Re: Spider Chassis Stiffener

[Dick Stachowiak <stachowiak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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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