Scuderia Shitbox 2013

[Ray Pignataro]

i wonder what happened to the two black ones?,
Does this mean mine is one of the two, is plated 1983?

[colcol]

There were 2 versions of the 1.5 twin carb boxer motor, 95 h.p. and 103,5 h.p., [but refered to as 105 h.p.], now the differences were the carby jetting, cylinder heads and camshafts and ignition, exhaust plumbing, and other things i don't know about, the 105 h.p. didn't run as clean as the 95 h.p., and failed to meet our pollution rules in 1983, about a year later Australia changed the emmision standards to the same as the Swedish, to try and cut out all these special builds for Australia, and it was easy to adapt the Swedish rules as they were close to ours, then the newly released 33 single carb was replaced by the 33 GCL with 95 h.p. and the 33 TI with 103.5 h.p., Colin.

[Sheldon McIntosh]

It's alright, I've fallen out of love with it again....... (bloody Alfas)

Lesson learnt for today - If a deal on an Alfasud sounds too good to be true, then it definitely is.

I bought this one off ebay, but I did have the chance to have a quick inspection of it before bidding, too quick as it turned out.  I found some rust when I did so, but very little, and in reasonably accessible spots, so wasn't too worried, even though the angel on my shoulder kept repeating the well-known refrain "if you can see this rust, imagine what you can't see..."   I should have listened, instead I listened to the devil on my other shoulder who kept saying "come on, just $10 more, press 'bid', come on".

Took out the battery and battery tray today to find this.....  Was going to take out the heater box but was too depressed by this stage, so will do that tomorrow, but it looks like I'll see more of the same unfortunately.  I'm absolutely gutted, I gotta say.  I was so happy yesterday.....

I'm at a bit of a crossroads now, with a few options.

1).  Bite the bullet and get it fixed (fixed well, but ugly) for the rally, while convincing myself that this constitutes a fix for 'safety', so anything I have to pay doesn't count towards the $1000 limit.
2).  Cut my losses, sell the car for parts.
3).  Keep the car as a project, spend some time and money to get it fixed really well, and retreat into the warm and comforting bosom of the transaxle cars for a shitbox ride.

Any advice or commiserations accepted here.

[Craig_m67]

Ahhhh (empathetic)

I've been exactly here before. We fixed it.  Firewall is double sided. Aluminum spacers down low where the steering rack bolts on. I seem to remember foam in ours that burnt out during welding. For some stupid reason we put it back too.

Engine out, battery out, ignition out, heater out, rack off  (to pub)
Weld it up cheap and start again!!

What are the front sills like, behind the front guard or the rear arches, rear roof, tailgate.. strut bearings

.. I'm not helping, sorry

[Sheldon McIntosh]

What are the front sills like, behind the front guard or the rear arches, rear roof, tailgate.. strut bearings

.. I'm not helping, sorry

S'all good.  Going by the findings today I'm gonna need to have a really good check around the car, obviously.

Before this lovely discovery I'd had a good look around the tailgate and boot area, and the sunroof, and couldn't see anything there.  Sills could be interesting, they could make the decision pretty easy....

Haven't even had a chance to jack it up and have a look underneath yet, looking forward to that (I'm worried it will fold in half if I jack up the front).  Stay tuned to this thread, it could be used in future years in psychiatry classes as an example of 'One Man's Complete and Utter Mental Breakdown!!'.

One bit of good news...  My missus is not into cars at all, and has so far resisted all attempts by me to get her into an Alfa.  When I took this off the truck yesterday, and moved it into the driveway, she came out to inspect it, saying that she could hear it from the other end of the house, even though she was using a dremel and had industrial-spec earmuffs on!!  (It's not overly loud BTW, but does sound f^()!n good).  And she fell in love with the shape too, even suggesting that it could be her car, instead of the rally car.  When she came home today and wondered why I was so depressed, and I told her about the rust I'd found, she said "well, why don't you just keep it and fix it"!!   So I've got a tiny bit of leeway with the 'too many cars in the driveway' problem, which makes any decision slightly easier I suppose!

[L4OMEO]

My missus is not into cars

Really??? Your missus (of all missuses) is not into cars??? Wow, patient lady! 

Really feel for you and what you've found, always devastating to uncover horrors like that.

Still, it seems there's some chance of a positive outlook here. If it's any consolation, my wife isn't really big on cars either so I took something of a risk when we were vehicle shopping a few years back by forfeiting the chance to negotiate on price & instead told the dealer we'd take the Land Rover if he threw in  the Sud TiQ sitting in the corner of the yard. My wife raised her eyebrows, checked out the Sud, and took an immediate shine to it. Deal done. She still describes it as the most fun car she has ever owned and would have another in a heartbeat. Pass that on.

Oh, and Marco Fazio at Centro Documentazione Alfa Romeo reckoned mine was a 105bhp model. I guess neither he nor Wheels magazine have Colin's sources 

[Evan Bottcher]

Look on the bright side.  If you drop the engine out to fix that firewall, it'll be a lot easier to fix the front calipers and fit a new handbrake cable! 

[Sheldon McIntosh]

Look on the bright side.  If you drop the engine out to fix that firewall, it'll be a lot easier to fix the front calipers and fit a new handbrake cable! 

That had crossed my mind!!  Will make changing the waterpump and cambelt a lot easier too.

[Ray Pignataro]

Sheldon blank off the water pump and fit an electric one, much better