Classic Alfa Forums

talking of finding things, i've now got hold of the correct steering wheel

Congrats on the steering wheel find, looking forward to see the completion of your car, it has become a true gem

Hi Kev

Very much looking forward to seeing your completed series 1, chuffed for you that you managed to find one. The darkish silver really suits it. Will it make the National or do we have to wait for the big day...the very big day......that is... MITCAR?.
Cheers
Miles

the car will be going for it's mot in a few weeks i guess, once a few more bits & bobs are ironed out.
meets before mitcar? bound to be some i guess, depends on timescale and location


another small but significant step today, got my wallet out and bought a set of tyres so i can finally get the steelies fitted.

went for BF Goodrich in the end, was gonna fit Michelin but they were almost twice the price and BFG's aren't a bad substitute.

fitted the n/s wheels to see what the bolt situation is, suspected i'd need to at least buy more of the shorter ones as i'd used them on other stuff but decided now to just buy a complete new full set of bolts.

found my centre caps and polished them up, just had to decide which design to use as i have a set of the different style that have a badge affixed rather than just pressed into the stainless. well, i say a set but one is missing a badge..
as it turned out though i prefer the pressed ones so cleaned up the 4 i had which had quite a bit of grime and paint on them..........once done of course i found 3 more that just needed cleaning

You can't beat shiny add-ons Kev. they look the biz.

Looks great!

Love it

found a good used wing brace to go with the new one i had, so set to and cleaned it tonight. luckily it has been covered in years of stonechip and underseal which kept it in good condition, even if it did take an age to clean.
i'll get some paint on them soon.

cleaned up the steering wheel and primed it ready for paint once it's been flatted off when dried out.
does anyone know of an approximate colour code for it?
guess it's supposed to be the same sort of grey as the dashboard..
was planning on just picking something off halfords shelf in a rattle can..

Think it should be a silver/grey Kev.
I just made up my own colour and used satin finish lacquer.

Great to see it coming along again Kev,

and i think the stainless pressed centres for the wheels are bang on, they look brilliant!

finally, over 3 months after the promised date, i got the front spoiler back last night.
had planned on having the day out at cadwell today at the historic race day, went for a few hours but couldn't resist coming home early to trial fit the spoiler and get the wing fixings fitted.
know i should have made the holes before it went for paint but i didn't have a spoiler to hand back then, plus i'm not that organised really

rivnut fixings with lashings of waxoyl have sorted that job.

i also noted that i was missing the brackets from the wing bottom to the spoiler but luckily i found a pair in the shed, they'll get cleaned up and painted this week.

i'm gonna get a vinyl strip for the bottom of the spoiler to infill the bottom lip as per the original. did think about just painting the black stripe but the old one was a vinyl type stripe so i'll do it that way.

whilst i had the car out from under the cover i did a few more little jobs, fitted the drivers door card, steering cowling and proper steering wheel plus checked out a few more items that i needed to confirm what i need.

a good few hours tinkering in the end.

now, a little help please guys.

can't quite remember what i'm missing here.

the rubber gaitor that goes over the hand-brake lever, i'm missing some brackets to hold the gaitor in place i think?

sorry for the poor quality picture

Kev, I think yours should be like mine, so it is a hard plastic moulding as opposed to a rubber gaiter. It just clips in place .
Here it is when stripping the car. Let me know if you need a better photo and I will take a new one.

What a nice TI!!!! There is no gaiter for the first series Sud's, it's a hard plastic cover that should be in here if you want to keep it original. Should you want to have the gaiter solution of the later type Suds then you need a bracket below the bracket in which the parking brake lever is assembled. The first series brackets have 2 features in which the hard plastic cover is "clicked", the later type have a different geometry to suit the gaiter assembly.

Very nice to see your TI coming together.

To elaborate a bit on the parking brake topic. The lever bracket for the gaiter type has a bracket assembled below which keeps the gaiter in the correct shape and the 2 features to assemble the hard plastic cover are missing. The pictures below may help to understand the differences.

thanks for that guys.
i do have what looks like that plastic cover in my parts collection, didn't associate it with a sud to be honest as this is the first S1 i've had.
will use that then.
guessing it clips over one end and screws to the floor at the other? seem to recall it having one location lug with a screw hole?
will dig it out tonight

The parking brake lever bracket itself is attached to the floor with 3 bolts. The plastic cap is, as far as I can remember, not attached with a bolt, but I could be wrong. Please note that the pictures I put up in my previous post shows the later series situation with the plate below the bracket for the gaiter and the lever bracket without the 2 assembly features for the plastic cap. In this message the old bracket with the 2 clip attachents for the plastic cover st the front side and rear side (no plate should be below the 1st series bracket). The second picture shows a comparison picture between the 1st series bracket with clip attachment feature and the one assembled to the floor shows the late series with a gaiter plate below the bracket and no clip holes anymore.

Does this help ?
The mounting plate has a lip at the front and a slot at the back. Sorry the pics are a bit blurred.
Hook the lip through the front slit of the plastic cover, then gently push the back down. It should then just click into the rear of the mounting bracket. sorted !!

brilliant desriptions and pix you guys, clear now what's happened.
i've used a later hand-brake plate but without the underneath bit that would hold the rubber gaitor.
i should have used an earlier plate with the hooks on it, to be honest i wasn't aware of any different ones.
i will have a look to see if i have the correct one but if not i will make up a couple of brackets,
i do at least have the correct cover which looks identical to the ones you've both pictured.

brill, thanks guys

went down to my local vinyl sings place today, same place that made me the air filter stickers.
got him to cut me a pair of 25mm wide 1M long strips of black self adhesive vinyl for the spoiler.
he actually cut me 4 strips in case i made a mess of fitting them......seems he's getting to know me now

chuffed with the fit, can't wait to get them on the car now

Finishes the spoiler off a treat.

painted the 2 wing to spoiler brackets today so decided to fit it tonight, once on the car it's not gonna get knocked about in the shed, plus it's nice to put bits on the car
i'd also painted the wing to chassis rail braces a bit back so they went on too.

will soon make a list of what's needed before an MoT can be done....not really that much now

Nice work.
Out of interest, are your wheels tubed, or tubeless?

Nick

Hi Kev. I have the handbrake plate with the bit for the clip in my racer

and as I am leaving it bare I would happily swop it with yours if you are in need. I guess all the nuts are captive so its the little hassle to do.

Highly Impressed at the standard you are achieving.

dralf1965 wrote:Nice work.
Out of interest, are your wheels tubed, or tubeless?

Nick

my wheels are tubeless capable nick.
the easy way to be sure is the little hump/groove that is in the outer wheel dish.
the inside part of this prevents the tyre rolling off in cornering.
older style wheels that are tube only don't have this hump.

incidentally the manual lists different tyre pressures for if you have tubes or not...both very low by todays heavy car pressures. nothing on the road nowadays that has 20psi rear pressure!

junior wrote:Hi Kev. I have the handbrake plate with the bit for the clip in my racer

and as I am leaving it bare I would happily swop it with yours if you are in need. I guess all the nuts are captive so its the little hassle to do.

Highly Impressed at the standard you are achieving.

yes mate, the nuts are captive in the floor. i've had the bolts shear off though through corrosion siezure (who'd have thought it ) so be careful taking them out.
thanks for the offer, very much appreciated, but i'm sure i'll have one in my stock. may well just make a couple of tabs though as taking it all out will mean releasing the cable etc, more hassle than it's worth.
thanks again for the offer and kind words

quote 'incidentally the manual lists different tyre pressures for if you have tubes or not...both very low by todays heavy car pressures. nothing on the road nowadays that has 20psi rear pressure!'

Also not many cars that only weigh 875 kilos!

these came today, another little bit that can go on the car, complete with a modern message.....

dralf1965 wrote:quote 'incidentally the manual lists different tyre pressures for if you have tubes or not...both very low by todays heavy car pressures. nothing on the road nowadays that has 20psi rear pressure!'

Also not many cars that only weigh 875 kilos!

even better than a 4C

Plates are a nice touch Kev tho' thought to be legal they had to have a postcode or something.