Random thoughts

First random thought: Why do lifetime parts never look as cool as rebuildable parts that break down every once in a while? Is it impossible to make a really cool car part that actually works? I suppose Ferrari is doing that now, but I do not see them turning 100,000 miles all the time with out a single break down and limited maintenance. Now Toyota on the other hand, they built soul-less Japanese crap-box cars, but they sure do work! During this gas pedal extravaganza I have had the chance to check out some of their gas pedals. Not cool. Boring is too exciting a word to describe the pedals. And yet my Alfas all have awesome gas pedals. In fact I cringe when I see those stupid screw on covers that tuners put on their pedals. If the pedals were functional and sexy to begin with, the kids would not have to mess with them.

Second random thought: Just found out the other day Alfas are actually reliable!! Or at least they used to be. I was talking to fellow Alfa owner Marshall St. Amant about the reliability of the Milano and Spider and he scoffed at my numbers. I was quite proud of the fact each car had done a minimum of 10,000 miles between breakdowns. He immediately offered up the fact his GTV6 bought from new back in the day did over 75,000 miles without ever leaving him on the side of the road. That is not to say it did not need occasional “maintenance” at an inopportune time, but it never left him stranded. Not bad for an Italian car from the 80s!!

Third random thought: This has been a really sad and depressing month for cars. On the national level we have the whole Toyota gas pedal thing. Sure, I do not like them, but every car company deserves a chance. Problems that are really hard to solve and cause damage to the company’s image are not good. Better get a solution quick!! On the more local level we have my Milano incident. The details are contained elsewhere in this newsletter. On a following weekend Brad Way was having great difficulty changing some seals in his spiders brake system. Why are robust and long-lived seals always hidden behind really delicate and expensive parts that refuse to come off the car? Going back a couple weekends I had to replace the water pump on our Jetta, twice. The first one was great for about a month. Then it started weeping. Brand new water pumps do not weep!! After a thorough investigation to make sure I did not do anything wrong, it was confirmed the water pump was not leaking, it was weeping from the weep hole. Oh well, at least it is an easy item to change. The Germans really thought this one through. Other car companies could learn from them. And finally, this past weekend, Marshall’s racecar had a breakdown that put it out of commission for the foreseeable future. Seems like there is some really bad car-ma floating around right now. You have been warned!

Fourth random thought: Getting to work on a modern car is really an eye opening experience. Automotive engineering has come a long ways since the last new Alfa graced these shores. While not all of it has been good, some of it has been great!! For instance, the advent of “lifetime” fluids and extremely long oil change intervals has made maintenance chores much lighter. In fact, I am even considering incorporating some of these modern fluids into my own fleet. Of course modernity comes at a price. While my Alfas will happily drink down whatever I put in them, the VWs in our garage are pickier. While doing the water pump changes I learned about a proprietary coolant called G12 used exclusively by VW. It is purple or pink depending on if you get old G12 or new G12+. Either way it is neat stuff. Other owners have found this antifreeze makes internal corrosion of aluminum engines a thing of the past. And to make sure you have the right stuff, VW has added a chemical that turns the purple goodness into brown badness if someone tops up or mixes in the wrong stuff. Not sure what that does other than sell more G12, but it is neat to be able to know for sure you have the right stuff and nothing else.

Another interesting feature of a modern car is how things are sealed. My Alfas have gaskets on the water pumps. Each time you change the thing you have to scrape off the old gasket and clean the mating surface on the block. Not so on the modern VW 4 cylinder. Their water pump seals to the block using an o-ring that fits in a hole in the side of the block. There is nothing to scrape off. There are no gasket sealers to apply. If you are not changing the fluid you can pop the old pump off and shove the new one on and lose less than a quart of coolant! Amazing!!

And what is up with the timing belt intervals? The factory has no set mileage to change the belt!! The shop manual says 90,000 miles tops. Common knowledge among enthusiasts is 60,000 miles. That is double our old v6 Alfas! To top it off, you do not have to take half the car apart to do it either.

My only complaint so far is the strange fasteners. I am sure there is a really good engineering reason for using a torx head on many of the fasteners. All I know is I need to buy some extra tools. The other side of the coin is the really awesome hose clamps they use!! Have you seen the ones you remove with just pliers? You simply squeeze the ears and wiggle it off. How simple is that!! And VW even paints little arrows on the hoses to show the correct orientation of the clamp to the hose to the fitting. Wow.

Ok, enough random thoughts. Go get a beer and get greasy with your car.

And then there were none

When Bonnie suggested we visit the Abita Brewery again for the first time in several years, I was very excited. Last time, we did not take the tour. The club only ate in the brew pub. This time, I was not going to let that happen. I emailed the brewery and asked many questions. I went back and forth with the PR lady about times, size of group, age restrictions, shoe requirements, and what to expect. Everything was laid out perfectly.

What could make a trip to the brewery even better? A caravan of Alfas!! We have some new members and some non-members who were just as excited about the event as I was. My racing buddy, Marshall, wanted to go. One of our newest members, Brad, was so excited he was going to make a weekend of it with the wife. (wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more…) A neighbor who chased me home, and happens to own a really nice stingray Corvette, was nervous about being the only American car there but knew deep inside that a little beer would smooth out all the tensions. And finally, my neighbors across the street were planning on attending just for the chance to visit the brewery.

As the day for the trip approached, it felt like Christmas! There were visions of purple haze and turbodog dancing in my head. I told all my friends and neighbors how exciting this was going to be. I even found some time to wash the Milano for the trip. Then, as the midnight hour approached, my caravan began to fall apart. My long time drinking buddies could not make it because of work. Marshall was going racing as long as the weather held up. And who can blame him! Racing always trumps beer in my logbook. My corvette buddy got his weekends switched up and had to work on Saturday. The afternoon before, I got a call from Brad and found he had some emergency family issues and could not make the trip. And that very evening, my neighbors bailed because work came up.

My caravan was down to one. Not much of a caravan any more, but the car was clean and gassed up for the trip. We left bright and early and made our way to the brewery, but we never made it. Early on, we noticed a light fuel smell. At the time, we were behind a pickup truck hauling an ATV. We just assumed the smell was coming from there. Over a couple miles, the smell faded away. Everything went fine for the rest of the trip until about 7 miles from Abita. I looked down and noticed we were nearly out of gas. When we left we had ¾ of a tank. Alfas get great gas mileage. I should have been able to make it there and back on a single tank. And as I continued to glance from the road to the gauge and back, I thought I could actually see the needle going down. This is not good!!! Of course at this point, we were not any where near an exit. It was miles to the next exit, and when that exit came up we took it!!! Of course, there was no gas station to be found either! So ,we just found the closest empty lot and pulled in. Our first call was to Andy and Mike. Being this close, I figured I could get some help from them changing whatever hose was leaking or fitting that had come loose.

Before help could arrive, Britt and I popped the hood and found fuel everywhere!! The whole engine compartment was soaked. It is a wonder the whole car had not burst into flames. Even with a leak of this level, we still could not see any obvious leak. So I had Britt stand back and watch while I cranked the car. As soon as the fuel pump got power, fuel came spurting from one of the injectors. Britt screamed for me to stop. Even from inside the car, I could see the fuel spraying. So, for the second attempt I had Britt crank the car while I watched. It seemed obvious to me that the injector itself was leaking. There is no amount of hose that will fix an internal injector seal failure. We were finished!

My next call was to my favorite towing company. My usual guy politely asked if it was the green one or the black one. I told him it was the black one and where we were located. He gave us an estimated wait time and headed out. In the mean time, Andy and Mike showed up just long enough to take some pictures and commiserate. There was nothing they could do to help and we were only keeping them from their beer so they went on their way. The thought of joining them and getting a tow later in the day ran through my head, but there was no telling what the wait would be in the afternoon and the truck was already on the way.

If you ever break down in the Baton Rouge or surrounding areas, be sure to give Davis and Sons a call. They are really nice people. On the ride home, we stopped for snacks and commiserated about how it had been over a year since my last tow. If you do the math, that is 10,000 miles without a hiccup. Not bad for an Italian car old enough to vote with well over 200,000 miles on the clock.

Later that day, Britt and I gathered up the neighbors and played a round of disc golf. The next day I went to the races to watch Marshall burn rubber. When the weekend was finally over, I was not pleased with my little Milano. Even as I write this, the problem is not fixed. I ordered one of the few correct Bosch injectors left in the country and dug into the problem. Further investigation on a cold engine in my own driveway, and not some random parking lot, revealed the injector to be fine but the hose was dead. I pulled the system apart and found two hoses of the wrong flavor. One had failed, and the other was on the way out. With all Alfa projects, you find other things needing repair while you dig around. Several other hoses were the wrong flavor, and another pair was correct but so old they could go at any second. I went to the auto parts store and got the right hose and began fixing things. I had some trouble getting the hose on several fittings and had to go get some more. The second time I went, I had to argue with the little punk behind the counter that there was actually a difference between “fuel” hose and “fuel injection” hose. I even went so far as to explain to him the reason I was here was because someone had sold me the wrong hose previously and it had failed in less than three years. And when I could not find any fuel injection hose clamps, the kid pissed me off even more. They were not in their usual location so he had to look it up in the computer. You know what happens next….. “What is it for???” OMG, WTF!! It is a FUEL….INJECTION…HOSE….CLAMP…. What do you think it is for? At this point I took my hose, paid for it, and stormed out of the building. Sadly, my dependable NAPA was out of FI hose clamps but would have more on Tuesday. Well, Tuesday is not right now so I went into the next town over to find an auto parts store that could satisfy my needs. When I finally found some, I bought a box in every size they had!!!!

With correct clamps and fresh hose in hand, I set about finishing the job. There was one fitting I just could not get the hose to go over. Why is this so hard? I kept tearing the hose over and over again. Sometimes you have to stop and see the forest for the trees. A quick glance told me the answer. The answer was obvious. I had the wrong size hose!!! It was exactly the size I had asked for. It was the same size as was marked on one of the old hoses I removed. Chances are, someone had actually made this tiny hose fit in the past and I had just been stupid enough to try and repeat the mistake. Not this time!! I have not fixed the problem yet, but it always goes faster the second time. I bet those hoses go on a lot easier when they are the correct size!!

My final thought to this whole debacle is redemption. Sometime in the next couple weeks I am planning on making a “lost boys” run to the brewery. I am taking as many from my caravan as I can muster, and if we all break down on the way, so be it!! We will walk if we have to!