Holiday 164 Jobs (Long)/Clutch Shudder/Dog Bone Mount

["John Wiltshire" <John.Wiltshire@domain.elided>]

Greetings Alfisti!  Hope that everybody had a wonderful Christmas and New
Year!

I have just had a couple of weeks off, and among the usual festive and
family things I managed to knock some Alfa Jobs off the list, so here are a
few updates that might useful.

Than main job was to fix the wobbly steering.  After new bottom ball joints
and Superpro A-arm bushes in November, the looseness in the rack ball
joints was obvious.  Thank you here to the inputs from digesti, especially
to Stuart Thomson who e-mailed some very detailed instructions.  The inner
tie rod ball joints were stuffed, there was about 0.5mm of freeplay in the
passenger's side joint, and about 1mm in the driver's side.  This gets
magnified by the front wheels into very loose steering.  I replaced inner
and outer tie rod ends - the outers would have survived longer, but for
only another $A60, it seemed silly not to do them all at the same time.

In brief, jack up the front of the car and set it on stands.  Remove the
wheels and splash guards (cut a slot in the ones that are held on by the
brake hoses - I used tin snips - so that you can remove them without
undoing the brake lines).  Remove the clips on the rack boots and pull
these back.  Turn the steering wheel to hard lock so that the tie rod on
the side you are working on is extended towards you.  Undo the outer tie
rod ball joint from the hub carrier.

Now the fun bit.  In Brad Anesi's "Project 164" article, he mentions
gripping the ball joint with a Vice Grip and giving it a smart whack with a
hammer.  I couldn't work out how to get the space to do this, and in any
case I'm not keen on whacking things with a hammer.  I ended up using a
Stilson-type Pipe Wrench - I gripped the inner ball joint on a bit of a
diagonal, then extended the Stilson by clamping the vice grip on the handle
- this gave me  20" Stilson - if you really do have a 20" Stilson then so
much the better!  This gave me enough leverage to unscrew the ball joint
from the rack without needing any hammer impact.

Now, while the rack ends were out, I also replaced the sway bar bushes with
Superpro (ran out of time for this job in the earlier effort!).  Much
easier access with the tie rods out of the way!

I also replaced the right rear and gearbox side engine mounts ( I didn't
replace the front right mount as this was done about two years ago, and is
still sound).  Again, no tie rods made for easier access.  For this job,
AlfaBill's guide was a must.  The right rear mount had a longer centre bolt
than the new one bought to replace it, so rather than jacking up the engine
too far, I just cut it off with a small hacksaw.  The new mount with the
shorter centre bolt dropped right in.  The gearbox side mount is easy, as
the gearbox doesn't need to be jacked up more than about half an inch.
Instead, loosen the triangular bracket that is bolted to the gearbox, and
swing this up out of the way.  The  mount then just unbolts.

The tie rods went straight back in with no fuss - tightened up nicely with
the Stilson and some threadlock.

Steering is now nice and tight, but alignment is shot - hopefully will get
the Superpros in the rear trailing arms in the next week or so, and then
off for a front and rear alignment.

One interesting point:  There have been some posts here recently and on the
164 page about clutch shudder even after a new clutch and having the
flywheel machined.  The answer may be in the engine mounts.  I have had a
bit of shudder - usually when taking off facing up a hill.  I had a new
clutch a bit over  a year ago - the full job with a machined flywheel.
With the new mounts, there is no longer any trace of shudder.

One final question - is there a recommended way of adjusting/tightening the
top dog-bone engine-steady?  Unless I've missed something, I can't find a
procedure in the Cardisc.

Hope somebody finds this info useful!  E-mail if interested in any of the
details.

Cheers,
John Wiltshire
Sydney Australia
'89 164 V6 Manual




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