Brake Scoops/Ducts...
When I inspected *01839* (Boano coupe, not Primavera), I was surprised to find
these air scoops/ducts on the car's front brakes. Not being an expert at
all on the details of Alfa 1900 mechanicals, I emailed Joost and Peter
about them. Their replies boil down to this (and perhaps you know this
already): On Tipo 3, Tipo 4, TI and TI Supers, these ducts were standard issue.
The ducts may also have been standard on bare
chassis shipped to specialty coachbuilders...but that doesn't
necessarily mean that those coachbuilders retained them. The jury's
still out on this aspect of the scoops question.
If your Tipo 3, TI
or TI Super doesn't have these ducts, you may want to have them
fabricated. Ask Joost or Peter about patterns they may have for such
reconstructions. And Paolo Galafassi in Rolo, Italy, offers recreations
on his website. A correct replica brake scoop should feature a
"twisted" front screened face, as
shown in this illustration.
Driver-side scoop/duct, above, and
off-side, below. (*01839* is LHD)
Scoops on the Disco Volante
C52 Coupe, above, and C52 Fianchi-Stretti spider, below,
demonstrate the competion-derived nature of these brake scoops.
Note the
"twist" of the front face, from top to bottom, of each
scoop.
This is normal and correct, and reproductions should include this
twist.
|
Above, two views of the internal ducting of
the scoops, as on *01839*. |
Above, you can see how the intact
off-side scoop is spot-welded to the drum backing plate. The spot
welds start at the tail of the scoop and continue all along the
line where the scoop touches the backing plate. |
Above, the driver-side scoop
apparently sheared off at some point in its history, and was
crudely tack-welded back in an approximation of the correct
position and angle. Arrow points to the sloppy welds, shown
closer-up on the right. |
Above, *01607*, a Tipo 2 Sprint coupe
(Series I), has smooth backing plates,
(viewed from behind) which would be correct for a Series I Touring Sprint coupe.
Scoops were introduced later on the Series II Super Sprint coupe.
|
Tipo 4 *10542*,
above, has original, twisted brake scoops.
|
The scoops on Tipo3 *02072* are
original to the car and the proper "twist"
can be readily seen in this view from the front of the
chassis.
Reproduction brake scoops often lack this twist.
|
This is *10145*, a Tipo 4 or Series
III Super Sprint coupe. It has a line of broken spot welds on each drum
backing plate, indicating that it once had the brake scoops.
|
|