Alfa GTA Sportwagon
Discussion
C70R said:
Absolute credit to you for rescuing such a rare and characterful car. But I find it petrifying that the front end could have been in such a horrendous state without you noticing (particularly having driven a long distance and at speed).
Surely there's no way a car with all of the faults below (particularly rust there, which doesn't appear overnight) could have passed an MOT recently???
I was amazed how well it handled. I've driven my fair share of sheddy Alfas, and they are all vague on the turn in, and clattery from the wishbones and droplinks. This one was neither - turned sharply (bit nervously but sharp all the same) and was very stable. The only fault I've found that would affect the handing is the lower wishbone, which is pretty hard to detect with it installed unless you really know where to pry. Surely there's no way a car with all of the faults below (particularly rust there, which doesn't appear overnight) could have passed an MOT recently???
rxe said:
Both front tyres were "unevenly worn" in MOT parlance, or "knackered" as the rest of us would say...
the lower wishbones were utterly knackered...
he driveshaft boots were in trouble, the track rod end boots were shot, the shocks were knackered and there was lots of surface rust in the shock turret...
the brakes were well under the limit for the discs...
the lower 'bones were indeed knackered - the rear bush literally fell off as I removed the bolts.
the lower wishbones were utterly knackered...
he driveshaft boots were in trouble, the track rod end boots were shot, the shocks were knackered and there was lots of surface rust in the shock turret...
the brakes were well under the limit for the discs...
the lower 'bones were indeed knackered - the rear bush literally fell off as I removed the bolts.
The MOT man did list the tyres as an advisory 2000 miles ago - but I think they are still technically legal - 1.6 mm over 75% of the width I think.
None of the rust has needed welding - this is all preventative. It would be an MOT fail in 2 years if left untreated.
The brakes worked - but I would not have liked to work them too hard.
I assume that the downpipes fell apart after the MOT - the tester would have to be blind and deaf to have missed that.
Thanks for the positive vibes from everyone - reassures me that these are really worth saving!
If you want to see rust, here are some pictures from another project - this one is an S-Reg 2.5.
Post welding on the driver's wheel arch - there's a lot of new metal in there:
Floorpan fixing on the same car, looking from the passenger wheel to the back:
Action shot welding up the rear footwells, another common rot point. My 13 year old wielding the MIG (got to learn at some stage if the family drives Alfas):
Post welding on the driver's wheel arch - there's a lot of new metal in there:
Floorpan fixing on the same car, looking from the passenger wheel to the back:
Action shot welding up the rear footwells, another common rot point. My 13 year old wielding the MIG (got to learn at some stage if the family drives Alfas):
?
I absolutely love the 156 GTA, especially the Sportwagon. The thing is, I have to drive 18k a year and I just know I would want to keep the car in very good order, which would probably bankrupt me. I always seem to be reading people spending thousands a year just to keep their GTAs running.
I run a 166 v6 3 litre manual as my daily; luckily they are peanuts to buy and I'm not concerned about it being mint, I just keep things ticking over.
I run a 166 v6 3 litre manual as my daily; luckily they are peanuts to buy and I'm not concerned about it being mint, I just keep things ticking over.
S10GTA said:
Makes me sick thinking about it 
If it's any consolation at all, I practically gave away an E36 M3 in swap for an A6 Avant 2.7T. It was f
king tragic, sold it for around £2500 then the fking bellend who got my M3 wrote it off 6 months later and got £7.5k for the car alone. He was a dishonest a
hole, Brummy wker. Neil - from Made in Metal. Do custom motorbikes etc.5ohmustang said:
Such a great looking wagon, aren't these the ones with the plastix impeller in the water pump?
Why do they rust so bad, it is not thay old.
Yes, the impeller was originally plastic on these engines, it used to crack, and the engine would overheat. Classic symptom is an engine that idles fine in traffic, and then overheats when it is moving at 70. Most of these are fixed now.Why do they rust so bad, it is not thay old.
Rust - QC at the factory was very patchy. My 51 plate 156 V6 is fine. My 04 GT is fine. This GTA is an 03 plate, and I've just managed to catch the corrosion in time, before it got serious. My S-Reg 156 V6 had the structural integrity of a colander before we got the MIG out.
Spinakerr said:
Any chance you two might be available to help weld my 164 rear crossmember smile?
Where are you? :-)strangehighways said:
I absolutely love the 156 GTA, especially the Sportwagon. The thing is, I have to drive 18k a year and I just know I would want to keep the car in very good order, which would probably bankrupt me. I always seem to be reading people spending thousands a year just to keep their GTAs running.
I would not go near one of these if I was not capable of wielding the spanners myself. The work done so far is about £1000 in parts and about £2000 in labour - thankfully I'm only paying the parts bill. As we all know, Sunday is a day for being on one's knees, so I decided to grovel in front of the GTA and fix most of the remaining mechanical issues. When I bought it, the radiator was a known problem. This is very common on 156s, the radiator corrodes quickly, all the little fins fall out and the car starts overheating in the summer. In addition to the radiator, i knew the oil cooler was leaking, which can fail catastrophically and wreck the engine, so needed to be done urgently.
Unfortunately, this sort of fixing involves removing the front bumper, which is fine when you've done it before and greased all the fastners, but on a new (to me) car, I knew it would be fun. Tally as follows:
4 torx bolts in the upper wings: 3 drilled out, one undid
3 torx bolts at the bottom front: missing
2 torx bolts at the bottom chassis legs: one drilled out, one undid
4 torx bolts across the front top - all undid.
That lot took 3 hours to do, and retap the holes. Everything has been replaced with stainless steel, greased to within an inch of its life. With the bumper off, drop the front cross member, which disintegrated in my hands, and the radiator lands on your head. Thankfully I have a spare cross member from another project available.
Old rad, looking a little tired:
You can't see it in the pictures, but the antifreeze was that special stuff that looks just like plain water, oh wait, it was plain water. Chalk another one up to the people who installed the engine - not content with driving an exhaust flange bolt into a catalyst, they didn't bother with antifreeze. I'd better change the oil, they probably used a load of 3 in 1 that they had kicking around.
Amazingly the hoses were in reasonable condition, which is more than can be said for the air-con rad, which has a hole in it. I knew the car had needed front end work in the past, I wonder if the overspray camo job on the air con rad was extra.
Actually, there is overspray pretty much everywhere at the front, a proper kwality job. I've got a new air-con rad on order, I can stick that in pretty easily, the bumper will take about 20 minutes to remove next time.
Old oil cooler which was not doing much cooling, instead it was doing rather a lot of leaking:
New oil cooler and new ducting. The old one failed because whoever fixed the front last time didn't bother to secure the ducting. This flaps against the cooler, eventually knocking holes in it.
Reassembly is the reverse of removal, but this time with vast amounts of grease slathered over pretty much everything. I also replaced the gearbox side engine mount which was a bit tired.
With it all back together, it was time for a road test. This is the first time since the work started that I've properly been able to thrash it - I've either been worried about overheating or the oil cooler failing. The handling is pin sharp, without the harshness from over stiffening. The stiffened rear ARB has dialled out a lot of the natural understeer, and winding the engine up beyond 4K delivers the goods in style. It really is improbably quick for a very pedestrian (these days) 250 HP.
Remaining mechanical jobs:
- Handbrake. Works but needs too many clicks, it will probably need new cables
- Rather crusty brake pipes need replacing in places.
- Wire brush the underneath to make sure there is no corrosion, then underseal properly.
- Fix the air con, probably just needs a new rad, but I'll fit that and see if it holds vacuum before regassing.
Then off to the bodyshop for the winter....
Unfortunately, this sort of fixing involves removing the front bumper, which is fine when you've done it before and greased all the fastners, but on a new (to me) car, I knew it would be fun. Tally as follows:
4 torx bolts in the upper wings: 3 drilled out, one undid
3 torx bolts at the bottom front: missing
2 torx bolts at the bottom chassis legs: one drilled out, one undid
4 torx bolts across the front top - all undid.
That lot took 3 hours to do, and retap the holes. Everything has been replaced with stainless steel, greased to within an inch of its life. With the bumper off, drop the front cross member, which disintegrated in my hands, and the radiator lands on your head. Thankfully I have a spare cross member from another project available.
Old rad, looking a little tired:
You can't see it in the pictures, but the antifreeze was that special stuff that looks just like plain water, oh wait, it was plain water. Chalk another one up to the people who installed the engine - not content with driving an exhaust flange bolt into a catalyst, they didn't bother with antifreeze. I'd better change the oil, they probably used a load of 3 in 1 that they had kicking around.
Amazingly the hoses were in reasonable condition, which is more than can be said for the air-con rad, which has a hole in it. I knew the car had needed front end work in the past, I wonder if the overspray camo job on the air con rad was extra.
Actually, there is overspray pretty much everywhere at the front, a proper kwality job. I've got a new air-con rad on order, I can stick that in pretty easily, the bumper will take about 20 minutes to remove next time.
Old oil cooler which was not doing much cooling, instead it was doing rather a lot of leaking:
New oil cooler and new ducting. The old one failed because whoever fixed the front last time didn't bother to secure the ducting. This flaps against the cooler, eventually knocking holes in it.
Reassembly is the reverse of removal, but this time with vast amounts of grease slathered over pretty much everything. I also replaced the gearbox side engine mount which was a bit tired.
With it all back together, it was time for a road test. This is the first time since the work started that I've properly been able to thrash it - I've either been worried about overheating or the oil cooler failing. The handling is pin sharp, without the harshness from over stiffening. The stiffened rear ARB has dialled out a lot of the natural understeer, and winding the engine up beyond 4K delivers the goods in style. It really is improbably quick for a very pedestrian (these days) 250 HP.
Remaining mechanical jobs:
- Handbrake. Works but needs too many clicks, it will probably need new cables
- Rather crusty brake pipes need replacing in places.
- Wire brush the underneath to make sure there is no corrosion, then underseal properly.
- Fix the air con, probably just needs a new rad, but I'll fit that and see if it holds vacuum before regassing.
Then off to the bodyshop for the winter....
Edited by rxe on Monday 4th July 14:11
Edited by rxe on Monday 4th July 14:14
No, I haven't fixed the wing.
The plan has changed a bit. The original plan was to stick a door on (done) and then stick the spare wing that came with the car on as cheaply as possible and drive it for a while. The new plan is to do it properly, get a good set of s/h side skirts, front bumper and rear bumper, get them sprayed properly, get the remainder of the car sprayed properly and make it spot on. So rather than a £300 temporary botch job, we're looking at about 10x that to do it well.
So I'll be driving around with a chewed up wing while I assemble the parts, then bite the bullet and get it all done in one go. I can spray paint, but it usually looks cack, and I'll give it to someone who knows what they are doing.
The plan has changed a bit. The original plan was to stick a door on (done) and then stick the spare wing that came with the car on as cheaply as possible and drive it for a while. The new plan is to do it properly, get a good set of s/h side skirts, front bumper and rear bumper, get them sprayed properly, get the remainder of the car sprayed properly and make it spot on. So rather than a £300 temporary botch job, we're looking at about 10x that to do it well.
So I'll be driving around with a chewed up wing while I assemble the parts, then bite the bullet and get it all done in one go. I can spray paint, but it usually looks cack, and I'll give it to someone who knows what they are doing.
Edited by rxe on Monday 4th July 18:46
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