By Kevin Redden

[This is the third installment in our saga about getting a cheap Milano ready for the wacky 24 Hours of LeMons race in August. When we last left our motley crew, they had gotten the $500 Milano Verde running again, but it still had a fuel leak that had to be addressed and they were eagerly awaiting the arrival of their roll cage.]

the shipping company for our AutoPower roll cage called me on a Monday morning to tell me that the roll cage would be arriving the next day. Of course, that was the only day that week I’d be out (up running the COM track event at NHMS in my own Verde!), so I had to scramble to make sure that someone would be around when it arrived at our work location’s shipping dock. Luckily, Brian was going to be in town, so the delivery went off without a hitch.

Due to conflicting schedules, we decided to have two sessions during the second week in July. On Wednesday, Brian, Lon, and Tom would work on finishing up the fuel system and painting the roll cage parts. On Thursday, Brian, Greg, and I would get the roll cage installed.

When we were last mucking around with the fuel system, we had gotten the dual fuel pump setup installed (for redundancy) and had replaced one section of the steel line going between the pumps and the fuel filter. Upon starting the car, we discovered that another part of the steel line had cracked (they were quite rusty and decrepit), so we decided that it would be safest to completely replace both steel lines. Tom and Lon did a great job doing that, and after some initial struggles got the car back up and running.

While they were working on that, Brian laid out the roll cage pieces and prepped them for paint. The nozzle on one of the spray cans had come off, so Brian was trying to fix it. They say you learn something new every day; on this day, Brian learned to make sure that the nozzle isn’t pointing toward your face when trying to put it back on. This revelation came after ending up with a chin full of red primer!

The roll cage parts after initial painting

The goal for the second night was to get the roll cage installed. It turned out that this was a straightforward task. AutoPower did a great job making the cage. There are six mounting points where the cage is attached to the body: on the rear wheel arches, on the rear floor pan up against the riser that the seat cushion sits on, and in the front floor pans right where I had to weld plates to cover the big rust holes. The rest of the pieces are joined together with short sleeves in which holes are drilled and bolts used to keep them together. Once we figured out which pieces went on which side, the rest of the assembly was easy. We did learn that it makes it a lot harder to get the slip joints to slip if you paint them first! A wire brush and some white lithium grease solved that problem quickly. Drilling the holes for the mounting points was almost distressingly easy for the four rear ones. When I got to the front where I had welded in the extra plates, it took much longer (satisfyingly so!) to get through the three layers of metal—it’s probably going to be the strongest mounting point. Good thing too, as both of our front side jacking points fell off due to rust-through in one of our first sessions, so the combination of welded-in plates and the roll cage should allow us to use those areas as jacking points again.

Once we got the cage in, we noticed the problems with painting in less-than-ideal lighting conditions—there were many missed spots. No biggie, though—since we don’t have an interior to worry about or mask off, we just sprayed away to touch it up!

Greg drilling the last hole to complete the install

The installed cage prior to touch-up painting

We’ve been making very good progress on our to-do list—not too many things left:

• Replace all the fluids

• Buy and install seat belt harness

• Buy and install window net

• Put seat(s) back in

• New race brake pads

• Rear brake cooling ducts

• Repair the broken Bosch connectors

• Install side-exit exhaust

• Timing belt/water pump/tensioner service

• Other stuff we’ve undoubtedly forgotten!

Since this is the last update in Velocissima before the race, I’ll outline some of the information about the location, date, and times. We’d love to have fellow Alfisti stop by and cheer us on! We already knew of one other team running a Milano in the race (AONEr Kevin Oliver’s team) and just recently found out about third! Kevin Oliver’s team had also ordered a roll cage from AutoPower after we did. There was a third team that was told by AutoPower that there were two other teams who had just ordered Milano cages in the Northeast, so they got in contact with us. Three teams running the same Alfa model should hopefully increase the likelihood that one of us will have a spare of whatever ends up breaking during the weekend!

The race is taking place on August 23rd and 24th in Stafford Springs, CT, at the Stafford Motor Speedway. The track is located about halfway between I-84 and I-91 a few miles south of the MA border (as the crow flies). It is a little over an hour by car from our team headquarters in Boxborough, MA (towing a trailer takes longer!). You can get directions and other information on the track’s web site. You can also see some of the track info as it relates to the LeMons race. It doesn’t appear as if there is food on site, but there are a number of towns within twenty minutes of the track that should provide for that. Unfortunately, BBQs are not allowed at the track. We currently don’t have the exact hours that the race will be running, so keep an eye on the 24 Hours of LeMons web site or the blog I’m keeping of our progress. Hope to see you there!

[The guys building these cars are having a ton of fun, and it’s going to be at least a half ton of fun going out to Stafford and watching them run (and, perhaps, stop). As more info about the Scuderia Limoni team’s progress and the spectating/cheerleading event that AONE will be holding unfolds, we’ll be posting it on this web page, so check back often and make plans to attend!—Ed.]

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