Much of the restoration saga is finished--too late to be chronicled in this newly started blog, but I continue to make small improvements to my 1978 Alfa Romeo Spider. I finally located a set of new hub covers for the car, on Ebay. Technically, hubcaps, I suppose, but these are only about two inches in diameter. They are adorned with the Alfa Romeo logo, which comes in many minor variations of drawing, but all with some sort of humanoid being swallowed by a serpent. The humanoid on these looks more adult than the "baby" the serpent is often eating whole.
The usual sources of Alfa information suggested removing the old caps (and the snap rings that hold them in) might be difficult after 30 years of corrosion and grime build-up (someone suggested I'd have to jack up the car, remove the wheels, and tap them out from behind), but they came off from the front--in a snap, you might say. I had allocated a morning to this project, but did it in about half an hour. No one will notice the improvement--a detail--except me, but I'm grateful for little pleasures.
Old cars can be mysterious. Today's little upgrade offered this mystery: Behind two of the wheel caps (those on the front wheels) there is a ball of metal. Each has a dab of sky-blue paint on it. Behind the covers on the back wheels there was nothing, just a hole. Hmmm...... Sort of makes me want to take apart the wheels on my other little convertible, a blazing yellow Miata. Not really.
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