[Jeroen]

Earlier when I took out the radiotor to replace the V-belts I noticed that the mounting rubbers of the radiotor were in pretty poor state

This is the left one



Here the right one, even worse



So I ordered a set of new mounting rubbers. First took the old ones off. Easy enough, one bolt. Here you see old set in the front and a new set behind it.



These mounting rubbers consist of two halves that fit together snuggly. They need a locking ring on both sides and a little steel bush in between. That means you can’t really over tighten them. These mounts hold the radiotor, absorbing vibrations.



The right one was missing the O-ring and that might also be the reason for it being in such a poor state. It looks as if it was overtightened.
So I had to dip into one of my many boxes with bolts, nuts and rings. Remember, when you like working on cars or do DIY, you can never ever have enough of these sort of boxes.



So cleaned everything and put the new ones back in. For some reason I don’t seem to have images of the new mounts in place. But the look fine!


Jeroen

[Jeroen]

As I have explained before. Fiddling with my cars is not necessarily just working on my own cars. Anything to do with cars comes under this heading, as far as I am concerned. Last weekend I attended a course in sheet metal working. As you will see, definitely about fiddling with cars.

For many years I have been a member of the KNAC. It is an organisation similar to the UK AA. Although the KNAC is more focussed on Classic cars and Vintage vehicles. For many years I had my classics insured with them. At the time I knew them pretty well. They were also one of the sponsors of the Dutch Alfa Romeo Spider Register at the time I was the Register’s treasurer. We managed to get some special discounts for our members. Very professional, pleasant organisation to deal with.

About two years ago, at the recommendation of my trusted spanner mate Peter, I checked out some other classic car insurances. I could get near identical coverage for almost Euro 500 less per year. So I talked to them, I don’t move away my insurance portfolio for a few tens of Euro’s, but this was too big a difference.

They tried but couldn’t meet the price point, so I took my cars to a different company. But we parted on good terms, I’m still on all their mailing lists. They organise all kinds of events, including this one and I still get to attend as if I was a member. There is a small fee to pay for these event. (Euro 75 for this event)

So when I saw an announcement of a workshop in metal sheet working I jumped at the chance. I know a tiny bit about metal sheet working. Obviously, when at naval college we were taught a few basics and in the navy/offshore there might be the odd metal sheet working job too.

This course was given by Dirk Kuiper and he is a bit of legend when it comes to classic car restorations. He has been in the business of metal sheet working his whole life. He was one of the founding fathers of the Dutch professional body of vintage car restorers. He is well into his 70s now, although you would not say so when you meet him. He and his wife Cora have this huge garage where they live and enjoy their hobbies.



They own several classics themselves. The rest of what you see here are cars belonging to friends and some cars that have been put up for storage.

It is a bit like a little museum, very nice and some interesting stuff to be seen.





Needs some cleaning up, but it really is a very nice little Honda





This Alfa Romeo Spider belongs to Dirk and his wife Cora. It is probably the best sorted Spider Touring I have come across ever. These cars are quite rare these days. Seeing one in this good a condition is even more rare. This car is probably worth Euro 150 - 200.000!



Also, quite some model cars around. Some very simple, some very, very nice!





We were welcomed in the traditional Dutch way. Which means Coffee and Apple cake with cream. First couple of hours were theory. Dirk put together a huge binder about all the various topics he was going to cover. Lots of details and a lot of his knowledge and experience poured into this write up. I will definitely make sure I keep it in a safe place.





After a couple of hours, some more coffee, we went to his workshop. Dirk demonstrated various techniques and we were all allowed to give it a try as well.

Some very good practical tips for the workshop. Look at this. Very simply made from a piece of L-profile. Makes for perfect bending of a piece of sheet metal.



Although Dirk does have a proper anvil as well, he also had these two pieces of rail track. Make for a very good anvil. He provided us with a few addresses where we might be able to buy a piece. A lot cheaper than a real anvil!



And of course, he has an endless amount of all sorts of tools, clamps, welding machines etc.



I need to run off to catch a plane to Dubai. I will be back home end of the week. I will post some more about the various practical exercises we did. I also need to find a good technical Dutch English translation site. I just realised that lots of the terms used for metal working I just don’t know the proper English name for. If anybody has some tips or knows some good sites about metal working, let me know. I need to brush up on my English metal working vocabulary

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Back from Dubai, so finishing up my story on my metal working workshop.

All of us were allowed to try the various techniques Dirk demonstrated. He makes it looks easy, but it would be after 55 years of doing it. This guy here was a Merchant Navy engineer (as I used to be). He was here together with his wife, who was also a Merchant Navy officer. (Nautical). They had several American classis is varies stages of restoration.

This is about as easy as it gets in metal working. Hammering a steel plate around an edge. Use an anvil, or a piece of rail (1) and a proper hammer and tap away. Always start from the middle



It gets a bit more tricky if that piece of sheet metal also needs to be curved. Dirk has a special tool that puts these little Vs in the sheet.



At face value, creating the edge on the curved sheet looks similar. But you have to hit these Vs in a very different manner and ensure you keep the sheet curved.



Of course, no self respecting sheet metal worker will be without a proper English Wheel. It was probably the only tool and technique we did not try.



next Dirk demonstrated this little machine that allows you to put a very nice curvature into a sheet of metal. I have been using them before. But Dirk had quite a few practical tips. How to set it up, how to ensure you get the correct bending radius etc.



Here is a fender being restored. A curved fender like this is impossible to make from a single sheet of metal. So actually, in this particular case it is made of a number of smaller sections, all welded together to get the correct shape



Next, using the (in)famous sandbag. Pound away!!



Dirk has these two mechanical tools that allow you to stretch or crimp the metal on the edge. Instead of hammering. Works really well.



Next we took to welding. Dirk is very much a traditional welder. Doesn’t like MIG or TIG welding. Still the old flame and he is a master at it!



Bit of patch works by us the students:



Dirk also showed us the proper technique of applying tin. Initially just on a piece of sheet metal that was placed horizontally. Somebody challenged him to demonstrate it on a vertical bit, so he did.



Here Dirk is demonstrating an interesting technique or rather little trick to temper Aluminium, so it becomes soft and flexible again.

Use the gas burner to apply a even sheet of soot across the plate. Than with a normal hot flame start burning off the soot again. The melting point of aluminium is only 5-7oC more than when the soot starts to burn. So it gets heated up properly to the correct temperature and you don’t melt it. When you warm up still you can more or less tell by the discolouring of the metal at what sort of temperature you are. No such thing with Aluminium. It will just start to melt without any visual clues. So it is very tricky to heat it to the correct temperature. So this trick with the soot helps you to stay just below the aluminium melting point.



Finally, another work in progress project in Dirk’s workshop. A Porsche 356, still some work to be done.



I really enjoyed myself. It was very interesting, very practical and we got this huge binder with all the theorie and tricks we discussed and practiced during the day.

Metal working is a real art and it takes many, many years of experience. But it is also something you can try your own hand at, relatively easy. As Dirk said, A good metal worker will have two qualities: Lots of experience and you need to be very patient. You can’t rush these sort of jobs!

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Last night I had another stab at trying to fix the clip on the Jaguar air filter.

If you go through this thread you will find I have tried to fix it twice already.

Out comes my trolley, not too many tools required for this little job this time.



Here the offending bit. It snapped off once. I have tried different kinds of superglue. Last time it actually worked for a while, but when I checked recently i had come undone again.



Last Saturday, in my favourite toolshop, I found this stuff. It is still essentially some kind of super glue with some special filler/bonding stuff thrown in for good measure. Comes in two colours, black and grey.



Anyway, I had a go. First job is to clean of old glue bits. Actually not that difficult, that old stuff was very hard and with a Stanley knife and a good scrubbing with a steel brush everything came off. Degreased the bits and put the new glue and filler on. Left to dry for a few minutes and presto!



When I put the top half of the air filter back on and tightened up the clip it held. So who knows, maybe third time lucky? We will see.

The other day my wife came home, very upset. She had hit another car with her Ford Fiesta. This happens on average once or twice a year. I am really not that bothered, as long as she is alright. It’s not that she is not a safe or experience driver. But she just keeps banging into stuff. Mostly stationary stuff, e.g. trees, poles or this time another parked car. She managed to hit her right wing mirror to his left wing mirror. They both shattered. Luckily she did pick up all the pieces.





If you need to replace a wing mirror these days, you are in for a bit of shock. They are hugely expensive. The mirrors on our Fiesta are heated, electrically adjustable and the cover is painted in the body colour.

Luckily when I started looking at it, I found that although a few clips were broken I could just put everything back together and it held.



The indicator light would not work, but that was just a broken wire and the one part my wife failed to pick off the ground; the bulb!.

So all is good again. Luckily the guy whose mirror she knocked off was very good natured about it as well.His mirror was likely to be a lot more expensive as it was a BMW 7 series. He phoned the same evening and told us he could get his repaired for Euro 70 only. Which was a huge relief, as it meant we would not have to make a claim on our insurance. Just paid him cash. He even popped around the next evening to pick up the cash. Had a nice little chat with him. He was in to classic cars as well!

As they say, All is well that ends well!

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

I could not quite figure out when I replaced/flushed the brake system on the Spider. In general it is recommended to flush the system every 2-3 years. The main reason is that brake fluid is hygroscopic. So over time it absorbs water. Water can cause rust. Note that I use the term brake fluid and not brake oil. Brake fluids are just that. No oil components in sight.

Also, over time the brake fluid gets contaminated due to normal wear and tear from the brake master cilinder and the callipers.

So it makes for good preventive practice to give the system a proper flush every 2-3 years. I have written on several threads regarding bleeding brakes. The process is actually very similar as you will see. The easiest way, if you have no access to specialised tools, is to keep pumping the brake pedal and force new brake fluid into the system as you open and close the bleed valve on its respective brake. It works, it’s a bit cumbersome and it needs two people, but it will get the job done.

As I have mentioned earlier, I am not a huge fan of the “pumping the brake pedal”. The brake cilinder does wear due to the piston sliding back and forth. At the end of each stroke material/debris will collect. Under normal operation that is no problem. However, when you pump the brake you will actually push the piston and its seal through this debris. Check out an old worn master cilinder and you are very likely to be able to feel/see a little ridge on each side where the end of the piston stroke used to be.

It is unlikely to cause immediate damage, but it might lead to a leaking mastercilinder sooner. Some master brake cilinders are more prone to this. And I know for a fact that the ones installed by Alfa Romeo are very prone to it.

So better safe than sorry. Also, I do a lot of my work on my cars by myself, so having a tool that prevents the above mentioned problem and which will allow me to work by myself would be welcome.

I do have an Eezibleed.



These work really well. They work of the pressure of a spare tyre. I always carry this one in the Spider when we go for long drives. Just in case.

Recently I bought myself a more fancy Brake bleeder kit.



This one works on vacuum. The vacuum is created by blowing compressed air through an ejector. In the Venturi of the ejector a vacuum is created and that is used to suck the brake fluid through the system. So this one you hook up to the brake bleed valve on each calliper! In theory vacuum is even better then pressure. Vacuum allows any micro air bubbles to be released by the brake fluid.

So here we go again:



Actually, as with bleeding the best method is to start with the longest brake line and work you way to the shortest one. On my Spider that means starting at the right rear one.

Make sure you have plenty of fresh brake fluid at hand! I like these little canisters. Once you have opened a new bottle of brake fluid, you either use it or dispose of it. There is very little value in keeping in open bottle due to the hydroscopic properties. So small bottles make a lot of sense.



You start by opening the brake fluid reservoir and sucking out all the old brake fluid. I have one of these huge syringes specially for this purpose. Brake fluid is very corrosive. You don’t want it on anything. So make sure you cover everything properly. Anything that does get a drop of brake fluid, use lots of water and some soap to wash it down



Once the reservoir is empty, I installed this automatic replenishment bottle.
Well, automatic, it is just gravity fed. As you bleed the brakes, fluid will disperse from the brake reservoir and you need to keep adding. With this nifty little bottle it keep filling automatically. After draining the old fluid, you fill the brake reservoir with new brake fluid. Next you position this bottle so the neck of the filler tube just touches the brake fluid surfaces. When the surfaces draws down as the brake fluid is sucked into the system, air pops into the replenishment bottle and fills the brake reservoir. Very simple, very neat!



Here you see the bleed set in action. It is very simple really. With the automatic replenishment bottle set up as described you dive under the car. ON the rear wheels I just jack up the car about 3 inches for easier acces. You undo the dust cap on the bleed valve. Push the vacuum hose on, engage the bleeder (turn on the compressed air), open the bleed valve and observe the old fluid being sucked out! It took about 7-8 minutes of operating it on the rear brake lines. You can see the old fluid accumulating in the bleeder unit. And of course, you can also see the level of fluid dropping in the replenishment bottle.



On the front it is best to take the wheel off. The front brake lines took about 3-4 minutes each. Shorter brake lines!. The Spider has a hydraulically operated clutch, with its own reservoir. So I quickly refreshed that too. That took maybe 1-2 minutes. Even shorter hydraulic line and a larger diameter too!.

Make sure you use the correct spanner on the bleed valves. There are special spanners for this purpose. Of course I have those. But I had forgotten they don’t fit on the Spider. Can’t get them on the bleed valve. Best use one of the ring spanners instead!



Here is some of the old fluid. It looks really mucky!!



My wife keeps all plastic and glass containers for me. When working on cars there is always a use for these. I also keep the old oil canisters. I am keen on working as “green” and environmental friendly as I can. So I collect all oil and other liquids in all of these old containers and bottles and bring to the local tip where they get disposed of properly.



Took the Spider for a quick test drive. Brakes work fine and so does the clutch. It could be my imagination, but I thought the clutch felt a little lighter after the refresh.

Finally gave the Spider a quick wash. And of course now and then all the towels and rags need some maintenance as well. I run them through our washing machine and hang them to dry in our garden.



Couple of additional thoughts:

I am quite pleased with the little brake bleeder kit. It is really good value for money. It cost Euro 16. To put that in perspective. That is 3-4 Starbuck coffees.

It works on compressed air and you need lots of it. 7 bars and 200l/min. My compressor can cope with that easily though, but smaller ones might struggle. Less pressure, volume means less vacuum. I am not so sure how effective this system will be on a brake system with ABS. Much more resistance as you need to such the air through the ABS module.

I am going to do the Mercedes as well. The Jaguar actually had its brake fluid refreshed not so long ago. So I have no ABS to experiment on. Maybe my son’s Golf GTI.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

I knew the Mercedes had a problem with its carburator. Had it for a very long time. I even wrote about it in one of the very first posts of this thread.

My W123 has the so called M102 2.0 engine and it came equipped with a Stromberg 175 CD carburator. That seems straight forward enough, but in practice Stromberg made an incredible number of variants. So it can get tricky buying parts.

The problem with mine, was (most likely) a torn membrane. These carburators come with an oil dampener. Over time the membrane perishes, the oil disappears into the carburator/engine. No damping means erratic idling, hunting, poor fuel economy. Now the truth is that my car/engine has been doing that for a very long time, but only very very mildly. To the extend that most people would not even notice. But still, I don’t know why, but earlier this week I decided enough is enough and lets fix it.

First thing is to get parts. Mercedes did actually stock the membrane. But once you start stripping a carburator you just don’t know what you will find.

I found this Dutch webshop: http://www.carburateurwinkel.nl . I called them. It is run by the owner. Started as a hobby, but these days this is his and two employees full employment. He said he had at least 5 different overhaul sets for my W123, but could not be sure which one was the correct one. As it so happens he lives only 6 km from my office. So we agreed to meet one afternoon. He runs his shop from home. He had boxes with parts stacked up to the ceiling in his living room. Very interesting shop, great guy, took a lot of time to help me find the right parts. I had brought the various bits of my carburator so we could do some trial fitting.

The actual repair job itself is pretty straight forward. When working on carburators there are a couple of things that are really important:

- Keep everything as clean as possible
- It’s a delicate item, be gentle, don’t use force
- Pay close attention on how things come apart!

The upside of Stromberg carburators is that there is an awful information about them everywhere. On the internet, lots of books and of course every petrol head my age has at some point in time worked on carburators.

This is a handy little booklet I found on the internet. In Dutch, but it describes step by step how to take them apart, overhaul them and install and re-adjust them.



This is how it all looks under the hood



To get at the membrane, you can leave the actual body of the carburator on the engine. Makes it a lot easier. Here I already have taken the little cover off and the upper body too



Here you see how the membrane fits to the body.



Here we have the “offending” part; as suspected a torn membrane





This is how the inside of the carburator looked. A bit of fuel deposits, but not too bad. I have seen a lot worse



Here is where my new steel top on my work bench comes into its own and why I wanted a steel top over the wooden top> Cleanliness is everything!!!



The parts again laid out on special paper towel, the overhaul set and I also bought special carburator oil. Probably the most expensive oil I have ever purchased. We are talking Euro 12 for 175 ml!!



Checking the old and the new membrane. You need to look very carefully as these membrane have got little rubber lips that stick out. They fall into respective holes on the body. Easily overlooked and you will damage the membrane straight away on mounting it incorrectly.



First parts cleaned and assembled



Inside all clean again!



Almost done!



Filling the dampener with my very very expensive oil, making sure I don’t spill a single drop, obviously. Can’t afford spillage with this stuff!



The moment of truth or at least the first proof point. Pushing the little dampener back in. You need to fill proper resistance. Even after a few times back and forth. So far so good.



I started the W123 and immediately I could hear the idling had improved. I always thought it ran pretty good, but now it purrs like the proverbial sewing machine. Took it for a short test drive. No hesitation, just smooth power delivery. Checked for any leaks, but everything looked fine. So job done. Very pleased with it.

That evening I moved my Spider and whilst doing so the clamp of the front passenger window fell off. It has done so on numerous occasions. Alfa Romeo design of this thing means it is simply glued to the window/glass. Whereas (touch wood) the left one has never come off, the right one falls off every 3-4 years.



So it means trying out different kinds of glue. This time I’m going for the official car mirror glue. Which is supposed to glue glas to metal!



Some fancy improvisation to make sure it stays in places while the glue cures/sets



Next my Jaguar has had an on/off problem for some time. Sometimes it becomes difficult if not impossible to fill the tank properly. The petrol filling pistol cuts off to early and the tanks is left about 75% full only.

There are various Technical Bulletins about this problem. The most obvious problem is that the tank might be full, but the fuel indicator is wrong. So first thing first, check the fuel sender. Jaguar manual provides resistance values for full and empty tank. However, when I removed the lining in the boot it became obvious that it is not that easy to get at the fuel sensor. I will need to remove quite a bit of insulation material, wiring and maybe the whole tank needs to come out. So I’m checking that first before I proceed.

I also bumped into this sensor. No idea what it is. Sits right behind the tank, some small sensor and three thin wires leading to it. So I need to find out.

To be continued this one.



Finally,more work on the W123 to come. Despite my adjustments of the steering box I am still not happy with it. So it has to come off. Which means draining the hydraulic fluid and taking the steering box off.

Also I have decided to change out the distribution chain. All parts are on order with Mercedes.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Went to the Zandvoort circuit for a nice Oldtimer events. Sorry not pictures Did buy a few things for my cars though. On the way out of the paddock my clutch gave way. The little circlip at the front of the slave Cylinder had come off. Managed to slide under the car and fix it. But it kept coming off. During the first 5 km going home it came off 3-4 times. In the end I swapped it for another one from the rear of the slave Cylinder. That got me home. Have to get some proper circlips because that's what hold the slave Cylinder in place.

[Jeroen]

rats, the mirror glue did not work. Last night the clamp fell off again. Spontaneously I might add. Very pecular/ I had checked it on Sunday morning before setting off to the circuit. Pulled at it and it felt fine. Drove about 250 km in all back and forth to the circuit. Back home parked my Spider and it was still in place. Around 23.00 Sunday evening I happened to walk back into my garage to get somethign and I noticed it had fallen off.

Back to the drawing board again!

I did find out what the mysterious Jaguar part is: Accelerometer. So this is the bit that ensures the airbags deploy and probably it does one or two other things as well.

I have been investigating online the problem of the tank filling some more. Looks like it might mean a fuel tank out job. I wont start on that just yet. In two weeks time I will be attending the Classic Grand Prix at the Nurnberg ring for three days and I want to take the Jaguar. Nice long motorway run, with still some unlimited speed sections. So pedal to the metal where I can!

Also, the parts for the Mercedes are expected to arrive in the next few days. That means I will be dropping the steering gear box and opening up the valve cover of the engine and it might be a few weeks before I have time to put everything back in place. Dont want 2/3 of my fleet out of action at the same time.



Jeroen

[Sutripta]

Your thoughts on the Stromberg CD vs SU. In fact on all the carburettors you have worked on.

Regards
Sutripta

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Sutripta

Your thoughts on the Stromberg CD vs SU. In fact on all the carburettors you have worked on.

In general I would say that Stromberg are the more robust, reliable and very simple. The SUs tend to be a bit more fiddly, more difficult to set up, but once properly tuned and set up can run beautifully.

Although I can not really prove it, I do believe that the best carburetor is the one that was specifically designed for a specific car/engine combination. The Stromberg on Mercedes are a good example. Endless variations to suit the various car/engine combinations. Properly set up, runs very nice for ever.

i never did any work or adjustments on the carburetor over all the years I have owned my W123. Once I had to marginally adjust idle rpm, that was all.even with the torn membrane it still ran remarkably well!

Jeroen


The Spider has the Bosch L-tronic injection, love that system!

Any thought/preferences you have?

[Jeroen]

Passed a DIY shop today and found myself some special superglue. It mentions specifically for glueing glass and metal. I will give it a try later this week. Bought some general purpose grease too. These old cars still need some old school greasing of the chassis and various other bits



Jeroen

[Sutripta]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Although I can not really prove it, I do believe that the best carburetor is the one that was specifically designed for a specific car/engine combination.

How do you go about designing a carb for a particular engine? Which characteristics of the engine come into play? (Talking of 4 stroke multicylinders)

Any thought/preferences you have?

Liked the elegant simplicity of the constant depression carbs. Unfortunately when the going got slightly tough (start of emission regulations) their weaknesses became glaringly obvious.
Also without having access to a lot of metering needles, one could not really setup the carb to ones liking.
Hitachi had a licensed version of the SU which was much better. Much like Nissan's story with the A series engine.

Regards
Sutripta

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Sutripta

How do you go about designing a carb for a particular engine? Which characteristics of the engine come into play? (Talking of 4 stroke multicylinders)

In all honesty I haven’t given carburetor design much thought. I based my comments more on observations over the years. I know quite a few owners of cars that were converted from (mechanical) injection to carburetor. From Triumphs TR6s to Alfa Spiders etc. And of course, everybody has been trying various types/needles/set ups. In the end they never get their engines to run as consistently as with the original set up. It usually sounds better, admittedly. Which is really important, especially of course for a rag top sports car. Some get some additional horsepower. But they always seem to have some problems. If it accelerates well, it doesn’t idle well, If it idles well, it doesn’t accelerate, problems with the choke on cold start etc. etc. Problems going into the hills, problems coming down the hills etc etc.

Sometimes it could be just tuning problems and or simple installation issues. But I know some of these cars have been set up by very experienced and professional technicians, and sometimes, apparently, this is as good as it gets. Of course, more or less by definition any carburetor is always some sort of compremise, but there are definitely engine/carburetor combination that seem to be doing better than others.

My Mercedes and Stromberg being a good example. So my carburetor parts man had five different overhaul sets for what is essentially a very similar engine. These are just different seals and O-rings and of course different needles. The different seals and O-rings suggest a very different shape and built of each carburetor. I can only begin to guess why. Other then it seems to work. Mercedes carburetor engines are extremely reliable and require very little maintenance and adjustment over the years.

When it comes to designing a carburetor for a particular engine/car combination I imagine quite a lot of factors come into play. Volumetric efficiency is probably one of the first. Airflow, vacuum across the RPMs. (Of course the vacuum isn’t constant, even at constant RPMs there are pressure waves most likely. How you want the engine to deliver its torque (high versus low end) is pretty fundamental in the type of carburetor to start with. Which also relates to gearing / autobox (which usually means a kickdown and thus a (mechanical?) link between carburetor actuator mechanism and the autobox. Emission requirement. Type of fuel.

Although I have worked on carburetors over the years, I must admit I haven’t done that much on them. Basic cleaning, replacing perished seals/gaskets on old cars that have been sitting idle for some time. (See one of my earlier post on the Jaguar XJ of my mate Peter. Stood still for several years. Still started immediately, but petrol spewed out from just about every crack on both carburetors. Peter replaced everything, bolted them back onto the engine and everything was fine.)

So my (spanner) experience on carburators is largely with ones that came with the car/engine originally. By and large they have proven themselves to be very reliable and requiring very little in terms of adjustment.

As I bought a complete overhaul set for my W123 carburator I toyed with the idea of stripping the complete carburator, I have a new needle too in this overhaul set. But in the end I just replaced the membrane and the one O-ring under the top cover. There is still some truth in the saying: "don't touch what aint broken".

This was actually a very satisfying little job. For me this is a good example what I mean with fiddling with my cars. It is not just the spannering, but also the (re)search, finding such a gem of a webshop, meeting and talking to the owner for an hour and a half. And finally instant result and noticeable improvement on my car's performance.

By the way: My son and I have enrolled for a course in MIG welding later this autumn. It was his birthday sometime ago and he still had not told us what he wanted for a birthday present. Whilst visiting his new home he was talking about redoing some of the (metal) fencing in his garden. But that he needed a welding kit and he has never welded before either. So my wife and I enrolled him in a proper MIG course. Seems only fair I go along with my eldest son and brush up on my welding skills as well. This is the same place that sells all this welding kit, so there might be a MIG welding kit appearing in my garage soon after!

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Just stepping a few days back in time. After my problems with the circlips on the slave hydraulic cylinder for the clutch I had another look.

I did manage to put the circlip back on several times whilst coming back from the circuit. But that was on the side of the road, with me working from lying next to the car and partly under it. Fine for an emergency repair to get you home.

But in my workshop I put the spider on two jacks and several axle stands to have a proper look



My conclusion was quick and simple. I need to get two circlips. Nothing else will do. I ordered them from my new friendly Alfa Specialist garage. Tomorrow morning on my way to work I drive up there in my Spider. We will put it on one of his lifts and quickly change out the circlips and that should hopefully solve this problem for good.

Whilst under the spider I suddenly noticed a damaged wire:





This is the wire leading to the lambda sensor on the exhaust. When I gently tugged on it one of the wires came loose from its crimp connector. Many years ago I removed the catalytic convertor. Without it you gain maybe 4-5 horse power but more importantly the engine revs much better in the lower RPM bands. Initially the lambda sensor was removed as well. But I found out the engine was running very rich and I was getting an awful lot of backfire when coming of the throttle. So welded a stud on and put the sensor back on.

I had to remove all tie-wraps on this wire to get enough slack to repair it. Put some new crimp connectors on it.





Once the wires were probably connected by means of new crimp connector I wrapped them all in special tape. This is not just electrical tape. I used special plumbing tape. It makes an actual water proof seal. You can even fix leaks in a drain with this.



Whilst I was under my car I also noticed a couple of grease points. I do have a proper grease gun. However, when I tried it out, the grease had all hardened. With hindsight, I might not have used, or hardly used this grease gun since 2012!. So no wonder. In one of my earlier post you can see the new grease cartridge I have bought. Which means I have to put the Spider back on axle stands AGAIN!



Also, it looks like the little clamp on the window is properly fitted. We will see how long it lasts! Not holding my breath yet





Finally, on the way home from work this evening I picked up the various parts I need for my two jobs on the Mercedes W123. Steering box and timing chain/tensioner

At the back you see a new gasket for the valve cover.

From left to right:

New bolts for the steering box. You are not supposed to re-use these bolts. Once you undo them you have to use new bolts to re-install the steering box.

Hydraulic oil filter. This filter sits in the bottom of the hydraulic liquid reservoir for the steering gear pump. I will need to drain it, so I might as well replace the filter. Mercedes doesn’t stock the special hydraulic liquid anymore, so I still need to figure out what the specification is and where to get it.

Some spring/retainer and the chain tensioner assembly. Again, Mercedes doesn’t stock all parts of the tensioner assembly. There is one nut missing. Guess I might use the old nut from the old tensioner.

And of course the actual timing chain.

So lots of spannering to look forward to!!

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

This morning Before work I drove over to my specialist Alfa Garage to get the circlips on the slave cylinder fixed.

Here a picture of an old clutch slave cilinder I swapped many years ago. A bit rusty but it will give you some idea. The Cylinder sits in a big lug on the underside of the engine. Two circlip retaining clips keep it in place. You can see the two grooves into which they fit. The rubber sleeve goes over the top and there is a very simple rod that sits between the top of the piston inside the cylinder and the clutch lever sticking out of the bell house



Here the Spider at 07.30am on the lift



Here how it all looks underneath the car. You can see the old circlip. This one at the front is the most important one. Because when you push the clutch pedal in the slave cilinder will push the piston with the little rod outwards and the lever going into the bell house will disengage the clutch plate. So this one circlip effectively hold this whole assembly in place. It needs to fit perfectly or it might pop off! As it did multiple times last Sunday.



Here you see it with both old circlips removed taken out of the lug and the mechanic is fitting the first new circlip retaining ring.



The new ones clicked in place with a very satisfying audible click! Tight fit, so I am sure this problem is sorted!

One more new problem though. With the car on the lift suddenly I noticed a small dent on the drivers door. Typically the type of dent due to somebody banging their door into the Spider’s. I washed, clayed and waxed the car only a week ago and it wasn’t there. I would have noticed. I have only been to the Zandvoort circuit last Sunday. Next to my Spider on one side was an old beach buggy. No doors. But on the other side was an old beat up Volvo 740 with a family in it. They hardly got out of their car. Sat in their car the whole day with the doors open. So I’m pretty sure it must have been them. I did not notice Sunday, must have been to busy fixing my clutch several times over to notice.

It is a small dent, no damage to the paint. But I hate that sort of thing. So I popped over to our local car paint shop. Only about 1 km from where we live. I had not met the owner yet, but I know several people whom do know him and he comes highly recommended. I saw some of his paintwork and it was really excellent. So I popped around, introduced myself and we had a little chat. This sort of dents can be repaired without having to respray the door. But it does take a real specialist. He has one that he uses all the time coming round next Tuesday, so we agreed I would bring my Spider in that day as well. It’s not very expensive getting these sort of dents fixed. But it is just so annoying because it is due to carelessness of other people!

This Sunday big tour with the Dutch Alfa Romeo Spider Register. It has been announced as the Spider and Pizza event. My wife and daughter are coming along. My wife with me and our daughter will go along with a friend of ours. Looking forward to seeing all my Spideristi friends, talk about Spiders, drive Spiders and, obviously, eat a lot of Pizza!!

Jeroen

Jeroen

Jeroen