1977 Alfa Giulia - chapter closed.

Looks fantastic.

Looking good sir, looking very good indeed!

Thanks for the link, to the manuals !

The car is a sort of purply blue colour, originally it was white but was imported from Sicily to play a background police car in the film inkheart, hence the respray!

The paint finish is not good at all but there's more to worry about than a paint job for the next year or 2!!
Picked it up Monday, I've removed bumpers and have just taken calipers off to give them an overhaul, (car wouldn't move at all)
Once that's done I've got to get the lights wipers etc all working then stick it in for an mot probably to be told it needs a magnitude of welding etc!
I just want to get it on the road before I plan the project!
From reading your thread I reckon what we're both trying to achieve is not a million miles apart!

Will post some pics when I figure out how to do it (new to the world of forums)

The damage done :


I'm lucky in that I didn't damage the grille any further, the indicators housing is destroyed though. I'm waiting for one, that's been in the post for a week... I absolutely hate the Poste, they're the worst (they already lost one of those cool Fondmetal wheels a few months ago, remember? I never got it back).

Well, BlamBlamBlam pschhht pschhht pschhht







This week-end I found that one of the carbs was dropping fuel into the cylinders, and into the oil.



So two days ago I adjusted the floats (which I had never done, thinking that one less step is one less occasion to screw things up), freed the accelerator pump mechanism which was hindering the full travel of the butterfly valves back to rest, which could have caused that problem. I don't know if it did, but it didn't suffice.

Yesterday I went to drain the oil and get the sump bottom off. Before that I filled both carbs, and the front one seems to be dropping fuel still, cyl n°1 & 2 are wet. The float chamber has leaked about 2mm while I worked (2 or 3hrs) and 15 or 20mm of fuel during the night. The fuel level seems to stay exactly at the level of one small hole, I have to know what it's for.





The bottom end of the engine, seen from... the bottom.


Found this

The pig-tail shaped one is non-ferrous metal, the other one is ferrous... The first one could be alloy from when the block was first machined, but the second is a tad more intriguing.


This evening I received a parcel from EB-spares:


4 drilled & grooved discs, miscellaneous small brake parts (pins etc), clutch assembly, braided clutch hose, and the notable absence of the front wheel bearings which I apparently forgot to order, although it was the main reason for the order. Yay.

I wouldn't say mojo is low, but the morale certainly isn't too high. The Weber carbs are pretty complicated to sort out, the car doesn't want to look like I'm making it better, and the Maserati still needs a fair bit of work and I'm still waiting for its reg papers...

Sorry to hear that you're having a bit of a rough time with the old girl recently. Keep at it though, it's all part of the roller coaster of emotions that come with owning a classic Italian car!

I'm not up on webers, but when I was chasing issues with my Solex carbs, I found it useful to have both carbs side by side, so I could compare how the two differed? And doing it on the bench, with a small cup of fuel to fill them when necessary was much easier than trying to work on them and diagnose the issue while they were on the car.

Go out and enjoy it tomorrow, don't worry about the cosmetics they will get sorted in time I'm sure

It does sound carb related, as thats the only thing pairing cylinders 1&2. Have you checked the balance of the carbs? If they're out of balance and it'll essentially idle on the two cylinders which are being fed the most air and fuel.

Also, could be going up a blind alley here… but seeing as you said you'd looked at the float heights, they're not too high are they? On the Fulvia when I set the float heights too high it would start and run ok from cold but once warmed up it was just running too rich at idle, even with the idle mixture screw fully lean.

Carbs…. what a pain!

I had a blowing noise in the exhaust, that's the culprit found then. I'm back at my training course facility (still trying to find a suitable expression for this) in Dijon, so we have plenty of TIG and MAG welders lying around, not a problem. Speaking of welders, I think I'll try to start tackling the rust next week, starting with the doors and working my way randomly as usual. It might sound petty to seasoned car tinkerers but it's the first time I'll ever lay a hot metal glue stick thingy on one of my cars, I'm glad I made it look awful beforehand because it's a lot less of a drama this way.


I had a look at the spark plugs, they certainly don't look too bad. Of course cyl. n°2 is very lean, but I've noticed that when idling, I can actually take its mixture screw out of the carb without any mixture coming out of it. That's it properly blocked then.


Does anyone know about an OEM Alfa fully electronic dizzy that would fit the ol' twincam? Since they carried this engine on to the 00's with the TS, perhaps they have used one before switching to a Hall sensor and all that. I've grown this concern because of goldnrust, who stated that the vacuum advance on his Solex carbs wasn't the best, causing improvable drivability. There is no vacuum advance on the Webers at all! Hence my want for something unfortunately more evolved.

Good luck with the welding mate

That front carb doesn't sound healthy at all! Definitely wants a proper strip down. Have you got access to compressed air at this training place? Makes cleaning through the passages inside carbs quick and easy .

My Lancia dizzy was mechanical advance only, like your Alfa. With electronic ignition timing there was a decent improvement in drivability, and I was able to dial in vacuum advance to suit the engine appropriately which helped even more. If you're pockets are deep enough, check out the 123ignition distributer. It looks like aboriginal distributer but inside it's got a small computer and so does electronic programable advance curves for both RPM and vacuum.

Isn't it the 2L from the 75 which they swap into the 105 chassis cars all the time? Would someone like Alfaholics have the answers (hide your bank cards before going near the site though obviously…)?

I did some digging:

The Bosch dizzy in the S3 spider is 0 237 002 018 and can be found from 1983 till 89.

Also found in the 75 1.8, 2.0; 90 1.8; Alfetta 1.6, 1.8; Guilietta 1.3, 1.6, 1.8; Alfetta 1.8, 2.0
www.onlinecarparts.co.uk/bosch-7136108.html

www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/gt-1963-1977/43202-advance-electronic-bosch-distributor.html
and if you speak german:
www.alfisti.net/alfa-forum/oldtimer/5279-umbau-elektronische-z-ndung.html