I have dug my Berlinetta chassis out from under all the debris in the temp garage I have been loaned. The chassis is pretty bare, it's all primed and I have loosely fitted the rear axle and I have final fitted the front crossmember/subframe. All the suspension parts are cleaned and painted ready to assemble. The chassis is on trestles with a spare engine block and gearbox temporarily fitted as dummies to check clearances. I have created a new bulkhead from 1.5mm Aluminium.
This w/e I fitted most of the front suspension and re-assembled the steering rack which was in a pretty bad state with collapsed pinion shaft bearings and a missing n/s bush. I obtained a couple of sealed bearings from my local factor and adapted them to fit. It feels pretty tight and reasonably smooth now. I improvised a n/s bush, assembled with loads of nice sticky grease.
A feature of this overhaul will be my attempts to build and use an 'English Wheel', I want to re-create some of the fibreglass panels in aluminium, partly because I feel some of the f/g panels are a bit 'naff' and partly to make the body profile more faithful to the original ethos; the 1930 Alfa Romeo 6c cars, which I believe the original Marlin series of cars is loosely based on.
To start with the main targets for this treatment are the bonnet and scuttle. If I am successful I may rework some other parts like the boot lid and possibly create some cycle wings, time will tell. The English Wheel may simply be a way of converting nice aluminium sheet to scrap with trapped fingers along the way!!!
I will try to add some photo's in the next day or two.
Do we have any panel rolling/forming expertise here?
In the morning I plan to browse my local breakers yard in the hope I can find a suitable prop-shaft to make to replace the one I found fitted to the car which has been welded in the middle.
Robert
