Our next Monthly Meeting will be February 22 , at...

Phoenix, Arizona THE NEWSLETTER OF THE ARIZONA ALFA ROMEO OWNER’S CLUB February 2017

Our next Monthly Meeting will be February 22nd, at Arrivederci,

at the corner of Scottsdale and Thunderbird roads. 6:30 p.m. The only way to get The Alfa Rumor is by email. Send your name and email address to

[email protected]

The ALFA RUMOR The Arizona Alfa Romeo Owners’ Club


2015 BOARD OF DIRECTORS President/ Rick Mahrle 602 256-4433 [email protected] Vice President/ Alan Headley 480-813-2874 [email protected] Treasurer/Secretary: Terry Greenslade 602-765-0061 [email protected] Newsletter Editor: Dick Botkin 602 618-8230 [email protected] Trustees: Arno Leskinen [email protected] Fred Firschein [email protected] Russ Staub 480-357-0818 [email protected] Mark Kirchner 602 248-8451 [email protected] Ken Felthouse [email protected] Bill Greenslade 602 765-0061 [email protected] Webmaster: Joyce Himes [email protected]

Informazioni The Alfa Rumor is published monthly as the official newsletter of the Arizona Alfa Romeo Owner's Club (AAROC). AAROC is a local chapter of the national Alfa Romeo Owner's Club and is dedicated to the enjoyment of Alfa Romeo Automobiles and the advancement of the Alfa Romeo marque. Subscription to this newsletter is included with membership to the national Alfa Romeo Owner's Club and expressed affiliation with the Arizona Chapter. Classifieds, contributions, and criticisms are welcome and should be addressed to the editor by mail, phone, or email. Technical information, data, or suggestions in this publication are the opinions of the contributing authors, and, as such, their accuracy or correctness cannot be warranted by AAROC or the national organization. All owners should determine the suitability of any modifications: the club will not assume liability for any consequences. Meetings General meetings are held the fourth Wednesday of each month at 6:30 PM. The meetings are held at an appropriate Italian restaurant (see the latest newsletter or club website for details). Board meetings, open to all members at the discretion of the board, are held two weeks prior to the general meeting. Website The Arizona chapter now has a website located at: http://clubs.hemmings.com/azalfa/ The website contains general information about the club and a copy of the yearly events calendar.

On the Cover. An Alfa at Barrett - Jaction Below: Russo Steele contribution to “Alfadom”

2017 EVENTS CALENDAR

http://www.huntcal.com/cal/view/AAROC/aaroc

Feb 22 General Dinner Meeting. Note change of Venue Mar 18 Annual Invitational Cook-Off



Editor’s Note. Rick’s professional duties have taken 100% of his time of late. He sends his regrets about being unable to write his Presidentail Bondo column this month. We hope he digs out from under the workload for our next issue.

The Auctions held our collective attention last month, as always. I managed to spend a day at the Barrett-Jackson and another day at the Russo-Steele event, both in Scottsdale. It seems that the B-J event gets larger, and longer, each year. This year the premier auction vehicles took what seemed to be twice the tent space as years past. Most of the vehicles offered were from the good ‘ol USA, but there were also more European and British cars offered this year than I had seen in several years. Three Alfas were sold this year, including our cover car, lot #128. Here is a link to the auction results. https://www.barrett-jackson.com/Archive/Home The Russo Steel Auction was held at its new location, Salt River Fields. I think this will be a good venue for them, but unfortunately the rain this past January made for a soggy and sloppy arena. We only spotted one Alfa for sale, the yellow spider on our inside page. Fred told me the sale price, which I have forgotten, but I do remember thinking it was a top dollar bid. Christopher Boles continues his Barn Find story with part II this month. We were treated to see, touch, and smell the new Giulia at the Concurs in the Hills thanks to Alfa Romeo of Scottsdale. Don’t forget our next meeting on the 22nd of February will be at Arrivederci, at the corner of Scottsdale and Thunderbird roads. See you there. Arrivederci, Dick

Presidential Bondo (All the Filler Fit to Print)

Active Rumors Notes from the Editor

Ed note: I always prefer the Spider Convertibles to the Spider Sedans.



The truck made it over the hill with the trailer. I stopped at the Acorn Casino and let the truck cool down, while I savored a cold water bottle. From then it on it was all downhill as they say. On I-17 I made it ok behind some semi’s pulling the grade except one. I had momentum and pulled out to pass the semi with no one coming. Just as I get up alongside the cab here some someone trying to blow over the hill over 80 mph. You could almost feel the heat from their brakes they were trying to get slowed down so they didn’t run over my trailer. Just as soon as I could get around the truck I did, and whoever it was just blew by me like they were going to a fire. The next day I dropped the spider and proceeded to figure out where to start on this car. The gas can had 5 gallons of fresh gas in it, so that went in the gas tank. I started to pull parts from the storage. The distributor cap, rotor, wires and some NGK BP6ES plugs (all that I had) went into the car. It started easier but it didn’t run any better. So that meant that I needed to dig deeper. The compression test was equal across the board (10% difference) so that isn’t where the issue was. The more I started to delve into this car, the blacker my hands became from the lack of proper cleaning. The power washer came out and 5 cans of engine cleaner. After soaking for an hour and using a brush to move the junk around. I was able to get it clean enough to start to work on it. The radiator was leaking, and not a hose. So out came the fans, radiator, and hoses. The hoses got the toss, the bottom of the radiator was leaking from the base, so it got tossed. So I started to compile a list of parts needed to order. Since the car is a Motronic FI system, it is just like the 164 S in so many ways. So the first thing to check is the thermos-sensor in the manifold. What a pain to get to with an ohm meter. Well that part was working intermittent, so that says the computer was getting a false reading of the water temperature. So that wen on the list to order. Next was to pull the intake manifold, and pull out the injectors. Since the car had been sitting for two years, it was logical that the injectors were most likely gummed up from varnish. I pulled the fuel rail and noticed that someone had pulled the manifold in the past for some reason. The hex bolt heads were stripped. So that didn’t bode well for what was to come. The injector rail and injectors went into a box and sent off to Havasu Injector service over at Lake Havasu via UPS.

A couple days later I get a call. The owner says that they are leaking around the seals where the body goes together. Also they were even hardly spraying. He said he would soak them over night in cleaner and see if the seals would come back to life. He called again a couple more days later and said that he got them to working with in a close tolerance of each other, and that the seals were not leaking any more. I asked him if he could find some other injectors to replace those if they didn’t work. A couple more days go by and I get another call. He said he looked all over the US for some and there was nothing to be found. That wasn’t a good answer. In about a week I got the injectors back with some new hose, and seals. What I did find out is that the plastic seals that go into the manifold are very hard to find. Fortunately I was able to get mine out of the manifold. Someone had put Hylomar sealant around them. After some judicious cleaning I was able to get them back into to place. The new hose went on with new FI clamps. I figured since the injectors were out for service I would adjust the valves. They were all over the place for clearance, as if they had never been done from the factory. I removed the cams, and measured the shims. They were so thin (< 1.500 mm) in the range of 1.200-1.300 mm. There is nothing in my box that small. So the decision was to remove the head as the seats must be down to nothing. When I looked at the side of the head I noticed that someone had put on a head gasket with Permatex Aviation gasket cement and it was running down the side of the block. OMG! Never had I ever seen that. Now mind you I have worked on some cylinder heads that were a royal pain to remove. Eventually I got them off with lots of carb cleaner down the studs and some judicious use of leverage. This head would not budge once I got the nuts off and applied the head puller. I could get it up about an inch and it would stick. So up and down it went while soaking the studs with PBlaster. Eventually I got the head up enough to get a pry bar, and some wood so I could leverage against the head. Honestly I thought I was going to have to pull the engine and toss it because the head was stuck half way up and wouldn’t move either direction. I went through a whole can of carb cleaner, brake cleaner and a half a can of PBlaster before I got the head off. My hands were so black from the grease they didn’t come clean for 3 days. The head gasket was put on to the block as I suspected with Permatex Aviation gasket cement and the O-rings were hard as rocks. That head was going to leak; it was only a matter of time. The head came off and down to the best hot rod shop in town. I had some new guides that went with me, the last of my seals and some new valves. The machine shop did a beautiful job setting up the clearance on the cams and making a nice radius of the seats after putting in some

BARN FIND- Part 2 Christopher Boles



new ones. I had a new head gasket in stock and some new Viton O rings. Everything went back together like new. While that was out, I bead blasted the exhaust manifold and painted the headers. After getting the intake and exhaust manifold off I couldn’t believe how much more grease was hidden from view. More power washing and engine cleaner. Now I am seeing a cleaner engine. Even in the crannies the grease was gone. The radiator showed up and I cleaned up the fans, installed a new fan switch. The fan wires had been spliced together so that when the key went on the fans were on. The car was dripping ATF fluid, so I investigated that. The original hose was dripping fluid, so I ordered some new hose from Centerline. At the same time I figured the in tank pump would die on me at the most inopportune time, so I ordered a new one of those. When it came I installed it with some new hose so that didn’t go bad too. The throttle cable was looking pretty bad, so I set out to find one. No one had one in stock. Remember this is an automatic so it isn’t the same as the other S4 throttle cable. I found a new one in Italy and put in the order. That was after a week search for one every night on the internet. What was a real score was to find the relay that mounts on the side wall next to the oil vapor separator. It opens up so when the fumes from the vapor collector can as pulled into the engine and burned. Some had broken off the bottom of it so that there was no way to hook up the hoses. If the car was going to be smogged it would have failed right here. I searched everywhere and no matter what method I used I couldn’t find anyone that had that relay. It was no longer available. One night on EBay in Italy I found one; new! I ordered it and about 2 weeks later it showed up. I felt like I had a gold nugget in my hand. The hose that went to the steering fluid cooler in front of the radiator was shot, so I ordered some more hose and set about to replacing it. You have to worm the hose between the bod y and the radiator. Then remove the metal cooler from its plastic supports. I got it out, cleaned it up really nice, and set about putting it all back in. Getting the two hoses to go back in as you feed it from the hole below the bumper requires not only patience but small hands. I installed two new motor mounts while I had everything out. I had two sets but only one worked. The square ones were too high and made the oil cap touch the hood. So they had to come out and install the round motor mounts. We managed to find a black hardtop for the car and had it shipped. It isn’t perfect but it in good shape never the less. Don’t try to find new gaskets, they are “unobtanium” material. Someone was talking about having some new ones made. The ones on this top are in good condition. Another order of business was the windshield, it was cracked. So I ordered one from Performance Glass and picked it up at the warehouse in Mesa AZ. Talk about a hard place to find it is in the corner of a industrial

complex back off the street with no signs. I asked and no one seemed to know where it was even with an address. The way I found it was to get out and walk. I presented my receipt and they went to get it. Now this warehouse is one of 5 in Phoenix and it is floor to ceiling in racks of windshields. Trucks from all over were coming and going while I was there. They guy checked my order and signed off. He had never heard of an Alfa Romeo when he asked what it fit. He had two more in stock was his closing comment if I dropped it. The glass was well wrapped in shipping blankets in the back of the truck and secured to not slide around. I ordered a new windshield gasket and with some phone calls to some local glass shops I found a guy that could come out to the house and install it for me. I had to remove the old one first. He came out and cleaned the body, put in some sealer, put the gasket on the glass and with the help of his son, he had it in about half an hour. I had to put all the chrome trim back on, which wasn’t to bad. The driver’s side mirror didn’t work. The passenger mirror was fully functional, so I knew it wasn’t the switch that was bad. I removed the door panel and the mirror wasn’t even connected. Hmm, something isn’t right with this. I connected it, and it still didn’t work. The mirror was removed and when I looked behind the mirror, someone had stuffed paper behind it to hold it in place. Dang, now I have to find a driver’s door mirror. Someone on EBay had a used one but they wanted $350. I figured I could get a new one for that. Oh, I should have known, they are NLA! Well with some digging every night on the internet I found a new one in Germany for $280 plus shipping. I ordered it. It came in a couple of weeks and new in the box. The only caveat here is that the mirror was “unpainted”. So a trip to the paint store to get the correct black paint. I got a “pint” can of the correct black, some prep for the plastic for adhesion. Small can of hardener, Reducer, and some other small items. It came to over $120! I almost fainted. I the can of paint was $80 and he gave me a break when I checked out. I found out that a gallon of red paint, not top of the line material, is $1000. That took my breath away. Now the mirror looks better than the car! It is installed and it works. The inside of the driver’s door, was another project. After cleaning out the debris in there so the door would drain, I set to see why the glass was binding making the motor work hard going up. So I fiddled with the cables, lubed everything and replaced the back channel that has slipped out of place. The glass was still binding. So the glass came out, the bottom tensioner was removed, cleaned and lubed. The rear channel came out and inspected. The front channel was fine, and it got a liberal soaking of silicone fluid. After making some adjustments to the whole assembly I was getting closer to making it work like new. It worked out that I had to loosen the front vent assembly



and move it around. Now the glass moves easily up and down in the channel by hand. Re-installation of the cable to the glass it now moves like a new door. Time involved was about 4 solid hours of working at it. The seats were recovered in Tijuana. Nice job but they just were not like the originals with the Alcantera suede inserts. The work was good quality and materials. However the door panels were another story. I removed the passenger side panel and everything there was good. The panels had been recovered and screws were put in where clips should have gone. Nuts were missing that held the rubber pulls to the door card and some weird plastic inserts were shoved into the door card to hold the panel to the door. The speaker supports were popped riveted in with different sizes and were loose. The door pockets were so badly installed with metal plates and screws there was no way I was going to reinstall them the way there were. This is one of those weird strange things. A guy I met from the sale of a Alfa water pump on Craigslist sent me an Craigslist link to some door panels. I called the guy and made an appointment to go see them. The ad said they came out of a wrecked 1990 spider Veloce and the guy lived just 10 miles down the road from the house of all things! What are the chances? I went to see them and after some negotiation I bought them for cash; two original like new seats and two door panels with speaker covers. Everything was there in place. No car parts but some nice panels the guy had been saving for a VW project. Out came the old seats and in went the replacements. The fit of those seat rails have a very small tolerance for alignment. It took some patience to get them to be bolted down. The seats look really nice. With the head back on, new ignition wires, plugs, cap rotor, injectors in place, the car now starts with the turn of the key every time. Nice to know that everything works…well almost but we will hold that for more later in the story. Next part is about the electrical issues with the car. Now that is interesting, if I haven’t gotten your attention yet.

Classifieds Classified ads for Alfas and Alfa parts are still free for members. Just email your ad and any photos to me at [email protected] .

For Sale 1987 Spider Veloce, red/tan int. and new tan canvas top, 57,000 miles. Few door dings, rust free, Cal / Az car, original paint looks great. New Master and Clutch Cyl., Fresh Oil, Air and Oil filter, Interior great no rips or tears. Air Conditioner NOT operational. $8,900.00. Fred Firschein 480-773-7541 .

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ARIZONA ALFA OWNERS CLUB Membership Application

Name:__________________________________________________________________ Address:________________________________________________________________ City State, Zip:___________________________________________________________ Chapter Affiliation-Arizona Do You Own an Alfa Romeo? What Kind(s)?_______________________ Please enclose a check in the amount of $68 (dues) to: ALFA ROMEO OWNERS’ CLUB PO Box 92155 Portland, OR 97292

Our next Monthly Meeting will be February 22 , at...

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