One of the most rewarding parts of the restoration process is getting each one of the vehicle’s various systems to come alive one at a time. The past couple of weeks have had me working on a beautiful 1957 Porsche 356 Cabriolet. The car came to the shop last year after being purchased by the current owner a few years back. The car had an older restoration done and had been painted red at that time. The owner commissioned DV Mechanics to take over the restoration after another shop had started the process and completed some of the initial body work. We decided to take the car back to it’s original color (Condor Yellow) and as it turns out this particular car may be thee first Porsche 356 to be painted yellow. This particular car has been very nice to work with due to the fact that is is very straight, complete and corrosion free. The amount of replica/re-issue parts on it has been kept to a minimum and I believe the wiring harness in it to be the original one as well. Despite showing it’s age at all the various connection points, I worked my way through all of the under dash wiring, the gauges, the wipers, the lighting and horns -carefully cleaning and re-tinning the ends of each wire, testing all of the the circuits and connecting everything. It is always satisfying to get the headlights to come on, the blinkers to blink, the starter to engage, etc.. The Porsche 356 has very few bells and whistles and I love the simplicity of this car, it also carries a lot of beautiful little details that give it a lot of depth: the Bosch horns with their “BOSCH” plaques riveted on peeking through the front grilles, the “beehive” lenses with chrome rings engraved with the bulb model number for that particular marker, the electrical connections of brass with screw terminals, all details that are impossible to miss while assembling the car and also details that are easy to lose when replacing old or missing components with new production parts.
Transmission rebuild /
One of the services we offer at DV Mechanics is Alfa Romeo 105-115 series transmission rebuilding. This weekend I worked on a transmission that is going into one of our full restorations. We take pride in our transmission rebuilds and we always make the extra effort to deliver the highest quality builds that will give many years of trouble free service. The shift action of a 105 Alfa is magical when they are right, they deliver a very satisfying feel and a very positive gear engagement which adds to the overall driving experience. However one of the achilles heels of driving a vintage Alfa is that infamous 2nd gear crunch that you’ll experience when quickly shifting from 1st to 2nd gear. The crunch is due to worn out synchro rings from years of use (and sometimes abuse)…. Synchro wear can be accelerated when the wrong transmission fluid and/or driving technique is used. You can extend the life of the transmission internals by following a few rules: 1. Shift slowly when the gear box is cold. 2. When shifting into 1st gear from a stop, put the car into another gear (3rd, 4th or 5th) before shifting into 1st gear. 3. Double clutch/rev match when driving spiritedly. 4. Use the proper fluid, we like redline 75w-90NS. Following these tips will help your transmission last a long time. Not following these tips can ruin a good fresh gearbox pretty quickly.
Below are a few images of the strip down and clean up process that all of our gear boxes get. All parts are cleaned in a detergent bath, cases are then vapor blasted (if desired) and once parts are clean they get carefully inspected. The most frequently worn out parts on a Alfa 105/115 transmission are the 1-2 inner/outer synchro rings and dog gears, the original bearings are often in very good condition and do not require replacement. All hardware is re-plated or replaced as needed. You can see that the teeth on the dog rings and synchros are rounded and no longer sharp. Check back soon for some build pictures.
We also offer gear lightening service for race cars and aggressively driven street cars. Taking rotating mass out of the gears helps extend the life of the synchros and it also gives a noticeable difference in response due to reduced inertia. Inquire if you are interested in having your gearbox rebuilt.
Time keeps on slipping.... /
It’s incredible how long a seemingly straightforward task can take, especially when you are looking to do it right. An example being one of our current customer projects which is the interior restoration of a 1969 1750 GTV. The car was wearing it’s original interior and the original dashboard was riddled with cracks and warpage from decades of use and being parked under direct sunlight. We choose to completely replace the dashboard with a high quality replacement from our friends at Centerline Alfa since previous experience having original dashboards re-covered have yielded poor results. There is always a level of uncertainty when it comes to ordering replacement parts for a vintage Alfa. Alfa Romeo stopped making replacement parts for the 115 series a long time ago so we are left with limited availability of quality replacement parts. When the dashboard arrived I was pleasantly surprised with the quality, the shape was very true to original as was the finish and fit of the entire piece. We got most of the way through the dashboard swap which involves swapping gauges, installing veneer, swapping over all the various hardware, badges, trim, switches and of course all the cleanup, thread chasing, etc. Finally the task of swapping the dashboard glovebox was due and it is where we came across the first major fitment problem….the built-in tabs on the new dash came no where close to aligning with the original glovebox bucket. Furthermore the contour of the original glovebox bucket (which you have to re-use) was just different enough from the new dash to necessitate some significant modifications and fabrication work. Nobody would otherwise know that DV Mechanics spent about 10 hours custom fitting a glovebox to a dashboard because we wanted it to look original…….mission accomplished.
