The Day of Reckoning (Post # 18)

Last night we skewered the Alfatross. 

Much to my surprise, it took only a couple of hours and nothing went wrong.  Was it good preparation and planning, or just dumb luck?  Probably a mix of both, but we're going with the prep and planning explanation. If you've been following the posts up to this point you were probably wondering why it was taking so long.  Well, "measure twice, cut once." 

Dave and I knew we would need some more hands so we asked around and got three enthusiastic volunteers without even twisting any arms.  Brian Williams, collision repair estimation specialist at Auto Right and Jeff Kramer, retired Alfa enthusiast, have been following this blog so they were up to speed on what we needed to do.  Dr. Toni Carrell (Dave's Mom) volunteered to shoot the photos.   

The Alfatross resting on its trolley, prepared for skewering and mounting
on the rotisserie.

  

The gun sight.  Looking past the wooden grill opening protector bolted
to the 2 X 4 front "bumper" to line up the front and rear brackets.
Clearances are minimal.

The first thing we did was  to change the plan.  Jeff observed that it might be easier to feed the axle pipe through the car starting at the trunk opening rather than at the grill opening.  It was a better idea, even though it meant that we would have to raise the 200 lb axle pipe to head height to accommodate the angle.  An engine hoist volunteered to do that part for us. 

The axle is 17 ft. long and weighs at least 200 lbs.  We're going to use the engine hoist in the background to help us thread it
through the body, firewall,  and brackets.

Feeding the axle though the body, firewall and support brackets turned out to be a piece of cake, but clearances were very tight, particularly at the lower end of the grill opening.



Here you can see how close the axle comes to the bottom of the grill opening. There is less than half an inch of clearance on either side.

Pinch bolts on the brackets lock the axle to the chassis.  The axle turns in the rotisserie sockets at either end

The step that took the longest was mating one end of the axle to the rotisserie frame.  Some drilling,
hammering, reaming and cursing encouraged it to fit.

The Alfatross breathes a sigh of relief as Brian and Jeff unbolt and remove the trolley it sat on for the last 10 years.

The last step was to attach the alignment bar to the rotisserie supports at either end. 

My accomplices.   Left to right: Brian Williams, Dave Carrell, me, and Jeff Kramer. 

The next major task is going to be soda blasting the body and chassis.  I'm going to try renting a trailer-mounted diesel-powered compressor and start that job later this week.  But first I have to round up some fittings to make the blaster and compressor compatible.  I have about 200 lb of soda on hand, but it might not last very long once I get started.  I want to experiment with different grades for different purposes (rust removal vs. paint removal, for example) so I just placed an order with Eastwood.  Anyone contemplating a major soda blasting job shoul be aware that the shipping charge effectively doubles the cost of the soda!