Alfa Adventure

[Kevin Trent <trentkc@domain.elided>]

This weekend I ran in a mtn bike race down in Helen, Georgia, about 200 
miles away.  It was a really hot weekend, with temps in the low to mid 
90s.  I took the old grey berlina, and had two bikes mounted on a recently 
acquired thule roof rack. It was a pleasant drive, with at least 120 of the 
miles on where-the-hell-am-I back roads.  Got some cool car comments and 
everything was pretty Ok until I was 25 miles from home.

I was pushing 80 on the interstate coming home trying to keep up with some 
babe in her new BMW I noticed the temp gauge was pegged at 
250!  Awk!  Turned on the heater and blower and no hot air came 
out!  Double Awk!  I turned off the engine and coasted to the next 
interstate exit, where I was able to get to a gas station.

The engine did not smell cooked, and there was no obvious damage.  I 
refilled the radiator, but found that water just ran out of the water 
pump.  Near as I can tell the water was coming out of that weep hole on the 
bottom of the housing for the impeller shaft forward of the 
bearing.   Bummer.  Then I filled the coolant system and reinstalled the 
radiator cap and found the flow of water from the pump was significantly 
reduced.  When I started the engine (which still ran fine) the water pump 
leaked quite a bit, but...

SO I had a couple of coolers and two gallons of drinking water from the 
bike race.  The gas station gave me 4 more empty gallon jugs.  I set off 
with 6 gallons of water in an effort to make it home.  I would drive the 
berlina to speed then switch off the motor and coast, the restart and 
accelerate back up to speed and coast again.  It would take about 5 miles 
before the temp gauge would get to half way between 175 and 250, then I 
would pull off  and add nearly two gallons of water.  Stopped about every 5 
miles and made it home, had to get more water at several stops.

I guess my water pump needs replacement.  At this point, I'd rather put on 
the new water pump I have and see how the rest of the engine fared.  Yes it 
did get pretty hot, but never got to meltdown and never got that really hot 
stinky burned oil smell.  Suppose I should get the radiator serviced while 
I'm doing the pump...

//kct 
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