unloading the torsion bars

[JHertzman@xxxxxxx]

Jake Thomas, who does not have a shop manual yet, writes, of his GTV-6,

>>Tires are P205/55 ZR15 on what look like original campagnolos.  Don't know
whether that's the original tire size or someone's experiment<< 

which sounds like he does not have the owner's manual either; the original
tire size was 195/60 HR 15 until the last year in which a very abnormal size
of Michelin tire and its own very abnormal wheel was adopted. The owner's
manual is a very useful thing to have. A photocopy, if an original is not
available.

He writes further:
>>The details on spline adjustment are very helpful but the information I'm
really looking for is how to get to the part where I do the adjusting.  I see
some bolts at the back end of the torsion bar and a big rectangular bar
running across underneath.  But I don't want to start loosening and hammering
until it's off-loaded and, so far, that doesn't seem to be the case.  I have
visions of small or, worse, large parts flying across the garage, never to be
seen again, and so some advice from those who've been there would be
reassuring.<<

What the shop manuals will tell you is:
1. Jack up the lower suspension arm until the upper arm moves away from the
rebound stop.
2. Undo the castelated nut, then using a balljoint separator disconnect the
lower suspension arm from the stub axle carrier.
3. Lower the jack under the suspension arm, after first placing a stand under
a jacking point to keep the body in a raised position.

That covers the big worry. The lower A-arm is held up by the limp torsion bar,
nothing is under torsion, and no parts are going to go anywhere that gravity
and your tools don't put them. Nothing.

Great as the digest is, I must make a plug for warm-body, face-time type car
clubs. If you are sitting in the pizzeria chatting with seven or eight other
guys waiting for the lady to bring the beer, one or another of the people with
dirt under his fingernails probably usta have an Alfetta and probably would
lend you his dirty old shop manual. He might even give it to you. All of the
systems except the engine are essentially the same, just some beefier on the
GTV-6. Changing giubos, pulling transmissions, adjusting ride heights didn't
change from the first 1974 Alfetta to the last Milano. The ARA is an excellent
club if you are in that neighborhood, AROC and its local chapters anyplace in
the USA, other national Alfa clubs in other countries. 

Of manuals, Jake writes: 
>> There doesn't seem to be a lot out there either; I heard the CarDisc is
good, although pricey at $50.  Yet another thing I'm happy to take advice on
and sooner or later will get around to.<<

I've got to get some CarDisks too, don't have one yet, just old paper stuff.
The CarDisks contain an ENORMOUS amount of interesting and useful material,
but I would take hardcopy first and the CD as a very nice adjunct. Your
choice, but given portability, display resolutions, working conditions where I
work, and the costs of things I might screw up I would go for a manual first,
or pay the going shop rates to someone else. I believe in paper; I bought my
164 shop manual (which had been given to him by ARDONA) from a mechanic at an
Authorized Dealership who "din't need no manual to work on no car." Never took
my car back there.

John H. 

------------------------------