South African 3 Litre GTV6

[GG105]

I took delivery of a SA 3 litre GTV6 in March. This is what it looked like. The carbies were stuffed so we couldn't get it run on all six cylinders and therefore were not able to test drive it. A set of rebuilt carries were purchased from the UK.
The car has been confirmed as genuine, one of the 208 built by Dawie De Villiers in SA, the guy who built them. This car is a 1984 model and has all of its original features unique to these cars, like the fibreglass bonnet and front spoiler and 7" Compomotive wheels. The engine is an Autodelta one unique to these cars with a different bore and stroke to the later factory 3 litres. The heads are different, of course, and they have extractors from the factory. The engines were sent out from Italy as kits. I have an idea the diff ratio may be different to the 2.5s, but am not sure about this.   

[GG105]

These are the new carbies. A work of art, its a same to cover them with an air cleaner.

John

[17fitty]

The sound will be phenomenal-especially without an aircleaner.I watch this space with keen interest

[Dna Dave]

Congratulations John, you will love the way the drive, they sound like a 105 without air filters on steroids,

Btw, i have spoken to Dawie on many occasions and he has confirmed that they ran standard gtv6 gearbox's.

Cheers

David

[carlo rossi]

I so want one
can I ask what is the going price for these
and how did you find it ?
The carby area bizzare 6 individual carbies on common throttles
they said they were hard to tune, I thought they would have had a version of dellorto like the
porsche 2 banks of  3 barrell carbs
and now I know why !
Sell it to me!
i want to buy your children. How much for the little alfa ?

[GG105]

Carlo, you are right on the tuning issue, it has been very hard to tune them. I think we're pretty close, but this has involved valve clearances and a lot of work.

The interior is very good, the seats haven't turned brown or green as they do, the dash isn't cracked and it has the original steering wheel.

It has rust in the lower doors and boot floor where it joins the beaver panel.  Once we have it running well, we intend to pull the engine, repaint the engine bay, do the rust repairs, including repairing the bumpers, refurbish the wheels and generally bring it up to scratch.

[105gta]

Nice buy there GG105, I'm sure you'll be happy with it after a bit of work. If you have any questions or need any advice I suggest getting in touch with KevinR on the 'other' forum specific to the model. He's a lovely guy with more experience than most others. He lives and breathes these, always willing to help.
P.s the extra Bonnet bolge really looks tough!

[Dna Dave]

John,

When you are ready to refurbish your wheels, let me know, the guy that did one of the sets on my south africian did a brilliant job.

David

[aggie57]

Very cool!  The history of these cars is intriguing and an integral part of the GTV6 story. Proves Alfa had the wherewithal to build a factory 3 litre well before the end of the cars life.

Look forward to seeing this progress. Thanks for sharing.

[julianB]

Congrats mate.
Green with envy!!

[GG105]

We have spent an inordinate amount of time tuning the GTV6. This involved making up a set of gauges for the carbs, so they didn't have to be removed every time there is an adjustment. We also had to re-engineer the linkages to make them work properly. The car now runs well.

The plan is that I road test it next week, following which, if we are all happy, knowing there are some minor clutch issues that need sorting, we may start to remove the engine for detailing. We also plan to detail the suspension, as we did with my 2.5.

The shell will then be sent away for an engine bay repaint and rust repairs to the shell.

[massiveluvbuddy67]

WOW! A significant car and will be fascinated to see any video and driving impressions.
Well done on bringing to Australia!
Phil

[GG105]

Time for an update. After installing the new carbies, modifying the linkages, tuning them and doing the valve clearances we still couldn't get the car to run on all six. When it did, it blew clouds of smoke. Removing the heads revealed the problem, number five cylinder showed oil was escaping past the rings. We have now pulled the engine out for a rebuild.

Stripping revealed some interesting things. The valves are larger than standard 3 litre valves and the piston cutouts were done by hand, not all terribly well, there is a mark on one where old mate slipped with the grinder. Bottom end is good. The car had what look to be slightly less than 9:1 pistons in it. Who knows if they were original. We have bought a set of 9:1s, you can get 10s. Centreline delivered five the same and one odd one plus rings that are too big

Photos to follow.

John

[GG105]

Happy new year everyone! May your Sud grow up to be a 8C 2900B Spider, or whatever else floats your boat

Whilst we have been gathering parts for the engine rebuild, more of which later, the car has had its cosmetics attended to. We have repaired some rust spots, a few PDRs and painted the underside of the bonnet. Much work has gone into repairing and painting the bumper bars and grey plastic parts. It has come up really well.

The engine has been quite a saga. I mentioned the Centreline piston debacle, not only that, they sent the wrong size rings. Globally, we could not source a 3 litre piston and liner set so we have bored the original liners and had oversize pistons made to match. We now have all the parts and engine reassembly has commenced.

The original airbox has been modified and we will bring this back to stock. The car has fabricated headers that don't look particularly glamorous, however, I think these may be original. I hope to meet with DNA Dave in the not too far distant future to compare notes

I will download some pictures shortly.

John

[GG105]

Progress report.

As with all rebuilds/restos things haven't gone exactly to plan. After the dramas with the pistons, despite a global search, it took weeks to find a new clutch.

The engine is finished and we were about to send the extractors off for ceramic coating when we realised that the drivers side are 44mm whilst the passenger side are 40mm! I wonder if someone in SA was scratching their heads trying to figure out why it wouldn't run properly

This meant we had to order new extractors, intermediate pipes with a repro rear. The new extractors are now out for coating.

None of my previous three GTV6s have had power steering and I've always thought this to be one of their major shortcomings. So, for the one I decided to add it. We've obtained the system from a 75 with all the bracketry, had it refurbished and it will go in. We've also sourced the bracket to change the aircon compressor to a rotary one. Ball joint risers are also going in.

The car is a pre isostatic build and whilst it's difficult to fit the full system, we may put the rear parts in, which can be bought from EB Spares. No decision on this yet.

I'll try to load some photos.

Cheers
John