ALFAGTV6.COM

[KevinR]

I have moved this thread over into restoration as this GTV 2.5 of mine is on its way to have a “light “ restoration. This was the original idea but as you go along you start doing more and more !
This year I spent the first few months working in SA on my late fathers cars and my daily drive has always been my 156 2.5. As I previously mentioned in another thread this car was getting a bit tired and with so many projects on the go I found a good home for it in the hands of Dawie’s mechanic at Glenwood Motors. I actually started to find the 156 getting expensive to run in the end and it would be better investment and less stressful driving a good solid unmodified GTV 6 2.5 around. ( that’s what I keep telling myself)
I had my eye on one of Dawie’s customers cars for a while and after some negotiations the owner parted with it. It was good timing on my side as the owner had barely used it in the last three years after having spent quite a lot of time having the engine fully rebuilt and bodywork redone.

This GTV originally came with five stud 14” rims from the factory ( like the spare in the boot) from the SA factory. These were not the most attractive wheels and with the lack of optionsi. 15” on 5x98pcd in South Africa the owner converted to 4 stud to fit the current wheels. The hubs were changed and a different pcd was drilled through the ventilated discs.
I do like these wheels however but I have a
spare set of compomotives FX that I would like to fit so I will fit the original five bolt hubs back again.

On taking possession I spent the weekend removing seats and door panels to deep clean the carpets, vacuum out the doors of grit , replastic and spray rust inhibitor . Still had few hours so while cleaning up engine bay I removed radiator to flush out. I just wanted to make sure car was ready for all the driving I'm going to do while finishing of the project cars ( spider and Junior ) . This is all probably over the top but sometimes you cant help yourself

Now I’m enjoying driving it around, window open, listen to the glorious exhaust note , posing at coffee shops, and parts collections !

Pics to follow of the above mentioned work.

Edit : this was written few months ago (March 2019h and quite a lot has been done already !

[KevinR]

I collected the car from Dawie DeVilliers at Zwartkops . Pic of Dawie next to the car .

[KevinR]

Some pics of the weekends work of the big clean up . Seats out , panels off , radiator out .. Scrub scrub bling bling

[KevinR]

The engine bay starting to look really good now and time to get on the road to see what this car is all about !

[KevinR]

Fast forward a bit . Having done quite a few miles in this car in Sunny South Africa I have decided to take the car back with me. Even though this is a low mileage car the suspension feels really tired. Sadly this is a reality in a lot of SA cars as parts are not always readily available and when you do import them the costs are pretty horrendous. Combine this with the fact that you only do an MOT or roadworthy certificate when you sell the car this means you could go 20 years without having to replace and suspension bushes. Thank goodness rust is not an issue in SA ... Unless youre on the coast or all your drain holes are blocks. Even then you might have rusty patches which are easy to sort out but not like in UK where the cars rot from inside out from all the condensation in the cavities added with the killer salt on the roads. I might sound bit critical but for a UK car to be solid it must have been garaged during its life and proper rust protection maintained .
So first plan when the car arrives in UK im going to strip out the entire suspension and redo every bush. I want this car to be sharp and crisp to match the glorious sounding engine. There will be no big brake upgrades but minor suspension mods along with driver position mods.

Pic GTV going into container at Limbro Park . Johannesburg. I always like to load my cars personally . Just sleep better

[KevinR]

Finally the car arrived last month. I was really angry with the extra scanning charges I was forced to pay . This was £620 which is totally unfair if port authorities decide to scan my container I was sharing with two other people. My question is why should I pay some one to do their job ? Thing is you have to pay ASAP otherwise you can incur storage charges.
I did note they had moved car into another container which was also a point of argument. Anyway moving along .
I decided to bring the car back to my house and put it under the outdoor canopy as the summer has started so all work will be done in warm weather. My storage facility with the GTV 3.0 and the track car is 70 miles away from next door to Alex Jupe. This would have been ideal to work on it after work hours but I would prefer to do this project on the weekends without the traveling .
Pic of arrival and transport to my house.

[KevinR]

Work started very promptly last month jacking up the car on a slope with correct support work under all the axle stands. I thought if I'm lying under there striping entire suspension, pressure cleaning , scraping and painting then this car must be safe and higher enough up to work . I used two jacks ensure safe rigging !

[KevinR]

One heavy weekend and all the suspension is out . I guess it would have been a lot quicker if the car was in my store and easier work surface but there are no barbie facilities ( Braai ) and cold fridge !
I like the original ride height so I made marks on the torsion bars back and front with reference to the factory slots. I also took measurements from the lower control arm to the wheel arch just incase I loose my notes.

[KevinR]

I got some good detail pics of the suspension strip down before it wentboff to powder coaters which I will put up later.
Feel free to comment

[KevinR]

The beauty of dry climate cars is that none of nuts and bolts are rusted on so stripping down is pretty easy. You can see the condition of the body work is good by the seams in the arches but the under seal that was sprayed over the body colour has got hard over the years . Some areas where it' has shrinkage cracks in the underseal it is a must to wire brush down so no salts or moisture can get into those cracks. This was my next step after I stripped down all the suspension and pressed all the bushes out.

[KevinR]

I started stripping out the upper arms first. You have to grind the pressed rivets flush then drill them out making sure you have punched them dead centre first. The inner arm bush I just drilled loads of holes around the centre and then pressed it out with a socket. These came out really easy. The condition was OK of the bush but loads of play in ball joints. So this area will definitely be improved upon.

[KevinR]

The lower arms are always a tough job even with the correct tool to remove the inner bushes. It's not advisable to try pull both bushes at the same time as you will strip the threads . Plan is to loosen the nut off on the opposite end of the locking caps. This means you pull the closest one out first.
The outer ball joint is removed by use of simple chisel. I'm not sure what Alfa suggested but this seems the only way !
The cross member bushes seemed pretty good but they must go as well . Can't have these in when there off to the powder Coaters.
Special thanks to Alex for allowing me acces to his tools to strip down these arms .

[KevinR]

With a few more hours left of the weekend I decided to try strip down the dedion. Even with a rattle gun the lock nut was not coming loose. There goes my theory on dry climate cars ! A one metre lever bar and tapping shock waves into the bearing the nut came loose. The hubs were also very tight and could not be tapped out with a copper hammer with distorting the metal so borrowing a hydraulic puller proved the solution. As I was going to use a poly bush in the centre of the dedion I decided to grind the tabs that hold the locking washer out now so no powder coating would be damaged .

[KevinR]

Finally all the parts off to the platers and powder coaters. This should take a few days as its been pre booked . The condition of the parts is really good so the quality once the items have been coated should be dead smooth. The nuts and bolts going off to the platers was split into the front of car and rear. This should make it easier to sort once every thing is back. It's worth telling the platers if any items are cast iron as they go through a few more processes of pickling first to get a good finish .

[bteoh]

Hey Kevin,
That is awesome work. Will look fantastic once it is all done. I admire you , with working in less than ideal conditions on an uneven floor. Well done and hope to see more of your progress