My Alfa

[Sam Kass <samkass@domain.elided>]

 Greetings,
   I am a relatively new Alfa owner out here in Sunnyvale, CA-- a black 
1988 Spider Graduate.  I moved to CA three years ago and each year I've 
wanted a convertible more than the last.  I looked at the Miata and 
friends, but the Alfa seemed a better choice-- much cheaper and way 
better looking with specs in the same ballpark.  In general the car is 
in good condition and runs great, but does have some issues, and I was 
wondering if anyone wanted to offer any advice.  Also, I have had 
nothing significant go wrong yet, but can anyone recommend a good south 
bay shop where I could go for check-ups and maintainance?  I am learning 
slowly, but am not yet to the point where I can competently do much with 
the mechanics.  Also, we are heading out on a weeklong tour of 
California in a few weeks and I'd like to do it in the Alfa, and have 
the car be in great shape for it.  (By the way, I'm in the process of 
signing up for overheadcams.org but they don't make it very convenient 
:-)  .)
   Anyway, here's the list of the things I've noticed-- most very minor 
issues, but perhaps that makes them that much easier to get right.  If 
you're bored and want to help the new guy, feel free to offer advice on 
any/all of the items or where is the best (local?) place to get parts.  
Since the list is long and in no particular order, if anyone wants to 
reply to me directly I'll summarize useful tidbits to the list.
   (By the way, I put up a few pictures and made an Alfa home page on 
Mark's wiki at http://alfa.denovich.org/ when I got the car.  You can 
check out the SamKass owner page or the last 3 pictures in the Alfa 
People photo album to see the new ride.)
   --Sam

The List:
1. The tach is broken. It sometimes sputters, sometimes reads 
consistently low, but is almost never accurate beyond 2,500rpm or so.  
Ground wire problem?  Inside the gauge box or under the hood?
2. The driver's side seat back won't stay tilted forward. The knob on 
the side will tilt it, but if you press the brake hard you go 
chchchchchch back to fully reclined position.  I currently leave it 
reclined, but is this something that I can repair or requires replacing 
the seat?
3. The passenger's side seat won't slide forward or back.  It seems 
stuck somewhere underneath... the shop manual says that to work on it 
you should remove it... and to do that you should slide it forward and 
back to remove screws...
4. One bolt is missing in the soft top frame.  I don't know the spec on 
these bolts to get a replacement.  Would OSH have such a thing?  The top 
works but is sometimes squeaky near that point.
5. Some rust in spare wheel well, but none elsewhere that I've found.
6. A spare key made.  The guy at OSH had never heard of an "Alfa Romeo", 
let alone have a key template.
7. Heater fan switch broken.  I opened it up and it's a really stupidly 
designed switch inside... I assume they must break a lot.  Is this the 
type of thing a repair shop will have a bin of?
8. "Clunk" when shifting into 1st and 3rd sometimes.  It seems to come 
from under the car a little rear of center, and I can feel it in the 
stick.  Is this just me being a heavy-handed newbie, or something more 
ominous?
9. I noticed blue smoke one day accelerating out of stop and shifting to 
2nd, but I can't reproduce it again.  It doesn't seem to be the seals.  
(I can accerlate hard, lift my foot off the gas a bit, then floor it 
again and no blue cloud, which I'm told is the test for this.)  Is this 
just normal sometimes?  Was I driving it too cold?  (The car had been 
going more than 5 minutes but not much more)
10. Brakes squeal.  Guess I need new pads.
11. Floor lights.  It gets kind of dark at night or in a closed garage, 
and the only internal lights that work are the gauge lights in the dash.
12. Glove box cover is separating into two parts and sometimes doesn't 
close securely.
13. Sun visor on passengers side rotates down too easily.  Doesn't seem 
to be an obvious bolt to tighten to fix.
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