Love it.
Love it.
PHeller wrote: Did you pay more than $1000 USD for it?
My bank finally caught up with me. The bill so far is:
Total thus far: $3328.76
Xflowgolf: Good catch man, I didn't even notice that. Next time I'm in there I might have to take a better look at their repair job.
Rusted_spit:
are you kidding? I'd love to hear that story. The rear pads should be good for another couple of years (edit: another couple of years of driving.) but I'll probably replace the discs then too.
From what I remember the steering input to the wheels felt pretty tight. I've got the front on jacks at the moment, but when I set her back down I'll double check.
and any documentation you have on this would be greatly appreciated. This being my first Alfa, I could use all the info available to me and I'd gladly pay postage/beer/ect. I've got a manual on the way (from the states) but it looks like it's still about 2-weeks out.
I had another quick free moment this weekend to do some more digging. I figured with the front hub on hold for parts, I'd take a peek at the exhaust to see if I could try to track down the leak I was smelling.
Here we go!
and the other side:
I don't know what he was using for gasket material, but it looks like it quit holding back exhaust gasses a long time ago.
I also found evidence that the PO thought this was a rally car. Both leading edges of the pipe that connects to the manifold were "smacked flat" as was part of the pipe aft of where the catalytic converter should be:
Speaking of catalytic converters, I think mine is missing!
(just like that my car slid into D-Street Prepared)
It looks like the midpipe where I think cat should be has been hacked and welded until it looks more like this:
It may turn out that the European models didn't get Catalytic Converters, but with the smash and hack job I can't be completely sure. Also, I'm a bit concerned that I couldn't find an O2 sensor, bung, or associated wiring anywhere...
Good times
Make sure you deal with the steering before you drive it much more, I mentioned in your post about buying it that the GTV6 and Alfettas can completely lose steering if the rubber joint in the steering column fails, so any weirdness with the steering should be taken very seriously.
I saw your post, and meant to thank you for the heads up. The steering coupling is on my hit list while I've got the front end in the air but I kind of got side tracked when I saw the condition of the exhaust. It looks like the "fix" for the steering is to just weld the coupling. I was hoping to get that out of there in time to take it to a welder buddy this weekend.
I got most of the parts in (today!) that were on your list. I didn't, however, order fuel lines... I should probably do that before I forget again. I was debating on whether or not to order the silicone lines offered here: http://www.hiperformancestore.com/gtv6.htm
but I didn't know if I was wasting money on "pretty parts" or if the silicone hoses would last longer than their rubber counterparts.
Good times.
flattened manifold downpipes are unfortunately fairly common on these cars, especially if lowered. Not indicative of abuse necessarily, just a poor design from a ground clearance perspective, and the suspension allows them to smack the ground, especially if there's a crown in the road.
Good, yeah welding it is what most people do I think, not too difficult to fix :). I had the silicone vacuum hoses on mine, they really are 100% necessary, but they do last longer, and they are all the right sizes, which at least in the US aren't so easy to find. I would pass on the coolant lines though, I wasn't so impressed with those. Yeah I would for sure order fuel lines, I can see from your engine pics that it looks like the short ones on the injectors haven't ever been changed 
. The mini clamps from this page are the ones you want http://www.ultimategarage.com/abaprice.html, and make sure to get good quality fuel line too. If you have a way of getting stuff from the US easily, autohausaz has good quality fuel line that will work for most of it, but I dont think its the right size for the injectors and tank to fuel pump. The only other thing I can think of that you should worry about before driving it are the bushings on the caster rods in the front suspension, because they will chew up the holes in the body if they are bad. But, I would recommend getting the ball joint conversion from here, I liked that much better. http://www.performatek.com/fronlinecatalog.htm
Hoo-dang, more stuff I didn't know I didn't know
I might have to put the ball joints off until I get this beast licensed though. I'd like to see how my $$$ is sitting when I have the title and insurance in hand :) (that is, assuming I have any $$$) but based on what I've just read, I'll be buying those soon.
I had actually hoped to do the valve stem guide seals this weekend, but the guy lending me the spring compression tool seems to be losing his short term memory. If I can't get the tool in time, I'll probably try to sort through all the vac and fuel hoses instead. My goal was to either find a "hose kit" from a parts store, order the size of the hoses by the meter, or play "behind the counter search" again (it's a lot easier than drawing pictures and waving my arms at the Hungarains)
I have some good news though!
When I bought the car I was handed this card:
Today, I was able to pop a valve cover off and match the part number on the card to a part number etched on the cam! That makes the cam currently installed in the engine a "Dbilas Rallye Cam" (and probably springs). I can say with some confidence now that I believe the lack of power I was experiencing was more than likely due in to the "rallye" cam on the otherwise stock engine. I have a spare "stock" cam in a spare set of heads, so I'll probably swap those out this weekend (still pending valve spring compressor guy).
I was kind hoping to sell it on my next trip to the states to help the budget on this a bit, but we'll see how that goes. I don't have much interest in a cam that isn't intended for street use.
Good times.
On the ball joints, its a modification, but works better than the stock bushings IMO. If you are short on cash for a while and they are shot you could just put stock ones in. Its just bad to drive it much if they are completely shot though.
You know you need a couple special tools (harbor freight stuff can work) to get the cam pulleys off, and you need to shim the intake valves to set the clearance if you are going to swap the cams right? You should e-mail Andy at Performatek and ask him what he thinks about the cams, he knows quite a bit about that stuff and hes always been happy to talk about it when I have talked to him before.
Oh, and another thing I forgot about, did you know you have to set the clearance on all 4 rear brake pads with a feeler gauge occasionally? Its not too hard to do, but if might be worth checking if the brakes are weird.
Soon....
I had no idea you had to set the rear pads with a feeler gauge. That's awesome! 
The brakes did pull to the left, but thought I'd give them another try after their bleed. I might as well pull out the feeler gauge set while she's on jacks though, no harm in being thorough.
As far as the cam pulleys go: The cams I plan on installing are already installed in a set of heads, so I was hoping to get by without having to remove the pulleys. My original idea was to replace the stem seals in this spare head, make sure the mating surface is still "true", clean, install, and adjust the valves (I knew about he shims, but was told that the intakes rarely need adjusting). I was actually debating on whether or not I should even bother with the stem seals on this spare head since I have no idea if they even need replacing (especially since I have to borrow tools to do the job).
On the other hand, I'd be more than just a little irritated if I went through the hassle of installing the new heads only to find I was still burning oil. Either way, it looks like I'll have my work cut out for me this weekend.
On the bright side, my e-mails were answered and I was informed by some folk in the UK that the Euro GTV6's did not come from the factory with catalytic converters OR oxygen sensors. I thought that was kind of neat. To me that translates to: the only thing that needs fixing in the exhaust is the leak! (I'll deal with the welding after licensing)
Easy money 
pinchvalve wrote: Soon....
I was just drooling over the same picture!
(it's now my desktop background)
You really should replace the cam seals, they will quite likely leak otherwise. I'm not sure id be too excited about pulling the heads, the gaskets are $$$, and its easy to end up needing to take the whole engine apart to reseal the liners at the bottom if you accidentally turn it at all without properly securing them.
Well, lined up for the weekend head work, I have:
Valve stem seal kit
Valve cover gasket (left and right)
Timing belt
Oil filter
spark plugs
water pump and gaskets
exhaust gaskets
thermostat and gaskets
Total = $162.68
Bringing the total budget to: $3491.04
I couldn't find the intake manifold gaskets, or the distributor seals. By now though it wont matter because they wont get here before Saturday anyways. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there (maybe gasket paper?).
There's no deadline though. If the cams give me too much lip when I try to remove them, I'll just move on to something else (there's plenty to do!) and give them another go when I get the right tooling together.
Speaking of which, that manual I ordered hasn't arrived yet...
http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/164-168-1991-1995/141647-alfa-164-alfisto-steves-maintenance-tips.html
That should help with the engine stuff until you get the manual.
Long list of stuff to be done. It is a cool car so hopefully worth all the impending work. 
ArthurDent wrote: Long list of stuff to be done. It is a cool car so hopefully worth all the impending work.
She already is
I'm waiting on a reply from a buddy of mine who's visiting the states right now, but if he's good with throwing them in the luggage I'll be ordering 20-mini clamps to replace the fuel lines from the injectors to the fuel rails.
When I dove under the hood today to measure the hose diameter, I accidentally ripped one of the hoses in half (without using tools). The fact that these things were able to hold back fuel is nothing short of amazing.
maybe I should invest in a fire suppression system? I really liked the "AFFF" system advertised in the Pegasus catalog...
"almost forgot" edit:
I crawled underneath the car to look at that steering link. That thing is really wedged in there! I don't see how I can remove it from the top without having the engine out, and I didn't see a whole lot of wiggle room underneath, so I was thinking of pulling the steering column and seeing if that would help any with the removal process. I did notice though, that the horn ground wire was broken. Which might explain why I have a "horn button" wired into the dashboard. Good times.
And if I had the steering column out, it would probably be a good time to take care of that rats nest of a fuse box I have hanging there...
Fun rear disk replacement story:
The rear disks are held in place with something like 8 bolts per side. There is a shallow flange on each half of the axle that the bolts go through to hold the disk in and the axle together.
I got new disks, put the car up in the air and went to work. There was not enough clearance to get a socket on the bolts and I could not budge them with an open end wrench. After fighting and cussing for a couple of hours with no luck at all I called one of the guys in the local Alfa club to see if he had any suggestions. It turns out he had made a tool for the job when he did his. Cool, I head over to his house, pull in his very nice shop, drool over his Spyder race car and eventually get to work.
Again, the car goes up in the air, grab said tool and procede to break it in half. Dude says " no sweat", gets out the welder and fixes tool and we try it again. Break number two.
At this point I am getting a "little" pissed. We talk about heating up the bolts but decide with the calipers so close that is probably not a good idea. I pack up, go home, drink some, and wait for next Saturday to try something else.
In the end I had to use my Dremel with a cutoff disk to cut the heads off all 16 bolts which seemed to take forever. But in the end the disks got changed but the whole thing took like 3 weeks from start to finish. Good times.
so I have that to look forward to!
I will not lie, that was a bigger pain than changing the flex disks on the driveshaft which is no picknick.
Even with all of that I will own another one some day.
You could make your life much easier (although its not necessary if you don't feel like spending the money on it) if you replace all the clamps on both fuel and water lines with the ABA clamps and get the special driver tool that goes with them. Some aren't so easy to get to.
I wouldnt just replace the hoses on the fuel injectors, I would do everything all the way from the tank to the front of the car, its just too unsafe to drive one without being sure its all new good quality line. There are some rubber bushings for the fuel injectors too, I had kinda forgotten about that. The way you are supposed to remove the old lines on the injectors is to pull the whole fuel rail off and melt the old lines off with a pencil soldering iron, then either reuse both of the metal ends, or just the one on the bottom and clamp the top. If I remember right its 7mm line.
On the rear brake rotors, I haven't worked on a GTV6, but my milano had allen bolts on them, and I think they are all supposed to. They can still be a huge pain if they are rusty, but if not you just unbolt the cv joint then unbolt the rotor and its fairly easy. I think the bolts are a weird size that you can't find an exact replacement for easily so maybe thats why some of them have different bolts now.
I grabbed about 5-meters of fuel line from the store (rated at 10bar). Probably a bit much, but when I saw the condition of the injector hoses I figured the rest couldn't be "too far from". I only ordered 20 of the Mini-Clamps, but they're about 2-weeks out still (arriving via checked baggage) I thought I would clamp the tops and bottoms of the fuel lines. I practiced "hose removal" on my spare fuel rail/injectors but couldn't get the hose separated from the cap. I'll give that soldering iron idea a try this coming week (no hurry without the clamps here yet).
Also ordered was a fuel filter.
so: Mini Clamps = $40
5-meters of fuel lines + fuel filter + 3 meters of vacuum lines = 38.81
Total thus far: $3569.85
One thing I noticed though was that my valve cover gaskets did not come with the gaskets for the spark plug holes 
All the shops are closed until Tuesday, so that'll have to wait.
Good times
Sunday Sunday Sunday!
The valve spring compressor finally arrived, and with tools in hand I proceeded to tear into my spare set of heads:
This is actually the first time I've disassembled heads, and I had a lot of fun with it! I will say that it was pretty obvious that someone had been in the drivers side heads before as the cam pulley was loose, there was grease on the spring keepers, there were no stem guide seals, and the spring base and washer (between valve springs and heads) were nowhere to be found.
I had to use a puller to get the passenger side cam pulley off, and they looked complete. One thing I noticed though was that there was no bearing between the cam and the journals... I didn't know if that was normal or not on Alfa's. I'll compare with the heads I currently have installed in the engine. Which reminds me, after a good cleanup of the heads I have, I'll probably cannibalize the parts I need off the heads that are currently installed.
I also found a new set of cam seals in my "spare parts bin" (and by bin I mean the back seat). I thought that was pretty cool. I'm hoping I can reinstall the cam gears with the cam bolt. If not I'll have to find someone with a press to reinstall those.
Good times.
I also tore the engine mostly apart and removed the radiator for cleaning etc. I had to stop with the disassembily though because I didn't have a socket big enough to rotate the crank pulley. I'll probably make a run to the hardware store tomorrow and pick one up. With what I could tell, it looks like a 40mm nut that holds the crank pulley on. I'll probably consult google before I make the purchase though.
I replaced the fuel lines under the hood (and plan on replacing the ones near the tank) but still haven't taken care of the lines from the injectors to rail yet. It's on my "to-do" list this week. Also planned is the replacement of the water hoses, vac lines, etc.
I'm debating on whether or not I want to go ahead and yank the engine out since I'm in there this far... It'd help be with the steering link, clean up the wiring, and paint match the engine bay. We'll see.
I was a little further than this when I quit (I guess I forgot to take a picture before I left the garage):
Currently the hood is off, the timing cover and thermostat housing is off, etc. Water pump is still in as I haven't removed the timing belt yet.
Well, I guess that's that for now! All in all, a pretty danged good wrenching day.
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