The day my "onboro ALFA" would revive

The electric fuel pump and the fuel sender unit were installed to the renewed fuel tank. The original fuel sender unit was heavily rusted , therefore I prepared new one. Regarding the new piping for the electric fuel pump , the inner diameter of the fuel hose on the pump side was 6mm and 8mm on the body side.  So , I needed to prepare the hose conversion adapter from 6 to 8mm.  I could find the aluminum one at the parts shop for the motorcycle. I assembled these parts and installed to the fuel tank. Finally the fuel tank and the fuel system were renewed!!! ☺︎☺︎☺︎☺︎☺︎ The assembly / installation was always fun. By the way , the paint inside of the trunk room was dirty … I had to make it more beautiful in someday. (My original blog was written on 29th Oct. 2008 )

Next was the installation of the fuel tank on the body. Between the fuel tank and the trunk floor flange the cushion material like urethane was inserted.  Of course this was deteriorated by aging.  Therefore , I looked for the replacement material at DIY hardware store and bought the thick sponge sheet. The sponge sheet was cut into 15mm width pieces.  It could be bent nicely fitting to the flange shape.  Double sided tape was attached on the back side , so it could be attached on the flange very easily. Next tough job was the installation of the fuel tank in the trunk. When I removed it , it was very complicated job like Rubik ’ s cube.  Theoretically it should be possible to be installed in the reverse order of the removal. But it was not easy.  When I did it alone in unnatural position , my arms became dull and it made me very tired. The point to do it better was to be patient and to find the pinpoint position where ...

The repair of the fuel tank had been interrupted after the rust removal.  I started the installation of the fuel tank on the body. Prior to the installation , I replaced the degraded fuel hose under the trunk room with new one.  About 30 years passed from 1969 when this car was produced , and the hose became hard and cracked. The old hose was replaced with new hose. The grommet at the body hole for the fuel hose was also degraded and cracked.  My stock grommet was little bit too small.  Then , I made a cut in one part of one grommet and spread it , and combined it with another 1/3 grommet. At a glance it looked like a bigger grommet perfectly fitting to the hole. ☺︎ Moreover , I covered the hose with the corrugated tube to prevent the deterioration. It could be relieved for a while with this (My original blog was written on 26th Oct. 2008 )

This weekend I repaired the trunk floor around the fuel tank using the formed sheet metal I made last week. First of all I made the holes on the formed sheet metal for riveting.  I emphasized sturdiness rather than a smarter appearance. I used steel rivets with 4mm diameter. Aluminum & steel rivet or stainless rivet was more popular.  But to avoid the erosion I looked for the all steel rivet. I placed the formed sheet metal on the part to be reinforced and made the holes at the same position on body side. Then , the remained POR-15 tank sealer was painted on the body to be repaired and both sides of the formed sheet metal.  POR-15 hardened rigidly after drying , so it would be very effective for both the rust prevention and the reinforcement. The remaining POR-15 was wrapped in a plastic film to be shielded from the air , but the surface had already begun to harden.  But the inside was still soft and usable. The formed ...

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 )

The painting of the lower half of the fuel tank was continuing. I removed the old paint on the fuel tank patiently.  Finally I removed the old paint to this level using sand papers.  I guess I would have a pain in my arms tomorrow. In the next I would paint the tank with remained tank sealer as rust preventive paint. Last time I thought the inside of the hardened surface was still usable , but after 1 week it was becoming harder.  I cut the surface by knife and could paint. Viscosity was like mayonnaise.  I painted it with a brush.  Finally I painted the lower half part of the tank with chassis black as a top coat. Upper half was silver color of tank sealer.  I might paint with black if I change my mind. To avoid hardening of the sealer paint , I separated the remained sealer to some small cans.  Plastic wrap was inserted between can and lid to avoid the lid sticking with the can. By the way I knew that POR ...

I removed the old paint of the lower half of the fuel tank on last weekend. At first I tried to remove it with scraper.  But it was not very effective , so I used the paint remover on the way. It was much more effective , but I had to paste the remover over and over , especially for the area which had thick paint.  So , it took time more than I expected. Most of the old paint was removed.  But it was necessary to be cleaned more in order to start the painting. When I opened the lid of the used tank sealer , it looked the sealer was hardened completely.  However , I cut the surface and found that the hardened one was surface only.  Probably the hardened surface shut off the air , so the inside sealer wasn't hardened.  It seemed to be usable one more time. (My original blog was written on 3rd Sep. 2008 )

1 week passed from the coating the inside of the tank with the sealer.  Yes , the sealer was completely hardened! I checked the sealer remaining in the can and found that it began to be hardened. It was pity that very high quality paint , which could not be affected by gasoline , was remained a lot.  ( We say it “ Mottai-nai ” in Japanese. ) At this moment the viscosity of the sealer was like butter , and it was possible to paint.  So , I decided to paint the outside of the tank using it. It was not easy to remove old paint with a scraper.  So today I just painted the top half of the tank. Speaking of the fuel tank , the color would be black usually.  However , silver was also possible ?   Or paint with black on silver ? Under half of the tank should be black because it would be visible from the back. (My original blog was written on 25th Aug. 2008 )

Next process was the coating of the tank inside using the tank sealer. At first I opened the can and mixed the sealer well.  The viscosity of the sealer was lower than I expected. I poured the sealer into the tank carefully to prevent spilling it and closed the inlet of the tank with duct tapes. After this , with imaging the movement of the sealer inside the tank , I held the tank , turned over , swung around , or jumped in order to spread the sealer completely inside the tank. ( There was no picture that I was dancing with the tank because my both hands were occupied. ☺︎) In 30 ~ 40 minutes my breath became rough and I stopped dancing.  I opened the inlet of the tank and returned the sealer to the can. Surprisingly , the sealer used to coat the inside of the tank was only 1/5 of the full quantity.  I remembered that on the label they said the quantity was enough to repair 100L tank.  It seemed 4 more tanks could be repair...