Organizing and Planning Our Alfa Project

Mar 22, 2006 update to the Alfa Romeo 2000 GTV project car

The start of any new project is a unique mixture of excitement and anxiety. The massive amount of work that is in front of us seems daunting, while the site of a new project (and it’s smell!) are emotionally stirring. We’ve organized the boxes of parts that came with our car and have evaluated what the car will need. In short, just about everything.

Looking at how the Bertone-designed coupe was constructed, it appears as though the headliner will need to be replaced before anything else goes on the car. After that, we can install the windows (need seals!), door panels (yep, need those too) and stainless trim pieces.

Much of the car’s brightwork was stainless steel, but they used little normal steel screws to install it. We picked up a few bags of the correctly sized screws in stainless steel. Not factory correct, but it’ll look nicer in the long run.

Last night, we went out to our parts car and started picking off pieces. Some of the parts were good (rear window, side windows, rear bumpers) and some will need to be sourced elsewhere (rear taillights). We took the rear bumper home and used some CLR (Calcium, Lime & Rust) cleaner to remove the rust stains it had on it (it’s stainless, but it was stained by the car rusting around it).

It still needs some polishing, but it looks worlds better than the bumper we have. We’ll pick up the front bumper this weekend (we need to bring an angle grinder to cut through the bolts that hold it on, they are truly rusted together.

At this point, we’re starting to assemble a list of parts that we’ll need. Those include door panels, window seals and miscellaneous trim bits. We think we can actually use the ignition switch (and keys!) from the parts car for ours, as well as the locks from the door handles. We’ll see.