Wonky gauges

[eabergman]

New member of the list, sorry if this is a subject that's been beaten to death previously. I just bought an '87 Milano 2.5 Gold that is a runner but in need of a lot of TLC. My first Alfa. The PO mentioned gauge problems, and he replaced the entire gauge cluster. The original is in a box in the trunk. I'm still dubious about the gauges though. Just about every one of them gives some sign of errant behavior. I'll check the ground(s) but I doubt that will be a cure-all. I wondered what I can expect from them. Is there any hope for the stock gauges, or should I install aftermarket gauges for anything I really car about? Are there any aftermarket gauge setups that work especially well on a Milano?

Thanks for the pointer to Andy's Automotive, Joe. I live in Golden, and was going to ask about recommended Alfa mechanics in the Denver area.

Eric

[Ronnie]

I too am a new Milano-with-issues owner and from what I've read, the ground could well be the only problem with the guages. Maybe someone can comment who has experience with this..

[Hit an Apex]

What kind of problems are you experiencing?

Once my oil pressure sender failed my water temp gauge become very very inaccurate. Once the oil pressure sender was changed it became normal again.

[eabergman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hit an Apex What kind of problems are you experiencing? Once my oil pressure sender failed my water temp gauge become very very inaccurate. Once the oil pressure sender was changed it became normal again.

[AR4me]

Quote:

Originally Posted by eabergman My biggest concern is the oil pressure gauge, or more precisely, the oil pressure. It reads 55+ psi (4 bar) cold and during warmup, but when fully warmed up it reads about 30 psi (2 bar) at 2500 RPM, drops to zero at idle. Oil is a good quality synthetic, but I forget what the seller said he used.

[eabergman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AR4me That sounds about normal I would say. Jes

[DonBeeson]

The gauges arent the strong point of these cars.
In the speedometer the Jaeger sending unit below the rear drivers side seat seems to fail fairly consistently.
The tachometer sounds like a ground problem, my milano 2.5 had that problem too. Luckily it takes all of 20 minutes to access the cluster, if you do a search on this forum you will find two or three helpful threads on this topic.
The oil pressure sender at the rear of the engine is prone to failing quite often too. My gauge sometimes reads only from midway (4 bar?) to full, and then at other points it works perfectly normal. That made for a fearful 8 hour drive home when I first picked up my Verde.
Hopefully this helps, Im not sure if your speedometer problem would be in the Jaeger unit, but its well known it fails.

Welcome to the long road of Alfa ownership, I'm sure you'll love and hate it as much as we all have.
You should go around and clean all of the visible grounds on the car, it'll breath new life into your milano.

[MitchW]

My Verde does all of the above as well. With the bumpy streets we've had lately I find that the guages sometimes work better. This would certainly indicate a loose connection or ground. I've removed the instruments and cleaned the contacts a couple times already, cleaned the connections on the fuse box and had some initial success but it always reverts. Next time I'm running a separate ground wire.

By the way you can see my Verde in the parking lot at 23rd and East. It'll be nice to see another Milano in Golden or for that matter in Colorado.

[slyalfa]

I thought I had the sticking relief valves. and I had the hot knock that seemd to be normal.(reading the bb)
but when I opened it it up at around 230,000 miles the top was perfect (ring seal anyways) but the bearings were not. after new bearings my PSI ran very high even with thin oil 10-30W. and no more knock at idle. right now I have no clue other then the light as the part in the cluster went out and I have not opened to see what went wrong.
I got a cheap mechanical-oil gage with close to the same scale 0-100 PSI with a 45° sweep. so I am going to see if I can replace the works with this one and have a working good gage once and for all.
The OEM sender do not seem to last very long before they fall apart inside or leak.
and they are not very cheap. The whole mechanical-gage was somthing like $15

Also if the charge circuit is wack that will affect all the gages as Alfa seemed to not use a local voltage regulator for the gages so if the mane voltages changes so does all the readings.

[eabergman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MitchW By the way you can see my Verde in the parking lot at 23rd and East. It'll be nice to see another Milano in Golden or for that matter in Colorado.

[juncura1]

really small worlds because here i am! hey mitch, is your milano grey? i saw a grey one running through the roundabout by taco bell.

[eabergman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by juncura1 really small worlds because here i am! hey mitch, is your milano grey? i saw a grey one running through the roundabout by taco bell.

[juncura1]

hey eric, this is benny. i saw another grey Milano running around around golden a while ago. i have also seen one in denver, one on 6th ave., and one cruising around conifer. There are a good number of Alfa's in colorado. check out the AROC and look for the denver chapter.

[MitchW]

Mine is a grey Verde so it probably was me. I go through that round about at least twice a day. I know of a red Verde and a GTV6 in Denver and have occasionally seen a blue(?) Alfetta sedan around Golden. Other than Spiders (I've got a green Jr.) seeing another Alfa here in Colorado is a rare event and even the Spiders sightings are getting fewer.