oldspark
“A bit of an aside...
The "James Bond Cars" doco with what's-his-pop from whatever that post-Braniac car show was on last night. He reckoned the Alfa (GTV?) was the ultimate Bond car (for the average person) costing a mere £4,000 - PLUS about £1,000,000 in maintenance LOL!
Mind you, that may reflect some owners...
A mate loves his Alfas but said the oft replacing of head-gaskets was a pain. How often - typically every 3 months! It turns out he would smear the gaskets in GRAPHITE to make them easier to remove! [ Mind you, they were my silly days too - like engine bores, I'd merely "wash" the head & block gasket faces with petrol, though I'd still get at least years from both. These days I get decades.) ]”
I bet it was expensive to maintain but so are Mercedes, Bmw, Jaguar, Austin Martin etc. I like Fiats for the peppy motors and looks, in comparison to having the same thing everyone else does, if that was the case there would only be Honda’s and Suabru’s on the road and what good is that. That being said I do drive a Mercedes and think it’s far superior to Italian cars, but for a little fun and some sideways action a hopped up Fiat does it for me and I still have money in my bank.
Yea the head gaskets I even replaced on mine but let alone it is 30year old car and the previous owner maintained the car, also since I upgraded to a turbo I needed a much better gasket. It still make me laugh sometime when people put crappy gaskets or parts they buy for really cheap and expect them to last (especially cheap Chinese). The second I had a problem with a Mercedes E300 I have, I automatically bought the gasket from the dealer because the 90’s E300 have head gasket problems which can be cured by a factory gasket if you buy anything else you better get ready to do the job again.
howie ll
“Mr. Spyder, I tip my hat to you any other "tips" on protection and preparation would be teaching you to suck eggs.
And yes I forgot about the zinc.
Should have remembered back in the days of naked BMW, Mercedes etc. I used to paint every fresh drilled aerial hole with zinc primer.
One thought, wreckers yard, engine bay of vehicle using convoluted plastic tubing, get it!
You made me laugh about the Fiat 131, I owned one; an auto from 75-78.
Every morning after a rainy night my then wife had a laugh when I had to pull the splugs and cook them in the oven for a few minutes to make the mustard fire up.
Bought a 3 litre V6 Capri after that with my luck it had the Dagenham dustbin/Essex engine that the accountants got their hands on pre-production*.
The later Cologne 2.8V injection from Germany that made it's way into some US Fords was a much better engine.
*Prototypes were chucking out 300hp back in the early 70s, by the time it made production, the injection system became a carb, the 24 valve twin cam become an OHV with cheap gaskets and 136hp!
Thank you Henry F. ll.
Oh and new head gaskets every couple of years.”
In terms of preparation and “tips” meaning making passages for the water to flow and sealing the passages correctly! Not a miracle cure for rust.
The zinc coat is actually what I used on a 66’ Mercedes 230SL’s ground points it worked very well. I will actually be doing that for the fiat since it’s stripped.
Yea those 131 were problematic but what about mini coopers and there low distributors when it rained, Hair dryer anyone!
Or let alone the early 90 honda’s and those hall effect distributors always dying.
Yea head gaskets are one of those things now a days you can buy and it will never give you an issue especially Goetze and cosmetic gaskets. Unless of course the car has other issues then it’s the owner’s issue. It’s not like those cars had OBD2 and plug and play systems to almost tell you exactly what the problem is! They could run lean there whole life and someone would say hey the car runs great.
oldspark
“I just returned from a wreckers. There was a 1989 Alfa. Unbelievable - it still generally used ceramic fuses despite having a couple of blade ATS fuses. To think I was critical of cars having ceramic fuses in the 1970s!
As to their diver's (RHS) side air cooled flimsy wire coiled resistor (maybe for the heater fan?) - OMG!!
I think it was Alfa (else Fiat) that were amongst the first vehicles with circuit breakers gown here. Alas they failed miserably - they hadn't factor in our higher ambient temperatures.
Anyhow, in retrospect, maybe I shouldn't be too critical of German vehicle electrics...?
Not that I don't have problems. Some of my Isuzu connectors became problematic after 25-30 years. Now I break and remake them at 10-year intervals as a precaution.”
Ha I remember when I had an Izusu Trooper I would drive it to school everyone used to call it the Safari Wagon. All it had was glass all around but what a good truck and it was 5 speed and a animal in the snow. Still kick myself for selling it to a guy my father knew, guy put a plow on the poor 4cyl and ended up skidding into a tree RIP POOR TRUCK.