Alfa Pages

[tinworm]

Well, here's a new one (for me anyway) that may ring a bell for old hands or alarm bells for new players.
I have bought another cheap 33 40mm. Webered TI 1.7 for parts and interior and after listening to it idle in the front yard you would swear it was about to throw a con-rod at any second! I told the bloke selling it that I would be lucky to make it home without needing a tow but it performed wonderfully, ran very crisply and most surprisingly, quite powerful too.
It wasn't until pulling the motor apart completely, finding absolutely nothing wrong with any parts that I found the culprit, a slightly loose camshaft pulley which had been working away until it nearly took out the locating dowel! It had elongated the hole in the cam and wore a fair amount off the pulley too, it must have drove the previous owner nuts after rebuilding the engine only to find it was still making a 'knock- knock- knock' racket. That's right, rebuilt with all new bearings, rings, seals etc.
All this because the rebuilder put everything back together, got a few bolts mixed up and left a washer off here and there leading to a bottomed out bolt. Oh well, you have to win one every so often
Anyone else heard of this happening, or similar maybe?

Cheers,.... Col.
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1977 Alfasud ti 1.7
1985 Alfa 33 4x4 1.7
1968 1750 GTV
1986 Alfa Sprint 1.5 QV

[Ben_nz]

You should tell the guy you bought it off what was wrong with it!

The only 'lucky' story I've got is when I thought my motor was going to die but it was just a broken weld on the exhaust headers. The rest of the time nasty noises happen because bad things have gone wrong.

[RFlower]

I am reminded of something which happened to my wife many years ago, driving overland in, of all things, a Ford Thames van.

Crossing the desert somewhere in the Middle East the gearbox started to make a terrible noise. The mechanical "expert" aboard recommended driving in second gear - don't ask me why!

After crawling along in second gear for some days (amazing the gearbox lasted), they found the noise was due to a stone jammed above the box, transmitting the gearbox noise to the floor, which was an efficient sounding board.

The van made it to Australia, and was spotted there just before we left some 2 years later. Says a lot for Fords of that era.
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Dick Flower, Nr. Carcassonne. '94 Trofeo 1.4 ie (F), '93 Imola 1.3/1.4 ie (now for breaking) (F), '91 1.7 ie (GB)(spare car), '86 Sprint 1.5 QV (F). '87 VW Syncro camper (F), '73 NSU Ro80 (F), '99 Fiat Seicento (F)