I appreciate your knowledge and experience, Don- thats why Im here. I learn through adversity and making mistakes, not by memorizing all the facts and doing it perfectly the first time.

Im not afraid of “course reversals”. Here’s the chorus to one of my favorite songs:


Oh everyone makes mistakes
Oh, yes they do
Your sister and your brother and your dad and mother too
Big people, small people, matter of fact, all people
Everyone makes mistakes, so why can't you?

 

if you need a new TA i have a brand new one.$325 no core needed..

 

i might, please hold! i will go through a total tune and baseline SPICA reset this weekend, and everything will get tested and set up in a comprehensive and earnest fashion (since none of the usual culprits turned up anything obvious) , and also have a few tests to determine if the pump itself or other parts, are "good or bad". in short - i might need it, and should know this weekend! worst case i could just take it now and safely be its caretaker if mine is adjusting the spica correctly.

if @rharre13 has a totally dead TA i will pass to him as mine is definitely working at least mostly. and he would have a more immediate need.

after the bill i got on rebuilding my Hewland FT200..... i'm not sure if im broke, or if a couple hundred dollars is irrelevant - still trying to figure that out! lol

ill send you a pm now

 

I will buy that TA if no one else has a immediate need for it. Let me know Herve. I can PayPal you. You have a choice of who to sell it to! Thanks
Karl

 

if Rodney does not buy it, it will be yours...

 

Thank you! I am waiting!!

 

Shifting to Google images sometimes also speeds up finding the appropriate threads.

 

TA has been sold to Rodney..

 

Thanks for letting me know

 

I’ve only had my Monty for a couple years, but I can add the following:

- When the motor is running correctly, it is an incredible experience. It is uninspiring under about 3500RPM, but above that, it winds up quickly and sounds amazing. I love the design of the car but the motor is extraordinary.

- I retrospect I wish I had approached the electric shortcomings in the following sequence:
1) Make 3 new grounding points: near the battery, inside firewall next to fuse box and outside firewall for an engine ground
2) Voltage drop is a huge problem. Install a relay for the accessory circuit which passes through the ignition key switch.
3) Install relay kits for the power windows and fuel pumps.

- Install a battery cut off switch, at least until you are comfortable that the wiring is sorted out.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot this one…replace the fuel hose with hose with an high pressure rating, especially the piece just before the fuel filter in the engine compartment. If this cracks, it sprays gasoline directly on the engine. Incredibly, the gas didn’t ignite, but…

John Grimes

 

New Monty owner here as well. Appreciate the tips. I read the detail on the power window motor relay and am exploring that. Also interested in more details about the fuel pump relay kit. Is there a thread on that too or can someone provide more info on troubleshooting and installation of the kit itself?

 

It would be better, if you have a specific question, I am sure there is someone here who can / will answer it. I find, many owners or interested parties, put all their questions together and responding to them becomes a mish-mash of information. Good luck!

 

Hi All,
I realized i totally forgot to ever post an update. so here you go!!!!

some of the easy topics - the water leak and over heating was a multiple of: 1. the over pressurized bottle line was clogged shut, 2. the coolant cap was leaking, 3. the electric fan ground was never attached. on the upside all the hoses are new and the coolant has been flushed. i have also added an fan override switch because those silly italians put the thermostatic switch on the outlet side of the radiator so the heat just creeps up and up in stop and go hot weather traffic and the fan keeps cutting out, now i can just switch it on and stay on manually too. goodbye to engine ever running hot.

the rear steering... replaced, scratch that - installed because they were not there... the t-bar rubbers on the chassis side. and replaced the rear axle hub bearings that were getting rather loose. Also plumbed the fuel system "better" they had a crazy fuel pressure regulator in the engine bay and pipes the return back to the top of the tank and capped off the fuel regulated return at the bottom, so revered all that around and go the right fuel pressure. (from like 33psi to 18 or 21)

installed the alfaholics stainless steel exhaust from the headers (mine are good) back - expensive, but VERY easy to install and align, sound good, looks wonderful. (delivered to my door in 3 days from England?! obviously before Tariff warfare.

haven't gotten to installing all the suspension goodies and upgrades... maybe this fall.

ok so onto the main topic - the SPICA. and boy have a learned alot there.
As it turns out one of the nations premier SPICA guys lives 20 minutes away in the same town, has a SPICA test bench and a garage full of SPICA parts. - this took months to find him - so Erik figured out and did all the below. to review, the issues were 1. over rich and stalling once warm. 2 fuel in the engine oil.

first up was took the distributor out and he reset the timing on the second ring that was quite a bit off.

decided their was something "jammed" in the SPICA as it would not lean out, upon removal process it was discovered the arm was bent and hitting a mounting bolt and limiting lean out, FWIW - that arm is not exactly strong and was 'easily' bent back.

pump went onto the test bench with covers removed and different dye used. oil working fine, puking fuel out of a few cylinders. now this is the education part, as it turns out. those little cylinders and pistons are made of some sort of comic book adamantium and apparently are very hard to kill. the assembly of those into the pump is complex and needs to be done precisely with a delrin? and tiny tiny copper washer, and that is how the fuel pump pressure fuel was draining into the oil on the bottom end, easy fix right? not really.... neither of those exist anymore, but through some trial and error and used parts he got all of them sealed up. yea! no more fuel leak!

now onto calibration that was pretty straight forward on the bench. however, what we found was the micro switch was dead -replaced that, and then what we found was the cold start "internal return device" was gone.... so he replaced that washer assembly so the cold start would do its gradual timed return (by oil viscosity). reset the barometric to spec. all good, YEA!

installed pump and car ran... ok, but couldn't get good mixture readings out the tailpipe. so... all new throttle arm rod ends, and a lot... of time to get them turned and set, compromised the idle a bit to get really good reading hot around 2,500 rpm. set the cold start - yea! time to change the oil that was full of fuel, just in time for a drive to Yosemite and death valley in 2 weeks.... so back out the oil pan bolt and the entire area of metal comes out with the plug in it.... now i am not making this up. once i got the pan out of the car (no fun) someone has tapped a piece of aluminum and "glued" it in place with RTV from the inside. - i mean ***? you have the pan off and thats your "fix"? so.... aside from a SPICA expert he is also a talented mag welder and fixed that up pretty quick. went through and checked bottom end torque (nothing) and retorqued the heads as well (which needed it). all together, oil in and just in time. packed up and off to 2,000 mile road rally. anyways learned more than i care to know about SPICA injectors, pump assembly, how the cold start system and barometric work, how the cylinders are installed and how the oiling works and the variable fuel cams, how the fuel map cam profiles are different in different SPICA pump series, and hence why the calibration specs vary and on and on and on. its not possible for humans to invent and then manufacture such a combination of steampunk and witchcraft. its like an Apollo Saturn 5 rocket, the skillset of knowledge to manufacture such a thing is lost to time. if i had to do it all over again i think i would just EFI it... honestly.

drive was great! car hauls *** up to to about 80-90 mph, scoots along at 100 - 110 mph ok but the stock suspension is no fun! cars just wants to plow off or roll over into a ditch. elevation, no problem! up and down multiple times from -200 feet under sea lever to 10,000+ above sea level from freezing to 100 deg. no sweat! and runs like a champ. did i mention the car scoots?!?! except in the twisties its a floppy incompetent slab of lard. bummed all the other problems ate into my time to get the suspension in before the trip.

and then... the thermostatic actuator (that was 100% fine this entire time from day 1) that everyone suspected, but was never part of any problem... failed! (tube failed off at the sensor) but good news @brenicia sold me his spare so i had that... uhhhh... at home in a box in the garage. dhup! so... off to an ACE hardware and made a dummy. trying to start it at 3,500 feet and 30 degrees at 7 am the next morning... that suxed. but got through it. and was fine once into death valley for the second half of the trip. some blown fuses on the side of the road, oh, and the very first morning , in the sierra nevada, the battery dies in the natl park... uggg used a lithium jump battery, got out of the park and died about 20 mins outside vasilia. so my buddy goes off to a parts store to get a battery to get me further... somewhere... so sitting on the side of the road a big ole white truck stops, dude jumps out "cool car, is it the transmission, i do transmissions!" "nope, alternator dead, got a battery?" "no sir, but down from my shop is a alternator guy, he's got a shop full of parts!". my buddy gets back, throw the new battery in and off to this shop - that happened to have a partially restored Jag E type in the rafters "there is a dinner across the street, go eat, when you get back ill have it fixed" get back and he's got it all apart on the bench and needs another 30 mins. come back, in the car and all good to go! next day, throw out bearing starts howling... that is still on my to do list. and then after that was the T/A drama.

so make the entire trip, a couple hundred miles heading south back home last day and at 121 miles from my house... low pressure fuel lamp come on (it had flickered a few time randomly over the weekend). hmm... the last thing i want to do is cook this recently rebuilt, calibrated and now perfect SPICA pump. so try putting a clamp on the return line and start it and light goes off. ok, must be a dying fuel pump and then all hell.... return line explodes and fuel start going every where. roll the car back 20 feet and call AAA. thats how i learned o was a 100 and 21 miles from home because AAA only overs 100 mile sand that last 21 miles would be like 300 bux?! drop car off at random mall 22 miles from my house, get trailer, retrieve car. so... Erik had this to say "sometimes bad things happen for good reason, if that rock hard old crusty fuel line had broke while you were flogging it around the car could have caught fire, or worse". i hate it when people are wise. so, replaced all the rubber fuel lines, the ones in the rear were rock hard plastic and cracked. changed the tank filter was i was back there (its was bad but not awful, due to be replaced). now - the single fuel pump in my car was all jacked up anyways. so... i opted to make my own system. new walbor pump, bypass fuel regulator, piped the by pass to the top of the tank. turns out the low pressure light was due to a failed low pressure sensor - so replaced that and light goes out - after a all that work, bad sensor ad the car was actually fine... set pressure. added a relay since the electrics are all right there and those blown fuses? fuel pump. took forever to fabricate it all but now i know what i have and how to service it, not that i should ever have to.

so thats the summary - need a throw out bearing. gotta carve out some long weekends to do the suspension work (classic alfa kit). SPICA all fixed and car runs great! and its not true that you can NOT fix fuel leaky SPICA pumps. and it is true that they are VERY tricky to get right internally. and that there are many weird possible causes of various symptoms. multiple reasons they could be leaking fuel. well.... had a great weekend in the Brabham BT29 at Sonoma. car ran great, fastest times. never dropped a wheel off track, just a great flawless weekend with that car, finally.

 

Excellent write up...it made for a great read but WOW! You really encountered the whole gambit of issues on your first long drive no less! Kudos for ingenuity, determination and willingness to do all those roadside fixes....most folks would have called the AAA and towed the car home....I think I probably would have. Your comments about the Spica and possible conversion to EFI have me feeling that I should go that route on mine. On my 1969 SPICA pump I completely disassembled and reassembled it and rebuilt the TA myself. I even had those copper washers manufactured new (WI refused to sell me new ones....something about "it's for your best interest if I not make these available to you")...I think that challenged me even more and it also took forever to sort out properly...and that's with only 4 cyl in in the pump....I would not be looking forwards to sorting out the 8 cyl version....nor do I feel it worth the high cost of a full rebuild from WI or Burgii (@ what $6k now).

.... well.... had a great weekend in the Brabham BT29 at Sonoma. car ran great, fastest times. never dropped a wheel off track, just a great flawless weekend with that car, finally.

Very nice!