Re: 86 Spider Quad: door panels; runs hot uphill; sputters downhill

[Charles Slayman <Charles.Slayman@domain.elided>]

>From: Brad Karp <bkarp@domain.elided>
>To: alfa-digest@domain.elided
>Subject: 86 Spider Quad: door panels; runs hot uphill; sputters downhill
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 15:46:15 -0700
>
>Greetings, all.
>
>I have a 1986 Spider Quadrifoglio, and have been trying to put it into better 
>condition slowly over time. When I bought the car in 1999, I knew nothing 
>about Alfas, apart from being very taken with the lines of the Spider Quad. 
>What I've learned since then has largely been through trial and error.

Hi Brad,
	Let me congratulate you on your taste in cars!  If properly maintained, 
a Spider should be a sound, practical and reliable daily driver.  Mine is.  What 
I am going to recommend below involves you getting more involved with your Quad. 
 If you are not mechanically inclined or don't have the resources or space, 
that's OK.  It will help you to communicate better with your mechanics.  
However, my experience has been that a lot of the fun of owning a Spider is the 
"do it yourself" stuff.  My motto is "If you can't afford to break it yourself, 
then you can't afford to fix it yourself."  Which means that learning by 
breaking stuff is OK.  It makes you smarter.  Witness the latest fiasco with my 
flywheel timing (soon to be set right from all the help from the digest!)  If 
you sweat the small stuff (door panels, constanly blowing fuses, etc), then you 
can have your mechanics focus on the stuff that takes special tools and 
expertise (valve jobs, rebuilding transmissons, etc). 
	1)  LOOSE DOOR PANEL - The Spider door panel should be solid and rattle 
free.  Your are either missing some screws - (two buried in the arm rest/pull 
handle), half a dozen buried in the map pocket, speaker kick panel and bottom of 
door.  Or the plastic plugs have snapped off.  Or the pressed fiber board has 
started to disintegrate (most likely cause for a 15 year old car that has 
probably seen a lot of wet weather, some of it being in the interior no doubt - 
I KNOW what Berkely weather is like.  Spent 9 years there!).  If you are going 
to own a Spider, I strongly recommend you start to take on projects like this on 
your own.  To do it properly (several digesti has fabricated new panels out of 
various plastic and wood based products), it only takes time and tender loving 
care.  I wouldn't expect even the best Alfa garage to do this.  Only an auto 
restoration shop that specializes in concourse d'elegance stuff.  And they will 
charge an arm and a leg.  Roll up your sleeves and get familiar with you door 
panels!  It doesn't take any special tools.  And don't force anything.  If it 
doesn't come off, look for the hidden screw (the damn thing is in there 
somewhere!)  And if you make an new panel out of fiber board, make sure you add 
an intact plastic sheet to protect it from water coming down the window.
	2)  DRIVING DOWN HILL - This doesn't sound like an engine problem (I 
can't think of why an engine would run rough under compression braking).  I 
would suspect your u-joints, rubber donut (aka guibo - Hey!  Even the BMW guys 
call it this!) or center support bearing on the driveshaft.  You might be 
mistaking a "sputtering sound" for drivetrain vibration.  As you go from 
acceleration or cruising to deceleration, the angle of the drivetrain components 
change.  This can accentuate the offending component's bad behavior.  I have 
alway noticed the onset of u-joint failure under hard acceleration in a lightly 
loaded Spider.  I can detect this long before the u-joints cause problems in 
normal cruising mode.  It's relatively easy to inspect the guibo for cracks.  If 
you get the car on a hoist and run in gear, you can look for vibrations or stiff 
operation from the other components.  Sometimes putting the car in neutral and 
turning the driveshaft by hand will show you rough spots.
	3)  UPHILL OVERHEATING - Hmmm!  The Spider's cooling system is 
overengineered in my opinion - with the stock fan and shroud in place.  It 
should never overheat if properly maintained.  And with an aluminum block and 
aluminum head, you never want it to!!!!!  But why is yours overheating?  Given 
the symptoms, I would have said the thermostat was OK because it could hold the 
correct temperature during cruising.  My first suspicion would be the radiator.  
However, you have pulled and cored it (and I assume it was a reputable shop).  
There is a bypass restrictor in the small water pump hose.  I hope that didn't 
get pulled out when your water pump was replace.  That is a necessary part of 
the design.  This is pretty well documented by Fred D and other Alfa nuts.  I 
assume your Quad has AC.  It should also have an electric pusher fan at the 
front of the radiator.  This fan comes on when the AC is on or when the 
thermostatic sensor on the shroud detects abnormal underhood temperatures.  
Check to make sure this fan is working and the AC heat exchanger is not gunked 
up and blocking flow of air to the radiator.
	Bad cam timing can also cause overheating.  Pull the cam covers and 
follow the owners manual on checking the timing and timing chain tension (Hey!  
How many manufacturers put this good technical stuff in the OWNERS MANUAL.  Alfa 
is amazing.  I'm not talking shop manual,  I'm talking OWNERS MANUAL!  This is 
the book that our wives and girlfriends read.  Or boyfriends.  Ooooops! Sorry 
about that Tess! ;-> ).  
	It is possible that the thermostat is malfunctioning intermittently.  I 
doubt it.  But if you are on your last straw, it's not too expensive to pull it 
and replace it with a new one.  If your right, VOILA!  If your wrong, put it in 
the toolbox as a spare.  It's bound to go bad at some point, so having a spare 
is good.  Again, this is a job you could take on yourself.
	Regarding good Alfa mechanics in the East Bay.  Check with Jon or Ruth 
Ann at Alfa Parts (I think that's what they call it now.  It used to be Jon 
Norman Racing and Alfa Parts).  They should be able to give you an independent 
recommentation of several shops.
	Oh, and if you are a UCB student, you don't have time for this stuff!  
Hit the books!
	
Cheers,
Charlie S
'89 Spider	  

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