Hi Folks,
I have been restoring an unusual 1978 Alfasud Giardinetta - Wagon/Estate/Kombi - here in the USA and am having problems with the ignition at present.
The car came with a late 1990's 1.5 liter engine with hydraulic valve lifters in the head and twin Weber 40 IDF carbies. It also came with an electronic ignition distributor - which is causing me a lot of problems at present.
I took the car off the road a few years ago as I attended to a number of bodywork and rust issues. When I took the car off the road the engine was running strong - when it got fuel to the carbies, which was problematical due to the extremely rusted out condition of the fuel lines and fuel tank. When I drained the fuel tank I got a gloppish type of orange jello like sludge, the tank was so rusted! I had my local tank cleaning shop attempt to clean out the fuel tank, and they put it in their vats and boiled it out and the whole tank disappeared with the exception of the top of the tank and half the big fuel filler inlet! The rest of the fuel tank dissolved in their vats, it was so rusty!
Once I got into everything underneath the car I found almost obscene and unbelievable amounts of rust in everything - the brakes, suspension, fuel system, etc...so I replaced everything with as many NOS units as I could find - new suspension, new brakes, new fuel tank, new fuel system, new brake and fuel lines, and so forth. This has taken a couple of years to source parts for this variant of the Alfasud, as it seems most of these cars are long gone and most of the parts dealers selling Alfasud parts threw out their spares years ago when people no longer requested them. To say it been a challenge to source parts for this car is a gross understatement
Now that everything is new under the car I have been trying to start up the car and am getting no spark at the spark plugs. The distributor type is a Bosch non-vacuum advance type with the part number 0 237 601 021 - which seems correct for the 1980's and 1990 1.5 liter Alfasud and 33 Boxer four cylinder engines - with a transistorized unit bolted to it and Hall effect pickups inside the body of the distributor. I am getting very weak spark from the primary coil wire when grounded ("jumping") to the engine block, and no spark from the spark plug leads for plugs #1, #3, #2 and #4.
My question is, do you folks have any experience with these distributors failing?
And, has anybody out there attempted to use a newer "1-2-3" type optical ignition distributor in their Alfasud? I have had incredibly good success with using these new distributors in my Giulietta and Giulia, and would go so far as to say it's the best single upgrade you can make to any Alfa Nord inline 4 cylinder engine from the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's.
Can anybody point me to a thread or blog that deals with straight forward trouble shooting of this Alfasud distributor?
Thanks very much for your time everybody, and I hope some Alfasud Pro out there can help me diagnose this sucker!
I have been restoring an unusual 1978 Alfasud Giardinetta - Wagon/Estate/Kombi - here in the USA and am having problems with the ignition at present.
The car came with a late 1990's 1.5 liter engine with hydraulic valve lifters in the head and twin Weber 40 IDF carbies. It also came with an electronic ignition distributor - which is causing me a lot of problems at present.
I took the car off the road a few years ago as I attended to a number of bodywork and rust issues. When I took the car off the road the engine was running strong - when it got fuel to the carbies, which was problematical due to the extremely rusted out condition of the fuel lines and fuel tank. When I drained the fuel tank I got a gloppish type of orange jello like sludge, the tank was so rusted! I had my local tank cleaning shop attempt to clean out the fuel tank, and they put it in their vats and boiled it out and the whole tank disappeared with the exception of the top of the tank and half the big fuel filler inlet! The rest of the fuel tank dissolved in their vats, it was so rusty!
Once I got into everything underneath the car I found almost obscene and unbelievable amounts of rust in everything - the brakes, suspension, fuel system, etc...so I replaced everything with as many NOS units as I could find - new suspension, new brakes, new fuel tank, new fuel system, new brake and fuel lines, and so forth. This has taken a couple of years to source parts for this variant of the Alfasud, as it seems most of these cars are long gone and most of the parts dealers selling Alfasud parts threw out their spares years ago when people no longer requested them. To say it been a challenge to source parts for this car is a gross understatement
Now that everything is new under the car I have been trying to start up the car and am getting no spark at the spark plugs. The distributor type is a Bosch non-vacuum advance type with the part number 0 237 601 021 - which seems correct for the 1980's and 1990 1.5 liter Alfasud and 33 Boxer four cylinder engines - with a transistorized unit bolted to it and Hall effect pickups inside the body of the distributor. I am getting very weak spark from the primary coil wire when grounded ("jumping") to the engine block, and no spark from the spark plug leads for plugs #1, #3, #2 and #4.
My question is, do you folks have any experience with these distributors failing?
And, has anybody out there attempted to use a newer "1-2-3" type optical ignition distributor in their Alfasud? I have had incredibly good success with using these new distributors in my Giulietta and Giulia, and would go so far as to say it's the best single upgrade you can make to any Alfa Nord inline 4 cylinder engine from the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's.
Can anybody point me to a thread or blog that deals with straight forward trouble shooting of this Alfasud distributor?
Thanks very much for your time everybody, and I hope some Alfasud Pro out there can help me diagnose this sucker!