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Forever build - Alfa 75

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  • Forever build - Alfa 75

    Never had a build thread before this, but been working on this car bit by bit for years... I'm going to try and do a run down over the years, how the car progressed roughly, might not be in perfect order but will group the things together so it's not too much of a mess.
    I've skipped A LOT. Like converting to the shorted ratio 4.1:1 transaxle, custom built clutch, custom multi stud hubs... I'm a machinist by trade, so have made a lot of stuff for this.

    Have a read or just flick the images. Open to ideas etc, so shoot away. I started the thread here to get away from the purists and narrow mindedness they tend to bring...

    I got the car way back in ‎January ‎2007. My first car, a '78 Alfa GTV, which I had worked on restoring for 4 years was rear ended after driving for 2 weeks . Luckily the fella was happy to buy me another GTV of my choice and some extra cash my way [I won't post those images, but it was terrible and a win all rolled into one]. In the mean time though, browsing Alfa's I ran into this one sitting under covers at a parts dealer.











    I ended up running in to these wheels on eBay for next to nothing, so grabbed them. Also found a fella with custom made springs that were too low for his track car . These run a torsion bar front, so adjustable factory









    Ran them like that for awhile... Then heard about a fella who does white walling on retro tyres. Hunted him down and chatted with him for a bit... Wild idea at the time, he'd never heard of it on low profiles before but was more than happy to go for it. No one was rocking white walls around this time but managed to get Leyton a fair bit of work from the local scene.











    Being quite vulnerable to rocks living on the boarded of bushland, dirt driveway, I ended up doing them myself. A bit wider...







    Then, maybe months later, I ended up bending a valve... Don't change timing belts in a mood! It sat with the engine apart for 12 months... I bought all the usual Alfa V6 performance stuff and finally fitted it all up and got it running. For a week or 2. Cams were soft, killing a few lobes and buckets in no time. The replacement set were sent [All from overseas] but were FWD V6, 10mm shorter nose... a few moths later, I got the right set. Fitted and been a perfect engine ever since.













    Time blurs...Maybe 6 months of super lumpy idle but smooth power I got myself a Megasquirt ECU kit. Cannot speak highly enough for Megasquirt in my application! Bosch L-jet sucks... Just controlling fuel right now, spark soon...







    And here's the MS fitted a day or 2 after. White walls got wider... The wheels come off shortly after though. Far too heavy for the car and white walls were everywhere now. Still have them with %99 tread on them sitting in the shed 5 years later.







    Stock wheels. I do love these for stock rims.







    And really, that's where the exterior stopped.
    Quickly touching on the inside, I made speaker pods, which have changed but kinda the same plus a A/F ratio gauge.













    I'll leave this it this for now, but I'll be back with more as I currently have the entire front end apart for rebuild [not the engine though]. Stripping, hiding and minor tucking to make that mess of engine bay more naked... Rebuilding a set of Compomotive FH500's too...

    Shoot away with **** or ideas, I'm all up for it.
    My Build Thread - Alfa 75 3lt

  • #2
    About 2 years ago, I started making this more a project than a daily driver, which it drove faultlessly for 6 years or however long it was. I just wanted to go a bit further with making this car a weekender. And after swapping the 4.1:1 transaxle in it was pretty insane to drive to and from work on the highway!

    The 4 cylinder 75 parts car I bought just for the 4.1:1 was pretty damned clean other than faded paint and a bump here and there. So I put the 3.2:1 in and away I went with a new work rig. a nice 7.1lt/100km makes for a sweet, cheap highway rig!

    Ok, so, I'll start now on pretty much what I've been doing in the last couple weeks. I've managed to find some motivation...Right after having our first child, building a new house and pretty much being perma-broke [not really, just priorities changing I guess].

    So here's the 'workshop'. Garage, while I can't get down the back to the shed because of land scaping issues...



    The week I stopped driving it the power steering had a leak turn serious. So out with the front end, steering and suspension. Manual rack conversion. This is where I got motivated and starting making more work for myself...
    Suspension bushes [inc. conversion to bearings. I'll only have 2 rubber bushes left in the whole car once the front goes back together].
    AC delete.
    Washer bottle hiding.
    Wire tuck.
    Hose delete and hide.
    Fixing cracks in the frame. Being not quite low enough and too many bumps to the radiator support cracked the frame about the wheels.
    and repaint the whole lot in underbody deadener [I did the same under the whole rear end]
    Sand blasting and repainting everything I can at work.

    I'll throw down the pictures now...





    Cracks in both sides...


    Both sides FULL of oil soaked dirt and sand...


    Shit weighed 2.4KG!


    Can see the mashed rad' support. Gained a full inch of clearance... Not sure if I'll fix that or leave it for the clearance...








    More not low enough damage. Shocks have built in bump stops.


    All grouped and stripped back from crap I don't need, ready to figure out grommet location, thread through and extend wires.


    Work, my area became a shitty spray booth... Nightshift with 4 other people means I can get away with a lot of foreign jobs...


    And last of all, the 15" FH500 centre I started blasting. Have to strip the others and blast those. My plan, or idea, is battleship grey lips and centres with black bolts. The lips have heavy pitting a corrosion and it won't polish out [I've tried one]. So until I can afford new lips, they get painted too. I only have this one picture though...
    Last edited by jazig.k; 04-26-2015, 06:07 AM.
    My Build Thread - Alfa 75 3lt

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    • #3
      Oh, Ozzies and their chromies....

      Door panels look neat!
      Lucas
      Daily: 2004 Pontiac GTO. . . . . . . . . Daily Econobox: 2009 Mini Clubman Cooper
      Originally posted by LCG
      High 21! It's like a high 5 but includes both hands, both feet and a boner.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by loekaaz View Post
        Oh, Ozzies and their chromies....

        Door panels look neat!
        Haha, yeah, they're gone now though... Perma-storage I guess.

        I really really wanna get some SSR Reverse Mesh in 16". Square fit tyres and max out the width.

        Thanks!
        My Build Thread - Alfa 75 3lt

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        • #5
          hey we aren't all tasteless, but by fuck most of us are

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          • #6
            Should have a reasonable update in a day or 2. Wire tuck almost ready to post some pictures...

            BUT.

            Alfa seen into the future and though "Fuck that cunt."

            Any idea how I fix this mess? I don't want to machine a new housing up, but all the wires are just a fucking mess with no where to run them. The sensors are NLA too, or a couple are, so hesitant but thinking about butchering the rear plugs.




            Not sure, but just a thought would be grind weld and figure out a location to pick up temps elsewhere....


            Not my images. Stolen from this, pretty amazing, build thread - http://www.alfaclubvic.org.au/forum/...ic,7349.0.html
            My Build Thread - Alfa 75 3lt

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            • #7
              He painted on those white walls? Or is he shaving the tire?

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              • #8
                Originally posted by KFC ONE View Post
                He painted on those white walls? Or is he shaving the tire?
                In the first pic, he's shaving the tyre for a flat clean surface. Then rolling on the wall paint.
                It's illegal here in Aus to remove the info on the side walls, so I never did it when I did them myself, I just painted over the lettering. Pretty painful to get a clean edge with lettering in the way, which is why my walls got wider and wider.
                My Build Thread - Alfa 75 3lt

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                • #9
                  Great build! So original. Those Compomotives will look amazing on there. Can't wait to see more.

                  Renato
                  Team TWM Performance
                  TWMPerformance.com | TWMShiftKnobs.com | GodSaveTheManuals.com
                  sigpic

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                  • #10
                    Been doing a little work here and there. I have a 2 month old girl who distracts me a lot! Mostly cleaning oil leaks with a rag and bucket, a bit more painting.

                    I've almost finished the wiring on the passenger side engine bay. Coil and associated wiring much better. I was going to keep fixing it up but I plan to convert to coil on plug set up [will get rid of that dizzy and leads!].
                    Where you can see the firewall there is a standard skirting that covers all that. So when I get another one that will hide the mess back there.
                    Will finish the distribution block and alternator tomorrow. Then on to drilling the spot welds on all brackets and battery tray.

                    Gonna look at relocating the radiator too. Move it forwards a few inches to just behind the front bumper.





                    Finished the upper and lower arms. Converted the lower bushes to bearings, a little custom work on the lathe.


                    Dad come over to see this mess... Shocked him a fair bit! Guess he never thought I was gonna do it when I mentioned it last time. He's pushing me to take it further now, pull the engine and paint the bay.
                    IF I do that, I'll be welding up everything to shave it.Battleship grey, which was my 'one day' idea long ago. I'll finish the wiring that I already have on my hands, get the suspension back in so I can roll the car out of the garage to clean the bay with degreaser and pressure washer. Then I'll make the decision about the engine pull


                    I've also been finding all my pictures and trying to sort the out. I found a few of the rear end work from roughly 12 months ago. Pretty much cleaned the fuck out of it, scrubbed the lot in a body condom and pressure washed, painted the whole lot in underbody black.

                    Bought the other 4 cylinder Twinspark for the 4.1:1 transaxle. Now use that car as my daily with the 3.2:1 in it. Is slow as fuck but does 7lt/100km.




                    Powder coated the suspension bits.



                    Scrubbed and wire wheeled my transaxles. 12 hours of my life I'll never get back... Sandblasting next time...



                    Custom made hubs. 5x98 and 5x114.3



                    Custom dion triangle pivot bearing to replace the rubber bush. I've made heaps of these and sold them off to buy Rach's engagement ring [She's ex banker. Incredibly hard to hide money when we have a joint bank account...].



                    Custom clutch work... Kinda the best photo I have... Clutch is amazing now. Light as stock, grabby like a good after market clutch. More clamping pressure just by changing the pivot ring diameter.




                    And finally, the last picture I have of the car sitting on the ground. After moving into our newly built house. Before the front end work started. 15x7" momo wheels, 195/50's. I made 12 and 25mm spacers for the rear, as you can see, it really needs them!




                    Thanks for reading, flicking or what ever. I really appreciate it. Will hold out on the next update until the engine bay is almost finished with the tuck. Don't wanna just spam with micro updates because I put new crimp terminals somewhere...
                    Last edited by jazig.k; 04-25-2015, 06:28 AM.
                    My Build Thread - Alfa 75 3lt

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                    • #11
                      Can you explain a little more about the white walling ? Did he just shave off the letters 'n all or cut a groove with that angle grinder kind of contraption? And what paint dit he use?

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                      • #12
                        He just ground the walls smooth, no groove like some do if you google it [cut a groove and inlay white rubber].

                        The wheel looked something like this.


                        The machine was like this. Raise car, lower onto the peg which rotated the wheel at a steady controllable speed.



                        His paint was in 2 coats, an under coat which helped the paint stick and resisted the white turning yellow with the oil in the rubber and a top coat which was crisp white. It was OK, after a couple months it was cracking a little and a little less white. Not yellow at all though.


                        I bought a single coat paint off another white waller in Queensland, which was rubber based. Was about $2 per ml of it... Much better. No cracking, sticked better and resisted scratching off or pressure washer a hundred times better. Even after years on the tyre it still hasn't yellowed like a lot of white wallers paint does in just a month or 2! Most people choose coloured walls because of that reason.
                        Then the guy stopped white walling after selling his machine and stopped selling the paint but refused to pass on his supplier to me. That guy was a fucking tosser anyway... So I stopped white walling for people. I couldn't charge for a job I wasn't happy with on my car.

                        I didn't ever use a machine like I've shown. I have access to a tyre changer, which rotates the wheel about the right speed; Using the bead arm as a steady I did it on that with great success. Only when I was going over lettering after being defected did my walls get wider because of the paint bleed around the lettering etc.
                        My Build Thread - Alfa 75 3lt

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                        • #13
                          Thats some helpful information, thanks

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                          • #14
                            Got a small change of plan on the Compomotives.

                            Raw sandblasted lips with a coat of clear and grey centres. Here's some pictures, one coat of paint on both parts, so not finished. Just sat some stainless steel M6 bolts in that I had sitting around. Think I'll get stainless hardware now... Not sure on black but I don't have any around to try.

                            Gonna strip the rest today and take them into work for sandblasting.



                            My Build Thread - Alfa 75 3lt

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                            • #15
                              Been getting irritated with the wiring. The deeper I dig into the original, the closer I get to just pulling the engine. So I've halted with the wiring across the firewall... When the engine comes out I'll hack into them and reduce them to a fraction of original.

                              Drilled a bunch of spot welds and removed brackets etc.
                              Fell in love with hex crimping! Been hex crimping everything! The smaller terminals get soldered after a hex crimp.
                              Also fell in love with riv-nuts [net-serts]. Just wish I had the tool for the job because I'm using a bolt and nut to crush them.

                              Relocated the radiator fan to the front of the radiator. Not finished as such, gonna strip it down and paint it all, add some rubber seal around the shroud to seal against the radiator. But it might not even last that long because Dad has a $800 radiator fan sitting around somewhere. Pretty good fan he tells me, so he's gonna find that for me.
                              Will monitor the first heat cycle to make sure it still operates as should [research tells me push fan set ups are around 20% less efficient]

                              Pretty repetitive pictures I know.





                              My Build Thread - Alfa 75 3lt

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