The Adventures of 42137: A Shipwright's Tale

I thought I'd start a little diary of my 308 GTSi Quattrovavole now that it is in it's first winter maintenance. For those of you who don't follow my every move with riveted attention, I had a series 1 GT4 that I sold this summer when someone at Concorso Italiano convinced me they wanted it more than I did - which surprised no one more than me. After deciding I was too deep into 308's to do something else right now I hunted for a couple of months for another car. I found an '83 QV in Portland, had a friend who lives nearby look at it. My dad and I flew up, bought it and drove it 750 miles home all in one day. Fly yellow with a tan interior, 59,000 miles, bought basically sight un-seen.

The car was cheap and has a long list of needs, but since I drove it 750 miles the day I bought it, it's obviously not all bad news. But it has metric wheels and old tires, a re-dyed interior, slow windows, seeping water pump, filthy engine and the driver's arm rest is from a carb car so the mirror switch is just completely missing. Paint is only OK, but OK for now. I knew the car wasn't perfect going in, but it has had a few surprises. It has a few issues that my friend didn't spot that I would have caught for sure, but nothing insurmountable. For instance it has floor mats, but no carpet under the floormats in the footwells. And would that really have made any difference?

First up is the steering rack which has some play and makes the front end wander. I took the steering column apart and could find no play in the u-joints. All the ball joints feel as new, still stiff enough that I suspect that perhaps they had been replaced, maybe even to resolve the issue I found, the passenger-side rack bushing. I bought the bushing from a Nevada Pantera parts supplier. There are a few threads here about installation and they are right on. I very slightly tightened one side's ball joint, the other side was still just fine. Cleaned up the outside, thoroughly lubed the inside, new boots, seal, clamps, good to go.

Next up, A-arm bushings.
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Let the Shipwright's Disease begin. Since I has dealing with the suspension and trying to tighten up the front end it is a good reason to replace the suspension rubber. And since the A-arms are off, they may as well be powder coated. I was torn in which order to do this. I have gone with powder coating first, welding in the bushings and then touching up the welds. This appears to be the factory method judging by the (polyester?) sealant over the welds and ends of the A-arms. Welding the bushings in first means that the rubber bushings get cooked for an hour at 400*F during powder coating. They'd probably be fine, but it seems like it is unnecessary to expose them to that. Spacers on the front arms are replated. Since I was powder coating I threw in the brake backing plates and the rear valence/diaper. There was a stamp of some symbol and USA on some A-arms (see other threads on this). I had a stamp made up and put the marking back on. There is something ironic about very carefully re-creating something that was applied originally haphazardously by someone who didn't give it a second thought. I tried to channel this mindset when applying the stamps for the correct look.
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A note about bushings: There are two ways to go with the new bushings. On my GT4 I did the Energy polyurethane bushings. The upside is that they are cheaper than the originals and they are much easier to install. Burn out the old and slip in the new – easy. The downside is they can squeak or groan. I used the recommended Dow lube on them and they still would squeak. This time I have chosen the OEM route. The downside is that they are more expensive (but eBay helps a little). Grinding off the welded-in bushings is some work. The space is tight so I wound up using a Dremel and cutoff wheel instead of a angle grinder. The Dremel took a lot of time and a few cut-off wheels. Then they need to be pressed out, they don't just fall out after the welds are released. Then the new ones have to be pressed in and then welded in place. Upside is they are as Maranello intended and they will be silent. So far they are all pressed in. I haven't had them welded yet.

One of the hardest parts about nice parts is keeping them nice. I used a socket to press in the bushings, but I knew the socket would mar the powder coat so I used a rag between the socket and a-arm. But that left a slight cloth impression in the paint. The solution? I glued a bunch of rubber blocks to the socket. Worked!
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All of that hardware came off and looked ratty. Local plating shop re-plated and relieved the hardware. It looks like new! One reason: a whole bunch of it is. I bought a bunch of metric nylocs and had those plated. The original hardware on a bunch of nuts was corroded enough that it would be just easier and better to use new hardware. There are a few odd nuts that were extra tall or thick so those got re-plated for sure and a bunch were fine also.
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The bushing is what supports the rack on the far end from the steering box. It doesn't loosen like a ball joint, the hole gets bigger and it allows movement front to back or up and down. Try this: jack up the front of the car, steer all the way to the left so the maximum amount of steering rack is poking out the passenger side. Now grab the end of the rack/tie rod joint and push and pull front to back (of the car). That's where my rack was worn. The tie rod ends were nice, I only tightened one of those ever so slightly, but it wasn't causing issues, it was still snug.

 

The seller was at one time the local chapter president, I believe.
The car had tremendous emotional value to him, it took him a year of advertising it to be able to let it go for the right cash value.

I spent a bit of time in each front wheel well with a scrub brush and parts cleaner. The under coating the factory put on looks horrible. I scrubbed it clean, put on a coat of chassis black. The front inner panel was missing some undercoating so I stripped it completely. It is an aluminum panel so I cleaned it thoroughly and shined it up a little.

Since the brake lines are already disconnected they were removed in favor of Goodridge stainless braided hoses.

Steering rack is back in the car. I attached the steering column temporarily and spun the rack from end to end and counted the turns then ran it back to the center of the rack. I disconnected the column and centered the steering wheel and attached it again. That should be everything centered.
Front sway bar was dingy. I scraped off the undercoating (I hate that stuff), sanded the paint and gave it a coat of gloss black. The hardware is re-plated. The red urethane is adequately good and will live on. The outer black rubber cones were tired and new ones are on the way.
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Both. I'm going to have to do a string and level alignment just to get it roll and steer. Then immediately to an alignment shop for the real deal.

I've done toe adjustments to race cars with string and jackstands and it feels surprisingly good, but getting caster and camber right is a whole 'nuther thing. And for a street car I really want it to be right - especially this street car. Two things are going to suck about getting a real alignment. First is it is going to expensive because I've messed with everything. I noted which shims came out of which spots, but I've replaced a few forks and all of the bushings so stuff will be off. This alignment will take hours. Second is someone else is going to be wrenching on my stuff. I don't know if it would be better to watch or not watch.

 

Another "while I'm in there."
Since I was in there I replaced the front radiator hoses. I bought a Goodyear 60910 hose from my local auto parts guy. It is a simple 90* bend listed to fit Alfa 164, Edsels and DeSotos. The 90* fits the upper radiator and the cut off ends are just right to replace the lower radiator hose and the two couplers that are right in front of the front bulkhead. A lot of mileage from a $9 molded hose. The heater hoses will be another project. I took out the aluminum pipes and cleaned the dirt and undercoating off of them as well. Nice and shiney and totally hidden as well.
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This is that car. The water pump is either not exactly that recent or lasted about a year and 2,000 miles. Car was built in February 1983 according to the door plate. Cooling fans have been changed to a modern type, but I'm not yet convinced I'd call it an upgrade, but I'm not sure. For sure wiring them with a section of 22 gauge wire isn't going to make them all they can be. That's on the list.
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So as the rack is allowed to deflect from the intended position because of this loose bushing the distance from rod end to rod end gets smaller, changing toe angle. As the passenger side wheel is now steering in a very slightly different trajectory it pulls the car to that side or not depending on traction, road bumps, etc. It is like having a (randomly and variable) bad alignment.

 

I needed to have my a-arm bushings welded in. A friend of a friend has done a few nice restorations including an award-winning 1920's Rolls Royce shooting brake (station wagon). Funny thing about that car - it has a vacuum operated fuel pump. This means the car can't climb long grades without stopping. If you floor it (actually I think the throttle is a lever on the steering wheel) to go up a hill vacuum goes to nothing and the fuel pump stops. If you make it to the top on what is in the float bowls then fine, but if the hill is longer than that then you have to stop to let the engine refuel. Anyway, I thought he was a good choice for welding these in because he is both a professional welder/metal fabricator and he is a car guy and gets that I want the parts treated well. A bonus is that he cares about the Super Bowl about as much as I do so we were both free this afetrnoon to do this. He used a TIG and gave me exactly the spots I need. I will clean up the burned powder coat around the spots and paint these with black paint. The factory slopped on some grainy dark greenish coating, but I'll use paint and can't help but to be more purposeful in my application.
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The rear calipers cleaned up nicely. I'm not sure what they are plated with. It isn't clear (silver) zinc, it isn't yellow zinc, it isn't cad. It has a brownish tint to it. If it is factory then it is the best plating they used on any of the parts, it has held up much better that every other plated part on the underside of the car. Perhaps these got re-plated at some point? I wonder what the plating is.

The front brakes' plating wasn't as good. Someday they will get the full treatment, but to get by right now they got a thorough cleaning a coat of paint. I'll do seals and plating when they need new pads.
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I love getting new parts in the mail! For my birthday both Superformance and Ricambi came through with the parts orders I placed last week. For those keeping track I placed both orders on line at the same time and got both orders on the same day.

I got home opened the parts and pressed the four Silentbloc bushings into the drop links before my wife finally dragged me out of the garage because I was going to be late for my birthday dinner. Priorities!
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A little bling on the rear bar. What the heck, I painted it yellow. I think you can see it a little in normal operation, I'm not sure. At least it is easy to pull and repaint if it sticks out too much. New rubber cones, new silentblocs in the drop links, new urethane D blocks, new stainless D-block brackets, replated hardware - like new.

I borrowed a spring compressor for coil-over shocks finally because my spring compressors are meant for larger diameter springs with more space between coils and inside the spring. This is what is holding up reassembly of the front end now. It is noteworthy just how much potential energy is stored in the coil over. Look how much the spring is compressed on the shock body. This is a serious amount of energy - if you take these apart make sure you are doing everything carefully and that your spring compressor will decompress the entire length of the spring. These could kill you.
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So the real story behind the Koni rebuild is this: I don't really plan on doing a rebuild, just some cleaning and paint. What I really want to do is put on adjustable coil-overs like the QA-1s. I want to be able to play with settings, but mostly I want to be able to correct the corner weights on the car. So my plan was to paint them and put them back on. The QA-1s will have to wait, I have other pressing needs and the Konis feel fine. But the guy on eBay that I bought the a-arm bushings from messed up my order and threw in four Koni bushings to make up for it. So, OK, I'll replace the front shocks' rubber. So I'm stripping out the old bushings, pressing new bushings in, painting the bodies and realise I've removed bushings from three of the shocks. I just got in the groove and didn't stop in time.

So I ordered four more shock eye bushings tonight so I can accidentally do the right thing and replace all the rubber. With the sagging of the old shock rubber this will probably raise the ride height of the car about 1/4".

I found that Duplicolor's Chevy Orange is very close to Koni red so that's my paint. I bought the replacement decals already. I wish the springs made it in my last powder coat run. I don't want to put (more) time and money into the Konis so I'll probably wire wheel the springs ( = time) and shoot them gloss black.
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