La Tempesta

Just some light work today because of the temperatures: over 30°C outside creates a very special atmosphere in the concrete garage building, not to mention inside the overall. The humidity is luckily only 35% at the moment.

I tried again to pull the propshaft yoke off, but the two prongs on the big puller kept sliding off the flange. I gave up and set out to fix the reverse switch instead. Originally, I thought I had to solder the two wires back on the switch while it was still screwed in the gear box, but after looking in the parts catalogue, the reverse switch is in fact listed with wires and connectors as a unit (105.64.13.534, TAV. 43). After fiddling about in the cockipt for a while, I found the connectors between the driver’s seat and the gear stick, under the carpeting on the propshaft tunnel. Three minutes later the wires were soldered back on, but I forgot to take a picture.

During testing of the reverse lights, I found that the passenger’s side light didn’t work, so I carefully removed the glass to check the bulb. The inside of the reverse light had evidently been flooded with water at one point since there was a clearly visible horizontal water line exactly halfway up on the reflector, plus the bulb was dusty on the underside. Yes, I forgot to take a picture of that as well. The gaskets between the various rear lights had turned into some sort of rubbery crumbs, so it’s apparently time to get some new ones. Seller alfine105 on eBay (otherwise known as AMS Montreal-Service) sells them for €40 a pair. They correspond to part # 105.64.65.012.00/05 (TAV. 104).

Other than that, a handbrake cable and another differential sump gasket (hopefully the correct one) is on order from AMS Montreal-Service.

The prop shaft was split today, but I forgot to take a picture of it. I can  tell you this much though: the shaft looks pretty much like any other propshaft I’ve seen, and the condition appears to be good. The guibo on the other hand, wasn’t in a too good condition. The rubber had developed cracks and had a soft and sticky feel to it. Since this probably is the original guibo from 1972, I took some pictures of the vendor’s name and what I think is their part number: Brevettato 86645. That probably explains one of the many names for the guibo: Brevettato Coupling. There was also a large “Z” embossed in the rubber. The size is about 130 mm across.

I also found out why I haven’t had any reverse light for almost as long as I owned the car. The wires on the reverse switch had simply come loose in what appears to be a temporary repair by soldering. The wires from the switch disappears into the wall of the propshaft tunnel, wrapped in black, electrical tape. I’ll take it off to see if I can fix it. If not, it’s time to hunt down another part. I think I read somewhere that the Alfasud reverse switch will fit, but that’s probably even harder to come by than an original Montreal part

Update 23. July 2009: “Brevettato” means “patented” in Italian, so maybe 86645 is the patent number? That only leaves the capital P and a star inside a shield as manufacturer information.

The windscreen washer have been defictive ever since I bought the Montreal three years ago. Today I decided to tackle the small-ish problem and see if I could get it to work. The small pump located beneath the washer fluid reservoir had apparently decided to call it quits: with voltage applied, the gears in the simple displacement gear pump didn’t so much as budge. The pump is sealed and cannot be repaired. After soaking it in penetrating oil (CRC 5-56) for half an hour, it came unstuck and started to pump with voltage applied.

I also bought some 5mm general PVC tubing from Biltema and replaced all of the brittle, 36 year old tubing on the windscreen washer assembly. The tube has slightly too thick walls for the holes in the false firewall, but it’s possible to squeeze it through without collapsing the tube.

Time for a little update again.

I bought myself an ignition strobe lamp and proceeded to check the ignition on the Montreal a few days ago. Since the Spica parameters were more or less tuned in last autumn, idle rpm have been a little high and slow driving in low gears have been quite a stuttering experience. Following Bruce Taylor’s advice in the Ignition Distribution section on his website, as well as the shop manual’s procedure, the advance at idle was adjusted. To my horror, I couldn’t even see the AF mark on the flywheel when the engine idled, but after a few moments it appeared in the inspection hole. The latter is somewhat obstructed by the speedometer wire attached to the distributor, but the hole is viewable nevertheless.

In the end,  the advance was adjusted a few degrees. As a result, the idle was a little lower and a lot smoother. A lot of the backfiring went away too. Next job now is to take the distributor out and (finally!) clean up the mechanical advance weights in the base. When returning to idle, the rpm is erratic and takes a lot of time to settle down.

Also coming up: replacing the shock absorbers and a lot of bushings. Doing 150 km/h on a straight requires a little too much work to feel safe now, and the swimming around corners doesn’t do La Tempesta justice. I’m hoping to get some pictures taken while working on the suspension. The word is that the 105-series Alfa Romeos are easy to work on with regard to this.