1980 Alpine A310 V6

[countzero]

I wrote up a thread on my 2000 Renault Twingo where I happened to mention I also have a project 1980 Alpine-Renault. Thought I'd do a write up on it as well since it's genuinely retro.

I've always lusted for an Alpine-Renault, but I'm not able to afford the iconic A110, top ones fetching €50,000 or more and even basket cases out of my reach. The same goes for the later '80s and '90s GTAs which are not as expensive as the A110, but I still can't justify to myself taking a loan just to buy a 'toy' which I couldn't (daren't) use everyday throughout the year.

So, still badly wanting an Alpine, what choices did I have? Enter the A310 built from 1971 to 1985.



It has a cult following in France so prices are slowly starting to creep up towards (and over) €20,000 for a really nice one, but surveying the market revealed that a basket case could be had for maybe a fifth or a quarter of that money. But as with any rare specialist car, if buying a basket case, make sure the car is part-wise as complete as possible since buying those missing special parts can get REALLY expensive. Buying a minter that someone's already taken the plunge to restore would probably be the wisest buy financially in the long run, since restoration costs on that basket case will almost always be higher than what the car will be worth at the end. But like I said, I didn't want to mortgage the house, so a basket case it would be then. Buy one cheaply, then throw more cash in it whenever some becomes available.

With this wisdom(?) in mind I started the hunt. No basket cases for sale here in Finland: Alpines weren't sold here new. There was an interesting one for sale on the German mobile.de site. The price was a bit steep so didn't go for it then. A month or so later the same car appeared on the German eekBay, and this time I took on the bidding contest. Not going to travel from Finland to Germany just to see the car, all I could do was just email the seller some questions and hope he wouldn't lie too much (now they never do, don't they?) ;D

Finally the bid ended and guess who'd won it? Yep, I'm afraid it was I... Now I had legally agreed to buy the car, but there was no way I was just going to wire the money to the seller without ever having seem him or if the car really existed (and if he had the right to be selling it). Not being able to take leave from work I had to book a weekend flight from Helsinki to Hamburg and go see the car over a weekend. So one Saturday morning in dreary January 2010 I took off from the Helsinki airport and flew to Hamburg (it was the cheapest flight I could find).



Then spent four hours taking three different trains to reach the town where the car was situated.



Spent the night in a hotel in Braunschweig to be picked up Sunday morning by the seller and his girlfriend in a very tasteful and retro T2 bus:


We drove to a closeby village where the seller said the car had been standing in a barn from 2000 (iirc) when it had last been taxed and TÜV'd.



The doors to the Aladdin's cave opened and this is what was sitting inside:



Not the prettiest of paint jobs (or bodykits) but seemed to be the same car as in those eekBay pictures. A quick glance under the car revealed that this indeed was a basket case requiring a decent amount of work:



The car couldn't be started as there was no battery. I was however able to move the car when in neutral, so at least the gearbox wasn't completely jammed. Put in gear and rocking the car there was some rotation in the crankshaft pulley so the engine wasn't completely seized either. The brakes had been partially disassembled as there was something wrong with the callipers.

All in all it was a bit of a shock to realise I'd really bought a basket case, but then it was as described and what I had pretty much expected. No obvious parts seemed to be missing and nothing too expensive seemed to be beyond refurbishment. The engine and gearbox I wasn't too bothered about since they are standard Renault units, relatively easy to source even here in Finland.

As a nice bonus the car came with a legendary double exit Devil silencer...



... its condition nicely in sync with the rest of the car! ;D

I asked to see the car's and seller's papers to confirm identity of them both, then searched the car for the VIN which seemed to match the papers.

Everything seemed in order, so then it was time to strike a deal!



I'm not telling who's who, but they both seem to be smiling a bit too much! The seller can't believe he's finally managed to get rid of the old heap, and the buyer obviously and happily unaware what he's got himself into.... ;D

We then went to have some lunch in a restaurant, the seller buying as he now easily could afford it... Then a little sightseeing around the village in the T2 before they dropped me off at the Braunschweig railstation from where I started my trip back home. The plane touched down at Helsinki on Sunday night at 11pm, and an hour later I was home. Woke up for work next morning at 6.30am feeling all well rested (not).

Then it was time to arrange for the Alpine to be collected from Germany and transported to Finland. I could have tried to pennypinch and hire/borrow a trailer, ferry myself over from FIN to DE and collect the car myself. Things however were still hectic at work so I decided to leave the hassle to pros, and had the car professionally collected and delivered to my house. All in all this lasted a little over month, so late in February the Alpine finally arrived to its new home on the bed of this:



It was a bit of a struggle getting the car off the bed as the driver said the differential of the Alpine had locked solid and rear wheels wouldn't turn! *gulp*

Using my dad's 407 we pulled the Alpine off the bed using brute force. The back of the Alpine was attached to the winch cable of the tow vehicle just in case should the rear tyres decide to become unlocked...

Once off the bed we towed it downhill past the house as the garage is in the base floor. Luckily it was winter, so the locked rear wheels slid relatively easily on snow and ice. I was armed with a thick plank of wood I could throw in front of a tyre as a stop should the rear tyres suddenly free themselves.





There we rested for a while (and gave the 407's clutch a well deserved break as well). At that moment I felt the Alpine acted like a tired dog being walked and who plants firmly on the ground and decides: "I'm not taking a single step anymore!" ;D

We couldn't tow the Alpine all the way into the garage, so the last few meters we'd have to push it by hand. At this point we had to do everything to improve the car's mobility, the first step was to fill the underinflated tyres:



After this first aid we noticed that the rear wheels did in fact turn, so it was just that the tyres had been too flat for the wheels to turn. So no jammed diff like the tow ruck driver had thought. What a relief!

I then jacked up the rear and removed the wheel as movement was still very reluctant:







With gearbox in neutral I was able to turn the hub by hand, so the diff definitely wasn't jammed. But the right rear tyre had unseated itself and wasn't holding air:



Back then I didn't own a proper compressor, so I took the wheel and drove to the nearest petrol station where I popped the tyre back on. Had to remove the needle(?) in the valve though as otherwise couldn't get enough air in fast enough for the tyre to 'pop'.

Back from the petrol station and put the offending wheel back on. A warm garage is already waiting:



It's coming. Slowly, but it's coming:



Finally in:



As you can see it's a tout petite garage so some cramped sessions would be in order... But this was the story of getting the baby home, more actual progress from the last year and a half in my coming posts.

[EmDee]

Please Sir, can I have some moar?

[countzero]

Some specs on the car:

1980 Alpine A 310 V6

Engine: rear-mounted 2664 cc all-alloy Renault V6
Power: 150 bhp
Gearbox: 5 speed Renault transaxle
Body: 2+2, GRP bonded to steel chassis
Chassis: rectangular-tube steel backbone with welded-on front and rear subframes
Suspension: independent all round with a combination of Renault and Alpine suspension arms up front, Alpine double triangular wishbones at rear. Coil springs over shockers at each corner. Fully adjustable suspension geometry.
Brakes: Vented discs (228mm) front, unvented discs (260mm) rear
Weight: 980 kg
Top speed: 225 km/h (140 mpg mph, doh...)
0-100 km/h (0-62 mph): 7,5 sec

The engine is a Renault 30 unit that Alpine upped from 136 bhp to 150 bhp by fitting new cams higher compression pistons. Alpine also changed the steel sump for a ribbed alloy one. The carburation is a real gas works: There's one single-barrel Solex acting as a low speed carburettor, feeding all the six cylinders. When the throttle pedal is pressed more, the single-barrel activates a twin-barrel Solex pneumatically(!) to act as an accelerator carburettor. The amount of fuel, vacuum and coolant hoses around the carburettors is a bit overwhelming to say the least!

Here's the heart of the beast with the air filter removed:



The view under the front bonnet:



That's the air filter resting in the 'luggage bay', BTW. You can only fit one soft bag in the space, and it's really more sculpted for a spare wheel anyway. The luggage bay is actually only a tub made of thin plastic and lifts away revealing the plastic 62-litre fuel tank underneath:





Moving further back onto the roof and there's (sadly IMO) an aftermarket tilt sunroof cut into the roof panel.



I think this was probably fitted when the car was new since most of the German A310s seem to sport one. Maybe this was a popular dealer option?

Taking a glance in the once so glorious cockpit:



Nice fake sheepskin seat covers.

The 'A' throttle pedal is a genuinely nice and special touch:



The brake and clutch pedals however were rusted solid, more on those later....

The back seat in mint original condition:



I can fit in the back seat but then my knees are almost in my mouth, so it's really a '+2' only for very small children.

Venture back under the bonnet and remove another plastic panel, and we can see the wiper motor and heater fan box:



Then take a closer look in the rear engine bay where one of the electrical connectors breaks in dust just looking at it:



Being rear-engined the bay gets very hot so most of the wires and hoses have gone completely brittle in 30 years:

Then jack the front of the up and remove the wheel and we can see the front spring and shock:



The pressed steel upper arm is from a Renault 12 as is the reaction bar attached to it.



The rack I heard is from a RHD Peugeot 504 but was installed mirrored and flipped to become a LHD Alpine A310 steering rack! ;D

The tubular lower arm was done by Alpine themselves, there's a reaction bar attached to it as well. The vented brake disc comes from a Renault 12 Gordini. The cast iron hub carrier I don't know what it comes from but I don't think Alpine had an own casting made up.



All balljoints showed slight signs of deterioration, so still keeping in sync with the rest of the car...

Peak under the front suspension towards the centerof the car and there's the big rectangular chassis backbone that IS the chassis:





The car had been fitted with a Kleinemeier front spoiler and Alpine sill extensions from a Group 4 body kit. The Group 4 rally kit should also have wildly widened arches that go with the widened sills, but my car only had the 'narrow' standard wheel arches. This combination didn't look right so I had to do something about it. First took a closer look at the 'glass front spoiler which had come to closer terms with the ground at some point:



A previous crack had been laid over by some 'glass matting but they hdn't bothered to clean/roughen the area properly so the 'repair' was totally knackered as well:



Dozens of little screws were found under filler and matting, but finally the spoiler was coming off:



The lighter plain red underneath is the car's original colour, but it's been sprayed over at some point in that metallic darker red. In fact the car's been repainted also in its original red at some point after an accident. So its been repainted at least twice.

The Kleinemeier finally gave up, revealing the original Alpine front spoiler underneath:





There is some crazing to the original bumper spoiler (doh!) but generally its sound:



Most of the 'repair' work done after the obvious frontal crash is, how should put it, less than perfect perhaps:



Here's a better picture of the difference in shade between the original and current paint:



Then unbolted the front strut bar and lifted out the fuel tank:



A closer look at the brake servo and master cylinder from above:



Then started removing the rad. Promisingly brown coolant....





Twin rad fans FTW! ;D
(Wonder if either of them works...)

A closer look at the pipes coming to the front rad:



The coolant pipes run from the back of the car to the front rad through the central chassis backbone. Quite clever use of space there. Not quite so clever that the pipes are made from mild steel...

Then went on to free the delicate brake pipe unions using the proper specialist tool:





Removing the brake master from the servo:



Always promising when brake fluid leaks from between the two... ;D



New seals and I'm sure it'll be as good as new. Well that's what I'll have to do actually since a new master is a little shy of €400!!! It's a Renault 30 master cylinder but there's no stock left at Renault so sellers can ask what they bloody want.

Then take a peek from the front at the right side of the backbone and we can see the fuel hoses to and from the tank and the (squished) tank filler breather hose. The textured hose is the coolant hose from the heater matrix, now totally brittle:



You can also see two rigid pipes going to what is the rear brake pressure limiting valve. So this is mounted at the front and not load-sensing but fixed at 29 bar.

[dude]

What a beautiful and awesomely cool car!



Waiting eagerly for progress

[Siert]

Nice!!! More French stuff from Finland on RR!!! And this one is particularly nice!

See you some day in one of the joint French car club meetings / track days?

[countzero]

Another shot of the attempt at repairing the crash damage to the front body:



The pedal axle with clutch and brake actuator levers and the brake light switch:





A long rod runs from the brake actuator lever to the servo further front. The clutch hydraulic master cylinder also visible in that picture.

Brake and clutch hydraulic rigid pipes severely corroded:



Brake master cylinder cleaned and disassembled:



Surprisingly the bore seemed in fair enough nick:



But the seals had had it:



Those two have the same part number on them but are both well deformed. As are these two (originally) identical seals:



There isn't a repair kit available for this 23.76mm DBA cylinder off the shelf anymore, so I spent two days of my 2010 summer holiday visiting local garages trying to find some matching seals. Finally came up with these:



The one in the retro Lockheed Bendix package is a repair kit for Renault 4 rear drum brake cylinders, but it has two exactly right sized and shaped seals. The green package Frenkit is for a Mercedes Sprinter van master cylinder, and it has the two other required seals. It also has the grommets for the fluid hose inlets. This lot cost me under 10 euros, not bad considering the almost 400 euros for a new master cylinder. If I can't get it to work with thse it's still small money wasted.

Oh, took the cylinder to be cadmium-plated. Which was nice:





Cost five euros, not too bad for that money I think...

One of the front calipers that came in a basket (well this was a basket case car!)



The seller had said the brakes were sticking. A friend used to have many classic Renaults with that kind of alloy cylinder in a cast iron carrier and he pointed me to what might be causing the sticking. So I armed myself with a specialist cast iron brake cylinder carrier spreader and set to work:













There is some heavy electrolytic oxydation between the two different metals. This pushes the sides of the softer aluminium cylinder together, thus rendering the cylinder bore oval. And a round steel piston doesn't slide very well in an oval bore, therefore the brakes stick.

By this time I had bought a compressor and a little blasting cabinet, so I went on to get rid of the problem:







The same treatment was given to the other side and the rear calipers which are similar in construction.

[countzero]

Hello dude and Siert, nice to meet fellow Finns here! ;D

Jul 7, 2011 19:26:58 GMT Siert said:

See you some day in one of the joint French car club meetings / track days?

No doubt sooner or later, although it might be not in this decade I'll be able to take the Alpine there. But in the meantime if you see me in the Twingo just give me a shout.

[countzero]

One more update for tonight.

Remember I said the brake and clutch pedals were rusted and wouldn't budge? Now it didn't look too severe from the driver's footwell:



But underneath the car is was another story. I first tapped out the split pins securing the actuator levers to the splined pedal axle. Then it should be a case of reaching in the footwell and pulling the pedals left and out of the car. Well this is what the factory repair manual says.

In fact it took me over four hours of bashing, heating, banging, swearing, heating again, crying, bashing gentle persuasion before the bloody thing assembly shifted. Here's some pics along the progression:









One of the nylon washers took a little hurt from the heat I had to apply.

Sidetrack to a detail of the bodywork, the front bonnet hinges had seen better days:



I won't be tackling bodywork details for years yet, but managed to buy ALpine A310 boot hinges from a local hardware shop for a fiver. ;D





Just need to modify the fixing plates a little, but interesting to see Alpine picked their hinges from a kitchen cabinet accessory catalogue!

Removing all the rusty and dirty bits from under the car I decided I want ed to attack the bodywork for a change. Remember I said I didn't like those Gr.4 sills with the original narrow arches? Well, I'd decided I wanted to go for a standard narrow body instead of a Gr.4 wideboy, so the next taskwas get rid of the Gr.4 sills. This is how they looked like from below:



They're only fixed at the top and the ends. The curvy surface there is the original standard sill.

A closer look at the front end of the sill:



Bring out the rotary wire cup brush:





That revealed some pop rivet ends under the paint and filler. And take a look between the sill's end and the inner wing. The bodyman must have bought his filler by the bucketloads....

Some more grinding and poking with a screwdriver and there was this yellow sheet of plastic used to form the end of the sill:



Then ground down some material from above, trying to guestimate where the original body surface would be under that sill extension:



Then drilled some guide holes from below:





When starting to remove material, if I stayed outside of those guide holes I shouldn't damage the original body. Then set to work with a small cutting disc:



I had expected the wheel to quickly cut through some glassfibre matting, instead I found myself cutting into a multiple centimeters thick layer of body filler! Quite a filler artist who'd grafted the sills on...

As there was such a thick layer of filler I couldn't estimate where the body surface is and didn't to risk cutting into it. I therefore ground off the heads of the pop rivets then yanked the yellow end closing plate out:



Finally I could see the original sill end and wheelarch underneath. Now I could cut through the remaining filler.

Then it was time to attack the section under the door. A rotary wire brush cut through the paint, filler and glassfibre quite easily:





Then it was the backend of the sill. A glance from beneath and there was a similar yellow plate as in the front:



Then drilled some guide holes again from below and started cutting through filler:



At this point I took out my Vernier caliper just to check that tere really was an over 8mm thick layer of filler on that end plate. Class workmanship:



Then it was time for the section between door and rear arch. Luckily the pant and filler had sunk revealing what looked like screwheads or pop rivets:



Some gentle grinding later and yup, they're rivets allright:





Relieved them all of the filler, then ground off the heads of the rivets.

After that the sill extension came off easily if not exactly cleanly:



Barely noticeable amounts of body filler were left behind: ;D



Next I studied the door aperture, located the rivets, drilled them off and started chiseling filler off:



Then started attacking the remaining filler with an angle grinder and a flappy disc:





Then some coarse sanding paper:



Same for the front arch:





What a mess!



All that remained on this side was the removal of the unsightly rear 'mud flap':













The left side of the car sill waited a similar treatment. I only have two pics from that side:



The amount of dust in the garage was unbelievable, absolutely everything got covered in this:



Here's yours truly properly geared up:



;D

That's enough for tonight, nighty night!

[teaboy]

That's brilliant.

Well done for getting rid of that body kit.

[RetroWarwicK]

Brilliant - looks much better without the bodykit!

[Robinxr4i]

Proper cool seriously!

Anyway unless I missed it somewhere else in the thread, is it staying red or is a colour change in order?

[mrj]

fantastic ! I love these cars, wasn't brave enough to buy one... when i was working at a Renault dealership we were looking at the parts prices , they are really really expensive....

[BigDaftAl]

My Mrs just doesn't understand why I sit with a coffee engrossed in reading about someone else's car when my own car is sat on the drive crying out for my attention! ;D

Excellent thread, I can't wait to see more & dying to see the end result. I love these cars!

[stealthstylz]

I liked the front spoiler but not the rest. Good work on getting the sills off cleanly.

Matt

[Brigsy]

Looks a lot better without the kit, good work

[danielt]

I'm glad you're taking that body kit. Keep the photos of the work coming! It's gonna be an amazing car!

[countzero]

Thanks again for all the comments.
So far no-one I've spoken to has missed losing the sills, so the opinions seem to be one-minded on that one.

After removing the sills I had to roll the car out of the garage to give both a good dustbusting. I knew I was going to start working on the front suspension and frame, so I removed the front wheels and gave the chassis a good jetwash to get rid of all the dirt. Here's the car in all its post-bodykit glory:



I then pushed the car back in to start dismantling the front suspension. The parts were still rusty but having been washed they were at least reasonably clean. Much nicer to work then:



The rubber bushes on the reaction bars weren't day one either, this one being the best:







There wasn't much room to undo the nuts but I got there in the end. Next job was undoing the upper suspension arm bolt:



Funny design: The bolt can't be extracted from underneath the car. Instead dig in to the footwell and unbolt the metal kickpanel:



Then you can pull the bolt out through a hole in the bulkhead:





That little design quirk put a smile on my face...

After unbolting a bit more bits and bobs the entire suspension fell off the car:



Here's the RHS wheelwell emptied:



Next stop: Steering rack.







That's the steering rack and brake pressure limiter out.

With the main components out the next job was to start de-rusting the front of the frame.

I should first explain that I'm not going to concours-restore the car at this point. The goal is just to get the car running, taxed and MOT'd first, then get to know its faults and faibles on the road. Then perhaps one day (probably when already retired...) tackle a full on restoration.

With that explained you might understand why I didn't choose the thorough way of lifting body off chassis, having the chassis sandblasted and galvanised etc. I want to be able to drive the car, albeit be it in a cosmetically tatty state.

OK, it was still winter outside and I couldn't sandblast 'free-air' in the garage, so I opted to wirebrush and sand the surface rust off. Didn't seem like a big job when I started, but I soon learned that the square chassis tubes have umpteen different surfaces to sand. And some of them very hard to reach. So all in all it turned out to be a huge job. Almost regretted I hadn't chosen to lift the body off....

Not much pictures taken of the de-rusting. Most of the rust was purely surface rust, the only more serious bits were on the upper spring cups:



Some deeper pitting there, but not enough yet to require new metal.

Then treated the metal with Maston Stop Rust, which is a Kurust-type solution that turns rust into an inert oxyde and forms an airtight barrier.



Then sprayed on some black Hammerite:





Finally a coat of spray-on stonechip:



The Alpine won't see any winter use, so that treatment will be more than enough to stop the frame from deteriorating any further. Plus it'll be nicer to bolt up reconditioned parts to a clean frame.

Just a small sample of the old nuts and bolts:



Some special hard-to-obtain fasteners will be cleaned and reused but most replaced with new.

Some of the small parts cleaned/blasted ready to take to cadmium-plating:



The clutch pedal actuator lever will need that elongated hole welded up and redrilled:



Starting to take the clutch master cylinder apart:



The same part after having been sandblasted in my cabinet:



Also received a packet from Simon-Auto in Germany, some of its content being these Eibach springs and height-adjustable Spax shock absorbers:



The old front springs were too short for the Konis, plus I wanted to be able to fine tune the stance so went for the Spaxes even though the Konis seemed to be in good condition.

There's a noticeable difference in the length of the old & new dampers, here the fronts:



Then it was time to start reducing the front suspension components to their individual parts. Here the lower suspension arm for example:



I don't know what you call this part at its inner end, but it's threaded to the main tube:



That enables the front camber to be adjusted by turning the end in or out so that the length of the lower arm decreases or increases.

Before taking that apart I punched a reference mark to help on reassembly. After a little sandblasting I could see someone had already beaten me to it:



Some extra leverage needed to unscrew the part:



A friend pressed out the old bush out of the end part for me at his work, then pressed a new bush in. And the same for the other side, naturally.

Then sandblasted the lower arms with the inner ends and the balljoints removed:



Then started blasting the hub axle carriers:



Noticed this interesting logo in the casting:



Now that couldn't be AC Cars (as in AC Cobra) Anyone recognise what car those carriers could be from?

I gave the sandblasted parts a coat of zinc primer to stop them from rusting before I'd finally get to spray on some 2-k polyurethane.



And the first batch of small parts cadmium-plated:



After spending countless weeks sandblasting parts with my quite 'toy' blaster the mojo was getting a bit thin and the project halted for many months in July 2010. Actually I got sidetracked to ordering parts for and personalising my new Polo...

With spring 2011 approaching I kicked myself on the butt, admitted defeat and took the rest of the bigger parts to be sandblasted by a professional:



Sandblasting that lot would probably have taken me six months with my equipment... Seeing that box of clean parts was enough to kickstart the mojo, so that was 30 euros well spent!

I'd managed to put some paint and clearcoat over the disassembled and 'blasted brake calipers before running out of mojo, so now they were well cured. Time to put them back together. Didn't want to ruin the new finish so couldn't use my earlier, quite crude spreader. Thought about it for a moment, then went and bought a cheap tool normally used to drive the caliper pistons back in. But it worked for this task as well, enabling a 'gentle spread'.



Didn't put the pistons or new seals in at this point though because I didn't want them to sit unused and dry for longer periods.

Then bought some 2-k polyurethane marine paint and a cheap spray gun and water trap for my compressor. It was still cold outside so couldn't paint there, but the Alpine didn't have a front suspension so it couldn't be pushed outside either. Ended up creating a really professional spraying line by rigging some cords from wall to wall:



There's barely enough room in the garage to walk around the car, let alone for all these extra bits hanging everywhere. By careful planning I managed to spray all the components in two batches.















Despite the working space not quite fulfilling WLO requirements ;D the end results were more than satisfying! Once again a huge mojo boost.

[countzero]

Still more parts to paint, here some new track rods and ends:



Then some new balljoints:



I could have made my life easy and order new A310 balljoints from a specialist like Simon-Auto. But I wanted to be cheap, so started to hunt down some NOS from local parts stores. And why pay silly money for special Alpine parts when you happen to know that e.g. the balljoints are the same as a bog usual Renault 12! There's only a slight difference which can be seen here:



The new unmodified R12 part on the left has smaller bolt holes than the old A310 one on the right. For some reason Renault used 6mm bolts to secure the balljoints when their Alpine division went for 8mm bolts. Was the mod needed because R12 tops out at 150 km/h while A310 continues all the way up to 225 km/h, so extra strength needed?

Time to mod the R12 parts for the A310 then:



De-burred, then masked up ready for painting:



Steering axle intermediate shaft and ARB drop links blasted ready for paint:



Those drop links are actually new repro parts but of terrible quality, modified from shorter standard R12 droplinks. The end bolts were obviously welded in by Stevie Wonder, then the original cadmium-plated finish was given a coat of black paint to hide the weld. Unfortunately the paint was badly scraped and flaking, so I chose to blast these new parts and paint them over.

More parts in primer (including the steering rack which I'll introduce later):



Also plugged up the 29bar brake pressure regulating valve and sandblasted the cr*p out of it (literally):



Primered, then painted in the usual 2-k polyurethane:



More painting....









And finally had the elongated hole in the clutch pedal lever welded up:



Had to renew the track rods & gaiters and really didn't want to just put them on a dirty rack, so decided to strip and refurbish the rack as well. Taking it apart:



The track rods are secured to the rack against unscrewing with this intend punched in the securing collar, so had to drill/grind that bit off first:



Then retracted the rack from its casing, after which I could remove the worm gear(?) that the steering axle intermediate shaft attaches to:





The empty casing with its cast alloy other end:



The rack completely disassembled:



The casing needed to be sandblasted to clean the alloy casting and remove rust from the steel tube. This I did myself using the cabinet:



The steering rack was probably manufactured in the 9th month of 1979:



For some reason I wanted the rack to look really nice (now who doesn't like a nice rack? --- Sorry, couldn't resist...) ;D so took extra care to smooth the pitted steel tube. I first masked off the alloy end, then sprayed the steel tube first with zinc primed followed by high-build filler primer. Then flatted it out. I then sprayed the steel tube black with the other suspension and steering parts.

After the paint had dried I unmasked the alloy end and then in turn masked of the now shiny painted steel tube. The alloy had naturally lost its sheen in the sandblasting, so I brought the shine back by first wirebrushing it with a steel brush, then a softer copper brush. Both 'manual' i.e. NOT a rotary brush attached to a drill.

The brushing gave the aluminiun back its 'factory' satin sheen which I protected by spraying on a good few coats of clearcoat. Here it is, letting the clearcoat cure:



Then it was time to reassemble the thing. The worm gear bearings were fine after cleaning, so I reused them. I had had the blanking plates cadmium-plated so those looked fresh too.

OK, first insert the cleaned and thinly greased rack. Then the worm gear, followed by the spring loaded plunger that takes care of the slack between worm gear and rack:



Worm gear blanking plate ready to go on:



It originally had a paper gasket but I was lazy and used mastic. Had to remove one of the very thin shim rings that can be seen around the fresh grease in the above picture. There was no longer a 'thick' paper gasket between the blanking plate and the casing so with the original thickness of shims the worm gear endplay was too small, causing that the rack wouldn't turn without feeling 'jerky'.

Then it was time to put in the new track rods. There are no flat spots on the ends of the rack bar to put a spanner onto, so you'll have to stop the whole assembly from turning by holding against from the other side track rod. My bench vice acted as a steady spanner while I tightened the other end with a real spanner:



I then had to secure the track rods against accidentally undoing themselves.

Unsecured:



Secured:



Not the prettiest execution but it works. And I didn't scratch that rack surface, it was already scratched!

Then slid new gaiters over the track rods:



Didn't fasten the other side gaiter until I'd poured in 100ml of EP-quality (Extra Pressure) hypoid gearbox oil as specified by the factory service manual. Alpine opted oil instead of grease, maybe it gives a nicer, well-oiled steering feel??? ;D

Finally screwed on the new, painted track rod ends and that was the steering rack ready to go back in the car:



Refitting it to the car, the steering axle intermediate shaft went in first. Here being mated to the splined shaft coming from the steering wheel:





Then manipulated the steering rack in place and mated the lower end of the intermediate shaft to the splines of the worm gear:



The left side of the rack bolted to the frame:



And the right side:



There's also the fresh painted brake pressure limiter bolted in place.

Pleased with that I took the freshly painted brake servo and started decorating it. On went the one-way vacuum valve with its rubber grommet. I had also managed to save the original blue sticker, so glued that back on:



Looked at it and felt good.

[countzero]

Jul 8, 2011 9:00:29 GMT Robinxr4i said:

Proper cool seriously!

Anyway unless I missed it somewhere else in the thread, is it staying red or is a colour change in order?

Thanks!

I think I may give it a quick&cheap DIY paintover in the original red at some point to make it look slightly less tatty.

But as I find red sportscars a bit of a cliché, I'll probably end up changing the colour completely once all the bodywork problems have been thoroughly and properly sorted. At the moment I'm thinking light metallic silver with on black/polished 15" Gotti A53s.

Anyway it's got to be a fairly light colour and preferably metallic: I think the arrow-like profile and sharp body lines are beautifully brought alive in a light colour when the differences in the reflection of light on differently oriented surfaces are enhanced. Paint an angular car like A310 in a dark shade or black and it loses much of its finer details. Unlike with a bulbous, rounded design where black works great.

[mdh]

Sweet! Looks so much better with the STD bodywork.