Shed Find/Restoration Project - Alfa 156 V6
Discussion
Hello everyone!
I'm not much of a newbie but I think this is my first real step into proper Pistonheads-ish motoring. Some of you may know me as the lunatic trying to park you all at the Silverstone and Jaguar Sunday Services, and after the Jaguar one and a drive up and down from Scotland, I began to think about getting something a little more PH-worthy. I hit ebay late at night and upon chancing on a nice looking Alfa Romeo 156 V6 24V, I thought I'd put in a cheeky bid at £215 to outbid the most recent one at £205.
The next day though, time went by and nobody outbid. More and more time went on and I began to realise I may actually have bought this one. The time of the auction ended, and it turned out that I'd bought it for the low price. Deciding that I wouldn't be the scourge of ebay I've heard so much about here, I decided to contact the seller and be earnest. He seemed a little disappointed that it had gone for so little, but he needed it out of the storage and had been stood up four times before.
I travelled to just outside of Bury St Edmunds to pick it up - the storage place turned out to be an open-sided barn. Alarm bells did start ringing as to why the previous ebayers had run screaming for the hills, especially since the cover had blown off and it wasn't quite in the same condition as the ebay pictures suggested. I knew this was something to get worried about, but all the same - it was £215. The car's probably worth that much in bits alone.
So I paid up, and also included a miniature bottle of wine as a goodwill gift since he had got a lot less than he expected for it. I had it trailered back to Milton Keynes, and just got back from an MOT test to check what's wrong with it, as well as fitting a proper battery (previous one had been left in during storage, and was smaller than the OEM size, so I got a new Bosch one in). The overall plan is to try and get it roadworthy and maybe even show-worthy as a long term project.
This is my first time foraying into vehicle maintenance so I'm going to be doing as much as I can by the book, but I also decided to keep a log here on Pistonheads and hopefully also get some good advice. I did do Mechanical Engineering with Automotive Design at university but it was somewhat sparse on the actual construction of a car/how to repair one.
Here's the girl herself, after I cleaned her up a touch:
Obligatory PH sticker:
Mirror mileage get:
Below is the list of things that need to be fixed on her. I'll probably update this post as I go along and add thumbs-up to indicate I've done something. If you have any advice, people to go to, or want to come over and help yourselves, I'd be more than happy to oblige.
List of MOT Failures:
1) Nearside Registration lamp is (a) not working and (b) not secure
2) Airbag (driver + passenger) lamps are on on the dashboard (see above)
3) No wiper fluid
4) Nearside floor rot (see below for what fell out of it)
List of MOT Advisories:
1) Front brakes a bit rusty
2) Coil springs corroded
3) Offside floor beginning to rot
4) Exhaust gas leak
5) Rear exhaust box corroded (blowing a bit too - see below)
6) Cracks in 3 tyres
List of stuff I want to do:
1) Get a proper keyring for the key
2) Refurb the alloys (a little corroded, see below)
3) Replace the front grille badge with one that isn't faded to bare metal
4) Replace the ditchfinders I have on with decent ones (only had Primewells left over from buying my Colt, but I want some proper branded tyres at some point)
5) Maybe do a respray since some of the panels are wearing their paint badly
6) Complete de-rusting as much as possible.
And so begins my adventure into Alfa Ownership. Hopefully this'll be interesting enough to read. ^^
I'm not much of a newbie but I think this is my first real step into proper Pistonheads-ish motoring. Some of you may know me as the lunatic trying to park you all at the Silverstone and Jaguar Sunday Services, and after the Jaguar one and a drive up and down from Scotland, I began to think about getting something a little more PH-worthy. I hit ebay late at night and upon chancing on a nice looking Alfa Romeo 156 V6 24V, I thought I'd put in a cheeky bid at £215 to outbid the most recent one at £205.
The next day though, time went by and nobody outbid. More and more time went on and I began to realise I may actually have bought this one. The time of the auction ended, and it turned out that I'd bought it for the low price. Deciding that I wouldn't be the scourge of ebay I've heard so much about here, I decided to contact the seller and be earnest. He seemed a little disappointed that it had gone for so little, but he needed it out of the storage and had been stood up four times before.
I travelled to just outside of Bury St Edmunds to pick it up - the storage place turned out to be an open-sided barn. Alarm bells did start ringing as to why the previous ebayers had run screaming for the hills, especially since the cover had blown off and it wasn't quite in the same condition as the ebay pictures suggested. I knew this was something to get worried about, but all the same - it was £215. The car's probably worth that much in bits alone.
So I paid up, and also included a miniature bottle of wine as a goodwill gift since he had got a lot less than he expected for it. I had it trailered back to Milton Keynes, and just got back from an MOT test to check what's wrong with it, as well as fitting a proper battery (previous one had been left in during storage, and was smaller than the OEM size, so I got a new Bosch one in). The overall plan is to try and get it roadworthy and maybe even show-worthy as a long term project.
This is my first time foraying into vehicle maintenance so I'm going to be doing as much as I can by the book, but I also decided to keep a log here on Pistonheads and hopefully also get some good advice. I did do Mechanical Engineering with Automotive Design at university but it was somewhat sparse on the actual construction of a car/how to repair one.
Here's the girl herself, after I cleaned her up a touch:
Obligatory PH sticker:
Mirror mileage get:
Below is the list of things that need to be fixed on her. I'll probably update this post as I go along and add thumbs-up to indicate I've done something. If you have any advice, people to go to, or want to come over and help yourselves, I'd be more than happy to oblige.
List of MOT Failures:
1) Nearside Registration lamp is (a) not working and (b) not secure
2) Airbag (driver + passenger) lamps are on on the dashboard (see above)
3) No wiper fluid
4) Nearside floor rot (see below for what fell out of it)
List of MOT Advisories:
1) Front brakes a bit rusty
2) Coil springs corroded
3) Offside floor beginning to rot
4) Exhaust gas leak
5) Rear exhaust box corroded (blowing a bit too - see below)
6) Cracks in 3 tyres
List of stuff I want to do:
1) Get a proper keyring for the key
2) Refurb the alloys (a little corroded, see below)
3) Replace the front grille badge with one that isn't faded to bare metal
4) Replace the ditchfinders I have on with decent ones (only had Primewells left over from buying my Colt, but I want some proper branded tyres at some point)
5) Maybe do a respray since some of the panels are wearing their paint badly
6) Complete de-rusting as much as possible.
And so begins my adventure into Alfa Ownership. Hopefully this'll be interesting enough to read. ^^
Thanks everyone!
One of my first ports of call is going to be the airbag lights. The garage I got the MOT at was wanting to charge me £70 to run an engine diagnosis with a potential £10 extra for bulbs. Anyone know if this is particularly horrendous as far as charges go, or would it be too expensive to try and do it myself?
One of my first ports of call is going to be the airbag lights. The garage I got the MOT at was wanting to charge me £70 to run an engine diagnosis with a potential £10 extra for bulbs. Anyone know if this is particularly horrendous as far as charges go, or would it be too expensive to try and do it myself?
For the airbag lights buy this device which also covers abs/traction systems and Engine fault codes
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/EU702-OBDII-EOBD2-C...
LOL at paying for the 'bulbs' - was that the charge for removing them !?
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/EU702-OBDII-EOBD2-C...
LOL at paying for the 'bulbs' - was that the charge for removing them !?
_Nathan_ said:
For the airbag lights buy this device which also covers abs/traction systems and Engine fault codes
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/EU702-OBDII-EOBD2-C...
LOL at paying for the 'bulbs' - was that the charge for removing them !?
Oof, could have been. Sorry. http://www.aliexpress.com/item/EU702-OBDII-EOBD2-C...
LOL at paying for the 'bulbs' - was that the charge for removing them !?
Cheap Android pad a copt of Torque and blue tooth adaptor from eBay should see the codes read for under £100.
Lots of fun too with all the virtual gauges.
Love the 156, a stunning looking car. Suspension seems to have more bushes the a 1970s porn video.
Handle great too once sorted.
For the price should be MOT'able for less then £500 all in. Bargain!
Lots of fun too with all the virtual gauges.
Love the 156, a stunning looking car. Suspension seems to have more bushes the a 1970s porn video.
Handle great too once sorted.
For the price should be MOT'able for less then £500 all in. Bargain!
psychoR1 said:
Quite often it's just the connections under the seats. Worth joining alfaowner.com for tech advice - you certainly got a bargain there!
My first thought too - whatever c0ck designed these failed to account for the seats going back and forth putting stress on the connection. I seem to recall even at main dealer prices it was only a £25 fix.Cracking buy, I am sure you'd get more than your money back just selling on the engine!
I am sure that you will know this.... but here it is anyway....
alfaowner.com, and 156.net are very useful, as is the Alfa forum on here of course !
Autolusso are good for secondhand parts ( although a bit pricey it has to be said, but the service is good)
I am not well informed about the V6, but I bought a 1.8TS from a pal and that was an X reg, so similar age etc. The handling can be made to be 'special' ie as Alfa intended, if you get a good '4 wheel alignment ' done; the rear tyres tend to wear on the inner edges, and the rear tracking can be adjusted to cure this.
Once the front & rear tracking has been done, a decent set of tyres ( I run Toyo T1Rs on my 2005 156JTDM 150 ) should make the car handle very well.
Also there is no Haynes Manual available for these, so the forums ( or should that be fora...?) mentioned are a really valuable source of information. As has been said, Alfas can be infuriating, but when they are right they are well worth all the hassle !
alfaowner.com, and 156.net are very useful, as is the Alfa forum on here of course !
Autolusso are good for secondhand parts ( although a bit pricey it has to be said, but the service is good)
I am not well informed about the V6, but I bought a 1.8TS from a pal and that was an X reg, so similar age etc. The handling can be made to be 'special' ie as Alfa intended, if you get a good '4 wheel alignment ' done; the rear tyres tend to wear on the inner edges, and the rear tracking can be adjusted to cure this.
Once the front & rear tracking has been done, a decent set of tyres ( I run Toyo T1Rs on my 2005 156JTDM 150 ) should make the car handle very well.
Also there is no Haynes Manual available for these, so the forums ( or should that be fora...?) mentioned are a really valuable source of information. As has been said, Alfas can be infuriating, but when they are right they are well worth all the hassle !
Thank you to everyone for the massive support and advice. Money has unexpectedly becoming a little tight at the moment, so the whole restoration may have to wait a little while, but coming back to replies to the thread and the warmth I'm getting off fellow PHers makes me feel a lot more at home here. I understand this might be dithering on the limit of mushiness allowed here but thanks a lot. You guys are convincing me to keep going.
That said the engine itself has a bit of rust on it itself. If I am selling the engine on, might need to clean up the bay a little bit. I might ask for some advice from you guys about best way to get the rust and verdegris off the thing. Naturally since it's got no tax/insurance I can't drive it unless it's to a place for repairs, but even that feels like an event in and of itself. It'll be a mark of pride to take it to an SS.
(For the previous owner who claimed he was 'sorry to see it go' he didn't take very good care of it... though he said he had an M3 as a daily driver so maybe that took his attention away.)
That said the engine itself has a bit of rust on it itself. If I am selling the engine on, might need to clean up the bay a little bit. I might ask for some advice from you guys about best way to get the rust and verdegris off the thing. Naturally since it's got no tax/insurance I can't drive it unless it's to a place for repairs, but even that feels like an event in and of itself. It'll be a mark of pride to take it to an SS.
(For the previous owner who claimed he was 'sorry to see it go' he didn't take very good care of it... though he said he had an M3 as a daily driver so maybe that took his attention away.)
Bit of an update. Getting the underside welded up tomorrow at Days (not sure where the apostrophe goes on that...) Milton Keynes Alfa/Fiat specialist. Since the rot is under the sills on the left side, it'd require a lot of taking out of carpets and seats. Well, considering that the current ones are filthy, and I have possession of two functioning limbs and a very basic tool kit, I got to work trying to be useful (and hopefully cutting down on labour times)
All the carpet and most of the sound deadening ripped out. I'll be honest, at first I was looking for less destructive methods, but the more I removed the seats and saw the extent of the mouldering and the twiglets the previous owner had left about I thought I could do much worse than keeping them bare metal for a bit while I try and get the interior re-upholstered in carpet that isn't completely filthy.
Will probably use the fact that these are devoid of the car to clean them up, maybe even sell them on. If I do a Clarkson and make furniture out of these, I bet you I could make back the initial amount I paid on the car itself!
Plan today is to wirebrush the base to clean it up a little bit more and see if I can't move the wiring loom out the way.
And here's the rot. You can see it's not exactly just a bit of softness - and this goes down the majority of the side of the car. There's considerable corrosion to the exhaust as well, so once the MOT is done, that'll be the next big goal probably.
All the carpet and most of the sound deadening ripped out. I'll be honest, at first I was looking for less destructive methods, but the more I removed the seats and saw the extent of the mouldering and the twiglets the previous owner had left about I thought I could do much worse than keeping them bare metal for a bit while I try and get the interior re-upholstered in carpet that isn't completely filthy.
Will probably use the fact that these are devoid of the car to clean them up, maybe even sell them on. If I do a Clarkson and make furniture out of these, I bet you I could make back the initial amount I paid on the car itself!
Plan today is to wirebrush the base to clean it up a little bit more and see if I can't move the wiring loom out the way.
And here's the rot. You can see it's not exactly just a bit of softness - and this goes down the majority of the side of the car. There's considerable corrosion to the exhaust as well, so once the MOT is done, that'll be the next big goal probably.
bmthnick1981 said:
That last picture looks pretty bad, what caused it? Water ingress? Failed seal somewhere?
Not entirely sure. Nobody I've seen yet can give me a straightforward answer and I don't think that the previous owner was really aware of it - the previous MOT he had before he locked it up doesn't mention the corrosion as a fail, so my guess might be water ingress while it was stood up. Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff