alfaman51

During the summer ( remember that?) I saw an eBay ad for a Cup (no 107) at sensible money. It was at the other end of the country and there was no hope of getting to see it before bidding. Usually I wouldn't dream of risking money on a cat I had not even seen, but with only 44 k miles recorded and a full history it was too tempting to miss. So I bid on the car and I won the auction. I could not collect the car for several weeks so by the time I took the train down to Cornwall to get it the sense of anticipation was acute. Was I disappointed? No, it is a nice straight well maintained car. It needed paint, but I was expecting that, and it needs cosmetic tidying but it has been well looked after and will , with a little TLC, be a delight to drive and own. A few weeks ago my existing GTV suffered an electrical fire. It's a total write off but I can salvage wheels, tyres, stainless exhaust, new clutch and flywheel , differential, dampers, audio , radiator etc etc and over the winter I shall use all the best bits to ensure that the Cup is immaculate. The photos are of the Cup on it's return from the body shop. New paint and refurbished wheels. Now that's just the start.... cupphotos.zip

Koni sports rear dampers are adjustable but it's a real pain to do as you have to remove them from the car to do it... I think that I am going to go two clicks softer and see what happens then. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No engine pics this time.. just a report on progress. I found that the car was getting too warm in traffic ....cooling fan not cutting in when it should, but now fixed. I have turned my attention to the suspension this month. The front struts were looking well past their prime so I have replaced all the struts/ dampers with Koni sport units. I have also replaced the springs with Eibach springs which mean that the car sits just a little lower. The rear dampers only have 4 settings. I have had mine set to position 3 , but I think it is a fraction too hard. The fronts are fully soft to start with and I will try increasing the firmness little by little.... Has anyone else out there tried Konis? If so, what do you think?

I've been too busy with work recently. No Time to play! A6C , I think that your engine must be a CF 2 unit. ( Probably the best of the 3.0 litre V 6's in my view) . The black box is no more than a plastic box which protects some connectors. The oil breather is a temporary solution . When I have time I intend to replace the two breather pipes with braided steel hoses and join them via a T piece so that they both vent into the inlet tract between the plenum chamber and the MAF sensor unit. At the moment only one vents that way. Does anyone think that this will cause a problem?

Wow... that's all been a lot of work. I love to see a car saved from the clutches of the breaker's yard, or left to rot on someone's drive. Impressive!

It's back! Mot duly passed without advisories. A clean bill of health to start the year. I spent yesterday working on the engine bay. I stripped out both fuel rails and used Westwood paint to re-create the cadmium coating of the original finish. Uses a gold base layer then translucent red and green colours to create the final effect. I had taken the intake pipes off to do this so they were cleaned and polished. New red silicon couplers were used to replace the original rubber items which were ageing and cracked where they had become heat hardened. I also refinished all the allen bolts and other fixings. Here are the results....

Good work - I hate to see them scrapped. I always feel sorry for them and I am a hopeless optimist when it comes to working out how much work is actually going to be needed ( and what it will cost) I think of it as a hobby but my wife says it's a disease!

Spring seems to be here! Time to get the sleeping beauty out of the garage and into the sunshine...and it started instantly. It's time for the MoT on Monday, so fingers crossed...

Welcome, It's a difficult line to tread... what mods/ upgrades do you have in mind?

Do you want me to put together a list of Alfa Romeo Owners Club/Auto Italia/ Alfabook meetings in the UK for the summer of 2015 on the basis that a Squadra 916 gathering would be possible at one of them ( if there was a meeting at a larger gathering of Alfas it might well help to recruit more members)?

The quality looks really good. I am impressed.

11 Alfas? That is a serious addiction.... Confess all! What were they?

Alfa Romeo 156 1.8 lusso

Hey, I was browsing eBay yesterday when I found that a firm called " Partsworld" have a very few genuine GTV mats for sale. They are not cheap but I thought that they were long extinct in the UK. These will be for a RH drive car. The details are:- Set of brand new genuine Alfa Romeo GTV carpet mats in Charcoal grey 46000996 (item: 371096761797 ), and the vendor is Partsworld.uk I've ordered mine. I think they have about 4 sets left. Go for it!