The day my "onboro ALFA" would revive

I repaired the wire of the hood opener that was broken on the last weekend. First of all I removed the wire… Then , I failed a little.  When I was loosening the small bolt fixing the wire , I intended to be careful but I dropped it carelessly.  I did this very often.  And it was very hard to find it if it dropped into the engine room especially. But this time I could luckily find the bolt that was caught between the engine cam cover and water hose for heater. I removed the cable of the hood opener to replace the inner wire.  ( There was almost no damage in the outer cable. ) I found the stainless wire with same diameter at the DIY hardware store near my house. The inner wire was replaced. The replacement of the inner wire was very easy like this.  I made the wire length little bit longer than the original one. I set the wire to the opener linkage on the engine room side. I prepared secret props....

It was raining from morning on this day. It was not bad for me because I could spend time in my garage without hesitation while my wife and kids were watching TV in the house.  I fixed several repairs that I had thought I should do. To replace the ignition coil with the blue coil again. The ignition system with the semi-transistor and the blue coil looked like a retro combination. I changed the routing of the wire harness for the fuel tank to prevent the wire harness being damaged by objects in trunk. Previously overhauled rear brake calipers were assembled to the renewed rear axle. I found the spring washers of the caliper fixing bolts were deteriorated , so I replaced them with new washers. Rear axle and brake would be like a new if the rotor would be nicer. When I worked at the engine room of my car , there were some dark areas depending on the repairing part.   To improve this I tried a small idea for the li...

I was trying to repair a part of the trunk floor around the fuel tank using the sheet metal I got from a person of the repair shop.  My purpose was just to add some patches for the reinforcement because I had never done the sheet metal repair and didn't have a skill.  My only experience for the sheet metal work was to make the dustpan in a class when I was a junior high school student.  I liked that class and was good at , but it was 32 years ago.  I didn ’ t know how it would be. After watching the trunk floor for a while , I started making the pattern paper. I found some moderate thick papers at my house.  And I attached it on the repair part and cut it to fit the shape of the flange to be repaired. Next , I copied this pattern paper into a sheet metal and cut it. At first I tried to cut it with sheet metal scissors , but it was difficult because the sheet metal had 1 mm thickness and it was too hard.  Therefore , I decided to use th...

I found some rust at the flange in body around the fuel tank as I expected.  I believed this level of rust in this area was quite usual for old Alfa Romeo. It seemed that this area didn ’ t influence on the body strength , however , I was considering the method what I could do by myself. Anyway in order to prepare the sheet metal for the repair at first , I started to look for the store where I could buy some sheet metal near my house.  I tried to research the store on internet , but I couldn ’ t find appropriate stores.  Finally I asked the person at repair shop , who did maintenance of my Renault 5 , about the store I could buy some sheet metal. They kindly taught me the store , but at the same time they gave me some sheet metal for free.  That was enough volume for what I wanted to do. I didn ’ t expect it.  Thanks a lot!!! (My original blog was written on 12th Sep. 2008 )