3.16.2003-Zero Progress

As I've mentioned before there are going to be some long bouts of inactivity on the Alfa project.  Due to school, a severely limited budget, and lack of space during the wet winter months, there is not a lot I can do right now.  I was able to improve the garage space a bit this week through the addition of another cabinet.  My wife's office had an extra metal cabinet they were looking to get rid of, and I was happy to take it off their hands.  It's pretty big and although I had to move some things around in order to make space for it, I now have a place to store many of the Alfa engine parts.   They're no longer stacked on each other in the corner and the "de-clutterfication" of the garage helps make it a more usable work space.

I've also been somewhat distracted by the ticking timebomb that is the gearbox in my CS.  Last week it again refused to go in to reverse and made some unpleasant and rude protestations when pushed to do so.  This happened once a month or so and seems to be occurring more frequently now.  It's only a matter of time before it completely fails and so I'm once again on the search for a good 265 Getrag unit for the car.  The gearbox in the car now came from a junkyard donor whose history was unknown so I can't really complain.  It's a shame because it's otherwise a very quiet and smooth shifting transmission.  I need to drain the oil out and try to determine the nature of its crankiness, but I don't have much hope for it being something easily remedied.   These gearboxes are not rebuildable without lots of special, expensive tools and knowledge.

Once the weather gets nicer and stops raining so much we've got the goal of putting the Alfa in the garage to begin stripping the body completely. Chela's Z3, like most roadsters, is not fond of sitting outside day and night during the rainy season and with the rust-prone CS in the other bay there's no space left for another car.  Now if I had a three, or four, or five, or six car garage I wouldn't have this problem (I'd have another entirely different set!).

Ciao!

TJ