"Asatori" (Asatori)
08/26/2016 at 12:56 • Filed to: None
8
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"Asatori" (Asatori)
08/26/2016 at 12:56 • Filed to: None | 8
| 8 |
So the Giulia is still alive (sort of). In the past months I did quite a bit of neglected maintenance. Overhauled the brake system (rebuild calipers, new servo and cilynder etc), new clutch cilynder, got the dodgy electric fuel pump out and replaced it with a new mechanical fuel pump and so and so on.
All this maintenance was working up to my vacation: Last month I was in Sweden with the Giulia. Camping, seeing Stockholm, the airforce museum etc. And I visited a friend.
A 3.500 km (2200 miles) trip for the old girl.
Unfortunately we had a bit to much fun on Sweden’s gravel roads.. On what should have been the last evening we went for a last trip. Driveing onto a gravel road I did not recognise that the first part was still asphalt covered in dust instead of gravel. I turned onto the road thinking it was gravel, hit the throttle and wanted to slide through the corner. On gravel the back of the Giulia is really loose but easy to control. But without knowing it I tried starting a drift still on the asphalt, as I pushed the throttle deeper we suddenly got to the gravel and the car start oversteering wildly and spinning it’s rear wheels, As i counter steered to catch the drift the rearwheels got grip again and the ass of the car slammed the other way almost 180 degrees and landed me in a small ditch. Mangling the metalwork at the lower front of the car and puncturing the radiator. Stupid me, driver error (probably shouldnt have smoked that funny cigarette before we went out).
I had to get a friend in the Netherlands to ship me a new radiator and fan (I tried googling for vintage Alfa parts in Sweden but suddenly I realised why so many people stared at my loud boxy car: They had never seen one... So 4 days later I got my parts, tried to get the front metalwork in shape and dropped in the new radiator. The next day I drove the 1200 km (750 miles) trip home in 13 hours, reaching speeds of up to 170 km/h (really, that’s fast enough in a small old Italian car, for me at least). A German couple commented on it at a rest stop in germany, they told me I had overtaken them
in Sweden earlier in the morning and were suprised it was so fast.
Luckily the car is still straight and drives just as well as it used to.
So now I have to start saveing money to get the body work fixed and painted.. And it makes me wonder, should I no get the whole car done and change the color? I have dream of it beeing Nero Etna (black with red metallic in it).
If you really read all this you get a bonus: Some nice pictures of the Flygvapenmuseum:
Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
> Asatori
08/26/2016 at 13:00 |
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I love these. They’re boxy but so elegant.
cletus44 aka Clayton Seams
> Asatori
08/26/2016 at 13:27 |
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What an amazing trip! Love to see people enjoying old cars.
Jonee
> Asatori
08/26/2016 at 13:39 |
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Great car, and so cool you’re really driving the heck out of it. Battle scars just mean it’s been treated like a real car.
RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
> Asatori
08/26/2016 at 14:26 |
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Beautiful ride! Would love to have one someday, but their prices are so high to buy over here, or to import one.
I actually quite like the off-white of your Giulia! :) it’s not a common color anymore (at least here in Canada) and I always thought it was elegant. Red-tinged black would look gorgeous as well, but respects are costLay and could hurt value (if that white was the factory color...)
aberson Bresident of the FullyAssed Committe
> Asatori
08/26/2016 at 14:46 |
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1.3L engine?
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Asatori
> aberson Bresident of the FullyAssed Committe
08/26/2016 at 14:53 |
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2.0L Not original, but it came with the car when I bought it, and to be honest it’s quite nice those extra horses :)
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Asatori
> RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
08/26/2016 at 14:56 |
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Yeah I know right, I really started to appreciate the ivory white over time. Well I need to start saveing money first for the repairs so I still have some time to think about it.
socialjusticedisrupter
> Asatori
08/26/2016 at 22:55 |
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Wooohooooo PBY Catalina! Very few of those left flyable in the world.