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Door jambs not withstanding, it presents very nicely in pictures for a $500 car! Interior looks good, and I like the blue paint. They all seem to have the "wood" finish wear off of the shift ****. Nice bonus to have a fresh soft top on it. Looks like it'll be a fun toy!
One thing that my friend only recently discovered is that his throttle linkage (it apparently doesn't have a cable) was misadjusted and not allowing full throttle. Quick adjustment and suddenly his car was much quicker, he said.
For anyone who doesn't know, the shifter location makes more sense when you see an early Spider before they added the console:
It looks NICE for $500.
Something to remember; Alfas are getting damn rare, most have gone to the scrappers and have been crushed.
The ones that still exist today have gotten expensive.
It wouldn't surprise me that you could part that one out for 10 times what you paid for it.
The seats alone might be worth $500
Good luck with your Italian mistress...
Tehcnicalninja, That was exactly my figuring for buying it. I cannot find anything making it a $500 car, even if the engine is bad or something. And the dashboard even is in good shape somehow. It defiently has a good bit of bondo in it, and is far from straight, but considering it's 40 years old (build date 07/80), it's nothing unexpected.
Update time! Turns out it does have a SPICA system, is missing it's air pump, the EGR was disconected (looks like the exhaust downpipe it would have connected to was replaced). And the engine had a nasty tapping sound that came and went (which I knew when I bought it). It has a few questionable electrical mods (turns out the starting solinoid is hooked up to a momentary button under the dash. Once I figured that out it went from 2-3 mights of fighting to start to about 1.5 rotations of the engine).
Last weekend I finally got the time to have a good look at try and sort out what was causing the tapping noise. I had used a mechanics stethiscope to track it down to the area around the #1 intake valve. So I dove in....
Started with the alternator/wp/fan belt to get my feet wet. It had the wrong size on it so I had to pull the alternator all the way (which I needed to do anyway cause some gorilla put the oil filter on last). Also pulled the EGR setup out of the way.
Next I dove into the engine.
Well, there's the problem. The #1 intake valve shim was everywhere except where it was supposed to be. Popped it back in place, and after a 1h fight with removing the old valve cover gasket I buttoned the engine back up.
Next, I turned up a sleeve for the M24 banjo bolt for where thw EGR connected to the intake.
And checked the cap and rotor. Look good. Parts are hard to find since it's a one year only Mirelli electronic dizzy... So I hit them with some 2k sand paper and put them back.
After that, I bunnoned everything up and hit the key and was greeted by a fantastic sounding, old italian engine happily idling away. No more noise! $0 fix for the angry engine noise. Love it.
Also, threw it up on the new lift and had a good look around under it. Far less tin worm than I would expect for an italian car this age. Original outer and middle rockers are toast, but the inner sills look to be solid. Will need to address that sometime. Otherwise, not a ton of issues. Loose ball joint, some loose wheel bearings, and a few bad bushings. Both the trans and diff were more than half empty....
But actually, this engine seems very healthy for it's age and likely miles. If I do a head refresh and a vakve job it should be good for a long time again. Honestly, it's a nice cruiser.
11-29-2020, 01:02 PM
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