RIBE or TORX???

Now that I am the proud owner of a 166 twinnie, I thought I'd best get some tools to do all of those little jobs that Alfa ownership entails. Looking at the various fastnings it appears that most of them are star point, are they standard Torx or RIBE bits?

I bought a set of both, not knowing what the hell I was at, weened on whitworth, AF, and all the other simple hex fixes. Not sure even now, just trial and error for me I'm afraid.: Not much help, sorry.

An old flat screw driver and a big hammer fixes all....

you've obviously never tried to take the head off a VW then, special tool that's somewhere between Torx ands RIBE...I think that they call it Polydrive or something. I too was weened on A/F and Whitworth (and BA...anyone remember them!), so zulu ferret must be as ancient as me (49), and no I'm not buying an Alfa because I have a mid-life crisis, I loved my 164 that I had in 1994, and I was young then!

They are Ribe bits if you are talking about the nuts that hold the cam cover and cam belt covers on.
Halfrauds sell an expensive Laser kit for about £29.
Or you can buy individual bits on eBay for about £3 each but they rip you off for delivery.
I was able to use a Torx T5 bit for the larger M8 Ribe bit that holds the bottom pulley on, and a flat bladed screwdriver bit of 6mm width (not surprisingly) to get the smaller M6 Ribe bits off.

thanks, are there any other sizes apart from M6 & M8?

Yes there are different sizes but buying a set will probably cover everything you need , you will however come across torx as well , the ribe is recognised by the flat edge on the star edge rather than a pointed sharp edge if you see what I mean, and yes we are still using BA AT WORK ! Like the rest on this thread I was brought up on af,whitworth, then of course mm, nightmare if all these tools are together but thankfully they are fasing out over the years yet it looks like the manufacturers are trying to outwit us diyers in producing some new kind of bolt or nut!

To add another variation into the mix, there is also TS-Star bits, same as Torx but 5-points instead of 6.

Originally Posted by bk.bas

thanks, are there any other sizes apart from M6 & M8?

There are plenty of other Ribe bit sizes but I haven't come across them on an Alfa yet.