Back on the road!

["Eric H." <ejham@domain.elided>]

Happily, today I finally completed the steering rack swap
between my GTV6 and the parts car. Replacing steering racks
makes guibo replacement look like a walk in the park. Arg!
an easy 10-12 labor hour job compounded in this case by
having to pull the replacement out of my parts car.

Hints and lessons learned:

- - Make a 'sacrificial' wrench...take a 13mm closed end and
bend the head about 30 degrees. You might find it handy on
the main rack bolts.

- - If you're going by the Alfetta manual for instructions,
add these:

* there's a second set of bolts added on the passenger side
* it's a lot easier to re-attach the steering linkage at the
rack if you disconnect the steering column from the upper
u-joint -- this leaves you with a short little piece to
juggle into place rather than the heavy steering column.

- - If your GTV6 has been lowered and positive camber applied,
you don't need the damper.

- - It's a lot easier to do the job with the engine out of the
car. I pulled the engine on my parts car prior to removing
the rack (I planned on doing this anyway, so why not now?).
It turns a 4-6 hour removal job into a 30 minute job. If
time is of the essence and you know the engine removal
drill, consider this a real time-saver.

Tomorrow I kiss the rental GM Cavalier goodbye. The car is
quiet, dependable and utterly devoid of personality. On a
recent outing to Epcot, my daughters laughed as I became
irritated that the rental's lock wouldn't work...only to
find that the car I was trying to open wasn't ours. The
concept of identical cars is pretty alien when you drive an
Alfa.

- - Eric H., Clearwater, FL
1983 GTV6 'Felicite' -- on the road, noisy as ever, sort of
a shock after driving that new Chevy for 2 weeks.
1982 GTV6 -- sitting really high in the front with no engine

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