The Duetto will be getting the transmission from the OMG Stepnose. It was degreesed and disassembled. All the hardware was zinc plated, and the casings were media blasted. The main shaft stack was rebuilt by Dominick's, along with the driveshaft center bearing. Frank at Dominic's replaced the 1-2 Synchroring and sleeve, and swapped the 3-4 with the 5th gear synchro. Today I reassembled the gearbox.

The rear mount is replaced with a new bushing; here it is being pressed into the rear tower case.


Then the shift rods were insterted, along with their lock-out beans and detent balls. The two shafts were inserted and 1-2 and 3-4 shift forks aligned.

Reverse gear is added and then then the two halves are joined. The 5th-reverse fork gets added at the end, facilitated by a wodden dowel that acts as a dummy in the assembly until this stage.

The rear tower is added, along with a new rear seal. Then the belhousing is added, along with another new seal and the cluch fork, throwout bearing, and reverse switch.

Here, she is almost complete. Next will be to add the rear drive yoke. It will be mated to the engine just prior to dropping it in the car, as I don't want to overload the stand untill it is all attached to the engine hoist.
Note that those shiny new nuts, washers and botls are not new. They are the original hardware that was treated to a professional zinc plating. In the same batch, I did the steering mounting hardware, a big batch of door panel mounting clips, and a tube for the Alfetta.

Paint is being applied! The engine bay, the trunk, and all four wheel wells of the Duetto have been painted. We started with the trunk, which was not media blasted. That necessitated a bit of prepwork.
First, the trunk was scrubbed down to solid surface or metal, and spot primed. The single-stage paint was supplied by the body shop who will shoot the body in 2-stage. I certainly paid a premium to do it that way, but now I can hold them accountable for matching when the time comes.

Two coats of epoxy primer were applied.

Finally the finish coats of AR008. i am quite satisfied with the result!
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The Duetto's engine bay and nose interior had been media blasted and immediately coated with two coats of epoxy primer. Starting up after three months, I decided to apply a few coats of epoxy primer after some small details were addressed (extra holes) . With a new prime to bite into, I applied the finish coats of AR008.




The wheel wells presented a challange. I wanted them in body color white for "show", but I did not look forward to getting that chipped up when driving. The areas were media blasted, and given the 2 prime coats at AR. I scuffed that down a bit, applied a few coats of 3M Body Schulz to provide a resiliant layer. First photo, the front wheel well in panitable undercoating.

Three coats of single stage body color.


Same process on rear wheel wells

And the final outcome.



I also started assembling the front suspension, putting back on the steering rack, shocks, front control arm and brake hoses.


The engine bay is comming back together, also.

Another beautiful day for a ride! The sun was shinning brightly and there were some puffy clouds in the sky to lend interest. A very nice couple in Warren, MA, opened their house and grounds to the MA/RI/CT Italian and Exotic cars crowd. The event was listed on the NY-AROC calendar, and two other Alfas joined ours for both the Gathering at Autumn View Farm and the drive up to Warren from Glastonbury. Nice, friendly crowd, good food, great roads, and a few interesting sets of Golf Cart Polo....


Kathy and Fred compare notes for the trip. That’s Mike’s crisp red GTV next to Fred’s. This is the lot at Somerset Square in Glastonbury. The fChat CT folks hold regular get-togethers here on Sunday mornings. On this occasion, it was also the starting point for the ride up to Waren. Strength in numbers, perhaps, but nobody got a speeding ticket in spite of some very spirited driving. Likely our spider was the lowest-powered vehicle here, and that included two Dcati motorcycles...


Here is Kathy with our Spider on the lawn at Autumn View Farms

We traveled back on US 20 into the Springfield area, then across northern CT through Suffield (bought some pumpkins) Granby and Winsted, then down 8 and 15 home. The weather held clear and balmy.

Kathy and I spent part of this past Labor Day weekend attending the Lime Rock Vintage Festival. Our route there was a bit circuitous, since we traveled by way of Chelmsford to seek Granddaughter Alexandra and her parents. Having installed a different Momo steering wheel on the Spider, I thought I’d let Alexandra try it out for size. It is a bit smaller in diameter, but she still can’t reach it properly.



We traveled to the Lime rock area Saturday evening, and attended the “Sunday In The Park” car show the next day. The local FLU chapter arranged for us to have a venue on track, and about 2 dozen Italian cars made a nice exhibit. I may post some more photos in the Car Shows pages.


There was one spectacular “Barn Find” displayed, a 1962/1963 Giulia Spider. A thread on the AlfaBB discussed the beauty. I made a separate DotMe page.




Monday we revisited Lime Rock for the Vintage Races, and parked in the Italian Corral. Another opportunity to visit with folk of like mind when it comes to passions.

As this new presentation progressed, I began to feel it deserved its own web address. Looking for a neat “Alfa” name, like the catchy Alfaholics, I began with the AL, then looked for something that started with FA. Moving through the dictionary application on my iPhone, I stumbled upon “familia”, the Italian word for a collection of related items, as in a “Family”. Charmingly, the domain name was available. So there you have it : Alfamilia.com !

The pages are being populated into the new web directories, and I shall be changing the few links I have already been seeding out there..