Magic Bolt what fixes my non-starting/highway dying '86 Spider.

[toasterhunter]

So after a lot of hulabaloo and being very sick for the past couple of days I've had some more of my mechanic friend's dedicated time. He's even bring over an Oscelloscope so we can check signals from the RPM Sensor. Crank Position Sensor. Flywheel Sensor - whatever. It's all the same thing.

It's been raining a lot in the mountains above Santa Cruz. Fairly dry yesterday - but my Alfa was still sitting in a pile of wet leaves - so I unlocked the steering and pushed her back 4 feet or so - heard a scraping noise.

That's odd; It's pretty far from the wall - and I don't rub with stock wheels. Shrug and put 'er where I want 'er.

I put out some plastic trashbags so I can get a look under the car. I really need to pick up some old carpet samples - but anyway. What should I see but something like the aformentioned sensor (from what I know of IAP catalog drawings) DRAGGING ON THE GROUND BY THE LEAD WIRES.

Friends get here - jack up the car - sensor in obvious hole in bellhousing - VROOM. Sounds a lot better too 'cause of the new plugs and coil and whatnot.

So...what the hell happened to the bold that holds it in? Who knows - so we pull out the bolt from the other sensor for reference and head to the local hardware store. Where we manage to find something close enough (not socket head) and head back.

The new bolt doesn't fit - apparantly when the old bolt did it's disappearing act it took some threads with it - a lot of threads.

The new goal becomes to find a 6mm x 50mm-55mm bolt to replace the x 45mm bolt that came out. Had to make another trip to the hardware store and call several places before we found one (across town) location where one was to be found. They even had socket head and OOH JOY COLOR CHOICES. Silver and Black - I'm in heaven.

Long story long. She's back on the road and plenty happy to be there. We also cut off about 7in of the muffler as it's pinched and I'll be replacing the whole thing soon enough anyway. I'll attach photos when I get them. It's really impressive how any exhaust got out at all.

Thanks for all your guys' knowledge and advice. Couldn't've got 'er running without it!