1985 Alfa Romeo GTV6 (my first Alfa)

Mazdeuce: I got plenty left over. PM me your address again (I dun lost it, sorry). I got them off of amazon though. Amazon

To answer your question, I'm friggin nuttier than squirrel E36 M3 man. I get attached to these cars and have trouble letting them go. Especially when they're this torn apart (i get it in my head that the next guy is going to part it and scrap it...)

Hungary isn't definite yet though, but it's turned into a "definite maybe". More on this in a sec.

Duster: I got some leftovers man. Probably just enough for you take some measurements and decide what and how much you need from there. PM me your address and I'll send em your way.

Hungary's turned into a "definite maybe". If it turns into a "yes" I'm going to have to get the car ready for "roll on, roll off" shipping and that means it has to run and drive legally. Yikes.

If it turns into a "sorry dude" then I have all the time in the world to continue with the project.

That puts me in the precarious position of "how to move forward" and I think I know how I'm going to do it.

The 2.5l engine is going back in. I just need to reset the cam timing, change the water pump, and do the timing belt and she should be good. I think the 3-liter too much of an "unknown" right now and I think it will be better saved for a later date. I figure I can always polish it up on the stand, test it, and swap it in a weekend or so.

Anything not broken or stopping this beast from moving will be saved for later. I think I may make a small exception for the rest of the engine bay paint. But the SS brake lines, Bilsteins, manual window conversion, etc will all have to wait for later. I hope to have this mostly put together in about 3-weeks.

From there I'll move into "wants". ie: I want new tires, or I want to repaint the calipers, etc.

If nothing happens then the worst case is I have a running, driving car that needs body work and paint (and probably the interior put back together). If something does happen then I won't have to pay $8500 to ship this pig across the pond again as RORO shipping is significantly cheaper (current quote is $1800 + the usual extra customs fees)

I'm not much for "up in the air" when it comes to planning, but I think this should help solidify things a bit. At least as far as the project's momentum is concerned.

Good times.

Always Good Times.

You have mail.

I'd put the three liter on a stand in my living room and just look at it.
Sending you a PM too.

In reply to mazdeuce:

Yes! If all goes to plan, I should have PLENTY of time to polish that beast to a high shine. Then it'll be too pretty to put in an engine bay and I'll have to put it in the living room! (I have some glass from a coffee table that would make a really cool top-gear ish coffee table)

I didn't get a chance to hit up the post office this weekend, but should be able to get the goodies in the mail this afternoon (darn kids )

So Hungary Bill,

If someone wanted to do a similar project what would you recommend the pit falls are? I know rust is an issue and the obvious buy the nicest example you can, but that does defeat the purpose of the project.

Any words of warning or wisdom?

Ok, on topic:

I've got a couple irons in the fire, I'll try to stay on track.

First, the wire map looks like this:

The wires now reside on the drivers seat. I'll get those put in place as soon as the engine bay is done.

Speaking of engine bays, I did do a little painting. Not a whole lot, but it's progress in the area (really, I'm just putting off painting the firewall. That thing is DIRTY and it has lots of stuff in the way)

Next on the list (or "while that dried") is the cam timing. While mucking about with the engine these last few years (spinning it by hand, etc) the timing belt slipped a couple teeth. No big deal, I just had to re-align the marks before I put the new belt on:

The one time I drove the car it really ran like crap. It had no low end power, then it felt like it'd "come up on the cam" only to fizzle out on the top end. If you look at the crank pulley you'll notice the two timing marks really close together. I'm pretty sure the installers of the cams timed the engine to the wrong mark (the ignition timing mark as opposed to the TDC mark). Andy at performatek (great guy) says that sounds like a very reasonable theory. Here's hoping...

Next up, the T-stat housing.

As you can see, I need a couple hoses and clamps for that one. Digging through my old parts boxes I don't seem to have the right size, so a trip to the parts store is in order.

Next up, the thermostats themselves:

The one on the left is the old one, the one on the right is the new one (well, the "new" one I bought 3 or so years ago). Unfortunately they're not the same... I don't think Unix is going to take back a 3-year old part with no receipt so I thought I'd see if I could swap the guts. Just for giggles really.

it didn't work. the new guts are narrower and taller than the old guts.

Meh, it was worth a try.

All in all though, even with the missing hoses etc, I was able to get the timing belt on (yay!)

And that, my friends, is how you turn one hour of garage time into a 9 picture post

10 pictures when I tell you I picked a fight with the DMV on Friday:

Being the veteran car importer I am, I went to the DMV with all my paperwork, translated, and of course nothing there can go easy:

• your import paperwork is missing a pink stamp

But this is the original certificate from customs. Has the signature, hole punch secret handshake stamp and everything.

• yeah, but it's missing a pink stamp...

What I'm getting at is: this is the original, if it needed a pink stamp why didn't they put one on it when they handed it to me?

• (shows me the ruling in paper form)

Your paper says it was updated as of 2016, my car was imported 2 years ago. Shouldn't I be grandfathered in?

• "No, you have to go to customs"

ok, where is customs?

• "at the port of Tacoma"

WHERE specifically in the port is customs?

• "at the port"

and so on. Eventually I just went and googled their phone number. I'll call sometime this week to see about getting this "pink stamp". I'm not in much of a hurry on this one because I KNOW I'll be going to the state patrol for inspections as the date of manufacture isn't typed on the Slovakian title (it's stored as info on the smart chip) so the car will need to be mobile for that. I do, however need to remember to look at the ID tags on the car to make sure the year is listed there somewhere. If not, that may be an interesting experience...

Good times.

In regard to 'mucking about with the engine and the timing belt skipped a few teeth', I assume you have since been advised not to turn the engine backwards? That includes parking on a hill with it in gear supposedly. Make sure the handbrake is set firmly.

I have heard about not turning it backwards, but the "hill and in gear" advice is new to me. Thanks for the heads up

Flight Service wrote: So Hungary Bill, If someone wanted to do a similar project what would you recommend the pit falls are? I know rust is an issue and the obvious buy the nicest example you can, but that does defeat the purpose of the project. Any words of warning or wisdom?

Woah. Well, I'm not quite out of the weeds yet, but yeah rust is first and foremost. The go/no-go areas on this one seem to be the shock towers. The rest of the list is pretty straight forward

• look at the darn wires. Had I looked under the dash I KNOW I wouldn't have bought the car. It's not that it's "Italian" or anything, in my case someone hooked up a battery backwards and proceeded to hack from there.

• When you start seeing shotty workmanship or hack repairs, start looking at things very closely (they're often hiding something)

• hoses, hoses, hoses. There are a lot of them and they are old. especially the fuel injector lines

• There is nothing "magic" about the engine (as far as mechanicals go). 4-strokes, 2-cams, and a bosch L-Jetronic. Just like many other engines out there. I guess what I'm saying is "don't be scared just because it says Alfa Romeo". It is a sweet little powerplant though. (hemispherical heads, flat plane crank...)

• Join an Alfa community and start learning where your resources are beforehand. The parts I bought for this car have come from 3-continents (I've sent parts to 3 continents as well). When a new part wasn't available I had to use the internet to find Alfa junk yards (of which there aren't many). A lot of what I owe my continued supply of parts to goes to Peter Morris in Vermont. He's sat through countless e-mails with questions and sent me boxes and boxes of parts.

• If you've got a project on your hands, don't get too focused on one area. Parts pop up for sale randomly, and the hard to find ones go quick. You really have to keep one eye on your project, one eye on ebay, one eye on craigslist, and one eye on the forums to get what you need, even if you don't need it quite yet. Also, know what the parts should cost. Some people think $$$ just because it's Italian. these seats are a prime example

• GRM had an Alfa issue a few years back I think. I bet it had good advice (of course it was printed about 4 months AFTER I bought my car)

• keep reading. I'm not a bad wrench turner, but this car has taught me so so so much more than I knew before. I'm still in way over my head, but if I can pull this off it'll be nothing short of a miracle. Either way, I'm always reading about what I'm planning to do next, and I'm always learning things I didn't know before. The people who've done what I'm doing before have saved me tons of time and money.

• Crunched internals. If you're going to buy a car that's eaten itself because of a timing belt failure, know where the next engine or heads are before you buy your car. There aren't many second hand engines or heads being sold because no one really needs one until they need one, know what I mean? So have that sort of stuff lined up before you pull the trigger. I think I usually see about one engine per year posted on CL and they aren't always reasonably priced...

disclaimer: I'm probably the least qualified person to tell someone else how to buy an Alfa. In my case I saw the car, got that funny feeling in my tummy, and when I came to I was in front of my house with some serious buyers remorse. Also, please remember this car may still catch fire or blow itself to pieces when I hook everything up, so please take the above advice with that in mind

Good times.

Thermostat housing assembled, hoses and everything, and now I started on the intake runners. I thought I was pretty good about saving all my hardware in tobacco bags, but I still had to break out the coffee can-o-spares.

Good times.

Hungary Bill wrote: (how to buy an Alfa)

Two things:

Those seats. "No rips or tears on the headrests" Ha! I mean he's not lying. I guess.

Nothing is more confidence inspiring than sending hundreds of dollars off to someone who goes by the email handle 'uncle skeeter' but yeah, Peter is a good source for parts and LOVES to type. He's also not cheap since he knows what he's got, but what are you gonna do?

You're darn right on the typing We've discussed everything from Alfa's, to Red-Green, the Cadillac CTSV, and the unfortunate demise of Pontiac (just as they were starting to get interesting). And of course: "Keep yur stick on the ice"

My usual search for parts goes like this: Ebay or Centerline (for pricing ideas), Peter, Alfa Parts Exchange (APE) or Cheshire Alfa, then back to Ebay or Centerline if nothing worked out. Performance goodies will come from Andy at Performatek when that chapter gets opened (mwa ha ha ha )

Today though, not much to report.

Fuel rail is laid in (but not bolted down), and I'm looking at getting the driveshaft ready for engine installation.

That Alfa performance manual I got (pictured previously) mentioned that a huge bottleneck for performance in these engines are those 2.5 intake runners you see pictured below. I believe their I.D. is about 34mm limiting the flow to about 95cfm at 10in of H2O. I'm not sure what the 3-liter's runners are but the book recommends porting the 2.5's runners out to 39mm if a person were looking to get more grunt out of the engine. I have an extra set to play with so some testing may be in order...

Looking towards the driveshaft install, I'm a bit worried about vibration. There seem to be two schools of thought

• 1) put everything back together the way it came out. Every bolt contributes to the balance of the assembly.

• 2) The weights of the driveshaft are welded on so you wont get vibration because you didn't put a bolt back in the hole it came out of. Instead the vibration is caused by bending the driveshaft on removal.

Well, I didn't mark the bolts (discussed previously) AND I really had to muscle-berk that engine to get it out (remember the siezed/broken nose cap?) so I'm predicting a driveshaft replacement in the near future...

Good times

• 3) commonly available transaxle mounts may actually be for a Milano and shift things out of alignment. If you replaced them and don't know what i am referring to, read up on that too.

One thing I did get it all back together hand tight then run the car for a bit to "settle" things. I forget where I read about that but hearing the 2.5 uncorked was worth it by its self.

yes, I forgot about those two.

When I removed the engine I did so by unbolting the front guibo. When I install it, the guibo will be bolted up and I'll use the spline to slide things in.

Once in (like Spit mentioned) I heard it was a good idea to rev the engine a bit with the spline bolt loose to let everything settle into place. That alone should be enough to feel driveshaft vibration. If none exists, I'll tighten the bolt and do my maiden voyage around the block. Open headers and hood-less

soon. So close I can almost taste it.

Every project should be driven whit open headers if the opportunity exists

Since I was in there...

Since I was in there I decided I should probably check valve clearances (Thursday morning). Everything seems dead even at:

• Intake: .406mm
• Exhaust: .203mm

The distributor of the cam I have recommends .450mm and .300mm on the intake and exhaust respectively. The exhaust is easy enough to adjust, but the intake side requires a cam (subsequently timing belt) removal to re-shim them. I'm kind of wondering if I should bother with the effort for .050mm difference. I'm leaning toward leaving it alone, but would like to hear ya'lls thoughts.

Apart from that, I was rooting around the area this morning (Friday) with my finger just making sure there wasn't any FOD in the top of the heads and I found this little guy:

It looks like maybe a repair was done in the area? Not entirely sure how that little guy might have got there. I'm thinking I'll be doing a leakdown test when I get this beast back into the engine bay.

Good times.

For today, this is where we leave off. The valve covers are cleaned and ready for install, but not bolted down yet. Not sure if you remember, but I have a different style of valve cover that I painted black and sanded the highlights (lines, and "alfa romeo") to a nice shine. I decided not to go with those as my spark plug socket doesn't fit through the holes . Also, those pictures with the wrinkle red finish on this style of valve cover are sharp. Definitely something that's going to happen when I shine up the 3-liter.

Almost forgot:

The cams I have are 10.7 lift and 288 duration (oversimplified specs, I know)

The V6 performance manual I have says the stock cams for a 3-liter Motronic (from a 3-liter 164 S, I believe) are 10.4mm lift and 286 duration.

I know this doesn't say anything about overlap etc, but this goes with a conversation I had with Andy at Performatek a while back about the two profiles being "similar". Either way, the 164S cams are a desirable commodity, and known for their small bump in HP with no drawbacks.

Just some gee-wiz

I have mail! Thanks Bill!

Mine also arrived. I feel more organized just looking at them. Thanks!

Never a problem!

Hungary Bill wrote:

have fun with that wire loom...

The time change is kicking my butt. With my kids staying up an hour later and getting up an hour earlier (still haven't figured out how to adjust their clocks) I've had less time in the garage than normal.

That being said I had a bad case of anal-glaucoma last Thursday (that is, I just couldn't see my ass going into work) and used the time off to run to customs in Seattle to get that "pink stamp" the DMV told me I needed on my customs form. I keep forgetting to take a picture of it, but I found the whole experience to be anti-climactic. Actually it was almost a disaster, but one really helpful customs agent saved the day. If you're reading this and your name is "Johnson" and you work at the Seattle customs, come see me for free beer.

Turns out that my documentation HAD a certifying stamp in the way of a secret code series of hole punches, and this "pink stamp" is actually an either/or thing (ie: you either have the secret code, or the pink stamp). Meh, it was good to get out of the house.

On the subject of registration I don't see an ID plate anywhere on my car that says "1985". This is going to be a bit of an issue when I go to the DMV, so I'm in no hurry (as I know they're just going to send me to the state patrol. Which, in turn, is going to require the car to be mobile). I've run a few vin decoders online, but nothing's been able to decipher my car's vin yet (I get results that vary by models, and nothing ever for the year of the vehicle.) All in good time.

In the garage I finished installing the valve covers, changed out the front guibo (the old one was damaged in removal of engine), installed the bell housing, aaaaaaand that's about it!

Not sure if I mentioned this previously, but there's some damage on the inside of the bellhousing perhaps indicating the driveshaft has let loose some time in the car's history.

Next up are the engine mounts, starter, and drive shaft nose cap. This is about where I wanted to be at the end of last week (I was hoping to work on the engine bay this week) so I'm not doing that bad, really

Good times