1985 Alfa Romeo GTV6 (my first Alfa)

After that I needed more thinking time so I went after a couple drips in the primer:

Every time I sand a drip in the primer I end up taking primer off around the drip as well, I was hoping to avoid that this time so I got on youtube for ideas. this one struck me as the best. You basically scrape JUST the drip with a razor and THEN sand

(masking tape was supposed to keep the corners from digging in, it kind of worked for a while before it fell off)

Not bad! I'll take the win where I can get it: Bill: 1

During my "thinking work" I realized that cold start injector is in a REALLY great location for troubleshooting. I decided to check fuel pressure and those extra injectors there (ok, so I only KIND OF listened to Mezzanine )

Pressure should be 35 at idle where the engine draws 500mbar of vacuum.

500mbar = 7psi which would drop the pressure at the regulator to 35psi bringing my fuel pressure in tolerance (yay)

Injectors:

Here's the idea: Injector goes in graduated cylinder. I turn the key on, stick a screwdriver in the MAF and then I push the button on the Mezzanine box. mark the injector with the results (in ml) and move on until all 10 injectors are done

It ends up taking me 10 presses of the button to capture 12mls of gasoline. All shoot exactly the same and all have good spray patterns. (yay)

Unfortunately the last one broke my gal darn graduated cylinder!

And I was being careful too. It took almost zero angular pressure to break that

But I now have a good set of spares. We'll call that a draw.

More thinking time was needed so I st down for some "vroom vroom" noises

And broke the throttle cable.

I've wanted a new one for a while (because I saw this coming), and no one seems to have one.

I need to find something like this doo-dad below

Grr

I needed a win after that (and the graduated cylinder) so I went to my trusty multimeter and decided to check the resitance of the thermo sensors. I thought I had it when the ecu sensor checked almost 100x out of tolerance too!

(first one: good)

Second one = bad

(and I just repaired a wire here too!)

So I snagged one off my 3-liter sitting on the stand, and stuffed it in as a replacement (hey, I'm short on time here. I cant be ordering stuff this late in the game )

No change in idle quality.

Damn

Well played Alfa, weeeeelllll played.....

Mcmaster Carr Aircraft control cable and some creativity and you have a new cable set-up.

TED_fiestaHP wrote: Mcmaster Carr Aircraft control cable and some creativity and you have a new cable set-up.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I really don't like this throttle linkage at all. For now I'm thinking I'll use a crimp on swage, and maybe a washer just to get it operational again.

First photobucket now GRM... Firefox wont open either today.

Anyhoo, I think I'm up to Monday's progress so here it is:

Heater installed. All the previous tabs that connected to the cables were broken so here's a new (used) one from Cheshire Alfa!

Of course it wouldn't be a post of mine without a photo of the controller puking wires everywhere . I'll admit this did take me longer than I thought to hook up, and I eventually got all the wires right on the second try. The first try I got worried when I turned the fan on and all my gauges/lights went dead.

Everything works except the "air mix" (which I assume to be set to "fresh") and I think the temperature clip might have come off at the back of the heater box (up near the fire wall). I think the fix for that is going to be to cross my fingers... Either way, the fan works on all speeds, and you can control where the air is going to blow (ie: defrost, vent, or feet)

Sorry M4ff3w. I hope I didn't permanently set this to "hot" before shipping it to Austin

Good times

Still Monday:

I don't care if the gas pedal is dead, I needed more "vroom vroom" noises for motivation. When I did I noticed the stop on second, fourth, and reverse (yes, I need reverse gear sometimes while making vroom vroom noises) seemed harder than first, third, and fifth...

That's when I noticed I was hitting the metal part of the shifter grommet.

I start the engine (it still barely idles sometimes) and push in the clutch (since I bled it and all). I shift into second and slowly let out on the clutch...

And....

CRUNCH!!!!!

The shifter doesn't travel far enough to engage the gear.

Why? Why, Alfa, do you still try to do this to me? I took out that hacked to death shifter, bought you a pretty new one, and you STILL wont cooperate!!!! WHY!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?

the shifter is removed from underneath the car. If I'm going to remove the whole assembly I also need to remove the exhaust and driveshaft

BUT

I remember Jeremy Clarkson talking once about his GTV6 and he said he was driving one day and the shifter fell RIGHT out the bottom. I figure if he can do that on accident, I should be able to do it on purpose so away I go.

After I disconnect the linkage, it's just a snap ring and it all just kind of falls out!

Lucky for me I kept the remains of my old shifter so I could compare the housings between the two. See the difference?

So I set my old (cut) shifter in to place, and bolt back up the linkage (no snap-ring) and do the same second gear check...

Checks GOOD!

My plan now is to cut my pretty new shifter and weld it to the base of the old shifter and hope for the stinking best

GRRRRR

Good times

Tuesday (yesterday)

Tuesday looks like this:

Why? Because the engine cooling fans aren't working.

This isn't unexpected, in fact I've just been putting it off for a while. A few posts back I saw one wire missing from my thermoswitch for these bad boys and ran a ground to complete the circuit. Welllllll there's a bit more to these than that.

See, I never checked the fans before I took the car apart. The car didn't overheat, so I just kind of forgot about them. When I was doing the wire repairs I was tracing their circuits by following their wires and it didn't really make sense. I figured I'd just hook it all up and see what smoked.

Well, now we're at that point. Except half the wires to the fans are missing and what remains are obviously parts store sourced. I initially looked at the wire diagrams but holy crap these things go through like three different relays and even tie into my windshield wipers somehow!!!!

So I figured some think work was in order before I went to town on those...

Here's me installing the radio surround, and the center console

If it looks like it's snowing in those pictures it's because I was also sanding primer again So I thought and thought and this is what I came up with:

I found a hot receptacle on the back of my fuse box and used a female spade to connect to it. Wired a fuse inline and Robert's your father's brother.

it's simple, it's tested*, it works. So there Alfa engineers.

Good times

*tested by bypassing the thermo switch since the car wasn't started, and the coolant is too cold to activate it

Here's a video of the car idling:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/mpUn6OaWCu8

Or trying to rather...

Hold on here bub. Have you done your compression test? I see you've tested your spare injectors, but did you actually test the injectors that are currently installed?

I've seen much worse idle than that. ;) The fact that firing the cold start smoothed it out tells me you might have a cylinder or two not getting enough juice. When I fire a cold start injector on an otherwise healthy engine at idle, it makes it stumble and nearly die (assuming the engine isn't stone cold).

Darn it. All typed up and then firefox deleted my message.

Yeah sorry, I know I promised you a compression test but that involves the removal of the intake elbow again, and if I'm going to do that then I might as well pull the plenum off and swap out the injectors. (the idea is: if I'm in a position to where I can test my current injectors, then I might as well spend the extra 5 minutes and change them out completely). That was the logic behind the testing of the spares. Now I have a set of known goods to put in. If the problem persists I never have to delve that deep again

So I'm thinking Sunday night might be the time I do all that (compression, injector swap, AND verification of passenger side cam timing). Hopefully she'll be on all four wheels and rollin shortly thereafter

Where are the pics?!?!

For what it is, that's not bad of an idle.

One thing I would suggest- one at a time, take off the spark plug- if you have a cylinder that you think is missing, that will ID it pretty fast.

I got a secret and it's hard to keep it.

m4ff3w wrote: I got a secret and it's hard to keep it.

Two can keep secret if one of them is dead

Sorry guys, not slacking. But I did something bad (it starts innocent enough)

See below

That was a damn good weekend

Damn! Looks like that laid down really nice. Was that a single stage?

That razor trick is cool. It's actually a Ford factory procedure for runs. Use some 1000 grit to even the blade up and round off the corners and they will leave a good enough finish you can just buff it back up.

Edit: NVM, I see your clear coat on the shelf. LOL

Thanks!

I do have two drips in my clear I have to take care of tonight, but otherwise the base and clear are awesome (I do have to work on my primer shooting skills though. Even with the 4:1:1 ratio it still shot like texture on drywall...)

I'll definitely do better next time

Its most likely still your tip size, or settings. I'd see if you can get a 2-2.2 mil tip for the high build if/when you try it again.

When I was in school I had full access to gallons of leftover paint and all the take off panels to spray on. I spent 80% of my time in the booth painting and used up a huge percentage of the leftovers.

It takes a while to figure out how to dial in a gun even with someone over your shoulder telling you how much to turn what knob and seeing the results so don't be too worried.

Depending on who you ask, mixing paint should be done to achieve a specific viscosity using a viscosity cup and a stopwatch. (You'll notice a viscosity specification on the spec sheet.) IOW, 4:1:1 may still be too thick if you look at viscosity targets.

Its painted!!!!!

Good show, man!

That's awesome!

Outstanding!

Pretty