Giulia TI body shots
This may be a first: I spent a weekend working on the TI and didn’t discover anything that needed yet more work. And I got a fair amount done, too. Most of what remains will cost more in money than time, which is of course both good and bad. Anyway, the summary of accomplishments reads as follows:
- reinstalled heater
- reassembled and reinstalled dash and gauge cluster
- reattached trunk lid
- applied Bondo all over the place
- swapped out speedo cable
Here's the dash and not really visible heater, reinstalled. In addition to making the car *look* more carlike, having functioning gauges also makes it nearly driveable. Just add seat.
I haven’t had all that much fun with the Bondo. Unlike the fiberglass application in the previous post, the Bondo faces the outside world and requires a lot of repeated applications plus sanding in order to get to the desired shape. They say it shouldn’t really ever go much beyond 1/8″ thick, but I will definitely have some spots approaching 1/2″. I don’t care all that much since I know there is metal underneath, but I’m slightly concerned about cracking and separation, so I’m probably going to take the car to an actual body shop for a final go-over and assessment once I’m satisfied with what I’ve done — and willing to hear someone tell me if it needs redoing.
Here are a few photos of the work in progress.
Here's the repaired TI trunk like, reattached and with a first dose of Bondo. Also you can see the where I'm hitting the trunk itself.
And another:
First pass at the repair on the left rear fender.
And another:
Smoothing out the doors. Luckily there wasn't all that much to do here.
And a little before and after shot of the work on the front valence, which is not yet ‘done’ but definitely improving. Yesterday:
Before. Pretty funky - the dip in the metal was irregular and my attempts to fill it were also irregular.
And today:
Closer to even, but still uneven. One more Bondo + sanding session should hopefully get this to a presentable state.
Changing the speedo cable was an exercise I don’t want to repeat any time soon. Per the Alfa shop manual, the cable winds through a series of twists and turns and eventually fits into a space that only a double-jointed lemur would have an easy time navigating. In my case, the operation required dropping the heat shield above the front muffler. Had I known or realized this from the beginning, I would have saved myself about 28 episodes of climbing up or crawling back under the car to twist, push and pull on the cable.
The Volvo also got some attention this weekend, but not enough for a dedicated post. On Friday the other brake caliper arrived so I got that on, and spent a little time yesterday bleeding the brakes. Unfortunately the booster seems to be leaking some brake fluid into the intake manifold, so it’s obviously shot. I scored a set of identical boosters (from a 1750 Alfa, no less) on eBay today; hopefully one of them will be good. Otherwise, I’ll have to run on an un-boosted setup, which isn’t all that bad but definitely not as safe.
The main problem on the Volvo is the leaking rear main seal. I’m loathe to drop the transmission (better said: loathe to spend multiple hours on my back underneath the car with dirt and oil dripping into my eyes), but if I’m going to fix it there’s little choice.
