Jobson]

Yes Dave, I too had house projects to finish before I could start on my 105.

The floors like the rest of the car has no rust, its only the cills and lower sections, jacking points OK , so I will search for varoius panels.

I will need a fuel tank so if anyone knows of a good one lets us know!

Tim