Tanking Up (Post #146)

The Alfatross' gas tank shortly after removal.

Draining the tank to check for debris and to
ascertain its capacity.  

Beautiful, powerful engines are great. Flawless paint finishes, sumptuous interiors, jewel-like instruments, and state of the art brakes are all well and good but your're not going anywhere without gas and a tank to put it in. 

The Alfatross' gas tank appeared to be in pretty bad shape when I took it out back in 2004. All of the important openings such as the tank filler neck, the fuel level sender, the drain plug, the fuel line to fuel pump connection, overflow circuit, and vent were good as new. The hoses were shot, of course, and there was rust and even pitting on the tank's exterior. The interior of the tank was surprisingly busy with a complex of baffles around the fuel pick-up, but thankfully virtually rust free.

Once in place, the gas tank leaves little room for anything
else in the trunk.

Could there be undetectible pin holes that would later cause big problems?  I considered my options: make a new one?  Take it to a skilled welder in the hope that prophylactic reinforcing patches could be applied here and there? Or research gas tank interior sealing agents, pick a good one, and seal the hell out of it?

The copper fuel line was preventing the spare tire
from fitting properly in its recess next to the tank.
Note it is in contact with the tire. 

Having already sealed the gas tank for the '73 VW microbus with a product offered by POR 15 I decided on that approach.  After completing that process and giving the sealer weeks to set up, I should have plugged all the openings and filled it with some kind of fluid to (a) check for leaks, and (b) calculate its usable volume.  I should have, but I didn't. I was just as put off by the idea of filling it with water, even after sealing it, as I was filling it with many gallons of gasoline, which would mean handling a lot of a substance I have learned to keep contained and avoid contact as much as possible.  






So the gas tank ended up being installed and plumbed in just before the Arizona Concours in January 2016.  We put a few gallons in and everything was fine, but I was still dubious about its integrity.  A couple of weeks ago I decided to end the suspense and fill it to capacity.  But first I needed to drain it completely to see if there were any debris, rust fragments, traces of sealer, or other signs of something going wrong. To my great relief the filter in the funnel over the catchment tank was completely clean. 

I was suspicious that a leak had developed at the outlet
from the tank to the fuel pump, but repeated tests failed
to confirm that.

I started refilling the tank 5 gallons at a time and waiting at least a day between fills to check for slow leaks.  So far it is up to 15 1/2 gallons (about 59 liters), and the level is still several centimeters short of being "full" The official repair manual says the 1900 and 1900C models were equipped with 53 liter tanks and the 1900 TI model had a larger, 80 liter tank (21.2 gal.). These numbers are telling me that's what The Alfatross has, and the tank's rough dimensions, 61 cm x 68 cm x 21 cm = 90 L (23.8 gal) seem to confirm that. 

The new fuel line I made had a tortured shape, but
permitted the spare tire to sit upright.

So far my concerns that the tank might have a leak somewhere have proven unfounded. There remains a detectable aroma of gas in the trunk, but now I suspect it is emanating from a loose rubber seal at the filler cap, rather than the tank itself. 


The tank fills the trunk area from battery to tire, with little room to spare.  The radius in the bend of the copper fuel line we made to replace the broken original was too large, forcing the spare tire to sit at an angle, so I made another one with a tighter radius and that fixed the problem.  

But there is one thing I can't do anything about.  It comes with the territory. When the car is on the ground and the trunk lid raised as far as it will go, you have to get down on your knees, duck your head, contort your back, and dislocate your right arm to wiggle the spare tire out. One of The Alfatross' siblings whacked David Smith on the head with its trunk lid, during one such maneuver. The gash required several stitches to close. Oh, the inconveniences we suffer to live with such beautiful creatures!

The Princess and the Ploughman (Post #145)

Not afraid of heights. The VW on top of Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park, Washington state.

In 1973 war broke out in the Middle East. It really got my attention because the price of gas in the US—when you could find it—went from about 29 cents per gallon, to a panic-inducing 55 cents a gallon. At the time, I was driving a 1967 Mustang with a big V8 engine, not the most fuel-efficient vehicle on the planet. My father, always a glass is half-empty kind of guy, correctly concluded that the price of gas was going to continue to increase and encouraged me to get rid of the Mustang and acquire something more economical. Things did look pretty gloomy so I went car shopping. After paying the princely sum of about $4,000, I became the owner of a new, jaunty, blue and white 1973 VW “bay window” microbus/van/transporter. I wish I could explain why I ended up with that instead of a real car but whatever the logic was at the time, it is long forgotten now. 

Kor Smit, a hitchhiker we picked up outside Devil's Tower
Wyoming who rode with us all the way to Fairbanks. We
corresponded for many years afterward.  Anyone out
there know him?  Last known address was BARK 15, 9606
Kropswolde, Netherlands.

A few weeks later, the VW, a friend and I were on a road trip, the first of many.  The rather vague destination was Fairbanks, Alaska, 4,238.3 miles from the starting point in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For you Europeans, that is pretty close to the distance from Chapel Hill to Milano all the way across the Atlantic Ocean and halfway across the Mediterranean. It actually turned out to be almost twice that distance because due to side trips and meanderings.

Passing through Tennessee one winter the VW and I were 
caught in an ice storm that encased him in hundreds 
of pounds of ice.  The passenger side windshield wiper 
broke off under the strain.

A few days into the trip we picked up Kor Smit, a Dutch hitchhiker.  He inspired us to relax the itinerary, to be more spontaneous, more adventurous, and to take time to meet people along the way instead of just racing to a destination. As soon as we started doing that, things got better.

On-the-road repairs like tightening the bolts on the CV
joints in a campsite in the Wind River Range were 
sometimes inconvenient, but ample ground clearance 
meant you didn't need a lift!

Among its many virtues, the VW displayed a talent for creating impressionistic artwork
such as this "landscape" that appeared on the sliding side door during a trip to Big Bend National Park in Texas.  A hybrid style somewhere between Claude Monet and Georgia O'Keef?  Photo by Bob Adams.

During the almost two months it took, the VW and I bonded, and 35 years later it is still in my garage. It changed my appreciation for what a car can mean. The VW wasn’t about looking good, going fast, or getting to a certain destination as rapidly as possible. It was about having experiences. When we finally made it to Fairbanks, it was kind of a let-down. Not much to see, not much to do. Actually, we couldn’t wait to hit the road again!  The memorable part was the journey, the people we met, the things we saw and did along the way, not the destination! 

One of those trips stands out in my memory because of how intimately it involved the three of us: me, the VW, and The Alfatross. It was in 1979 when the VW was 6 years old and already on its second engine. It wasn't just another road trip. It was do or die time. I was moving to Texas and if The Alfatross was going to survive, she had to come with us. There was no alternative. With 1.7 liter air-cooled engines boasting all of 67 HP VW microbuses were not built for towing, and 1955 Alfa 1900C SSZs were not built to be towed. It was a gamble, but it paid off, and the humble VW ploughman became the princess' hero. They spent the next 3 decades together, sharing the various garages and driveways where I lived as equals. Now she dominates The Shed, preening as her restoration is nearing completion while the ploughman who saved her is relegated to secondary storage space in The Shedlet.  

The VW is not a collector car by any measure and I certainly have no intention of restoring him to like-new condition. But I am going to keep him. After The Alfatross leaves us to take her rightful place among automotive royalty, I intend to muster the energy and find the time to get him back on the road.  Who knows, maybe we still have an adventure or two still left in us . . . .

The Princess and the Ploughman prepare to leave the safety of Hendersonville, North Carolina for the trip to College Station, Texas, 1,201 miles away.

Embrace Pessimism! (Post # 144)

Having finally solved The Alfatross' mysterious brake problem(s) after months of frustration with what I initially assumed would be a one-hour fix, it was now time to tackle installation of the new Quicksilver exhaust system (https://www.quicksilverexhausts.com/Products/ALFA%20ROMEO). That should be a very straight-forward process too, but after the experience with the brakes I steeled myself to be prepared for lots of unanticipated problems. 

The back half of the finished Quicksilver exhaust ready to mount.

With the Quicksilver system's 17 pieces already test fitted and welded into just two continuous sections, I thought I was all but finished. Then Luigi Ventura ("Gigi") alerted me to the fact that 1900C SS cars with 1975cc engines came from the factory with heat shields over the first set of "siamesed" mufflers . . . and protective covers over their master cylinders.  

The heat shield illustration in the Alfa parts
catalog. Note that the notch appears to be cut
into the driver's side of the shield.

Insulated panel Tim installed under the
floorboard on the driver's side.

I had seen an image of the muffler heat shield in the official Alfa parts catalog David Smith sent me, but never an actual example mounted on a car or otherwise.  After learning from David how hot the floorboard of his 1900C SS got when running, I asked Tim Marinos (http://vintageautocraft.com/) to build an insulated panel to cover the space directly underneath the driver's side, thinking maybe the heat shield would not be all that important. And where would I ever find one anyway? 

Galafassi's original master cylinder cover (top) and his
reproduction.  Paolo Galafassi.

The cover over the master cylinder struck me as more of an "automotive urban legend" because I thought I knew these cars as well as anyone and I had never seen or even heard of one.  Maybe it was something someone fabricated for a race or rally car, not a production item? 

Galafassi's reproduction of the exhaust shield flanked by the original examples that provided
the pattern.  Paolo Galafassi.

Then Gigi sent photos of multiple actual examples of both the heat shield and the master cylinder cover along with reproductions made by his friend Paolo Galafassi (https://www.classicvintagecar.it).  All of my skepticism vanished in an instant. These are not insignificant, minor items. They are functionally important parts that, given their exposed location and the necessity to remove them to work on the brake and exhaust systems, were almost invariably scraped off, rotted off, or removed and never replaced. No trace of The Alfatross' original exhaust heat shield remained, but the four threaded inserts in the chassis for the screws that held the original master cylinder cover in place were still there. The Alfatross would not be complete without these parts!

I knew from previous experience that photos of reproductions are one thing but the actual product can be a big disappointment. The high-dollar exhaust system I ordered from AFRA is a good example. It took them 9 months to make it, the build quality was terrible, and it did not come close to fitting. But Paolo's reproductions appeared to be  accurate and the prices quoted by Gigi were very reasonable, so I placed the order for both as well as some other parts offered on Paolo's website.  

Bottom side of the exhaust shield. Paolo
Galafassi.

Much to my relief, the parts arrived securely packed in less time than it takes for me to get parts from Atlanta for my old Toyota 4Runner.  After I sanded and painted the master cylinder cover and made a very slight adjustment to accommodate the emergency brake rod, it fit perfectly.  

Critical dimensions of the siamesed mufflers.

The master cylinder cover in place on The Alfatross.

I decided to leave the exhaust heat shield in "natural" aluminum, but to paint the clamps to match the exhaust system.  Even though I sent Paolo a diagram of the dimensions of the siamesed mufflers, I had misgivings about how well the shield would fit. I could readily see that its curved shape was necessary to clear the bulge in the center of the mufflers, but what was that notch on one side for?  And why was one of the clamps set in the center of the shield instead of diagonally opposite the other one? 

The shield came with holes drilled for one set of clamps and a suggested location for where the second set was mounted on the original shields, but Gigi cautioned that a different location might make a better fit, given that The Alfatross' Quicksilver system is not exactly like the original Alfa system and that the insulated panel Tim made might crowd the space above the mufflers. And which side did the notch go on? I could see a lot of ways this could go wrong.

The Quicksilver exhaust system, heat shield and master cylinder cover in place on The Alfatross.

Note that the notch in the heat shield allows access to three of the screws that hold the master cylinder cover in place.

With the Quicksilver system already mounted I carefully slid the shield in place with the notch facing the passenger's side. No problem with clearance. The pre-drilled clamp fit the exhaust pipe perfectly, and the second clamp lined up with the x's marking the holes for the factory location.  The reason for the notch was now obvious: it allows access to the screws that hold the master cylinder's cover in place!  A perfect fit on the first try?  This can't be happening!  

I sent Gigi photos of the heat shield and cover mounted on The Alfatross and asked if I had done it correctly and if he had photos of how other people had mounted it.  After pointing out that the Alfa parts catalog clearly shows the heat shield oriented with its notch facing the drivers' side (though not actually attached to the exhaust system), he made the observation: 

About exhaust shield there aren't original car pictures and consider that in this century there is only one man in the world mounting this extinct part : you. in fact the first cover reproduction in the world is yours.😄

Gigi, Paolo and I would love to hear from anyone out there who has photos of how the exhaust heat shields were mounted originally on 1900C SSs, but we are pretty sure we got this right because the fit is so effortlessly perfect.

The good thing about being a pessimist is that you are always either being proven right . . . or pleasantly surprised! 

Then a Miracle Occurs (Post #143)

The master cylinder got a lot of attention. 
Getting the big end off the cylinder  required
a really big socket with a 3/4 in. breaker
bar and a 3 ft."cheater" pipe.  The hardest
part was creating a wood cradle to protect
the main body.

The damn brakes finally started working.  Wish I could say exactly what the problem was and how I fixed it, but I can't.  Maybe it was an Act of God?

Having tried every trick I knew and every trick everyone else knew, and having tired of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, I tried the "Hail Mary Pass", also known as "Fire all your guns at once and float off into space."

It was a multi-prong attack addressing every part of the brake system from the wheel cylinders all the up to the fluid reservoir.  I disassembled, cleaned, inspected, primed, and reassembled everything, noting dimensions and volumes along the way.  I elevated the rear to coax any air that might be trapped to leave the system and readjusted the shoe-to-drum clearances.  I laid in a supply of fresh fluid. 

Bench testing the Alfatross' master cylinder. After a complete dismantling I wanted to make sure it was leak-free.  The black bar on the right applies pressure on the piston.  The spring scale indicates the force used (50 lbs).

As mentioned in several earlier posts, over time I became increasingly suspicious that something was wrong with the master cylinder.  The symptoms suggested that it might not be moving a sufficient amount of fluid out to supply all 6 wheel cylinders. But after taking it down to its discrete constituent parts and not finding any problems, I started to look at the length of the "pushrod" that transfers brake pedal movement to the piston inside the cylinder.  I noticed that the spare 1900 master cylinder Peter Marshall sent me was outwardly almost identical to The Alfatross', but one major difference was the length of its pushrod--almost 50% longer than The Alfatross'.  I tried to transfer it to The Alfatross' master cylinder, but its diameter and threads were entirely incompatible with the shackle and jam nut that mate to the end of the brake pedal.  The solution was to order a 12" length of  BSF 5/16 X 22 (50 degree) threaded rod, and cut it down to about 90 mm.  There is a mushroom on the end of the original pushrod that presses against the master cylinder's piston. To simulate it I attached a nut to the end of the new pushrod and ground it down to a shallow dome.

The Alfatross' original pushrod (top) compared to the new
longer pushrod before adding the dome on the cylinder
end and shackle on the other.

Not surprisingly, lengthening the pushrod raised the brake
pedal inside the car.  This will be adjusted later during
road testing. 

With all that behind me and The Alfatross on the lift, I started bleeding the system using the one-person technique I came up with.  It allows me to operate the brake pedal lever from under the car while preventing air from re-entering the system when pressure on the brake pedal is released.  As described earlier, I spent a lot of time trying to perfect the Motive Products approach of pressurizing the brake reservoir for bleeding, but I finally gave up. The Girling reservoir cap does not easily lend itself to modification, and the reservoir's location and flimsy manner of attachment further compound the difficulty.  

After so many disappointments, at this stage I was prepared for another one. But no--the pedal began to firm up!  The Alfatross has brakes at last!  

Let's not get carried away.  It is conceivable that the problem(s) could return.  But right now it is enough to know that the problem can be fixed!  The next hurdle is to get the exhaust system back on.  With brakes, the exhaust system, and a running engine we can start the road testing--just in time for the New Mexico winter!












troublesome rr wheel cyl bleeder valve wrapped in teflon

heated and bent wrench already filed to fit bleeders tightly


reservoir Motive Products cap adapter location of reservoir and the way it is mounted made it difficult

Trapped Line Pressure Valve (Post #142)

Now that the original rear wheel brake cylinders have been properly restored and reinstalled thanks to the parts supplied by Franco, it is time to take a hard look at the master cylinder.

Serial numbers for Peter's m/c (top) and The
Alfatross'.

The rubber and metal components inside Peter's
master cylinder.  The mystery valve is second
from the right at top.

Pursuing the theory that perhaps the master cylinder on The Alfatross may not be the original, or may be defective, I purchased a used 1900 cylinder from Peter Marshall's collection and disassembled both to compare them. Outwardly, they appear to be the same, other than having different serial numbers.  Assuming that the numbers reflect serial production, the one Peter sent had an earlier number (311000) than the one on The Alfatross (413340). 

This may or may not be significant, but there were other substantial differences as well: The "pushrod" connecting the bottom of the brake pedal lever to the master cylinder piston is 100 mm long on Peter's m/c but only 66 mm on The Alfatross'. It is also larger in diameter and lacking the nut and shackle needed to connect it with the pedal shaft.  Also, the diameters and threads in the ports connecting to the fluid reservoir and the hard lines out to the wheel cylinders are different from The Alfatross'. 

But the biggest difference is the presence of a mysterious component located inside Peter's m/c at the back of the compression chamber.  It appears to be a valve of some kind but what does it do?  

The mystery valve . . .

. . . fits neatly into the recess with the "button"
end facing the piston . . .

. . .  and the spring pressing against the steel
washer on the valve.

The schematic for the Girling M/C.  No. 6
is the trapped-line pressure valve.

The first clue was a reference to and image of a "trapped-line" pressure valve appearing on a period service kit instruction sheet.

The second clue came from Bob Lembcke as one of a number of possible causes for The Alfatross' brake problems:

"Oh yeah, on all drum systems, often need a pressure check valve to hold them "out" against the springs . . . old Bugeyes had those when all drums . . . without the check valve (usually in bottom of MC at discharge) the springs can return all shoes back, needing more volume (2 pumps or more) to get them into working position."

So now I have the name of the component and some idea of what it is supposed to do, but I still don't know how it is supposed to work or if it is the solution to my problem or totally unnecessary.

At this point my options are: (1) keep researching trapped line pressure valves, (2) reinstall the original M/C as is and be done with it, or (3) reinstall the original M/C after adding Peter's trapped line pressure valve to see what happens. 

I'm leaning toward option (2), but could be persuaded to go with (3) if option (1) produces results in the next few days . . . .

Eq = Ar/Tp (Post #141)

No, the title of this post was not the result of my cat walking on the keyboard.  Expressed here for the first time in scientific formula shorthand form, it is a critical problem often encountered by those of us who restore old cars.  Translated into English it states "Enthusiasm quotient of the restorer is equal to the Age of the restorer divided by the length of Time the project is taking."

In the case of The Alfatross, if I had finished the project the same year I started it (2013), my Eq would have been a lively 64.  Now, four and a half years later, if I finish it by December 31st it will be a feeble 13.6. 

What are the signs of flagging Eq? Probably the most common is what psychologists call "Displacement activity", I found this broad definition on the Web: 

"If an animal [such as a car guy] is stimulated to express a basic drive [such as bring an old Alfa Romeo back to life] , but the action is frustrated [such as mysterious brake problems holding up progress], the drive may find an outlet by inducing fragments of the pattern of behavior properly belonging to another drive [such as scrubbing the shop floor, cleaning the toaster, tightening the light bulbs, pecking away on his blog, etc.].  

. . . or at least I think that's what it means! 

So is the Eq=Ar/Tp equation infallible? Not really--too many variables. For example if we take 1969 (the year I acquired The Alfatross) as the starting point of the project and 21 as my Ar at the time, my Eq now in 2018 should be a measly 0.42. I think my Eq feels more like 13.6, so there must be other, as yet unidentified, variables in play--like maybe other projects competing for a proportion of the total amount of E a person can generate. By comparison, Albert Einstein developed the Theory of Relativity in 1905 when he was 26 years old. It didn't quite explain everything, so he spent the rest of his life working on the Theory of Everything. When he died 50 years later in 1955 he was still working on it.  Dividing his Ar by his Tp you come up with an Eq of 0.52!  I bet he had the shiniest floor, cleanest toaster, tightest lightbulbs--and (if there had been such a thing in 1955) a blog even longer than this one! 

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems
longer. '

Thanks, Albert.  I think I've stuck with this one long enough!

Where Is Sherlock When You Need Him? (Post # 140 )

The unique brake fluid reservoir that was on The
Alfatross when I got it--not original equipment!  Is it
trying to tell me something?

Remember this photo?  Probably not.  You would have to go all the way back to June 28, 2013 in this blog to find the post where it first appeared.  That post, "Brake Time", starts with:

The brakes were the first thing to go.  Not the brakes themselves, but one of the hard brake lines that finally rusted through, bleeding all the fluid out of the reservoir.  So it was fitting that the brakes were the Alfatross' first major system to be restored--well, that and the fact that brakes are easy and inexpensive to fix!

The parts of the original reservoir.
The metal parts are in perfect
condition, but the rubber seals, some
of which are quite complex, are shot.

Obviously, I was a lot more optimistic 5 years ago than I am now! The photo shows the brake fluid reservoir that was on The Alfatross when I got it.  For a long time I thought it was original, so I took it apart and tried to identify the manufacturer--with no success.  Then I tried to figure out how it worked and why it was so intricate and mysterious when the rest of the brake system was all mass-produced by Girling.  All of the other 1900s I saw just had the simple can, proudly bearing the Girling label.  And so it was with no small measure of relief that I accepted the fact that the reservoir was not original and could therefore be replaced by a readily-available and inexpensive Girling reproduction.

Now, years later, I am once again wondering if I should have paid more attention to what that strange, apparently unique reservoir was trying to tell me.  One restoration expert I showed it to said he thought it was a combination of a container made by one manufacturer and innards made by a different one.  But why replace the original with this oddball reservoir?  It is obviously much more expensive than the original reservoir. And what is it supposed to do, anyway?  

A normal reservoir is just an empty can with a wide mouth at the top and a tube at the bottom eventually connecting to the master cylinder.  Why all the rubber, brass, and steel parts inside the aluminum can?  Was it an effort to treat some chronic problem the brake system was having?  Am I now experiencing the same problem?  Could it be manually "pumped up" to serve the same function as a brake check valve, always maintaining positive pressure within the system to keep the springs on the shoes from retracting the shoes so far that a single pump of the brake cannot supply sufficient fluid?

When we were preparing The Alfatross for the 2016 Arizona Concours we worked for hours trying to get a "hard" brake pedal.  In the end, we drove with a pedal that went to the floor every time with very little effect. In preparation for the Santa Fe Concorso a few months later, we bled the lines repeatedly, took the master cylinder out for bench testing, and adjusted and readjusted the shoe-to-drum configuration.  Finally, we disconnected the hard line from the master cylinder to the rear brake line and relied solely on the front brakes.  That worked well enough for a stop gap solution, but two years and a lot of other experimentation later we're still scratching our heads.  

A couple of weeks ago I sat down to list all the elements of a non-assisted drum brake system:

1. Reservoir
2. Fluid
3. Master Cylinder
4. Pedal
5. Hard Lines
6. Soft Lines
7. Wheel Cylinders
8. Shoe-Drum Articulation and Adjustment.

Then I started checking each of the elements.  Remembering that The Alfatross was 14 years old when I got it and had 6 owners before me, each check started with the question "correct part?".  

1. Reservoir: Girling reproduction of original. Nothing to go wrong!
2. Fluid: DOT 5. Rubber parts in system show no signs of degradation. Other 1900 SS cars using DOT 5 report no problems.
3. Master Cylinder: 1" bore. Disassembled and bench tested, no leaks. Fluid volume displaced per stroke = 20 ml.
4. Pedal: factory Brake Pedal Ratio appears low, ca. 4:1.  
5. Hard Lines: All new cunifer, double flare ends.  No leaks. Lines bled using:
1. Foot on pedal activation
2. Lever attached to pedal shaft under car
3. Suction at bleeder
4. Under pressure from reservoir
5. Gravity (horizontal)
6. Gravity (tilted) Not tried yet!
6. Soft Lines: New reproductions, nominal.
7. Wheel Cylinders: Original front cylinders nominal. Rear original 1 1/8" bore  cylinders improperly restored. 
8. Shoe-Drum Articulation: Linings nominal. Drums nominal. All adjustments nominal.

Each stroke of the piston 
expels 20 ml of  brake
fluid into the system.  
Note the scale on the right
 is in mm.  Is that the 
correct volume?  Who 
knows?

Bench testing the  master cylinder.  The Starbucks mocha
 frappuccino  bottle makes a great reservoir!  The m/c
passed all the tests with flying colors, so not the source 
of the problem!

How to bleed brakes single-handedly: The black lever
arm is bolted to the bottom of the brake pedal shaft.
Pushing it to the left emulates foot pressure on the pedal.
The spring scale at the other end of the lever holds 
pressure on the master cylinder while the bleeder screw
is closed.

An exploded view of  one of  The Alfatross'
rear brake cylinders. The parts circled  in
yellow (two backing discs and a  spring) were
lost by the restoration company I sent them
to . . .  

. . . and replaced with just a spring!  Lesson:
Trust, but verify, the work you parcel out to
other people.

Analysis of the elements of The Alfatross' brake system, combined with the very important clue provided by the oddball reservoir on the car when I acquired it, suggests that it had a "preexisting condition" adversely affecting its brake system. Good thing I didn't tell Grundy about that!

But what, exactly, was the nature of the condition?  Over the next couple of weeks I am going to properly restore the rear wheel cylinders, make sure the pushrod between the end of the brake pedal shaft and the master cylinder allows the master cylinder its full travel range, prime the master cylinder and rear wheel cylinders before installing them, and gravity bleed the entire system.  I may even experiment with a check valve on the hard line to the rear brakes.  In the meantime, if anyone out there in Blogland has ever seen a reservoir like the one that came with The Alfatross and knows what it is supposed to do, PLEASE comment--The Alfatross needs a solution!   

Slip Slidin' Away (Post # 139)

Slip slidin' away,

Slip slidin' away.

You know the nearer your destination

The more you're slip slidin' away.

Left front wheel cylinder  and the offending
ball.

The two types of bleeder valves.  The shiny new
"improved" valve on the left and the old-fashioned ball
valve on the right.

The Alfatross' persistent brake problem continues to puzzle me even as I continue to try to trouble shoot it. I know! I know! It's a simple system with only so many things that can go wrong.  If I had a dime for every time a person helpfully suggested that perhaps all the fluid leaked out (without me noticing!), or maybe there is air in the lines, I could fly The Alfatross back to the Alfa factory in Italy and get them to do it!  

A few weeks ago  I was, under the car, working on the Alfatross' left front wheel cylinder. For some reason the bleeder wasn't acting right. When I opened it up to bleed the system (for what seemed like the tenth time!) I couldn't get a good flow, just an erratic dribble of fluid. I took the bleeder out and immediately saw that the pointed end was flattened and concave. What the . . . ?  I used a fine wire to probe the opening.  It seemed to be contacting some kind of obstruction but there was no way to look inside the bleeder opening. 

I did not really want to remove the whole wheel cylinder because that meant the wheel, hub, lug nuts, rondellas, drum, and shoes would have to come off too--a lot of work!  But I couldn't see any way around it.  

Normal bleeder on the left and the damaged bleeder
extracted from the left front wheel cylinder.  Note the
concave deformed tip caused by contact with the ball.

At that moment I realized that the SiriusXM radio was playing Paul Simon's song, Slip Slidin' Away, and I thought "Ain't that the truth"!  A year ago I thought I was coming down the home stretch with this restoration and now I feel like I'm farther away than ever!

I saw what the problem was as soon as I got the wheel cylinder off: a small steel ball was lodged in the bleeder opening.  The original 1955 vintage bleeders on The Alfatross' wheel cylinders used a steel ball to seal the opening.  The bleeder screw had a flat nose with a shallow concavity to keep the ball centered.  We switched over to the new, supposedly better-sealing bleeders with pointed ends during the restoration, but somehow this one steel ball was not removed.

So does the story have a happy ending?  No, I'm still slip slidin' away! This simple repair did nothing to ameliorate the overall brake problem (more about that in the next posts), but I am glad it was found and fixed.  And yes, I did do a thorough check of the other three bleeders, all of which were in proper order.