GTV-6: "Wait" or "start pestering wife"?

good question... I doubt it's that easy though.

Hungary Bill wrote: Update: I asked my friend to call the Alfa guy as planned and instead of calling he gave me a Slovakian website to look at first. I found This!!! It's registered, running, and has fresh rubber. It also falls under my $5000 budget at a cool 2300 euros. (again, you can copy the link into google translate if interested) Here are some pictures: What says the community?

So long story short. I FINALLY got a hold of the Slovakian and I now own a 1985 Alfa Romeo GTV6 and my GOD!

I couldn't ever describe how awful this poor car has been treated. It is in so much worse condition that these pictures could ever show. I'm calling it "berkeleyed by Boy-Racer" at the moment. All that plastic crap I can't stand is apparently a "Zender Tuning Kit" and I'd pay a lot of money for it to "Return to Zender".

But damn if I didn't fall in love with it instantly, this car seriously warms the insides, but man is it in worse shape than an abused dog. I honestly think if I hadn't driven it home it'd be in a junkyard very soon.

So build log coming soon.

At least it's seems to have the full Zender kit (which is probably worth a fair bit of cash these days, IIRC they're unobtanium). It doesn't look like that boy racerish to me, but then again I remember when both the car and the kit were available new and it wasn't the boy racers who could afford them :).

Congrats on the find, hope you have a lot of fun with it.

interesting. You know, maybe it's just the paint, but this kit looks so damned "cheap" to me. Wonder if a local body shop couldn't church it up a bit?

If it's a real Zender kit it wasn't cheap, but you're dealing with 80s/90s plastic here. That said, a good body shop might well be able to fix the appearance.

I dont have a receipt, but he did have a badge that said "Zender GTV6" (or something to that nature) for the hatch of the car...

I did find this which may have changed my mind on the whole thing:

honestly I'm never real big on body kits, but if I can make it look like that I'll be a happy camper. Plus I wont have to go finding/shipping all the parts they took off to make that kit work.

That actually just made my day!

Nice! I'll be following your build diary! Add me into the mix that likes the Zender kit. Pretty tasteful, IMO.

Nice score, look Everywhere for rust

Sweet car, congrats on your first Alfa! If it's as rough and mistreated as you say, I hope you didn't pay too much. Either way you'll enjoy it but don't beat yourself up about it, it's just money right?

I meant to say, "Return to Zender" was genius, and I do like the body kit except for the schnoz. Hood humps are hard to get right and tacked on ones pretty much never get it right.

I hope to get a garage day in a couple weeks (it's tough with a wife and a new kid) and when I do I'll snap the pictures and start the build log.

I have real high hopes for this girl. My first step is going to be to get her "road legal" and I'll go from there.

I bought the car for $3000 (total) from my $5000 budget. I figured I overpaid by a fair share but I'm hoping I can recoup my losses with sweat equity. Maybe I'll have enough left over after "roadworthy repairs" and registration to get her into a body shop. I found a set of Zender 15x7 wheels on the local classifieds for this car for $100 (set of 4).

I love it when a plan comes together.

Looks like a decent car as long as its not rusty, I'm sure it will be no problem to use up $2k pretty fast though lol.

The first things that should be on the shopping list before even thinking about driving it should be coolant hoses, thermostat and water pump (including the 3 gaskets and the bolts for the thermostat housing and the small hoses on the back of the heads, etc), timing belt, tensioner, cam and distributor seals (I wouldnt change the crank seal unless you have to, you are supposed to pull the engine to do it, and if you dont it may just leak worse), valve cover gaskets (and do a valve adjustment too), and all of the rubber fuel line in the whole car. It is extremely important to replace the fuel lines and clamps with proper high quality parts unless you are certain they are all less then 5 years old. They have many places where they can leak and set the car and other things on fire, and because of the location of the gas tank, the whole tank will drain by gravity so a fire would be almost impossible to put out.

The only other really important thing I can think of is I think that one still has the type of coupler in the steering shaft that has no mechanical connection if the rubber fails, which would mean you would no longer have any control over steering the car. There are a couple ways to fix it, I think it is covered pretty well on the alfabb.

Yes, timing belts!! The Alfa v6 has a short interval and a friend paid to have one rebuilt after the belt let go. (he bought it broken.) The bill was breathtaking.

Yeah, they need to be done at 30k miles. It's waay cheaper to just buy another engine if it breaks, an early 164 engine is a bolt in with a 3.0 Milano flywheel and bolts, the later ones you would have to have custom bolts made for the flywheel but it would work otherwise.

The 3 liter is a good upgrade, but they are getting thin on the ground. It's one of the best sounding engines ever, and I miss my GTV6. Maybe one day I'll buy another.

Congrats on the purchase!

racerdave600 wrote: The 3 liter is a good upgrade, but they are getting thin on the ground. It's one of the best sounding engines ever, and I miss my GTV6. Maybe one day I'll buy another. Congrats on the purchase!

What he said.

Ive got cam seals for you, when will you next be in the states?

"Return to Zender" - also the name of my progrock band.

Nice buy! Much nicer than the first one...which looked like a shed

Thanks everyone. M4ff3w: I wont be back again until December/January-ish (but I'll be hitting Texas this time). But no worries because I ran into a guy who works at a Pugeot dealership in town and he thinks he can have what I need by Monday!

This is after the parts guy I usually go to struck out with almost everything I asked for. Everything that is except for anti-freeze, distilled water, and dot3 brake fluid... I forgot to grab oil though, so I'll be back there.

Anyhoo I'm fixin to head over to the "build log section" but I ordered just about everything on Travis_K's list (seriously, thanks!). The Pugeot guy said I'll have to measure the distributor seal and order it that way... we'll see about that. I also didn't order any hoses, or fuel lines. I'm going to have to do some measuring and order it by the meter I think.

I also ordered a maintenance manual online (Alfa owners bible something-something), and some exhaust gasket material from the UK (the parts guy kept handing me paper... language barrier I guess). I hope to use it to plug that leak I have.

So here goes!