A new "barn-find"!

[evanbottcher]

Hey folks,

I can't help but post this - I'm a little eager. I'm parked up in a motel on my way home to Melbourne from Parkes (Central NSW) after picking up a December 1975 Sud Ti which has been sitting in a shed for 20+ years. It's incredibly rust-free, it had some rust repaired in the battery tub before being laid up in a dry garage all that time ago. The interior was started on a home-resto (velour seat covers!) so it'll need a complete refresh. The paint is terrible, and the respray was across everything - bumpers, plastic spoilers, etc.

The only rust I've found so far is on the edge of the rear valance panel, nothing in the screen, tub, windows, sills etc as far as I can see so far. Hooray!

Early plan is to restore it to the original Procida Blue, and drive it! I'll have a few questions along the way - the original state of our '77 race car is a distant memory now.

Excited! Drove 700+ km today to collect it (about 450 miles), and about 250km home so far before I had to stop for the night.

[PETROLHEAD]

Oh Man!

I love it already!

Jealous to death of that one mate, GREAT find, well done.

Will you start a rebuild thread when you start getting stuck in please mate?

[Johnboy]

Hi chap

What a find look forward to seeing this back on the road

[dave.armstrong]

My favourite Sud!

I'm so jealous - nice 159 to tow it home with too!

You lucky *******

More pictures please,

[alfasuddriver]

What a dream find! Keep us updated with pics!

[KevJTD]

great car, look forward to following the build thread as i will be very soon starting with my own '76 ti.

[sud_1.5ti]

I'd love to have one too.
What a great find!

[AlfaCorseChris]

Now thats something you dont see every day !

Over here, we occasionally find a rust bucket here and there, and we think its gold !
hahaha

Great find mate, it really doesnt get more exciting than that

[evanbottcher]

Thanks everyone. Got the car home yesterday and set about it with the pressure washer. Under all that dirt it's really in amazing condition - now I can see a couple of little scabs around the front screen, and there might be (therefore probably will be) a couple under the rear screen. Apart from the little spots of rust along the rear valance panel, we can't see anything anywhere else in the normal sud spots. It's a bloody miracle.

I accidentally shut the bonnet on the latch (with no cable connected it turns out) so next job is to unbolt the bonnet so I can get back into the engine bay and clean it up. Then it'll be a slow process of stripping the car.

I'll take some more detail photos when I get a chance in the daylight, and post them up here.

What's the story with windscreens and rear glass? This car has the early bonded screen, but the stainless trim surround is long gone. Will the later rubber-seal-with-chrome-trim screens fit in the same aperture (front and rear)? I'm thinking that might be easier to source than replacement trim, especially since I'll have to have the screens out to fix rust and paint anyway.

Another question - the bumpers on this car has been painted over in dark silver paint. I think the bumpers themselves are polished stainless? How would they go if I use paint stripper on them?

I'll have lots more questions

[Johnboy]

Paint stripper should be fine . But for piece of mind test a small area first ! But I think they will be ok

[Johnboy]

Paint stripper should be fine . But for piece of mind test a small area first ! But I think they will be ok

[PETROLHEAD]

paint strip should work well on stainless, because i bet there was little in the way of prepping or keying the surface initially either.

and then a good scotch and polish i should think, job done!

[justsuds]

I may have some of the stainless steel screen trim if you need some, fronts and rear, but will have to check, - not been asked for any for a long time !
John.

[KevJTD]

I may have some of the stainless steel screen trim if you need some, fronts and rear, but will have to check, - not been asked for any for a long time !
John.

while you're having a look john, i will probably need some too

[justsuds]

Will do Kev, - has yours got bonded glass or rubber seals ?
John.

[KevJTD]

Will do Kev, - has yours got bonded glass or rubber seals ?
John.

i think it had a bonded one originally, but the plan was to put a rubber seal one in.
i'm ok with doing either way, will probably need a decent screen too...

[ricky ricardo]

Great find there, nice to know there still out there. I'm sure I'll never find one though, happy with my sprint.

I'm sure there all bonded screens, my original first model green meanies have them. I know because when I lifted one with the forklift the car broke in half and the screen fell out.

[evanbottcher]

Aha - I found the whole stainless window surround (painted over in matt black!) under a bunch of junk in the boot. So it's possible I could use the original bonded screen. Pros and cons? Probably should keep it original.

[evanbottcher]

Here's what the Sud looked like after a lot of washing - happily it didn't dissolve! It looks pretty good in these photos, but the paint is very dry and dull and seemingly impregnated with 20 years of red dust from inland Australia.

[evanbottcher]

Had to detach the bonnet to get it open (no latch cable) so a bit more pressure sprayer and the engine bay is looking pretty good. It's had a repair around the battery, but it all looks solid. Possibly some suspicious patches under the paint on the sides of the tub, but nothing we can't handle.

I've started undoing everything under the bonnet in order to drop the engine and gearbox out. If the box is good I'm going to use it in the race car. The engine I'll store away in case I ever want to put this car back to it's original 1.2. Hope this isn't too controversial, but this car will get at least a 1.5 twin carb. I've driven a 1.2 before and it was cute, but really lacked the legs for what we want to use the car for.

[Johnboy]

I can't be leave how good that Sud looks
As for the engine I don't blame you for wanting at least a 1.5 twin carb.

[ricky ricardo]

That red dust you mention may be why the cars survived so well. 2 or 300km's inland has no humidity or salty air.

[KevJTD]

bugger me, that's solid!

never have i seen one so good, they've all had work done where yours looks standard.

not a cat in hells chance of finding anything like as good as that over here, even 1 year of our damp, salty roads would change that.

a beaut.

please could you take masses of pics, i've got to put mine back together from a bare shell, and i didn't take it apart!!

[PETROLHEAD]

AWESOME!


unbelievable isn't it Kev!



fact is we'd all like this one in the shed to tinker with, but in all honesty, it is far better off staying where it is in your climate clearly.

What other plans have you got to improve things a little Evan?

[evanbottcher]

please could you take masses of pics, i've got to put mine back together from a bare shell, and i didn't take it apart!!

Sure of course, I'll post here when I remember but also on my journal: http://alfa.bottch.com

It's not quite as pristine as it looks in the photos - it was resprayed dark grey from it's original Blu Procida, and as I pull things apart I'm finding some mismatched (and cross-threaded!) bolts and screws. The interior is rubbish - cheap nylon replacement carpet badly fitted, badly reupholstered seats, a black fluffy headlining, side panels done in nylon felt, the dashboard re-covered in vinyl but unfinished. The interior needs a total re-do. But the shell is just awesome!

What other plans have you got to improve things a little Evan?

Well I've got another project to focus on first, so this one really should be stowed away and not touched for a year or so. But I can't help myself so I've started to make a list and collect a few things - grabbed some NOS headlights, an NOS indicator stalk assembly thing, and some NOS tail light assemblies. I've got a few things stuffed away over the years for with this project in mind. I reckon the hardest things to find will be front door cards and back seat side cards in really nice condition.

Then the plan is to strip the car fully, rub it back and have a fresh coat of Blu Procida applied. Hopefully it'll look something like this:

We don't have many early Suds turn up to our club days and shows, so it'll be a nice unique thing to punt around

[PETROLHEAD]

NOS headlights?

please tell me there are more? and if so how much?

[Bluesuit]

Wow very straight looking, those inner wings are incredible, my yellow S1 5m was more filler than metal when it was 5 years old, especially the inner wings.

Looking forward to watching progress

Cheers

Ian

[taffioch]

That's a real find.
This goes back a long time, but I seem to remember being told by a windscreen fitter that the bonded screens were fractionally larger than the later conventionally installed ones. This would mean that a replacement screen might perhaps be more likely to be the later type and therefore unsuitable for bonding. But this could all be down to the failing brain cells of an old fart (me, since you didn't ask).
I remember also (I think), being told that the bonded screens would remain leak-free for as long as a year in some cases. We had one that had a good inch of black sealant covering the interface between screen and body.
Keep the pics coming for Kev!

[Spacenut]

No, I definately remember reading the same thing. I suppose the question is, with modern bonding adhesives, is the structural stiffness of the shell sufficient to stop the seal cracking, and if not, how to improve the stiffness of the shell? Apart from fitting a roll cage, that is

This is a really nice find, I've always been a fan of early cars. Good luck with the build!

Lauren

[Bluesuit]

Perhaps you can help Kev with a picture of the sun visors and rear view mirror arrangement on yours - he's got a few bits missing off his S1.

Ian