Tennessee Tim Presents (Post # 94)

Tim Marinos, Proprietor of Vintage Autocraft, putting the finishing touches on 2,000+ hours
of blood, sweat and tears spent restoring The Alfatross.

Twenty-two months after delivering The Alfatross' body and chassis to Tennessee Tim at Vintage Autocraft, I get a call.  Tim says simply, "It's time." So I pack a bag, book a room, rent a car, purchase an overpriced ticket on American Airlines, and take off for "Music City", Nashville, Tennessee.

Two years ago . . . .

The next morning I walk through the overhead door into Vintage Autocraft and see The Alfatross and Tim for the first time in almost two years. Tim is beaming and The Alfatross is gleaming. The paint job is truly stunning and Tim is obviously proud of his work, but I sensed that after spending more than 2,000 hours on it he would be as glad to see The Alfatross' tail lights as I was when I left it at his shop all those months ago.

All the movable panels were pre-fitted prior to painting.
They will be re-attached before I come to pick The
Alfatross up in two weeks.

The purpose of the trip was to look the car over, compare notes, and decide how much more he had left to do before I can collect the car and take it back to Santa Fe. The trim, doors, windows, windshield, trunk lid and hood were all fitted and removed months ago, so they need to go back on. But there is a problem. The windshield still has a wiper scratch on the passenger's side that has to be polished out before it can be installed. And there are some small parts that need refinishing.

The engine bay, interior, trunk and underbody are also
painted. All colors and finishes were determined by photos
 taken before restoration started and from Tim's own
research.

These are important considerations because we have applied to enter The Alfatross in the Arizona Concours d'Elegance at the end of January, 2016--less than 100 days away. Between now and then I will have to drive back to Tennessee to load the car up and trailer it back to Santa Fe to attach the suspension, axles, steering, brakes, wiring harness, and transmission so it can be turned over to a dedicated classic car transport company for the long haul to Essex, Massachusetts, where the interior will be installed. Then it has to come back to Santa Fe the same way so we can dot all the 'i's, cross all the 't's and finish the restoration. Is that even a realistic possibility?  

The trunk is painted in the body color, as per original 

You will note that The Alfatross looks like it's a different color in almost every image.  Part of that is the different lighting conditions under which the photos were taken, part is due to some monkeying around I did with post processing. Then there's the way my monitor is set up to show colors, and how much your monitor differs from mine.  But a lot of it is probably due to the way I see colors, which is notoriously different from most people. All I can say is that Tim, who has normal--if not exceptional--color vision, says that this is the color it was painted originally.

Sophia Roaren (Post # 93)

The Alfatross' engine BEFORE.

Everyone appreciates a beautiful, curvaceous, sensuous body.  But only surgeons and mechanics appreciate a sexy engine.  An engine can be a thing of beauty . . . or the mechanical version of Frankenstein.  The engine in my 1991 Toyota 4Runner is a good example of the latter. The Alfatross' engine is going to be the mechanical equivalent of Sophia Loren. 

Degreeing the cams. DeWayne Samuels.

Cam cover. DeWayne Samuels.

The cams are finally in and degreed! Too bad they don't make
transparent cam covers so you can still see them even after the covers
are on! DeWayne Samuels.

The troublesome tach and distributor drive. 
DeWayne Samuels.

Exhaust side cam cover locked down with 
distributor and mechanical tach drive 
in place. DeWayne Samuels.

DeWayne tells me that the engine is truly nearing completion and they are moving it to the starting area to fire it up. So that roar you guys heard in Seattle was the Alfatross coming to life after 46 years in a coma! 

Curses! Foiled Again! (Post # 92)

Another Santa Fe Concorso (http://santafeconcorso.com/about.html/) has come and gone and The Alfatross is still in Four States of Separation. Curses! Foiled again! Our next best shot at a debut will be the Arizona Concours d'Elegance (http://arizonaconcours.com ) in the last week of January, 2016.  If The Alfatross is accepted and finished this would be a great place to debut because one of the featured classes is "Coachwork by Zagato", and Andrea Zagato himself will be in attendance as an Honored Guest. The Alfatross will be up against a lot of top-drawer competition for a place on the lawn, so this will be a good test. 

I'm not a great believer in numerology or omens, good or bad, but I just noticed that The Alfatross' 60th "birthday" (when the chassis left Alfa for finishing by Zagato) will be November 29th, only 56 days away. Could we be finished by then?  Then I noticed that The Alfatross' chassis number, 02016, matches next year's date, 2016, by which time I'm sure it will be finished and making the rounds. Just coincidence, I'm sure, but an interesting one all the same. 

Support for the goal of finishing this year and debuting next year came today in the form of a call from Tim Marinos at Vintage Autocraft telling me that The Alfatross' body is substantially finished and it's time for a pow-wow at the shop. So I'll fly to Nashville in a few days to check it out. If all is well it could be back in Santa Fe a couple of weeks later.

Santa Fe Concorso

A 1957 Porsche 356A Carrera and 1953 Ferrari 250 Mille Miglia Berlinetta parked outside Mary's Bar in the old west town of Cerrillos, NM, during the Saturday Mountain Tour for Entrants.

This 1924 Henderson Excelsior motorcycle once belonged 
to Steve McQueen.  Shown here for the very first time, it 
won  the American Motorcycles class.

It was the best one yet. Perfect weather the whole week for all the events. Great setting, attendance, participation, and cars--even without The Alfatross!  In no particular order here are some of the cars, motorcycles, and bikes that The Alfatross might have been rubbing fenders with (figurative speaking of course!) if it had been finished. 

Winner of the Race Car class was this 1954 Maserati  A6GCS Spider, a veteran of the '54 Mille MIglia. The owners keep it active in all sorts of modern events for historic vehicles.

This 1964  250 LM NART Ferrari won Le Mans outright in 1965 averaging 120.944 mph for 24 hours!  It also won  Best of Show Sport at the Concorso.

As a kid in the 1960s I was an avid reader of Road & Track, Car and Driver, and other primarily sports car magazines.  I was most enthralled by stories about the great European races and the cars involved.  I remember distinctly reading about and seeing photos of the 1964 NART Ferrari 250 LM that won Le Mans outright in 1965, in spite of being the underdog.  I thought it was the most beautiful car in the world and I certainly never dreamed that one day I would see it in person, not to mention be crawling underneath to attach a strap so it could be towed to the Best of Show podium (I was a volunteer worker and it ran out of gas!).

There were a lot of Ferraris in the Ferrari Tribute and Ferrari Street Car classes, and there was a reason for that.  If you attended the Friday afternoon "Legends of Racing" presentation honoring Luigi Chinetti, or if you have a copy of the Concorso Program (santafeconcorso.com/2015_concorso_program.html), you know that Chineti was the man who brought Ferrari to the US, and in doing so probably saved Enzo's butt.

Chris Connor with the "Axehandle CX" Sign up for yours at connorcycles.com.

This bike's blue ribbon is well-deserved.  It was one of the most amazing things I saw at the Concorso.  The Bicycle Trophy is awarded to the most distinctive and elegant bicycle that embodies craftsmanship and heritage. Hand-made by Chris Conner, the "Connor Axehandle CX",  is basically wood-framed with carbon-fiber and Kevlar reinforcement elements--a perfect blend of aesthetic beauty and technological sophistication.

Denise McLuggage with her friend and admirer, Sir Sterling Moss.  Richard Owen.

Another Racing Legend, Denise McLuggage, was also honored at the Concorso this year.  A long-time resident of Santa Fe and one of the founders of the Concorso, she passed away last May after a long and brilliant incredilbly multi-faceted series of careers including automotive racing and journalism. Find out more about her at http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/05/denise-mccluggage-1927-2015-personal-memory/. 

Arizona Concours d'Elegance

This time we really are coming down the home stretch. The body is painted, the engine is due to be started and run in any day now. All the sub-systems are ready for installation. The 56-day countdown has started. Full court press! Pedal to the metal! Full speed ahead! Engage! . . . and don't run out of gas on the way to the podium!

Zombie Alert! (Post # 91)

Recently it seems like The Alfatross presents a new surprise at every turn.  It's like fighting Zombies. There is an endless supply of them, all relentless in their determination to devour your budget and patience. You can't run away from them, you can't just ignore them, and they won't go away by themselves. All you can do is outsmart them.

Like Zombies, surprise restoration problems pop up when
you least expect them--and are just as hard to lay to rest. 

The Alfatross' original cams were badly worn and had to
be replaced.  DeWayne and Roger suggested why not go
for a custom design that would produce better
performance? All we had to do was turn in the specs and
wait . . . wait . . . wait . . . .

The cams finally arrived. The cams FINALLY arrived! As everyone knows, Crower moved its facilities to Mars recently, and you can't ship things from there to Earth in a timely manner until their orbits approach each other, roughly once every 750 years or so. This is typical of the many reasons why car restorations take so long. 

The new cams looked great, but weren't exactly as specified after receiving all the milling, tempering, coating, massaging and aroma-therapy treatments. But that's why machine shops were invented so Roger Lorton made the necessary adjustments and now all is well.

. . . until the custom-designed Crower cams finally arrived.  
Now we could finish it . . . but wait! There's more!

No sooner had the Cam Zombie been eradicated than the Gear Zombie reared its ugly head. Someone noticed a tiny crack in the distributor/tach drive gear. This is a small, delicate, unassuming item--but without it the car isn't going anywhere! In the spirit of keeping the car as original as possible, we first considered welding it up and re-machining it, but the cost would have been obscene. The only other alternative was to find an old one in good condition. This is where we discovered that 60 year old distributor/tach drive gears for Alfa 1900s are quite rare. And it isn't like there is only one type, so if you are lucky enough to find one you still have to figure out if it's the right type.

The distributor and tach are driven by a housing mounted

on the back of the left side cam. It looked good to go

without  a lot of work.  But on closer inspection . . .

DeWayne and Roger discovered a tiny 

crack in the distributor drive gear. 

It wasn't a bad crack or even a big 

crack,  but it wasn't supposed to be 

there and those guys don't like 

things that aren't supposed to be

 there. 

  

After a lot of inquiries into both repairing the old one and finding a new one I finally asked Dan Allen if he could help.  I say "finally" because I didn't want to approach him until we ran out of other options. He has already pulled The Alfatross' bacon out of the fire several times.  You don't want to wear out your welcome with a guy like that. But I did in desperation and sure enough, he had one on the shelf and sent it to me--problem solved, just like that!

And that's when the Starter Zombie, stumbling and slobbering, lurched into the picture. I get a message from DeWayne saying that the starter I provided doesn't fit. To the best of my knowledge the starter is the same one that I took off the engine a couple of decades ago, so how could it not fit now?  Well if it doesn't fit, it can't be the same one.  How the hell did that happen? 

While trying to figure that one out I remembered that there was a Bosch starter in a box in the trunk when I bought the car in 1969. I didn't know if it had ever been fitted to The Alfatross, but in any case it was broken so I just laid it aside. The fact that it was Bosch instead of Marelli or Scintilla made me skeptical, but when I looked at it again I noticed silver paint on the upper side. Silver paint? The Alfatross' engine bay was painted silver over black. Maybe it was a replacement fitted by a previous owner some time before 1969?  I sent it to DeWayne and Roger, who re-welded the broken gooseneck between the starter and the solenoid and got it going again.

The mysterious Bosch starter found in the trunk.  Note the silver paint on the upper surfaces (lower surfaces are black). Why the starter that was thought to be original no longer fits is still a mystery.

The cracked "gooseneck" part of the starter housing, now
repaired.

So now we're hunkered down again, locked an loaded, ready to fend off the next Zombie surprise attack.  It's just a matter of time . . . .

The PerfOMeter (Post # 90)

No, this is not The Alfatross' heater fan motor before
cleaning. The Antikythera Mechanism, found on a ship
that wrecked more than 2,000 years ago, remained
 unidentified for 50 years after its discovery.
Wikimedia Commons.

In archaeology it is not unusual to find an object you can't identify.  If it is incomplete, a part of something else, identification is even harder. A good example is the "Antikythera Mechanism".  Discovered on an ancient Roman shipwreck in 1900, it was not identified until half a century later when a researcher realized it was some kind of mechanical device devised 2,200 years ago to predict astronomical and calendrical events. The scientific world was flabbergasted. More than 1,000 years ahead of its time, it has been called the first analog computer.

The Alfatross' Burg Dynometer

That doesn't happen as often in "carchaeology". After all, automotive technology is barely 120 years old, and is pretty well documented throughout the whole period. The Alfatross' version of the Antikythera Mechanism is its Burg Dynometer, which I have mentioned a couple of times previously, mainly in frustration over our inability to identify it and learn how it works.  

Thanks to the burgeoning internet and researchers like Wayne Mikosz who know how to use it efficiently, we recently discovered another example of the Dynometer being offered on a European auction site. By the time we learned about it the item was no longer being offered. Apparently there were no bids.

PerfOMeter road test results reported in Auto Age, 1951.
They loved it! 

But Wayne was not discouraged.  He turned to his own "archive" of old automotive literature where he hit pay-dirt: an advertisement in the first issue of a magazine called Auto Age for the "PerfOMeter," along with the results of a "road test" performed by the Auto Age staff!

The road test was conducted in a classy Jaguar
 MkVII saloon!

The advertisement was wildly enthusiastic. Would you like to know your car's actual horsepower? Its wind and rolling resistance? Its stopping distance in feet? The condition of your brakes? The gasoline best suited for your car? The results of an expensive repair job on your car? Well, the wait is over! Now, for only $22.50 you can have the answers to these and many more questions about your car's performance with the PerfOMeter De Luxe Model 104 available from the Autosphere Corporation of New York City.

The PerfOMeter, like the Burg Dynometer, works on the pendulum principle with the internal pendulum's motion dampened by baffles in oil and mechanical compensation for variations in temperature and atmospheric pressure.

The Alfatross' Burg Dynometer is virtually identical to this
illustration in the PerfOMeter ad.  We were particularly
interested in the configuration of the mounting strap that
allows the meter to swing freely under the dash.

We weren't interested in the advertising hype as much as in the explanation of how the instrument worked and how it should be mounted to the instrument panel. The reviewers at Auto Age spent a considerable time testing an example they were given under actual road conditions and were impressed. Their explanation for how the manufacturer could make so many claims about the information it could produce was succinct:

" How can one instrument supply so much valuable data? First you must realize that many of the items of information listed above are interdependent, that figures for one can be transposed into facts about another if you're willing to go through the math involved. (You must also realize that to obtain really useful results from the PerfOMeter you'll have to read the 64-page instruction manual carefully and spend some time absorbing it.)"

The PerfOMeter dial face is somewhat different than that of The Alfatross' Burg
Dynometer,  and a whole lot more visually complicated, but the functions are the
same.

But we still have questions.  We now know that the Dynometer was not a new-fangled contraption in 1955, but when did The Alfatross acquire it? It seems unlikely that it was a feature provided by Zagato, even though it is clearly meant for an Italian market.  More likely it was added by the first or second owner while the car was still in Italy.  Regardless of when that happened it is yet another indication of an as-yet undiscovered racing history.  

Suspension Animation (Post # 89)

Not suspended animation, suspension animation--the state of working vigorously on the suspension system. The Alfatross' front suspension with double A-arms, telescoping shock absorbers, and coil springs and its worm-and-sector steering system are pretty simple and straight-forward. But that doesn't mean they are easy to refurbish.  

The basic A-arm configuration.  Upper and lower control
arms connected by the steering knuckle, four pivot points
per arm, each requiring a bushing. 

Following disassembly Jeff Kramer and I determined that some of the the 16 copper-alloy sleeve bearings (sometimes called bushings) in the A-arms were worn and should probably be replaced. In the spirit of "In for a penny, in for a pound" we elected to replace them all as well as the four sleeve bearings for the kingpins.  

One of the original sleeve bearings, showing wear and 

corrosion.

New sleeve bearings are readily available on line, so parts were not a problem. This time the problem was ingenuity: getting the old sleeve bearings out, pressing the new ones in, reaming the new ones to fit the pins on the steering knuckles and A-arm pivot points, and align-reaming the new bushings for the kingpins. Modern suspension systems don't use sleeve bearings, so your average gearheads, like us, have never done this type of work. How hard can it be, we thought, and dived in, cheerfully oblivious to what we were getting ourselves into. 

The first thing we needed was a selection of "stepped" bushing drivers to press the old sleeves out, so once again we called on machinist Jeff Robison for his help making them to the right dimensions. This is where we got a surprise. One would expect the dimensions of the suspension members of an Alfa Romeo to be metric, but they were all Imperial. We had already noticed that the brake system and shock absorbers were made by Girling.  Now it seemed that the suspension system was also British made.

A selection of some of the tools we had to buy or fabricate to get the job done.  The Chadwick & Trefethen reamers are at the top.  Jeff Robison made the three drivers on the right, the brass "sleeve expander" on the left, and the aluminum collar in the center.

Pressing out the old bearings turned out to be the only easy part of the job. By "easy" I mean relative to putting a man on the moon.    

One of the 16 sleeve bearing joints needing replacement. 
Press out the old one, search the Web for replacements,
press in the new one, ream the new one to fit the specific
pin it will receive. Repeat 16 times--and don't screw up!

A stepped driver in position on an A-arm, 
ready for pressing. the first step fits inside 
the bearing.  The second step catches on the
lip of the bearing and presses it out. The 
third step limits the travel.

The original sleeve bearings seem to have been
technically superior to the new ones.  Note that they
are "split" instead of being a solid tube,  that the
split has a "dove-tail" tab to limit expansion, and that
they are bi-metallic: steel on the outside and copper
alloy on the inside.

All of the original sleeve bearings bore this logo: 
PV LTD. Anybody recognize the manufacturer? 
The LTD seems to suggest British origin.

Two sleeve bearings became loose during the
reaming process and had to be tightened up
using the "sleeve expander" manufactured by
Jeff Robison. Problem solved.

Hand-reaming the newly installed sleeve
bearings.  Each bearing took about 30 minutes
to ream to fit the specific pin it would  receive.
I hope I never have to do this again!

Reaming the sleeve bearings in one of the spindles with a self-aligning Chadwick & Trefethen reamer made specially for this purpose.  Don't leave home without it!

The tie rod ends held even more surprises.  Again there was no indication of who made them, but the dimensions of the threaded elements and nuts were all Imperial, so they probably originated in Great Britain. Some of the originals were re-usable but others were not and they are not rebuildable either, so new units were necessary.  Several on-line vendors offer tie rod ends, but none of them have the same dimensions as the originals.  

We ended up with a set of 6, 3 of which had right-hand metric threads on the tie-rod ends while the other 3 had left-hand Imperial threads on their tie rod ends.  Go figure.  So now we are going to have to make our own tie rods with metric threads on one end and Imperial threads on the other!   

The original tie rod ends, also manufactured to Imperial
dimensions.  They bore no logo or manufacturer's name, 
and could not be rebuilt.

After conferring with Dan Allen I now suspect the tie rod ends that were on the car when I bought it in 1969 may not have been original. He sent me the photo below of a tie rod end from a Matta, an Alfa Romeo-produced vehicle similar to the American Jeep that shared many parts with the 1900. With the right spanner you could remove the top to clean and recondition it. Dan thinks Alfa 1900s produced in the mid-1950s probably carried this type of tie-rod end. If anyone out there has definitive information about this subject, I'm all ears!

A tie-rod end from an Alfa Romeo Matta.
Dan Allen.

ReinCARnation (Post # 88)

Restoration of an automobile is as much a re-birth as it is a re-build. If The Alfatross could see, smell and hear, it might think that it is back in Zagato's workshop in Milano, 60 years ago--except that everyone is speaking English instead of Italian, of course, and their hand gestures are less . . . expressive. 

A restoration shop is a place of sensory contrasts, a place where things of delicate, ethereal beauty somehow miraculously emerge from the sturm und drang of shrieking power tools, endless thrumming of massive compressors, hissing air lines, crackle of welding torches and the cringe-inducing nails-on-chalkboard sound of hand filing.  A place where all verbal communication is delivered as a shout. Where handshakes are replaced by elbow bumps. Where the atmosphere is perpetually flavored with the aroma of strong solvents.  It's easy to imagine that the sensations in Zagato's shop, where The Alfatross was born almost exactly 60 years ago, were very similar.

Whether it's a piece of furniture, a house or a car, "Preparation is 95% of a good paint job." The Alfatross is living proof of that adage.  How do you get a car ready for a paint job?  Well, if it's your 1991 Toyota 4Runner with 250,000 miles on the clock, you hose it off, let it dry in the sun, buy a case of rattle cans, and have at.

But if it's a 1955 Alfa Romeo 1900C SS Zagato there are a few additional steps in between the "hose it off" and "have at" steps--like, about 18 months' worth! And don't even think about it if you don't have a few hundred thousand dollars worth of building stuffed with all the right equipment and spacious paint booths like the one at Vintage Auto Craft.

The body shell in paint.  The color was carefully chosen to match the original.  Tim Marinos.

The doors, hood, and boot are painted separately.  Tim Marinos.

Yes, the body shell looks good, but there's still a lot left to do before I can bring it back to The Shed in Santa Fe: The doors, hood, and trunk have to be painted, everything has to be baked, cured, sanded, and polished. The bottom, engine bay, trunk, interior and wheel wells have to be painted, each requiring a different finish. Then the grills, windows, and trim can be re-installed. 

In addition to the main body shell, which is all one piece, there are a number of essential panels that also needed removal, repair and repainting.  Some of them are quite intricately shaped. Here is the panel that defines part of the left front wheel opening. The hose that supplies fresh air to cool the exhaust manifold comes through the hole in the panel. Tim Marinos.

The area from the bottom of the firewall to the beginning of the enclosed drive shaft tunnel was originally covered by aluminum panels that protected the brake, clutch,  and shift linkages.  Tim had to fabricate new ones because the originals were lost long ago.  Tim Marinos. 

To keep the weight down, all the windows are Plexiglas except the windshield.  Fitting Plexiglas quarter windows to their frames is a tricky business.  Plexiglas scratches if you look at it too hard!  Tim Marinos.

If the cost of restoration seems exorbitant, stop and think about what it takes to get the job done.  The physical infrastructure, the financing, the time it takes to gain the necessary expertise in so many areas, the research, the knowledge, the connections . . . .  Everyone wants three things: Good, Fast, and Cheap, all of which are relative terms, and everyone knows that you aren't likely to get all three of these, but sometimes you can get two. When it comes to car restoration, in my experience if all you get is Good, be happy.  Be very happy.