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Making poor life choices of the Italian type, $500 1981 Spider.
Well, this appeared about a mile down thw road, clean paperwork, newish roof and seals, nice interor, and runnung and driving for $500. It followed me home. Guess I am learning about Alfas now? Hoo boy....
Wait till you get into the engine, crude, crude, crude.
Every Alfa I have done has had missing welch plugs in the crank !!!
Want to remove head? un-bolt everything and pick up the car via the cylinder head with an engine hoist.
Have at least 1" of clearance between front tires and ground.
Walk away....
Go home.
In the morning the head will have separated from the block and the car will be sitting on the ground.
The removable pistons sleeves will sometimes come out with the head...
Going back together you have to seal these sleeves into the block as you install the head.
Really, I'm not kidding...
Alfa and Fiat spiders WERE the best bang for the buck convertible sports car UNTILL...
A Japanese car company, Mazda, fixed all the problems the Italian cars had and produced the MIATA!
I was one of the very last "Factory Certified" Fiat mechanics in 1984 when Fiat was getting the hell out of the USA.
I hated them at first then...
I worked for a man that was an Italian car wacko and he showed me the "attitude" you have to possess to repair Italian cars.
Being slightly drunk helps...
I can make most Italian cars run with with a couple of fuses, a new Bosch relay, and some electrical tape.
I NEVER push them into the shop.
I once fixed a 1 year old Maserati with a ROCK. The dealer (still under warranty) could not diagnose the car.
It needed a new main harness which nearly 6 months to get to the dealership. The rock worked fine during the wait
That one is late enough to have real Bosch injection. You have NO idea how lucky you are.
The Spica fuel injection is a nightmare by itself...
Alfa smell different as well, far closer to Ferrari than Fiat. They smell "Italian".
Just seeing yours brings back memories, mostly good but some bad as well.
I don't miss the Italian convertibles now that I have a Miata.
Do you have lots of money and patience?
Both are a requirement...
But yeah, I have watched quite a few alfa restoration videos,.so I am well aware of the odities of these engines at least. Fingers crossed this one is ok. If not, it's either get a miata engine (I litterally have 1.6s coming out my ears... )or an accord engine.
I am fully expecting to have to rewire the sucker.
Also, I am reading the US 1981 model should have the SPICA fuel system. Gonna have to look closer when I get home.
It's an '81 alfa.... But I couldn't find anything too bad/structurual. We will see when I really start going over it, but I have a welder and am learning bodywork on a rust bucket NB.
Originally Posted by technicalninja
Opps, my bad. Your car is the LAST year to have Spica.
You poor devil...
Hopefully it's already been replaced with Webers or Dellortos.
If not....
Guy said something about upgraded, but it doesn't look to have carbs. Will have to do some digging. Worst case, a speeduino will go in it.
It still looks to have it's original cat even, so I don't think it has been messed with too much.
A K24 Alfa would be WAY COOL.
You will need a transmission and a rear end as well for the power.
The Alfa aficionados will lynch you own up to Japanese power.
So don't...
The "upgrade" will most likely be what appears to act like a choke cable.
It is a "settable" mixture control which will control fuel mixture across the board.
It will work fine as long as you have a WBO2 sensor to verify this mixture.
Last one I messed with was BEFORE WBO2 sensors were even a thing.
It didn't work very well back then...
Grounds are the weak point of any Italian car,
Ground EVERYTHING!
The Italian wiring diagrams that I had to use were in Italian and the wire color was directly related to how much wine Luigi had the night before.
So wire color meant nothing and you had no idea what they were referring too.
Car parts are NOT included in a Italian to English dictionary.
I do not speak or read Italian.
It made wiring diagnosis challenging...
Another thing to remember is that the Italian manufactures used each others parts so an Alfa (or Ferrari) probably uses many Fiat parts.
If purchased in Fiat packaging they are reasonable. Any other boxes are $$$
The late Fiat spider door handles ($80) are EXACTLY the same part as the 246 Dino ($900)
A Fiat Spider starter is the same as a 308 Ferrari and so on.
If something is expensive try to find it in Fiat...
Another tip is expect to get the wrong part.
The Italian part numbering department is staffed by drunken dyslexic baboons.
Even after you have done massive research to come up with the "correct" part number what will show up will not even be for your vehicle at all.
This is completely normal!
Get used to it.
Fiat was GIVEN Chrysler in 2008 (had to accept Chryslers debt as well) and this phenomena is alive and well in Chrysler right now.
Aftermarket specialist shops can be your friend here. They tend to have their stuff together far better than the parent company.
All good stuff to know! Sounds like how Miatas are also parts bin cars. Lots of shared parts with fords and kias of the time (and even a few with astons!). My audi friends all buy VW parts for the same reason.
For the wiring, buy a test light and extensions for my multimeter leads, go it. And yeah, grounds are always the problems with everything. I remeber that from growing up in Volvo 240s.
A friend of mine bought an '87 last year. He paid CAD $7,000 or so for his, which was by far the cheapest one on the market in the area at the time. For $500, if the body is intact and it drives ok, you probably got a steal.
Friend is an Italophile and likes to tinker, so he doesn't mind whittling a piece of rubber into a suspension bushing, his ragged out interior, or having to tinker with the car. To his and the car's credit, he's been using it as a daily summer driver and has put something like 8k miles on it since last summer. He loves it and it has about 90k miles on it now. Regarding the engine, he swears it runs better on a much thicker weight of oil - 50 weight seems to be the recommended spec.
Personally, other than being a bit more serene on the highway and having a much bigger trunk, I see my NB as functionally superior in just about every way. The Alfa's unboosted steering is extremely slow, it shifts like a milk truck - forget the crazy long shaft and throw, it's the lazy synchros that'll really frustrate you - and things that you'd take for granted in every car work wonky. The fuel gauge bounces around when you accelerate, brake or turn, and there's a learning curve to deciphering where things like the headlight switch are. I admit it's charming in a way, and you definitely don't see many of them on the road anymore.
Oh yeah, I expect the miata to be better in every way, but there is just something about old cars? And I have always wanted something older to tinker with.
Your friend is correct and Alfa specs 7.1qts of 10w50 for an oil change.
The headlight switch and such isn't too bad, now if only I had anything more than a single working high beam. I managed to get the turn signals working by fiddling the hazard switch though!
Also, may as well put up a few more daylight pictures. It has tinworm, but way less than I would expect for it's age and price. The interior is nice and the dashboard is somehow not cracked too back. The paint job is so, so bad and lots of overspray on everything.
11-28-2020, 07:49 PM
Making poor life choices of the Italian type, $500 1981 Spider.
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