Re: steering wheel removal, combustion chamber cleaning, oil

[Olli Jermo <ollie@xxxxxx>]

Steering wheel: the center cap with Alfa emblem can be pried off (carefully) with a
screwdriver. After that undo the nut and pull the wheel off.  The end of the shaft is
conical so you may need a puller.  Put some tension on the puller and hit the screw
with a hammer. If you do not have a puller,  have somebody pull the wheel while you
hit the shaft end with the hammer.  To keep from ruining the threads,  put the nut
back on and exrcise care and restraint with the hammer.

Cleaning the engine:  I take it you want to clean the combustion chambers without
disassembling the engine?   One 'product' that will work is: water!  Warm up the
engine and while somebody steps on the throttle to keep the engine running you feed
water to the intake (air filter removed).  Years ago we used to do this on outboard
engines in the shop I worked.  A friend  had a fitting installed on his car to feed
water to the intake manifold from a separate tank.  And  years ago there was a fad to
mix water to the gasoline with the help of tenside chemicals used in the manufacture
of shampoos and such.  You can mix in excess of 10% water into the gas,  but the
mixing was difficult so it would work best in chain saws and such with constant
vibration. The engines  run on the mix with no problems.
If the question was about cleaning engine parts after disassembly,  I must recommend
mechanical cleaning.  Walnut shell blasting work well.

Oil:  I can think of no reason for non-synth oil to leak where synthetic would not.
I can believe that after the oil change something (oil filter, drain plug) was not
tightened properly.  One question comes to my mind though:  why do so many people
seem to start saving on the motoring costs at the oil?  To me the one and almost only
really useful maintenance item one can perform on the engine is give it new oil
regularly (and more often than recommended by the manufacturers nowadays!).  Of
course,  if one does not believe there are any differences between the oils, then the
oil of choice must be cheapest one you can find.  I use the most expensive I can
afford (from a major brand),  but since my Alfa is not run on winter,  I don't go for
the extreme low viscosities.

Olli Jermo
2000 GTV -72

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