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My first year of alfa ownership

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819 views 4 replies 2 participants last post by  Trofeo 
#1 ·
A year ago I bought this: Alfa Romeo Classifieds - Auctions - GTV V6 with Cup kit - Powered by PhotoPost Classifieds

When I went for a look I could see it had many bits that needed attention after wasting about 4 hours of the poor guys time looking over everything & giving it a lot of thought. I'm up for a project though & he offered to drop the price a little, we shook on the deal.

First thing I tackled was the cigar lighter that had been moved to the little compartment under the arm rest in the middle because I discovered it wasn't working when my satnav started complaining of low battery on the way home. This picture reveals why; the wires were loose :rolleyes: any previous owner care to own up to that one :D. I replaced the shiny red start button that hadn't been wired to anything with a cigar lighter I took from my old fiat bravo - perfect fit :thumbs:

I removed the subwoofer under the mat in the passenger footwell along with all the wires & sold them on ebay - the music comes from under the bonnet :D

Hand brake was rubbing a bit when we went for a test drive, I'd spotted a cable return spring missing one side when looking over the car. Got the caliper off wound the piston back checked all the rubbers looked ok treated it to some new grease found another spring and put it back on the car & it's been fine since.

As it had only had an MOT one month before I saw it & done barley any millage I was shocked with the discovery one of the front wheels could with a little force be moved backwards almost 2 inches just a couple days after getting the car :eek: new bottom arm for £25 sorted that. Bit of an awkward job but I'd not done one before, confident it would be much easier if I had to do it again.

That covers about the first week anyway :lol: next episode: spark plug blow out :eek:
 
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#3 · (Edited)
Thanks alfapash, the car's fantastic but plenty to do being the age it is with the millage :rolleyes:

Continuing on from the previous post of 'things I've done' had to replace the rubber gaiters on both ends of the steering rack, both had a load of holes in a line along the tops of them :confused:

Brake hoses on the front had been rubbing so replaced the fancy braided things for proper brake hoses the proper length, the pedal felt exactly the same after to me. The braiding had worn right through in one spot so I was worried it would burst.

After this I finally got to enjoy the car without any issues for a good few months, the v6 engine is fantastic I have no regrets what so ever going for one despite the maybe little higher fuel costs :D smiles per gallon not miles & all that.

Anyways I said a spark plug blew out, that happened in April on my way home with not far to go, overtaking about 6k rpm and bang! the hell was that :wow: Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3
 
#5 ·
The thread must have been damaged, my guess is a plug has been put in cross threaded because the bonnet slam panel is in the way slightly. So the thread got completely stripped out when it went pop, at the time it seemed like a very serious problem I wasn't sure I'd be able to fix, I honestly thought it might be the end of the line :( However a quick bit of searching & I discovered some ways of possibly fixing it so bit the bullet & invested £110 in a special tool 'BERGEN Professional Spark Plug Thread Repair Kit M14 x 1.25P BER5801' The tool is also available under the sealey brand though it was £30 more at the time, anyways they've made a video demonstrating how to use it far better than I would be able to explain it. I took my time doing the job & was very thorough removing all the swarf that dropped into the cylinder, as luck would have it the engine stopped with the piston at top dead center making it much easier. I can't put into words the relief after when it fired up first time & was running properly, it was a ":D" moment.

Anyways there was one small thing I forgot before this, I switched the air bag light off :) £7 KKL OBD to USB cable from ebay, some software I don't remember the name of & about 15 minutes to switch a couple pins around in the OBD connector (3 & 7 iirc) & get everything connected up & communicating - very simple job I wished I'd done it sooner because that light was damn annoying! Connecting to the ECU however (after putting the pins in the OBD connector back) was not so simple, I didn't need to for any reason I just thought I'd give it a try as I now had the kit to do it. I wasted a couple afternoons trying everything under the sun & eventually got it working by unplugging the yellow immobilizer CODE box, I discovered on a wiring diagram it connected to the ECU using the same line that went to pin 7 on the OBD connector so I guess it was interfering :/ anyone else had a similar issue? this surly isn't normal :/
 
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