I also Faxed Norm at Re-Originals DownUnder a list of parts needed for the project to proceed. These included all the rubber bits and hubcaps, head light surrounds, light lenses and a Grille.

Thursday the 24^th of September I got an answer from Norm at Re-Originals DownUnder about the bits they could help me with and I phoned back to order all the rubber bits, window and door rubbers, pedal rubbers boot seal etc.

Saturday the 27^th of September, real work started on the project. This was also an important day for fans of Australian Rules Football. My home town team, the Adelaide Crows, won the championship against an arch rival a Victorian team. All Victorian teams are arch rivals, there is a Football war between Adelaide and Melbourne, and the Crows had only been in the league for a few years. Oh the humiliation for the Victorians. Can't be too horrible about Victorians, the other 2600 owners who are helping me find bits for my 2600, are Victorians, crawl grobble etc. So far Ian James has found me a good boot lid (trunk lid) and front and rear bumper sections.

The rest of Saturday the 27^th was spent taking the carbies off with the motor in the car, an almost impossible task. The rear carby would not fit over the steering column but I won that round when I took the two top mounting studs out. I will put everything back on the motor before I put the motor back in the car one day.

I also unbolted most of the ancillaries under the bonnet (hood), in readiness to take the motor out soon. In spite of all the rust, most nuts and bolts came out without any trouble, with the help of a very expensive can of rust remover stuff.

On the 9^th of October Andrew Harrison got back to me with a list of suppliers who may have some of the parts I need. The most interesting one of these so far is Eric Van Cauwenbergh in Belgium. He has door repair sections available.

The Friday the 10^th of October was another red letter day in the project. Ondrak & Körber of Munich in Germany, got back to me and I ordered the following parts. was another red letter day in the project. Ondrak & Körber of Munich in Germany, got back to me and I ordered the following parts.

• Bonnet (DM 450 plus shipping cost of DM 175)
• Door handles, left and right (DM 119 each)
• Grille heart (DM 370)
• Left an right rear light lenses (DM 145 each)
• Two reverse light lenses (DM 45 each)
• Two orange front indicator lenses (DM 45 each)
• (Plus shipping charge on the other items at DM 90)

On the same day I also got an Email from Joel Hailey of International Auto Parts in the USA. He advised me of the price and availability of the Bertone Shield, the 2600 Sprint badges, and Alfa Romeo badges, from his company. (Joel Hailey, IAPtech@international-auto.com) As the Australian Dollar is dropping like a stone in sympathy with the Asia currencies, I will hold off getting these for a few months.

Tuesday the 21^st October 1997: Eric Van Cauwenbergh Faxed me a list of the repair section available and they exceeded my wildest expectations. Front and rear valance, door sections and surprise, surprise, wheel arch repair sections. He even has what looks like the radiator support panel and the strengthening bit that goes back to the suspension.

Saturday the 24^th October: At a special National AROCASA meeting in Sydney, I got to talk to two experienced 2600 restorers and possibly found more parts I will require. Ian James has found me quite a few other parts and I will look at these while in Melbourne at the end of November. Andrew Papadopoulos may have some headlight surrounds also, I need these badly.

Sunday the 26^th October: Mathias Körber faxed me to offer me complete tail lights instead of the lenses as he had found them to be in poor condition. The new lights were priced at DM185, a huge discount on the usual price, thanks Mathias.

Saturday the 1^st of November, I removed the Grille and the front lights, and the rest of the interior and seats. Much as I expected, I found the only bad portion of the floor is under the drivers feet on the right hand side. Now I must decide if it is easy to simply plate over the area or obtain a new floor section from Erik. I also had a good look at the gaurds and will need repair sections for right hand front and rear and left front. The inner side sills look good so far but the front and rear of each is rusted for about 300 - 400 mm in from the end. At this I don't think new outer sill skins are required, I will make my own repair sections.

On the 12^th of November Erik got back to me with all the answers to my questions and a list of what he has available. The only problem is the cost of getting the goods out here from Belgium, the Post Office does not seem to keen on Surface Mail and Air Mail will be very expensive. I will look at getting them sent to another European Country and then sent Surface Mail from there, and I will also look at having some of the items custom made here DownUnder, it may work out cheaper for bulky items.

Thursday the 13^th of November 1997 was another very important day in the project. The first shipment of parts from Ondrak & Körber arrived in Customs, here in Adelaide. On the way to work the next day I stopped at Customs and payed the Duty and Sales Tax owing, and picked up the goods. This little exercise cost me A$28.59 Duty (3%) and A$259.34 Sales Tax (26.4%), on goods worth A$953.79. For my money I got all the goods above except the Bonnet (Hood), it is comming by Sea Mail and I don't expect to see it before Christmas. The Duty on parts for cars over 30 years is a reasonable 3% but younger cars attract Duty of at least 45%. My biggest fear with getting the Bonnet has been that the Postman may try to fold it up and put it in the letter box, not much chance of that, because it will go to customs first. was another very important day in the project. The first shipment of parts from Ondrak & Körber arrived in Customs, here in Adelaide. On the way to work the next day I stopped at Customs and payed the Duty and Sales Tax owing, and picked up the goods. This little exercise cost me A$28.59 Duty (3%) and A$259.34 Sales Tax (26.4%), on goods worth A$953.79. For my money I got all the goods above except the Bonnet (Hood), it is coming by Sea Mail and I don't expect to see it before Christmas. The Duty on parts for cars over 30 years is a reasonable 3% but younger cars attract Duty of at least 45%. My biggest fear with getting the Bonnet has been that the Postman may try to fold it up and put it in the letter box, not much chance of that, because it will go to customs first.

Sunday the 30^th of November 1997 while visiting Melbourne for the Spettacolo, I organised quite a few parts from Ian James.
(n) = new (gu) = good used.

• Speedometer (n)
• Rear Bumper brackets (gu)
• Column high/low beam switch (n)
• Inside light switch (n)
• Heater switch (n)
• Panel dimmer (n)
• Red panel lamp (n)
• Blue panel lamp (n)
• Pair bonnet hinges (n);
• Pair door hinges (n)
• Pair Bertone badges (n)
• Grille badge (n)
• Boot badge (n)
• Dash padding (gu)
• Front bumper centre (gu)
• Rear bumper centre (gu)
• Boot lid (gu)
• Four hub caps (gu)
• Number plate light (gu);

As Pat. and I had travelled to Melbourne by plane we could only take the smaller items home with us so we arranged for a friend to bring them to Adelaide at Christmas time.

Tuesday the 23^rd of December 1997, the rest of the parts from Ian James arrived from Melbourne via Geoff Unsworth. Geoff is responsible for the manufacture of quite a few repair sections for 105 and Alfetta Alfa's, I will put up details of these and where to get them in the new year. My Christmas Holidays start today and I have to the 27^th of January off.

To celebrate the holiday, I spent some time at Bills place today and removed the front windscreen and the instruments. I then took the instruments home and pulled them apart, the chrome surrounds are rusty and will have to be re-chromed or replaced. If this works out fine I will do the same to the small gauges in my 74 Spider, it has the same problem.

Wednesday the 24^th of December 1997, I got notification from the Customs department my Bonnet (Hood) had arrived and was awaiting collection.

Tuesday the 29^th, went to customs and picked up the bonnet. It was very well packaged and arrived in good condition. The Bonnet cost A$623.75, A$370.64 for the Bonnet, A$144.14 for transport, A$11.12 for Duty and A$97.85 Sales Tax.

Wednesday the 30^th, with the help of neighbors and friends, and Neds truck, shifted the 2600 from the garage beside Bills house to the workshop on the other side of the creek, ready to start work in earnest on Friday, all being well. Although the distance we had to shift the car was only about 100 metres (300 ft) the problem is Bills block has a creek running through the middle of it. We had to take the car via a lane and three roads, hence we needed Neds old Dodge truck.

Friday the 2^nd January 1998, spent four hours pulling more bits off and looking at the true extent of the rust. Came upon quite a revelation, the original colour of the car was Marron Visone, AR523, not a very sporting colour, and this explains the red interior, Alfa Romeo would have never made a car with red both inside and out. The Italians are far more colour aware than that.

Saturday the 3^rdto Tuesday the 6^th, Spent five hours on Saturday and another 5 hours on Sunday, removing more bits. On Sunday Brett Naggs, one of the younger Club members, called in just in time to help me remove the engine. I have all the brake bits in a box ready to take and have rebuilt, and a lot of brackets and other bits ready for the sand blaster.

On Monday morning I went too look for some more parts locally and only came home with two new side indicators at A$16 each. I was hoping to get some new headlights but it seems as though they are no longer available. Then I negotiated to have the car sand blasted on Thursday morning, I suppose I will bring home less car than I take to the blasters. I then spent another five hours removing the last of the bright trim parts from the body. This was difficult because most of the PK screws were rusted badly. I found the best way to get most of them out was to tap then left and right a few times with a very small chisel, this loosened them enough so I could remove them, often with the aid of diagonal cutters. Tuesday was spent pulling the last bits off and scrubbing all the old sound deadener felt out of the body.

Photos: Thursday the 8^th January 1998 Took the car to the sand blasters and he suggested it be steam cleaned first. This means I will not get it back until Friday or even next Monday. I started building a new wiring loom for Bill's Mk 2 Jaguar during December and so now I don't have my car to work on for a few days I can finish this off.

Friday the 9^th January 1998 Got a Phone call from the sand blaster asking me to come an have a look at what he had found before he goes any further. He had found great areas of plastic filler in many areas of the body. The front was particularly bad. After some consideration I decided to proceed, have gone too far now to stop and any other body I may find may be just as bad. Also received an interesting email from Michael van der Smeede describing a 2600 he has just acquired. I fell better about mine now. When I get the car back I will take more photos and next week I will travel around some coach builders and metal work shops getting quotes for the panels I need. These include the two valences and the quot;nose", I can fix the rest myself.

Monday the 12^th January 1998 Called in to see how the sand blasting was going after sorting out the wiring on a fellow Club members 1600 GT under restoration. The damage does not look as bad as it did on Friday. Rain today delayed picking up the car, and this will have to wait until there is no chance of moisture in the air. Adelaide at this time of the year is usually hot and dry with day time temperatures of 30 to 38° C.

Tuesday the 13^th January 1998 The morning was clear with no sign of rain so I went to the sand blasters, paid for the job (A$500), and organised the tow truck to take the car home.

The car arrived back in Bills workshop at about 10AM and I took photos of it and started to cut rusty bits off. Before long the sky turned black and my worse fears looked like eventuating. If the weather turned damp the car would rust very quickly, even in the workshop. I got out the Red Brown Primer and sprayed every square inch of the car with a good coat to protect it. No sooner had I started spraying than the heavens opened up and we had 15mm of rain in about 10 mins.

The rain was so heavy it washed into the front of the workshop and I had to stop painting for a while to dig drains to get the water away. In the next hour we had 55mm of rain. The strange part about it was it was only in the local area, most of the rest of Adelaide did not get a drop. Adelaide has yearly rainfall of about 600mm and is mostly dry during the first three months of the year.

Photos: Wednesday the 14^th to Friday the 16^th January 1998 The next few days was spent chopping rusty bits out and exploring the best way to go about rebuilding the mess. In the mean time I got word of another body here in Australia but not knowing what condition it was really in, having gone as far as I have with this one, and taking into account the cost of getting the body here to south Australia, I pushed on with what I have.

The weather for the next few days was hot but I worked in the cool of the morning and by Saturday I had the car ready to start welding metal back into it.

Photos: Close inspection of the side sills revealed it would be better to cut them off and replace them, I should have no problem finding a metal work shop to fold and roll new ones from my sample. I could also fix some bad repairs on the ends of the sills.

The 2600 Project index

Ready for action

Cutting away the rust

Chapter two, the point of no return

Written by and Copyright ©, Phil. Storr, last updated 4^th January 2005