SPRINT RESURRECTION

[LooLooSud33Spider]

If you’ve got one original new one Is there any chance of getting the clips 3D printed. I’m sure if someone has the ability and equipment to do a batch. I know I’d be interested.

[Alfaoldgit]

Hi Veesix,

I'm sick of red Alfas, so it won't be that. The original colour was Ivory (so white then). The carpet is dark brown with Camel inserts in the door cards. The seats are Sprint GC, I doubt I can get hold of decent originals; I have the green dot material to recover them. So what goes with brown & green dot seats? Black, white, green and silver. Green is my preference, Verde Matese or Verde Faito metallic. At present Matese is my preference as my father had an early Sprint that colour.

AOG

[Alfaoldgit]

Some significant progress made, it now has a roof. Grille trial fit together with rear lights & badges. All glass & trim in process of being trial fitted. Interior trim to trial fit so that all self tapping screws can be replaced with machine screws into Rivnuts. Independent inspection is being carried out by one of the team who wasn't so closely involved with the main fabrication work. So far the bonnet hinges have been snagged as worn and the nearside rear quarter doesn't have a pressed in "landing" for the tailgate stop like the offside does. It will have..... The tailgate has lost strength, thought to be the dipping process disbonding the skins around the screen aperture. Will be clamped and spot welded. I have included a couple of interior shots, even the inside gets rubbed down & filled. As previous, pics appear right way up when clicked.

[Alfaoldgit]

Does anyone want a pattern offside outer sill repair section? I paid £55 plus shipping for it, I'll let it go for £20 if collected. It came from here
https://www.myalfagroup.com/en/parts/al ... /body.html

Obviously I'll be putting it up on the parts for sale board in due course.

[Kegsti66]

Sprint is looking great and getting close to paint prep.
Great link you put up. Looks like they can supply some useful panels,
Hope they are useful to some more people restoring cars. Thanks.

[Alfaoldgit]

Here's this week's progress report.
The front & rear bumpers have been trial fitted. The dent to the front one has been straightened out & both bumpers have been re-profiled to accurately follow the bodywork contour. They will be re-plated in due course.

Rear bumper

Front

Here's a rotated picture of the hinge line of the nearside door; as you can see there is a run of braze (or maybe it's TIG) down the leading edge. As we know, Naples didn’t produce the most accurate pressings in the world so this has been added to enable the shut line to be contoured to give a constant gap with the wing. Same process on the back edge of the door. On the offside, they had to shave some metal off.

And finally...........the team decided to add some bull bars to protect all their hard work.

[Kegsti66]

AOG , great work, but just in case you were unsure, your bumpers are stainless steel, so just need preparing and polishing.

[Alfaoldgit]

Hi Kegsti,

Thanks for commenting.

I thought they were stainless too, in fact that's what I said to Chris when I dropped them off for fit check. He said, "ReallY? I don't think so..." he held up a magnet to them & it got all friendly. However, I'm aware that stainless steels in the 400 series can be magnetic ..............I think a whole new topic could be started on the magnetic (or not) properties of stainless steel, Kitchen sinks seem to be the non magnetic variety.

Either way, the bumpers have some significant scratching on them & seem to be quite soft. So they will get sent off to a specialist metal finishers for whatever process they deem appropriate.

[alfadave]

The bumpers on my S2 Sud are also attractive.
And they have stood up to being outside for the last few years.

[Alfaoldgit]

More pictures to salivate or yawn over! It was impossible to stop the ceiling lights flaring in the camera lens. First & thirds pics needs rotating 90deg CW

This pic attempts to show the large repair to the offside roof. You can just see the spot welds.....there's no distortion & the spot weld craters will be sorted out.

[Kegsti66]

That fabrication work is fantastic, I know it may sound sad, but I love the floor pan especially.
Cracking job.

[Alfaoldgit]

Hi Kegsti,

Yes the quality is amazing & no i don't think you are being sad. Another well known correspondent on this forum says its a piece of art, a sculpture, and that I should stop now and have it in my living room. My wife disagrees

[Alfaoldgit]

If anyone is wondering why I've not posted for a fortnight..............I've been out of action with Covid. I'm fine now apart from a damaged blood vessel to an eye but it should clear up.

All welding & fabrication is now complete so I can thankfully put my book of blank cheques away. Costs for prep & paint are a known quantity. I'll post some pics in a day or two.

AOG

[Veesix75]

After originally saying I’d go for the metallic faito green, I think I’ve gone to the Matese green, can’t remember seeing a sprint in Matese . Either way, green gets my vote

[Alfaoldgit]

I think Verde Matese was only offered in the UK on the first run of 1.3 Sprints with the chrome insert in the screen seals. My fathers '77 car was this colour.......I was driving a Fiat 127 at the time, the Sprint was a revelation in handling and an engine that wanted to rev for ever. Unfortunately it was far too "sporty" for my mother's taste (she didn't drive) and poor old Dad ended up trading it for an Ivory Sud Saloon Gold Cloverleaf that failed its first MOT on rot. The Sprint sowed the seed though and in 1979 I became the proud owner of a brand new Ti 1350, APL479T. Last seen racing at Lydden Hill many years ago, I'm sure it died a long time ago.

It's hard to find any decent pics of Sprints in VM, these two are it but the show lights make it look metallic. The most accurate colour representation is the final pic from Matese News showing a mock up of the planned new train carriages for the Naples to Piedimonte Matese line!!

[Veesix75]

That does look almost metallic and darker than other pics, this Sud is matese I think?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/transaxle/15736759242/

My first sud ti was patch work metallic faito

[Alfaoldgit]

Yes, that's Matese but it looks a little "bright". Every picture i look at it looks slightly different. I had a rattle can made up to the nearest available generic colour match (the proper original colour is only available in 2k or similar professional use paint), but it looks like Pea green. The body shop can create any of 40,000 colours on site so should be able to get it right!

[Spacenut]

Isn't it strange how green varies so dramatically when photographed - I have never seen two pictures of my car the same shade, and for years I thought the Pininfarina P33 coupe was yellow because the green did not register on the 35mm film of the day.

I didn't realise Alfa sold the Sprint in a solid green colour. Looks fabulous in the pictures. Frankly I can't get over how clean the bare steel looks on your shell - it's like a DeLorean

OK, so I've just realised the outside is painted silver, but all that fresh steel that has been let in looks fabulous!

Lauren

[Veesix75]

Well, much as I love the metallic green, I’m now definitely voting for matese verde

[Kegsti66]

Here is Nik Lear's old Sud, Think Nick Gibbons owns it now.

[Spacenut]

Here is Nik Lear's old Sud, Think Nick Gibbons owns it now.

That's the one I was thinking of!

So that is factory matese verde then.

[Kegsti66]

I do not know, but probably.

[LooLooSud33Spider]

This is the Verde Matese swatch and colour composition from the archive I’ve got the same info in English. I’ll dig it out tomorrow

Lou

[alfadave]

What about that chocolate brown colour they did?

Must be a rare shight now.

[Kegsti66]

I like the one at the bottom Lou

[LooLooSud33Spider]

I like the one at the bottom Lou

Thought you might Keith. It’s A Very 70s shade that suited the sud well.

[LooLooSud33Spider]

More paint details for Matese Green
Weirdly. The different paint vendors use different compositions to achieve the same shade. I’m sure Keith can shed light on the technicalities of paint wizardry

Max Meyer

Glasurit

These documents date from 1979

[Alfaoldgit]

Hi everyone,

So much discussion over Verde Matese! Thanks for the colour info Lou. Meanwhile, despite being slowed down by Covid I have managed to rebuild the back axle and calipers hopefully to a standard comparable to the body shop.

i got lucky with the calipers - the pistons were well and truly stuck in their bores, the offside ones fully extended as someone had removed the pads.........A search on the web suggested using a grease gun to pump the pistons out. Amazingly, the flex pipe on my trusty Wanner gun screwed straight into the caliper ports & out came the pistons. Okay it wasn't quite that simple, but you get the idea. Some Brasso polished up the pistons, the bores were good apart from some cosmetic corrosion above the seals. Having been quoted £300 for overhaul of both calipers I was quite pleased that a seal kit and a can of silver lacquer came to just £30. The hub bearings were fine agter being cleaned out with white spirit & repacked. The discs were unworn apart from surface rust, I simply couldn't justify buying new (assuming i could find some) & let's be honest Sud rear brakes are more decorative than functional!

In case you're wondering, the axle brackets are yellow Zinc plated, even though they look as though they have been painted. I used a new plating outfit instead of my usual Folkestone based platers. They were quick & the cost was competitive but everything has come back rather dull so it's back to Folkestone for anything else.

[Kegsti66]

Nice work on the axel, looking good.

[Kegsti66]

More paint details for Matese Green
Weirdly. The different paint vendors use different compositions to achieve the same shade. I’m sure Keith can shed light on the technicalities of paint wizardry

Max Meyer

92982AA1-8B13-4A26-B4BC-42472B514F6A.jpeg

Glasurit

9222BD55-2E37-442C-AAD7-CA4C60727E5C.jpeg

These documents date from 1979

Put simply Lou, the paint manufactures all use their own basics to make the mix of colours.
Problem is the pigments have changed so much over the decades, removal of lead in red basics etc, means the mixes are constantly being reformulated to suit the new basics. Metallic is no longer aluminium flakes it is mica so now you get the pearlescent "flip" which , nice as it is, it looks wrong on older cars . Even solid colours can suffer from sun bleaching. Blues often look lovely and deep till the sun hits it then it goes paler. It can be a real pain.