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Re: Spider Chassis Stiffener



Scott,

I installed a chassis stiffener on my 71 Spider and it was a lot of work. I do recall that I had to get longer bolts for the steering box side. The biggest problem was that the bolts for the rear trailing arm would not line up with the holes that were in the stiffener. The trailing arm bolt has to pass through part of the stiffener, part of the body, and the bushing of the rear trailing arm. The stiffener was about 3/8" longer than my car wanted to see. I don't know if Alfa used different jigs, or if my body was tired, but both sides were off by the same amount. I ended up working a tapered punch into the trailing arm bolt hole while I bowed the center of the stiffener downward. I think I also played around with different positions of the jack stands to flex the body to minimize the interference. I then worked the bolts in while prying on the punch. If I was doing it over again I would have replaced the trailing arm bushings. They need to be replaced now and it's going to be a real pain to get the bolts out now that they are under all that tension. I think even with all the hassle it was well worth it. It also gives you a nice jacking point just behind the front wheels that works well with a scissors jack.

Dick Stachowiak

71 Spider
71 GTV


On Thursday, March 20, 2003, at 06:22 PM, alfa-digest wrote:


Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 09:26:40 -0500
From: Scott Johnson <scott@domain.elided>
Subject: spider stiffies

The spider chassis was stiffend considerably in 1983 with the
introduction of the series 3 cars (see
http://spiderfaq.home.att.net/dev_his.htm#Series_3), but still nothing
compared to a modern car.

A chasis stiffener is actually on my short list for upgrades this year.
However, I have heard from a few folks that fitting them to the early
cars (which have a different steering box) is quite a challenge. Does
this track with others's experiences?

Scott Johnson
71 1750 Spider
Alfa Spider FAQ Author
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