One cool Milano!

[Steve An <stevean@domain.elided>]

Ciao Tutti,

It's been a scorchah here in Bahston (scorcher for you native English 
speakers), it's just hell on earth HOT! and of course, my attention has 
turned to getting my Milano A/C up to snub in order to survive.

The A/C was recharged earlier this summer and everything was working 
satisfactorily, or so I thought, the temp. gauge has always swung pretty 
wildly from 175 to about 210+ (last hash mark before 250), particularly 
with the A/C on. I have come to accept that as fact of life, Milanos runs 
hot, the cooling system was inadequately designed from the factory etc... 
or so I thought.

I had new water pump, new coolant, new belt, water wetter etc.. the works 
all recently done in anticipation of summer, but of course, this week when 
I had to really use the AC for the first time in 90+ deg. F, the car 
promptly over heated, gauge showed 220+, red light went on etc... I had to 
drive home with the heat full on in order to keep the car from overheating, 
just dreadful.

I brought the car up to Paul Glynn, we replaced the thermostat and sender, 
both of which were bad, I drove away, everything was semi OK until I hit 
stop and go traffic in Boston, red light went on again.

Back to Glynn, Michael W. was whispering at my radiator, which I assured 
him was practically new (replaced 7 years ago), it was the aluminum 
radiator, with really fine fins, so tightly spaced together that we 
couldn't feel the air blown through. Michael said this was the old style 
radiator, which Alfa no longer uses, so we decided to replace it with a 
brand new Valeo made radiator and lo and behold, the car works flawlessly, 
the temp gauge now shows a 180 consistently, no fluctuation, in any kind of 
traffic, fan cycles on/off, almost like a normal car, I am so psyched. It 
was always a mystery to me why Alfa temp. gauge was so temperamental 
compared to other cars, now I know it's my radiator.

We also installed a 9" electric fan in front of the AC condenser for good 
measure, it is wired to the AC, comes on when AC is on. I am not sure if 
this is necessary, but one side effect is that the AC is now more effective 
than I had ever imagined, it puts out really cold air, as cold as I ever 
felt in any car; who knew? from an Alfa AC???

Anyway, my wife has now confiscated my Milano and I am back to driving her 
Miata with no AC, life is hell again.

con brio,

	- Steve.
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