[Alfisto Steve]

Just to show you guys I do multitask on occasion here are some shots of end to a perfect Alfa 164 repair day and how remodeling project coming along.

Happy hour, food on the bar and soap by the sink, living in high cotton.

 

[jontg428]

Hey that looks like my drink of choice, only replace the rum with gin and the Coke with tonic water, diet of coarse! Oh yeah, and a splash of lemonade, just waiting for Leonard to chime in on this one.

 

[Richard2]

Isn't this the house with the kitchen piled high with Alfa parts. Only one plate and one drink? Wish I was there to "help" you out

 

[Alfisto Steve]

Isn't this the house with the kitchen piled high with Alfa parts. Only one plate and one drink? Wish I was there to "help" you out

Same house but as you can see Mary slowly moving remaining car parts to back bedroom that I haven't been able to hid in closets and actually find room for in garage. What is an alfaholic to do?

I wish you were here, too I miss you guy! We had fun in Florida didn't we?

 

[MrT]

Those rooms look like great workshop areas. Real comfort in the seating while disassembling recalcitrant 5-speed transmission housings, etc. I'm not certain you'd want all the fiber content in some of those important Alfa parts, though. Particularly the automatic transmission parts.

Michael

 

[Richard2]

Steve...yea good times in FL. I hope to get enough work done on the 164B and Berlina this fall so I can get started on the red 164S this winter. I really need to get lights in the green house. The Berlina is really taking more time than I'd hoped.

 

[AlexGS]

Happy hour, food on the bar and soap by the sink, living in high cotton.

Thanks for the post especially for me
I'm not familiar with the term 'living in high cotton', but I can certainly guess from the opulence evident in the pics.

The single dining option (and no plate for the bread ) actually looks rather like one of my concoctions - I find that less time spent in the kitchen leads to more time spent in the garage (and vice versa).

Your living room and dining areas appear to have a Tardis quality, no doubt helped by the upstairs location of the bedrooms. I couldn't make out a single Alfa part in the pictures (except possibly in the Priority Mail bag), so it seems that you have won the war (or lost, depending on your viewpoint).

What is the highly-futuristic-looking device installed in the wall where one would expect an open fire to be?

I won't get into the topic of drinks (I don't, except once a year or so) but let's just say that my chosen mixes have the appearance of meths (and probably taste similar), or, the more Campari the better.

One day I might have to post a response showing my place, but right now the volume of junk would horrify (e.g. the two windscreens leaning against the couches, various giant cardboard boxes, old Commodore computer collections).

Michael, I liked your choice of words, particularly 'recalcitrant' (one of my favourites). Why is it that the average Internet-forum tends to attract the sort of people that have difficulty with spelling "blow of valve", but the Alfa Romeo forum has people like you aboard...

Cheers,
-Alex

 

[jwehler]

Looks like I missed whatever was going on ....... AGAIN! Sounds like some cool drinking and eating, Steve. Was this engineered by Mary Lee? Hope so. Hope it was all respectful. Sounds like Alex liked it! For me? I'd love it too but being pretty much grounded mit de frau, I have to go easy.

Congrats on a nice party ....... I guess, is that right?

Sorry I will not be able to join you on your up-coming Tour up the James. Enjoy those Plantations. They are fantastic. My favorite is Westover.

Jim Wehler

 

[john.harrill]

Life is good!

 

[164 FAMILY]

Hey that looks like my drink of choice, only replace the rum with gin and the Coke with tonic water, diet of coarse! Oh yeah, and a splash of lemonade, just waiting for Leonard to chime in on this one.

Jon doesn't even need to be remodeling/working on the cars to have the drink!

 

[Alfisto Steve]

Jon doesn't even need to be remodeling/working on the cars to have the drink!

Neither do I but it sure helps to have FEW hours of manual labor behind you before it is 5 O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE!

 

[Alfisto Steve]

Steve...yea good times in FL. I hope to get enough work done on the 164B and Berlina this fall so I can get started on the red 164S this winter. I really need to get lights in the green house. The Berlina is really taking more time than I'd hoped.

DON'T I KNOW IT. just today a simple thing like adjusting/replacing/adjusting/then replacing blown fuse caused by replacing/adjusting, etc., the neutral/park start and reverse light switch in 91L verde project turned into over an hour just to get back up lights for state inspection tomorrow I hope.

 

[Alfisto Steve]

Thanks for the post especially for me
I'm not familiar with the term 'living in high cotton', but I can certainly guess from the opulence evident in the pics.

The single dining option (and no plate for the bread ) actually looks rather like one of my concoctions - I find that less time spent in the kitchen leads to more time spent in the garage (and vice versa).

Your living room and dining areas appear to have a Tardis quality, no doubt helped by the upstairs location of the bedrooms. I couldn't make out a single Alfa part in the pictures (except possibly in the Priority Mail bag), so it seems that you have won the war (or lost, depending on your viewpoint).

What is the highly-futuristic-looking device installed in the wall where one would expect an open fire to be?

I won't get into the topic of drinks (I don't, except once a year or so) but let's just say that my chosen mixes have the appearance of meths (and probably taste similar), or, the more Campari the better.

One day I might have to post a response showing my place, but right now the volume of junk would horrify (e.g. the two windscreens leaning against the couches, various giant cardboard boxes, old Commodore computer collections).

Michael, I liked your choice of words, particularly 'recalcitrant' (one of my favourites). Why is it that the average Internet-forum tends to attract the sort of people that have difficulty with spelling "blow of valve", but the Alfa Romeo forum has people like you aboard...

Cheers,
-Alex

Thanks for the complements on my remodeled digs! Actually this one is a rancher with everything on one floor bedrooms down the hall and only two of the four finished right now. Bedroom 3 is my office and Alfa library and master one now under construction/destruction so it has overflow Alfa parts and construction debris.

Only last week we got the $28 Pick-N-Pull Range Rover windshield out from behind living room couch and installed in my son's RR before state inspection due.

I am now 4 years into my 6 month remodeling project but who is counting?

In answer to your futuristic question that is a red brick fireplace I did a www.BrickaNew.com make over on and installed a set of glass doors to keep the cool in with a/c running. May never get a fire going in it but have installed a propane log set just in case the mood moves us later on.

 

[AlexGS]

Looks like I missed whatever was going on ....... AGAIN! Sounds like some cool drinking and eating, Steve. Was this engineered by Mary Lee? Hope so. Hope it was all respectful. Sounds like Alex liked it!

Jim,

I wish I had been there but no, I'm in New Zealand

I think the post was in response to my dig at Steve in a different thread before about "how's the house remodelling going?"

Cheers,
-Alex

 

[Alfisto Steve]

Jim and Alex just finished another Thursday evening Father Son session on his Maserati BiTurbo Spider engine valve adjustment caper. Don't get me started on stupidity of Maser engineers of the 80s. Dumb as a box of rocks with engine design requiring computation of a compressable gasket in the valve clearance equation. We aren't there yet and I thought the Maser BiTurbo Coupe last year was bad enough when we removed gaskets from equation and has to mill shims to get them thin enough and had to use Loctite 518 to stop oil leaks after gaskets removed.

 

[AlfaTango1]

You had to "Mill" shims? OMG, the thought of shimming the valves were enough to keep me from buying one many years ago...

 

[Alfisto Steve]

You had to "Mill" shims? OMG, the thought of shimming the valves were enough to keep me from buying one many years ago...

Yep, when you take out a .020 gasket (compressible to .017 at 15 ft lbs of torque on cam box bolts) and then try to use original shims you get close to 0.000 valve clearance. We went from .116+ shims down into the 90s on some of them.

You can see we got belt back on and checked valve clearance with new cam box gaskets but clearances still off so have to start again next Thursday.

Please note how wide that "killer clevage" is on a 90 degree Maser Biturbo motor!

 

[MrT]

Are the gaskets at least reproducible in terms of thickness at a specified torque? Wowee.... If things are milled too thin (yes, I understood your milling of shims and am asking about the things you are shimming), can they be welded back up? Ouch. Or maybe you should get a new valve job?

Michael

 

[Alfisto Steve]

Are the gaskets at least reproducible in terms of thickness at a specified torque? Wowee.... If things are milled too thin (yes, I understood your milling of shims and am asking about the things you are shimming), can they be welded back up? Ouch. Or maybe you should get a new valve job?

Michael

No way, car only has 48K on it. We will overcome engineering miscue. We milled valve shims aka lash caps. Same style as Alfa but 7mm ID vice 9mm used for most Alfas.

 

[AlexGS]

I guess the question I have is, does the housing-with-compressible-gasket have to come off to adjust the valves? Is there not some special tool to depress buckets and pop out shims? EDIT: I guess from diameter measurement that the shims are under the tappets... oh dear.

When I built my SOHC 1498cc engine for my 128 coupe, you could possibly have said the same thing - the cam housing had a gasket where it bolted to the head (pictured) - the paper gasket leaked at the front corner so I replaced it with something rubbery of unknown thickness. Plus, I had about 1.5mm taken off the cam housing base as a 'seat of the pants' judgement based on the reduced base circle reground cam I was going to use; I guessed that I wanted to use thinner shims rather than thicker.

This is when everything taken everything apart again after the head gasket blew (second pic), maybe the 10.8:1 compression wasn't such a great idea.

But the point is that the gasket thickness didn't matter because valves could be adjusted easily after the housing is torqued down - tappets depressed with special tool A60421 (how I remember that, long story as I broke the only one belonging to the specialist and had to get a replacement) - not so easy when cam too close to buckets as a result of 1.5mm off the housing (that's why the tool broke), but anyway. Because we have all been saving these 'coins' since we were little boys, it's just a matter of swapping them from a supply of, oh, about a hundred, to correct measured clearances (so, gasket not an issue for the FIAT engine, and milling - no way! )

That's the FIAT engine as in 128, X1/9, Uno, Tipo, Punto etc. There must be 15 million cars out there with that motor... Our original 1969 128 saloon had the earliest 1116cc type, while a close friend has a 1995 Punto 90 (1580cc MPI version) which is perhaps the last of the type. My personal favourite is the 1301cc small-bore version in my Uno Turbo.

I think it was just as well that I learned on simple engines like the FIAT's, at least parts were plentiful when I broke things! Third pic shows shims being removed from Uno 1301cc 'big-bore' non-turbo engine. With 14psi boost in my Uno Turbo, I think you can see why I'm happy for the head gasket to have the bores a little further apart.

I'm still trying to get my head around how to adjust inlet valve clearances on the Alfa V6, so maybe the Maserati is just too difficult for me to comprehend... It seems a pity that the design genius of the FIAT SOHC and DOHC engines, in terms of serviceability and durability, could not be scaled-up to the performance engines...

-Alex