[tom shewchuk]

The title's the question. " Which way does an Alfa 1600 motor turn". I'm taking the crank in to have it polished.

 

[Tifosi]

When looking at it from the front, clockwise.
Looking at your cooling fan will confirm as it rotates in the same direction as the engine.

 

[papajam]

Industry standard states left and right on a motor vehicle are ALWAYS referred to from the drivers seated position (ie from the rear of the vehicle). So the engine turns anti-clockwise.

 

[tom shewchuk]

Thanks Darren, and Jim. The motor is out of the car, and apart, and for the life of me I couldn't remember. Do all motor vehicle engines turn clockwise looking at the crank from the front of the motor.

 

[Andrew]

You can usually tell and engine's rotation by looking at the cam chain/belt tensioner. The tensioner is on the "slack" or "back" side of the crank's pulling power on the chain/belt, if that makes sense. On a four-cyl Alfa, the tensioner is on the intake side, so the chain is moving upwards there, being pulled downwards on the exhaust side by the crank.
With a chain-driven intermediate gear, crank, idler, cams all turn the same direction. On cars with an idler gear, cams can turn backwards (MGA Twin Cam) from crank.
Andrew

 

[gigem75]

Some of the ski natique pleasurecraft 351's run backwards and the only difference is the camshaft and starter.
Generally the rotation is denoted at the flywheel so a RightHand engine turns anticlockwise looking at the fan and a Lefthand engine turns clockwise looking at the fan

 

[180OUT]

Industry standard states left and right on a motor vehicle are ALWAYS referred to from the drivers seated position (ie from the rear of the vehicle). So the engine turns anti-clockwise.

So, looking forward from the drivers seat means that the engine turn to the LEFT? The fact that this happens is undboutedly a legacy of Italian government's long ownership of Alfa coupled with the fact that our cars were built by members communist labor unions.