OV9

Very period, with the EQ

Still going well and still enjoying it, done another 250 miles in it this week.

Fitted some rear speakers, same audioline brand as the head unit, from the same year, and pretty much the smallest, most subtle rear shelf speakers which are surface mount and don’t need any cutting. Still a bit too obvious and visible for my liking. Sound awful too, but a little background music makes the commute far more pleasant.



Made myself a hybrid alternator using the mid and rear sections from a spare 55a Mk2 golf alternator with the front section and pulleys from the standard 45a Alfa one, just because I’d rather have a bit of spare capacity for cold, dark days.

Made some new badge stickers for the c-pillars as the originals were almost invisible and in a poor state. They’re not perfect, but like the rest of the car, look fine from 12foot away


Found another period accessory, a cold weather mask for the front grille, from a time when heating / cooling systems weren’t brilliant





And with my mums Giulietta Multiair super. My haven’t mid size family cars grown

The Alfa Merkin

Size comparison is crazy.

Looking good Harry - great you are enjoying it.

unzippy wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 4:03 am The Alfa Merkin

Sundayjumper wrote: Sun Nov 15, 2020 10:25 pm I guess Scimitars are to me what Alfasuds are to Harry. A bit old and shit but hugely nostalgic.

How dare you!

“ Alfa Romeo may have given us some inspired vehicles over the last few decades – and plenty of sheds too if truth be told – but none has been so effortlessly superior in its class as the Alfasud.”

Not my words mr jumper, but the words of evo magazine

https://www.evo.co.uk/alfa-romeo/10877/ ... eo-alfasud

Yeah, well, whatever. This is what Autocar said about the new Scimitar GT in January 1967:

"At a Glance - High performance 2+2 coupe. Lusty, low revving engine in conjunction with high gearing gives effortless cruising at three-figure speeds. Good gear change, but rather wide ratios. Smooth, light clutch. Ride and handling very good, and much improved over the earlier car. Light, accurate steering and first class brakes with powerful servo. Ventilation improved but still not ideal. Fuel and range very good".

See ! Ventilation improved ! Beat that !!

Be interested to hear what first class brakes are like in the real world.

All the old reviews said the sud had good brakes, but maybe things were different back then, they’re by some margin the worst brakes I’ve ever had on a car

Sundayjumper wrote: Mon Nov 16, 2020 4:09 pm effortless cruising at three-figure speeds

You really should be driving it home - you'd be back in no more than 90 minutes

"...but none has been so effortlessly superior in its class as the Alfasud.”


"...they’re by some margin the worst brakes I’ve ever had on a car "


That really doesn't say much about the competition at the time does it ???

I’d imagine all round disks on an entry level family car weren’t all that common back then.

I’d guess being onboard they feel a bit weird as all the load through the callipers goes through the gearbox and not the uprights.

As it’s the only one I’ve driven and the only car with inboard front brakes I’ve driven I don’t know if they were all like it or just mine

Unfortunately it’s spent most of winter under a cover, getting the odd run whenever conditions allowed, I.e dry after a wet spell which had washed the salt away.

Just before Christmas I picked up a set of doors someone had had stored since the early 80s. Unfortunately they’re very straight but a bit too rusty to be worth bothering with, but some of the trim will come in handy and being a bit of a weirdo, the osr 1/4 glass on my car is a different brand to the rest, probably a break in at some point in its past. Anyway, I now have a correct one for a full matching set







It disgraced itself at work a few weeks ago when it didn’t want to start, tracked it down to no / poor feed to the coil, so hot wired it directly to the battery and it fired straight into life. I now carry a spare bit of wire in the car.

Traced it to the ignition switch, you could get the lights to flicker by wiggling the key vertically. Gave it a good flush out with contact cleaner and hasn’t been a problem since. Wonder if it had been failing for a while as it was taking an awful lot of cranking before it would fire, I’d put it down to fuel draining back to the tank when it had been sat a while and taking a long while to refill the carb.

Then the other week the clutch started slipping, didn’t feel like a normal slip, if you floored it the revs would rise 500rpm then it would grip and be fine. Past experience has shown that when they start to slip the revs will keep rising until you lift off and allow it to grip.

Bit the bullet and decided to stick a new clutch in over the long bank holiday weekend.

Never a fun job, and it’s a surprisingly heavy lump given the modest power it has to cope with. Didn’t help that the calliper studs unwound instead of the nuts coming off so decided to leave them on the ‘box.



Of course it would be rude not to do a bit of ‘while you’re there’ stuff so I replaced the main bush which hangs the gearbox from the front bulkhead as a spare came with the car. Was a sod to get in so used the hose clip to squeeze it while pushing it in trick.



This tail shaft mounts to the back of the gearbox and holds the gear shift linkage, I knew the bush was completely knackered and you could feel the gear lever bouncing up and down as you came on and off throttle.

I modified a poly bush we use at work which usually end up in the bin, made it a cotton reel shape to sit snug inside the remains of the old rubber bush. Also cleaned up and painted the tail shaft to tidy it up a bit.




All in and working nicely, gear change vastly improved

Then this weekend did the work I had originally planned the the BH. Flush out the cooling system and fit a new radiator as the old one was looking a little scruffy at the bottom corners and would rather catch it before it went.

Water which came out was pretty grotty




It’s never going to be a car to pull the ladies in, but 50-60 year old men seem to love it

I know it’s not the tidiest up close, but does photograph well and with some proper tlc is starting to look better and better.

I think classics look better a bit scruffy but looked after. It’s better to see them being used than have them sit in a garage between shows.

Yeah, there’s no way I’d want it perfect and worry about stonechips or leaving it anywhere, I just like tidying bits as and when and don’t want it rotting away.

I just wish there was an easy way to lower it. Been on the lookout for a spare pair of front struts since before I bought it, might just have to stick some -35mm springs on and see how it looks.

Might have to up the mileage allowance on my insurance, I’ve done 2500 miles since September despite barely using it dec/jan/feb. Used it for the daily commute 4 days last week and another 60 miles today.

Have had another tweak with the carb and it’s running really nicely, no bogging or flat spots, not as smooth as modern fuel injection but still really nice and doesn’t feel like you’re trying to drive around an issue.

Did have an issue the other day when the indicators stopped working, found a blown fuse in the fuse box, luckily there were a couple of random spares in the glovebox because they’re the weird continental fuses and I don’t own any spares.

This spurred me on to swapping to a more modern blade fuse board. Purists don’t like this sort of thing but I don’t care, I’d rather have it more reliable and take advantage of more modern technologies where suitable. The actual swap was as simple as removing the spade connectors from the old one and plugging them in the new one. All working fine within a couple of minutes. Just need to sort a couple of little brackets to attach it to the car.

That’s the entire fuse box?!

Yes, and three relays for the whole car

I think there’s actually another fuse under that little black box with the yellow wires

Remember my car might be a 1980, but it’s basically the same as the car first seen in 1971. I believe the 1980 plastic bumper facelift models has a slightly more modern electrical system.

Hmm, the 6 series is the oldest car I’ve worked on. Took me an hour last week to remove various bits of trim in 3 different locations to check the fuses for the brakes.

integrale_evo wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 12:29 am
It’s never going to be a car to pull the ladies in, but 50-60 year old men seem to love it

You can add men in their early 40s to that too