The day my "onboro ALFA" would revive

I repaired the broken rubber cover of the parking brake cable that was attached at the connecting point with the rear hub.  I used the self-adhesive tape and the adhesive , which were same ones as I used to repair the rubber cover on the right side before.  The rubber cover was completely separated.  The damage was severer than the previous right side one. The self-adhesive tapes were pasted on the back side of the bigger piece.  I made some cuts in the tape to fit to the conical shape of the rubber cover. The adhesive was applied on the surface to fill the gap. Next was to connect with the smaller piece.  How should I do ? I connected two pieces with tapes and made the shape. It looked okay. Finally the adhesive was applied on the surface again to complete.  It seemed flexible and durable enough. ( My original blog was written on 26th Feb. 2009 )

My Alfa had one damaged hub bolt.  In the past the press-fitting of this hub bolt to the hub became loose , and I had the trouble that the wheel couldn ’ t be removed because the hub bolt was turned together with the wheel nut.  In order to remove the wheel I finally destroyed the nut by drilling after try and error , and the bolt was damaged at that time.  I brought the removed hub to my friends , and asked him the spot-welding to fix the loose bolt to the hub. Therefore , before removing the damaged hub bolt , I had to remove the spot-welding with the disc grinder. After removing the point-welding the damaged bolt was easily come off by striking with a hammer.  It seemed that the press fitting of the bolt was loose. The new hub bolt was inserted. In order to make the bolt insert more tightly the new bolt was pressed by a vise using the socket as a jig. This might be enough , however , I still had a doubt because of the trouble happened before.

On this day I was busy with home tasks so it was difficult to find the time for the repair , but I could manage to find a little time in the late evening. Regarding the hub bolts of the left rear axle currently repairing , the thread ( left handed thread ) of one of the hub bolts was damaged in the past.  I thought I should order it to replace , but I found it while I was checking my stock parts a few days before.  Thinking about it , it might have been ordered when I had ordered many parts a few years ago.  Recently I often forget the parts or tools I purchased in the past…that is bad! I had little time on this day , so I just prepared for the replacement.  Since the tip of the new bolt was very edgy as it was cut , I refined it with a file. The other work I did on this day was the replacement of the O rings at the accelerator pump jet plug of the WEBER carburetor.  I found that the O rings at the accelerator pump jet plug were melted by gasoline.  Pr

I started the disassembly of the left side rear axle shaft and the removal of the hub bearing. When I did it for the right side rear axle , I struggled to remove the hub bearing for 2-3 weeks.  However , I believed I could do it easily thanks to my experience for the right side. I removed the retainer nut at first.  It was sticking a little bit , but it could be removed by hitting with the screw driver and the hammer.  Next was the removal of the parking brake shoes.  It was because there was no space to set the puller on the hub bearing unless removing the parking brake shoes. This was the hub bearing that was my rival.  It was fixed very tightly. Because the parking brake shoes were removed , the space for setting the puller on the bearing was secured. I sprayed the rust penetration lubrication on the hub bearing , and set the “ Super Special Long Arm Bearing Puller ” that was my lethal weapon to remove the hub bearing on right side.

There were lots of things I had to do and I restarted the repair of the rear axle on the left side.  It was the continuation of the repair of the rear axle on the right side I did it last year.  The main issues were the replacement of the hub bearing , oil seal and one damaged hub bolt. First of all the brake rotor was removed.  ( The overhauled caliper was not installed yet. ) I checked the condition after removal , and found that the inside of the rotor and hub was dirty with oil. It seemed that the oil seal needed to be replaced as I thought. Disconnecting the parking brake cable , removing the 4 nuts fixing the hub on the rear axle housing , and pulling the rear axle shaft , then , the rear axle shaft could be removed easily. The work on this day was done quickly because I already did the same on the right side before. ☺︎ (My original blog was written on 11th Jan. 2009 )

Painting the metal parts of the rebound straps with remained POR tank sealer was finished. After drying the paint I started the assembly of the rebound stopper straps. To connect the double layered strap with the metal plates and bolts was little bit difficult because the strap was very solid and difficult to align the hole position. It was easy to insert 1st , 2nd and 3rd bolts.  However , I struggled to insert the 4th bolt into the metal plate hole.  After several try and error , I fixed the position of the strap and metal plate with tie-wraps and succeeded to connect the strap with 4 bolts. The other side could be assembled smoothly with the same way. By the way , these were the vinyl packaging with Alfa Romeo logo for the new straps.  These are just wastes for the normal people , but for me it looks nice and it is difficult to throw away always. (My original blog was written on 19th and 21st Dec. 2008 )

The replacement of the rebound stopper strap was continuing. Originally I thought to finish the assembly of the right side at first.  But I changed my thought as follows ; to remove the left side strap in next , then finally to assemble both side at the same time.  As I planned to paint metal parts around the strap with the remaining POR15 gasoline tank sealer , I wanted to finish painting on both the left and right sides at the same time considering that POR to be hardened very quickly when opening the can. First work was to remove the deteriorated strap as same process as I did for the right side strap last time. Destroy the old strap with drill , remove the strap dust with screw driver and radio pliers , spray the rust penetration lubricant on the rusty screws and finally loosen the screw by attacking with the impact driver. New straps were the genuine parts I purchased about 10 years ago. I wanted to finish the assembly , but there was no time.  The a

The replacement of the rebound stopper straps in rear suspension was started. Those were already degraded since I purchased in 1986.  In the past I asked shop to replace them at the timing of the regular inspection , but shop owner hesitated to replace the straps saying “ the replacement of the old rebound straps is difficult ” .  Then , I thought I should do it by myself in future and ordered the new straps. I started from the removal of the small bolts connecting the strap , but 2 bolts out of 4 were broken immediately. ☺︎ It was no problem because I thought all the bolts and screws had to be replaced with new ones anyway. These were the thick screws that seemed to be very stubborn.  I guessed it was fixed with rust and mud and very difficult to be removed. At first I tried with the rust penetration lubricant and the impact driver. This impact driver was vintage one and it was given from my father when I was a student. Several times