La Tempesta

Phew! It’s been a year since the first parts of the rear suspension was taken off the car, and today the rear axle and suspension renovation was finally done. I mean, completely done. The brakes were bled (which took a long time since the entire circuit rear of the proportioning valve was empty) and the wheels were put back on, and then it was time for a quick shakedown in the neighbourhood. The handbrake needs some more adjusting since it doesn’t hold the car even the slightest, but that’s all so far. No strange noises, no leaks and no surprises. The 35 mm drop in ride height looks quite good compared to gas shocks on original springs too.

Once the car was down on its wheels, I tightened the nuts at the front and rear of the trailing arms. Front 110 Nm and rear 120 Nm.

I parked the car the other way around in the garage so it’ll be a little more room to manoeuver with the front suspension. That job is starting right away. The engine is very rough after sitting for so long, so it’s not much fun driving anyway. One small thing I noticed is that the alternator has too little amperage on idle making the alimentazione telltale light up. Might be a slack in the belt, but I’ll look into that later.

Tomorrow it’s time to start on the front suspension!

Surprisingly enough, I’m still hard at work with the rear axle and suspension The correct-ish oil seal arrived from Classic Alfa on Wednesday (5. August), and the day after it was mounted in the differential. I say correct-ish because I got the 10 mm seal instead of the 12 mm original, but this is not a real problem. Be aware though, that the 100% correct oil seal is hard to find and that a 48-80-10 seal will work.

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The rear suspension is currently being mounted back in the car, almost two years after I originally took the trailing arms off the car. It’s been slow progress indeed. The parts for the front and rear suspension was ordered in February 2007, so it was probably about time they were used for their intended purpose.

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The tedious job to prettify and rustproof the underbody continues. Today the body attachment points for the trailing arms got a makeover, or at least the start of one. Apart from the sills, the point where the trailing arms are attached to the body is by far the place with the most apparent wear and tear under the car. Maybe it’s because the box flexes a bit as the suspension does its work, or maybe it’s because it’s rather unprotected from the elements when driving. No matter the cause, the silver pasty stuff which I think is zinc and the body coating had to go. Under it, the surface rust … surfaced. As usual, if I may say so. After scraping and grinding, I applied some Turtle Wax Rust Eater I had laying around. I’ve used this partucular chemical before, and it turns the rust into a black, hard substance which you can’t easily remove by mechanical means. After it dries and the rust is gone, I’m going to apply the blue/grey primer which I used on the suspension parts and put some body coating directly on top of that.

Tomorrow I’m going to try to take some “after” pictures of the treatment.

Note: if someone, somewhere needs to fabricate these attachment points, note the profile of the outer, lower lip of the box. They look exactly the same on both sides, and the metal is too thick to give in to a dropping trailing arm. I believe the attachment points came like this from the factory (although I may be wrong).

Also visible in the pictures are rusty dust from the angle grinder and evidence of the shoddy respray. I took the pictures during a break to rest my middle aged arms

Update 16. July 2009: the attachment points got one layer of “Farmer’s Blue” today: