Meckie

Our 11 year old labrador Meckie is dead. She had a cancer and in just a week time she couldn't get up anymore. So we had to release here, a week ago.

Meckie sometimes appeared on this blog (meckie, meckie), mainly when we considered to buy another car to replace hte red 33. Meckie drove us to a Alfa 156 Sportwagon, but finally it became an Alfa 146. So we had to help Meckie in the car when we took here to out for a good walk in the wild, it went worse the last few months. Now she lies in our back garden, may she rest in peace.

Dogs can tie you at home. But with a proper training they can be taken everywhere. Meckie came to us when she was 1,5 year, we didn't train her enough on this point. Now we're looking for a new dog. We can't miss the daily exercise and the pleasant company at home.

Many people drive vans, to transport their dog or their pack of dogs. No van for us, or it will be a campervan. But for the time being our 146 and our Blue Lord will suffice.

Two picures of our last good walk (swim!) with Meckie on the shores of the river Meuse in Venlo.

Contact and starting

Last week my neighbour Omer gave me a battery.  After recharging it seemed to work perfectly so  I put it in my Bleu Lord. To test my engine again, and to secure that it runs every now and then, I started it. At least I tried. Obviously something went wrong, because I hadn't even turned the ignition key to ignition, and it started already. Strange matter. So by turning the key to stand by, the starter engine already began its work. Turning the key to ignite, started the boxer engine, but het starter engine kept running. That was not good. My other neighbour, Mike, meant it could be the relay in the starter engine or leading to the starter engine.  I looked it up in hte manual, and yes, there is only one relay between the ignitionswitch and the starter engine. Exactly, the one in the aterter engine.
So yesterday I swapped the starter engine in the Bleu Lord by another spare one from my famous cellar. Actually this one came from my grey SW.
That didn't work out. The fault remained. So my second guess is the starter / ignition switch in the dash. I changed that a month ago by the one from again the grey SW, to make sure I needed only two keys for my Blue Lord, instead of three (left door, petroltank and the ignition/right door).
So now I have to remount the ignition lock again and remove the fault.

At least I have no whole in the engine wall. Good luck, Bert.

 Original Bosch starter engine, made in Germany.

The swap was complete, the result can't be seen on this picture.

Ignition key on the loose... damned.

Progress, another item

Well some weeks ago I kinda mounted the front bumper. The rear bumper still waits for painting and mounting on  the Blue Lord. Since I picked up my normal working scheme, time's running away.

Time for a short reconsidering. This year I made great progress in my project, due to a major leave from work. I mounted a new petrol tank (3 times), new petrol lines, renewed brake lines, I restored the rear axis, and mounted some little details in the interior. I even restored another set of wheels.

That's what I wrote this morning. But time has passed me by, and I had a little time today to fiddle about. The weather was perfect for a hike, but I was in my workshop sanding the ugliest rims I ever had. They came with my 146 and I changed them real quick for better tires and QV-rims. Just a little bit of attention and the world looks completely different. See for yourselves.

This was the state in which I bought the 146, with the Speedline alu wheels in really bad shape. Luckily only one was a little dented.

Corrosion has left ugly marks on this rim. Fake plastic bolts and a nice wheel cap in the center.

Ugliness by disconcern

A new owner and he wants to spent some time with the ugly one.

First run in restoring. Blank aluminium on the edge, silver painted center. 

Corrossion is fading slowly away.

On this particular rim I spent the most time with sanding the varnish layer off the blank aluminium. The corroded space let off the varnish real good. The other wheels are in a less corroded, in fact a better shape, so more of this naste work is to come. With some thinner I made a start in attacking the very hard varnish surface. More posts about this work are to come real soon.

Smart marketing from Alfa Romeo

Nice promotion, init?

Nice thingy

Browsing the internet you can find more and more images. This one is found on a very nice and selective explicit car site on Tumblr. 

My modest contribution on the car imaging front is seen below and here.

Bus and bumper

The bumpers take their time. The front bumper is ready painted and assembled. There is a slight difference in color between the bumper and the car, probably the old paint can, so it needs a respray. It does not have the highest priority. But today I cleaned and buffed the bonnet, to see if the color difference could have been was caused by the older paint from the car. I also fiddled to mount the front bumper on the car, and at last I partly succeeded. I'm not in a hurry.

 Ready to go.

It's on! Color difference?

In the meanwhile I looked at the cut little bus at the bumper's right mountingpoint. The rusted screw was to loosen from the bumper but it didn't cooperate. So I had to cut off the plastic cylinder, as shown in my last post. The solution is to mount a little piece of petrol tube to substitute the bus. But still, I'm not in a hurry.

The first thing to do now is to buy a new battery for the sportqwagon, I getting bored from dismounting the 146-battery and installing it in the sportwagon and the same in the reversed order.

By the way, from a friendly co-Alfist I got a rearwindow screenwiper motor from an Alfasud. Alass it didn't fit on my sportwagon rearwindow. Right on both pictures is the Alfasud motor. which is now for sale. Thanks all the way, Bert.


Oh, and this one. Since my daughter got an iPod, I also play a little game on it. Especially I like this game. In a few weeks I got to the 4th tier (from 5) and now driving an Audi R8. There are no Alfa's in this (probably) american game, besides some Chevrolets, Fords and Nissan's, there are some BMW's, Audi's and Mini's in progressive types and engine versions. The game is a typical muscle car game: driving in straight lines and as fast as the motor pulls. Nice is the upgrade option of the game: winning earns you money and upgrades are to be mounted. You can even hire a mechanic and the effect in the handling of the car is remarkable.

146ti as daily driver?

Pffffh!

Look at the other videos of this driver from hell, especially the one when he's is to chase Alfa's . The comments on this one are interesting:

"Excuse me, "They like their cars and nothing else" i dont get this part very well.

If you have Alfa Romeo, car made for this kind of driving, it likes going fast, its made for that.

Real Alfa Romeo drivers, i repet REAL drivers drive their Alfas like stolen. (very fast)

But there are so many posers, and i dont like that at all."

But the sound of this (he claims stock) car is marvelous! BTW, the sound of the Fiat Coupe 20VT is excepionally sporty!

Painting the frontbumper

Two jobs get mixed up now and I'll have to focus on the older one. So, finally I got the paint for the bumpers, although it were only two cans while I ordered three. One of them was very old, I noticed it when I was home. I decided to give it a go, so I could finish the project. I regretted that later. I bought a can of plastic primer too, so is would cover the the damaged paint layer on the bumper.

The can in the middle has expired 2010, the new one expires 2022! But it was good enough to finish the front bumper and the little foglight spats. 

The two testpanels, the foglight spats. The quality of the paint on the bumper is fully dependable on the underground surface of the plastic, when one don't want to fill the surface with filler. Two different spats: left very smooth, right really rough.

Color check on the car. The Blue Lord is 23 years old, some refreshment of the paint wil be necessary, some day.

The front bumper after sanding and the first layer of plastic primer in my backyard

Strange stuff, that primer. It looks aweful, but when the paint is on, al irregularities are gone.

Didn't I tell you? A few layers of paint and the world looks different again.

Rough plastic surface, here too.

Commandant 4 (cleaner) and some old cloth to make an effort for more smoothness. 

Right on the bleu paint, no clear vernish on.

After some polishing. Somewhat better results.

Oh yes, that nasty mounting point I had to demolish to get out that %^*(@#$-corroded screw. 

I fiddled about a few hours to get the screw out.

This is how it's originally. Some thinking will be necessary to mount it good on the 33.

Subframe analysis

Well, the subframe bar is as good as ready to be mounted. The time to get the bumpers painted I use to make an inventory of the car's state. A State of the Lord, so to speak. Object of this inventory is  the rest of the subframe, under the engine, in fornt of the Blue Lord. Today I took some pictures and stitched them together to see how the situation is, down under. Well, at first glance it seems to be worse than it actually is.
The brown colour is probably rust water emission of a leaking radiator, from the time when the car was still running. I must admit, I never drove the car, it isn't even registerd in the Dutch vehicle register, because it's an import from Belgium. As I was told by the former owner, a mehanic, he repaired the car he bought from an older man. The mechanic worked with classic Fiats, Alfa's and Lancia's in a grarage in Antwerp. The engine runs smoothly and there is some evidence of major maintenace activities on the left and right cylinder heads. I figure the mechanic fixed the radiator leak too, because the distribution caps are clean, free form the brown emission. Well, I don't know for sure, so I'll have to do some more analyses.
When taking up the subframe I'll have to clean the engine bay and the engine. And mount a fresh radiator. Maybe this will be the first job to do, even before the bumpers. Because of the good weather, the car is now outside my garage, on the driveway. For taking up the subframe it'll have to move inside.

We'll see.

Frog's eye perspective of the frontside of the car, subframe bar above, spaghetti exhaust manifolds left and right, on the outer sides, the subframe arms to the wheels. Center piece is the engine oil sump. In hte background my 146.

The radiator is not the best item on the car.

Rust on the lower side could be the cause of the brown emission on the lower engine parts. But there's no emission on the lower side of the car's frame.

Subframe bar and PP-plastic bumper treatment

My subframe is sprayed in matt black. I want to mount it as soon as I'm able to disassemble the complete subframe in front of the car. That'll last some time, for my bumpers are to be painted first. Next week I'll fetch the plastic primer and the color paint. And lots of sanding paper in tiny core.

Matt black is the colour for this element

Underneath the car, no one will see a red subframe

The bumpers are roufh on the surface because the plastic is untreated. I reckon they were painted simply on the plastic, without a prime layer of filler. 

Front QV bumper

Rough and untreated surface

smooth on one spot...

... rough on the other

The flaps for the foglights are different in surface, 

left hard and sandable, right soft and difficult to treat with sanding paper.

The primer will make it easier to sand and smoothen the surface.

Bumper sanded

Detail of the sanding of the bumper corner.

Primer and filler will make this part smoother too.

I'll keep you posted

QV steering wheel: check

At last, the QV-wheel is fitted and cleaned and functional. Looks good, doesn't it?

The scratches are maritial evidence of the driver.

In an overview, I guess the seats and panels will have to move for QV seats, some time. 

For now, I'm quite content.

Steering column, won't get fooled again

Today I did some fiddling again. The Itialians are geniuses in design, it always looks good, but the inner solutions aren't always that practical to work with. Example is the steering Column mantle. Once it is off, you can work around the steering column perfectly. For mounting a new starter lock I had to dismantle the cloumn. Now the lock is operable, the remantling of the mantle is horrific.
Since it is plastic, and some years old, it is hard to bend. The two mantle pieces, upper and lower part, disclose around the column, and have to touch some mounting points on the column. Once that fits, the two mantle attachement points have to meet these points. And then a long screw has to assemble the three parts. On the two lower points. The difficulty lies in the fact that the two mantle parts disclose the cloumn and the attachment point, so there's  no view on your work at all. Here starts the fiddling about, like Uncle Ernie did.
When you succeeded in mouting the four screws of the mantleparts, there's a fifth screw te tighten on the lower part, hjust above the choke handle. When the fitst part as described above, was succesful, this section won't be a problem. When you fiddled aboout too much, here's some more fiddling to do. Mind when fixing the mantle you have to position the steering wheel, the wheel might not be exactly in the middle of the mounted mantle.
I succeeded in about one hour and a half. Thank you Uncle Ernie (by the way, The Who's a great background music to listen when fiddling about, this one is obligatry, My Genereation is for the older petrol heads and this one's rather relaxing).

The claxon's power device under the wheel broke down. 

My cellars's a good source for substitutes (which is another great song of The Who)

The steering column mantle is finally in position.

 I even succeeded in mounting the starter's lock rubber thing)

The fifth screw

Some nasty scratches on my replacement QV-wheel

Original QV-wheel: G. c.p.

And when my Bleu Lord project is done, I'll be driving this one!

I want it, I want it, I want it!

NB the painting could be more expressive!