This Is Pictures.

[mamzak]

That's my worst fear in owning a classic car.

Ugh. Sad to see!

[codyep3]

Originally Posted by imsotyerred

Surely, none of his professors treated him differently throughout those quarters

so he finished is degree in a full semester? yet the timeline is over 2 years?

dafuq

[deutschman]

[Raxe]

Originally Posted by slammin.e28guy

Gas door is on the wrong side....unless they moved the fuel tank for that terrible exhaust, also coming from the wrong end.

Rear deck says 7xxx, which makes sense. e23 was the only one with the gas door on the drives side.

Good call man, you're right.

[Deltron Dirty30]

deutschman i just posted that above... lol

[gearheadE30]

god damn that alfa and the csl make me so sad... I would be devastated if I got rear ended in a car like that...

[BlackbirdM3]

Originally Posted by gearheadE30

god damn that alfa and the csl make me so sad... I would be devastated if I got rear ended in a car like that...

Yeah, I was none to happy about it. It was a 3 owner car, with history going back to when it was new. Jon Norman (Old school Alfa racer and owner of Alfa Parts in Berkeley. He is more than a little well known in the Alfa world) remembers the car from when it first came to Steven Griswalds shop when it was new. Griswalds was one of the premier Alfa tuners on the west coast (He also did Ferraris and other high end Italian stuff as well as doing race prep on a lot of cars back in the day.) The story goes that my car was the first fuel injected Alfa in the bay area, possibly in the state. Everyone there just stood around and looked at it scratching their heads because not a one of them knew how to work on it. The first owner sold the car to the brother of a guy who worked with Jon at Griswalds. In '76 it was parked in the barn and didn't see light of day till I got it in Oct 06. It was so well preserved that I had it running in a day, and reliable driving in a month and a half. The power brakes were the biggest trouble spot on the car. They drove me batty trying to get things to stop leaking. The master cylinder was NLA when I got the car so I had to be creative, I converted it over to a single circuit system like the '67 and earlier cars. The involved removing one of the two brake boosters, and rerouting some of the hard lines.

The motor never missed a beat, nor did the fuel injection system. It got about 30 mpg on the freeway and looked good doing it. I installed a 54% lockup LSD with a 4.10 rear end (down from the 4.56 it came with) and it was pretty decent. The hardest thing for me was not modifying it too much from stock. Since there were a total of 640 1969 Alfa Romeo 105.51 (US spec model GTV) it was rather rare, and VERY desirable. From my research, there are less than 200 left in the world. Nice ones don't trade hands on the open market often, and when they do, they bring top dollar.

The sad thing here is that my insurance company hired some d.b. who stated for the record that this car was in overall poor condition and showed poorly before it got rear ended. Do you see such a car in those pics? Original paint and interior, 3 owners, no rust, matching #s. They valued the car at $6850 based off of another one that had been for sale 3 years ago that was both rusted out, with a torn up interior, and several different colors (very poor repaint in red over a sort of original mustard color, that could be seen in all the door jambs, under the hood, trunk, ect) stating that my car was in worse condition than the one they found. My appraiser put the value of the car at $18500 with a note stating that with a new carpet (the drivers side was showing some wear in the pedal box), the car was easily worth $25K+ which was spot on with the real market value. The insurance appraiser also contradicted himself several times in his report. After I took the mess to arbitration, the umpire split the difference and stated the car was worth $12700 before the accident. I had offers of $30K for the car before it was hit, $12700 was a slap in the face, and the original offer of $6800 was absurd considering the amount will buy you a rusted out one needing a full restoration before it could be even driven. Heck, I even had multiple professional appraisers stating that my car was worth a minimum of $18K. Needless to say I got bent over.

Here is my other Alfa project. Its a '59 101.02 Giulietta Sprint, German spec, interim car. In '59 Alfa moved from the earlier hand built 750 series cars to the 101 series. The two were close enough in looks that you really have to know what to look for to tell the two apart. My car shares body parts from both series, and is called a 101.02 series by the Alfa data plate, however there is another data plate in German (issued by NSU) stating that its a 750B. The car is the 192nd 101 series car off the assembly line. Its got lots of 750 parts on it ranging from the rocker panels to some of the trim items. Its story from what I can tell is that it was first sold in Germany, then imported into the US in the late '60s perhaps early '70s (its got early blue California plates on it, and the last time it was registered was '71.) The previous owner bought it for a parts car in the early '70s. The odd thing was that he left the original Nardi steering wheel and 750 Veloce 1300cc motor (The Veloce was the factory hot rod motor for these, making about 96 hp out of 1300cc in '58. Needless to say they are rare and very valuable. They also tend to be a little bit of a hand grenade, and not very durable.) My motor was missing the head, and was totally frozen, however I was able to remove one of the wet sleeve cylinders and extract the piston from it. The motor was totally rebuildable but I sold it off for $2400 missing the head, cams, carbs, intake ect. I'm going to install a 1750 like the one out of my GTV. The two look nearly identical, but the 1750 is taller by about 2 inches.





The only serious rust on the car, where the battery sat.


Ouch, not sure what happened here...




How about these for drum brakes?

Got mouse nest?




I've done some body work on the front end. Its tough going however. At this point, I've reached the limit of my skill to heal this wound.






The car is remarkably straight aside from the front. The door lines are perfect, the trunk alignment is very good, and once the front end is sorted out, the hood should be pretty good. All the glass is good, and aside from the trunk, no other rust. The car wants to live. Even after sitting for so long that the wheels sunk into the dirt floor of the barn, the tires still hold air. When its done, it should be a pretty nice car, but its going to be a few years off. At this point I'm looking at $3000+ to get the front end fixed, and as you can see pretty much everything else needs to be replaced. The good news is that most of the electrical stuff still works. I stuck a battery in it before I pulled the motor out and many of the things started to work. First the passenger side head light came on, then after about 10 minutes, the drivers side one did, as well as a few other things. Oh well, some day it will run again.

I figured I'd finish the Datsun up before going crazy on the Sprint.
I've got 2 weeks from yesterday to make the car driveable... Here is how it currently sits.




I think I have my work cut out for me. Roll bar, seats, door windows, motor and transmission all need to go back. Then I get to bleed the brakes and clutch out, sort the electrical out and hope I haven't forgotten anything. I sense a few long nights ahead of me.
Will

[JamesE30]

[u3b3rg33k]

[ohthejosh]

Fixed.

Originally Posted by u3b3rg33k

[ethrtyiS]

hahaha.

[Kershaw]

looooooooooooooooooool.

i notice the e21/e30 on the front too.

[ohthejosh]

was on yahoo and these are too awesome to not post in here;

[ohthejosh]

[MikeDE]

At an Oldtimer event a few weeks ago: