More Pictures!

[Mat Francis]

For all of  you like Dehne out there who like the updates, here's the latest photos from the chaos at out place. The red one got stripped good and proper, as you can no doubt see.

A lot of the bits out of the red one will go into the blue one. the engine in the blue one came out of the red one.

It's the younger brother's car, which should be on the road in the next two weeks. There will be hell to pay if it's not, as he's already been waiting 12 months.

[Mat Francis]

and the blue one

[Luke]

I totally dig those mesh wheels. They suit it really well, and it's not easy to find a nice looking (period correct) wheel with a 4X98 PCD with decent offset, lol! Also, the centers might look cool painted gold.

Smaller mirrors are wicked, too. Do you know what those are off, Mat?

[Mat Francis]

I honestly couldn't tell you where the mirrors came from, but i noticed the same thing when i was taking the photos.

At a long hopeful shot Mr Farquharson might know more about this particular cars history than myself?

Those wheels are great fun- a little unroadworthy maybe, but the tyres on them make for some interesting fun. did a run around calder on them once, the car was skating all over the place

[Paul Gulliver]

Original Alfa suspension. Clearance at the front wheel arches make it look like it is set up for rallying or the engine is out.

[dehne]

if you look behind the wheel you will notice the base of the RED jack stand
my poor old red alfie i will shed a tear for you
whats happening with the silver one

[Mat Francis]

not too sure about the silver one. mum wants it gone, but it's too tidy for that as far as i'm concerned. however i'm expecting to acquire another car in the near future, and it might come down to us just not having the room after that. until then it's just gonna sit there i suppose.

i really hope someone will be in need of a good shell, because if it stays where it is eventually mum will get her way and we will have to wreck it.

hintity hint hint. 

[Mat Francis]

More blue car updates. As usual, the 2 weeks estimated for the car is turning into 2 months, but i'm sure everyone knows how that goes.

Decided rather than do a wheel bearing, driveshaft boot and rebuild the calipers on the rear end in the car, we would swap it for whole setup out of the red car. (Thanks again Dehne).

And from another thread, LAME's do know best! Here's something dad acquired out of the back of the old 727 freighters, which make life incredibly easy. ball bearing roller things. keep weight on them so they don't slide out and you can roll around the garage on a Di Dion like its a skateboard!

[dehne]

MATT iwould have kept the gearbox for myself if i was you as it was completely recod

[Mat Francis]

ugh, don't remind me! it wasn't my first preference, but we are in a real rush and it was by far the easiest option.

On the positive side, Scott is genuinely keen, has a very good sense of mechanical sympathy, and knows if he doesn't look after it i will pull it out of the car faster than he can rip it through the gears as he takes off from the lights. (you have been warned  )

On the bright side, even though all his gear changes will be DD'd anyway, a bit of syncro never hurts when learning, leaves him a little bit of room for error.

[Mat Francis]

heh. that picture didn't quite tell the whole story...

[Mat Francis]

Righto. Three of the most frustrating weeks of my life later it's more or less done!

It had this horrible knocking noise coming from the rear end, and it had us absolutely f****d as to what the problem was.
It started after we swapped the Di Dion over. As such, we:

-changed the gearbox
-changed the clutch (3 times)
-pulled the drive shaft out (3 times)
-spent hours lying on our back trying to see any marks.

Working on my own, i had the clutch out of the thing and on the bench in an hour and 2o minutes. dad got it down to 50 minutes (on his own). bloody silly.

After all that, it turns out the problem was in the driveshaft. My bright idea was that it is easier to seperate the shaft, put the front half in, then check the alignment carefully and attach the back half, thus not stressing the center donut. and how did we put the shaft back in every time?

Can't get a spanner in there doing it this way- no worries, 17mm socket, rattle gun, extension and you're laughing. wrong.
Problem was, due to the impact caused by the rattle gun, the little collar thing (in the center join) is being pushed back over it's seat, and the whole thing is getting over tightened.

Couldn't see it, because it's over the top of the cross member. Sounded like it was coming from the clutch/gearbox, as the noise echoes down the shaft.

Ran it last night and the noise seemed to have gone. just gotta bleed the clutch and tune her up this arvo, and then should be close enough to roadworthy!

Don't i feel like a right tool after all that.