Alfetta GTV

GIUGIARO GORGEOUSNESS

We tackled a few of the relatively easy items first: rear suspension bushes, springs, and new adjustable Konis, refurbed the bright-work, and fettled the interior. There were five minor but annoying issues with the engine/ clutch and gearbox/overdrive. None on its own would warrant removal of the assembly but put them all together and it was a no-brainer. We started on the cylinder heads. All valve clearances were within specification except for No. 7 inlet. This was the rattly one. It was strange, though, because after replacing a concave shim it had no clearance at all. We fitted as thin a shim as we could without having the cam follower hitting the valve keepers, but there was still no clearance. This was not making sense so off came the head. We didn’t have a valve spring compressor so we took the head to Tom Taylor’s in Auckland.

Paul took one look at it and said, “These aren’t Stag valves. Who has worked on this head?”

It turns out the No. 7 inlet valve seemed to be collapsing so it was only a matter of time before a catastrophic failure. Paul thinks the valves were from a Toyota but certainly not Stag anyway. With that we decided to bring the rest of the engine in for a rebuild. Now it has all new timing gear, valve gear including followers, guides, and springs, 16 shiny new valves, and new Hepolite ring and big end bearings. It should be good for a few more thousand kilometres. difference in the drive.

While the engine assembly was out we stripped the body of all its finery and delivered the rolling shell to Roy Buckridge Paint and Panel for a full strip and repaint. The car wasn’t too bad at first glance but on a closer look every panel had some sort of issue. No rust to speak of but poor preparation in the past had begun to show. The body is now fully treated, cavity waxed, and repainted to current-standard Pimento.

We refitted the engine and included stainless exhaust headers. It was impossible to drop the assembly in with those headers in place so off they came. Fitting the right-side header and getting the studs and nuts on with the engine installed earned the car a ‘D’ for Difficult — and then we found that when the steering column was being refitted it fouled the No. 1 header pipe. There was no option but to mark the spot, remove the header, apply a little heat, and press a dimple into the pipe. It now has clearance and looks like it was always intended to be that way. We replaced the worn out Strombergs with a Stag Weber two-barrel, downdraught carburettor and cold air intake. We then finished it off with a cooling system header tank, Supergill radiator core, and Revotech electric fan.

We got it all up and running just two days before heading off on a 1500km road trip with some mates down the East Coast of the North Island. We took the torque wrench and pulled the heads down three more times until they had settled and wouldn’t take any more re-torquing. HB 402 went like the proverbial and never missed a beat.

Now we have almost finished the restomod job. A new Brian Turner mohair hood has been fitted and the car is pretty much as new. We’ve still got Koni struts to fit to the front but no need to touch that yet as the front end, including the steering rack, was all done only about 30km ago.

It’s really great to have an originallooking Stag that runs and drives better than new. We’ve got a road trip up north in February, then after the 50th anniversary gathering at Windsor Park, Hastings we are off on a South Island road trip for the rest of March.

In the midst of our project I had a significant birthday so Jenny organized a Stag replica 60th birthday cake. Tastiest Stag I’ve ever eaten!

Neville was hands on for more of the work than you might suspect. “I removed the gearbox totally by myself, and refitted it,” he says.

That’s still somewhere on the astounding scale, even if gearboxes are relatively easy to locate and isolate. How could he be sure he was actually taking it out and not taking it apart? “And winding up with a faceful of oil?” asks Neville, with a laugh.

Neville lost his sight due to a genetic condition that came on slowly. He used to work in the trade, so is familiar with what components look like in general terms and he can literally fill in the blanks with his hands.

“A lot of the stuff you have to do on a car you do by feel anyway,” he says. “You can’t see the two bolts you have to loosen to remove the distributor on the Stag.”

And Neville says that he learned as he went, adapting as his condition worsened to the point where he is now 100 per cent blind.

“Once you’ve learned something, you’ve learned it and things don’t take too long to come back to you,” he says.

Like removing and disassembling a driveshaft and fitting new universal joint crosses, which Neville has done, simply working in the conventional way with a vice and a few hand tools. He says that Stags are relatively easy to work with, which, it’s worth pointing out, isn’t a view shared by some sighted mechanics.

As someone who spends half his time in his shed looking for tools he had in his hand five minutes ago, I can barely conceive of how Neville avoids driving himself mad. Well, he has a system, of course: “I have the car up on stands and I consciously think of it and put tools next to one of the stands.” There’s a pause. “It doesn’t always work.”

Neville says that his wife Jenny plays a massive role in enabling his independence and is highly attuned to stepping in whenever he needs a pair of eyes. While Neville will work alone on the car, Jenny will answer the call if Neville drops a nut or a bolt and can’t find it by feeling around on the floor. “I can’t say enough about how great she is,” says Neville. He also can’t tell the difference between a tube of grease or Coppercoat, so Jenny gets called in for that too, but that gives us some idea of just how much Neville can achieve on his own.

Neville remembers the Stag well from the ’70s but choosing one to restore did involve asking friends to help him check it out. He says that the first thing he did was crawl underneath to waggle the half shafts and check the splines, but he had Jenny and other friends on hand to check the car’s body was as straight as the owner had said it was. He could also learn just as much as the next person from listening to the engine and getting a feel for the gearbox and suspension.

He has handled almost every part of it, bumper to bumper, and even though he has never seen it, Neville knows and understands his car better than most. But in common with many other restorers, he could not have done it without the help at crucial times of friends and members of the NZSOC. “They are great people and I love the camaraderie,” he says.

So why restore a car? “It’s about giving it a go,” says Neville. He is still active in his career as a director of the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand, and, because it’s there, he and his wife decided to walk the Milford Track earlier this year. Repeatedly climbing descending a flight of stairs might have been easier but it’s not the same. Neville and Jenny applied for and got permission to take Neville’s guide dog, Sophie, on the track. At times, it was too narrow to use her and he just had to take it slowly hanging onto a guide’s pack. Sophie and the weka found each other mutually fascinating. It was obviously another first for both of them. “They used to follow her around,” says Neville.

Now it’s done, Neville admits that it was very difficult and he won’t be doing it again. But it certainly won’t be long before he finds another metaphorical mountain to climb.

“It’s a matter of not letting your abilities become your disabilities,” says Neville. “If you just sit around and do nothing that’s all you have.”