Spica rebuild service

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

My understanding (very much on the outside looking in) is that the real crunch
on Spica injection pumps is wear in the bores and plungers, allowing crankcase
dilution, and that the bores and plungers are NLA new and are unlikely to be
inexpensively manufactured from scratch. Further, that in the past the
solution to this wear when rebuilding pumps has been to harvest good plungers
and bores from pumps off of junked cars, which Wes Ingram has accumulated in
quantity (ergo, with some substantial capital investment). I also understood
that as the best parts got used there would be a migration down the
salvage-quality ladder, leading eventually to using the least-worse parts
which had been marginal for the last prior batch of rebuilds.

I also understand that there has been (and is ongoing) attrition of
established Alfa service resources, some formerly Alfa-only or Alfa-mostly
resources becoming hyphenated Alfa-Mazda, Alfa-Nissan, Alfa-Porsche and then
otherbrand-Alfa or just getting out completely. I also take it as a 'given'
that Fiat/GM are not going to be manufacturing or outsourcing new parts for
obsolete systems on old Alfas. The concern which George Loeb expressed in
AD8-0054 seems crucial: "Is there enough of a market to keep two SPICA shops
in business?  Ie would we be running the risk of losing both sources of SPICA
expertise because there wouldn't be enough work to keep both shops viable
economically?"

I would certainly be very interested in bench-test evaluations of the several
Spica pumps I have lying around, to see which if any of them are potentially
restorable and usable. If any are usable, I would certainly be interested in
having the plungers adjusted for uniform output, along with any other possible
minor detailing. Beyond that, free-market competition is great, when it works;
if the person using the factory bench for AROC has the spare parts resources
and the experience and/or talent to do as good a job as Wes at lower cost, or
a better job at the same cost, that would be marvelous for everybody except
Wes. If, as George Loeb asked, there is enough business (and enough salvage
cores) to keep two shops going, fine. If an AROC service did not do quite as
good a job as Wes, but booted him into some other enterprise, and then didn't
stay at it for the long haul - well, there are always Webers, I suppose.

 I agree with Fred's sentiment that such a service, if established, should be
available to all Alfa owners, but wouldn't think that would be an issue, so
long as Club membership is not closed. The cost of joining for a year is
negligible compared to the cost (and value) of quality service.

 John H.

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