1977 Alfa Giulia - chapter closed.

You are welcome..
Concerning the steering wheel I also have a bit smaller but not too small as then the steering gets too heavy at low speeds and I like the lazy feeling while driving.
Thom

Hey thomfr, sorry I didn't see your reply way back. I'm jealous that you're going to the mountains, I did find a cool job though so I'm not staying put for nothing. We're actually working four-day weeks, and that leaves me Fridays to myself.
So last week I went and worked on the car, truth be told I was much disgruntled because I thought I'd lost a specific M 8x1.0 nut that's used either to secure the 'manifold'* to the head, or the rubber bits to the 'manifold', or the carbs to the rubber bits themselves. I thought it useless to put the 'manifold' back on the head if I didn't have the requisite number of nuts, and when I finally decided to just wing it and see... lo and behold, I'm an idiot again. 8 nuts to hold the carbs onto the rubber joiners, 8 nuts to secure said joiners onto the 'manifold', and just 7 nuts to hold the manifold to the head. 4 on the top and 3 on the bottom, I thought there'd be 8 also. Too much thinking, not enough action. That sums up my experience with cars quite aptly.



Once it was all put back together, well, the car wouldn't start. Fuel was leaking out of the banjo bolts, even tightened well up and with new paper seals, so there was fuel to the carbs. I sprayed brake cleaned into the carbs and I didn't even catch so something must be up with the ignition. I have 12V to the coil, but if you slightly undo a spark plug wire and try to see a spark jumping between that and the plug there is nothing, or at least to weak to be seen.
I undid the spark plug wires to give me some room a longtime ago, but didn't touch anything else so I'm at a loss here. I never had an ignition problem on the Giulia before, I did change some parts a few years ago that I likely kept so I'll try the old condenser. I did clean the rotor arm and the distributor cap, to no avail.

I'll go back and spend the morning trying to fix that, next up is the Giubo and the centre prop bearing, then it goes back to Bordeaux to my pal Alex. Hopefully it will sell not too long after that!

*for me an actual manifold link several pipes together, or splits one into several, which isn't the case here, it's merely an interface between the four bodies of the carbs and the four holes in the head, that has coolant flowing though it. Maybe this pseudo-manifold merely warms up the mixture to help fuel evaporate or something like that.


























Oh and I just bought a half-ruined daily 147 because I have to be able to accept any job in the coming year, given the quite terrible situation with temp working. It's a 120hp petrol, it's done 193,000km (120k miles or so), it leaks a bit of oil, has vague suspension, conked out on me while test driving, and I lost one hour of sleep last night thinking about all the work that has to be done to it.
I'm wise like that.

Always thought one of these 2 doored and a Alfa v6 would be a good car, major work to do convincingly, with lengthening the doors 50mm and getting the shuts done so they look factory

yes, good to see you back. I agree with Thom, check for voltage to the coil. a bad earth (ground) will also mess with you. are there any ignition fuses?

you can also leave the plug in the wire and ground to the engine while cranking to be sure the plugs are firing.

the fuel leaking out of the banjo bolts....do they not have copper washer gaskets? perhaps the banjo itself is cracked or has a burr on it.....those surfaces usually have some sort of ring grooves molded in.....

lastly, be sure your ignition switch is sending 12v to the coil.....and also that it (switch) is receiving 12v from the battery.


JP

Sometimes live goes in a different direction, so no hard feelings! Hope you have enough other hobbies to keep you happy.
Cheers,
Thom