Tasmanian Alfasud Sprint

[colcol]

Water pump should be a ball of fun to remove next time, noticed on your pics the position of the coil and heat sink, so much better on Suds and Sprints, on 33's they are stuck on the inner lower LH gaurd, which makes them hard to work on, i notice on your coil you have the quick connect terminals, or as i know them, the quick disconnect terminals, after mine fell off for the umteeth time i put eyelet terminals on the wires and installed them directly to the coil with nuts, so now they can't fall off, Colin.

[Fetta GTV]

How is progress going on the sprint?
keep us updated when you can. Good to see another one being sorted
Mine is a work in progress
Found some rust to sort

[stuka]

I finally got some time to work on the car today. Put on the timing belts, belt covers and fitted the alternator and new belt. I turned over the crankshaft a number of times, the belts have centred and all the timing marks line up nice. I have decided to change all the cooling system hoses as they are all perished, I'll pick up the full replacement set next week so getting closer. Before I go any further I was thinking of firing up the motor to see it runs ok before putting everything back together. Is there any danger in doing this (just for a minute or so) without water in the system, air filter assembly and all the other hoses that run back and forth such as vacuum hoses?

Fetta I like the look of your car. Im afraid mine wont look as fresh as yours without a respray, someday maybe.Is that the original paint? Is it difficult to remove the front guard? I went about it recently as my driver door is creaking badly but it seems to be spot welded in places?

[colcol]

You can kick the motor over and let it run for 10 seconds, but no longer as the cylinder heads will get very hot, and the only reason you are doing this is to see if the motor starts before putting all the bits and pieces back on, but have the battery terminals loose, so if it starts making horrible noises, you can quickly cut the power, Colin.

[Fetta GTV]

They are not spot welds, there are nuts that you have to access from inside the car behind the carpet on the kick panels. There are plastic covers that you take off and you can see the nuts, the top one is a bit of a bugger to get at. There are 3 you need to undo. The others are easy, along the top of the panel and then 2 below the headlights on the inside.
Some of the paint is original, some panels have been resprayed, looks better in the pic than it is.

[stuka]

I fired up the motor this morning. Stupidly I had forgotten to pull out the rags I had stuffed in the inlets to the carbys. No wonder it took quite a few turns before it kicked in to life! When it fired it immediately revved really high. The tacho isnt working but ut must have been 3,000rpm at least. Im wondering why this is the case. I checked all the throttle linkages and they seem to be fine. Would the end of a rag pulled into the carby have disturbed anything? There is definitely nothing left in there as the rag came out in one piece.

[colcol]

As you pulled the rag out you may have bent the butterfly shaft on the carby and now the throttle plate isn't fully closing, have a look at the idle stop screws and make sure they are fully closing onto the stop, also are your choke cable connectors fully off, as these being on can cause high idle, Colin.

[stuka]

I reckon the butterfly could be the problem then, more work to do because of my stupidity!

[colcol]

Ok, been there done that, disconnect the throttle relay rods, that is the short rods, about 75mm long, that connect the carbs to the main throttle linkage, they disconnect easy by flicking the rod off the ball linkage, and then move the carby arm, and see if it closes cleanly and does not stick, if its a bit sticky and not closing, then you have a bent butterfly rod, but do not worry it can be fixed, Colin.

[stuka]

Going to start working on this again at the weekend. I checked the throttles, they are definitely not closing on the stop. I tried to remove the short rods connecting the carbs to the throttle linkage. They are pretty stubborn and wont seem to flick off. What the easiest way to remove these, Im paranoid about doing further damage??

[colcol]

Put some WD40 on the balls and rod assembly and using an appropriate open end spanner, lever the rod off against the ball, don't use pliers or multigrips as these tend to damage the ball which leads to accelerated wear, OR you could use a elcheapo battery terminal puller, just like a big bearing puller only smaller, you will have to use a bolt of approprate size to push on the ball to pull the rod off, then you will be able to see if the carbys are closing fully, Colin.

[stuka]

Great, the rods came off easily this way, I guess I was being over cautious before. Each of the carby arm contacts the stop easily now and full movement feels good, there doesnt feel to be any resistance so Im satisfied the butterflies are ok. The balls on the linkages are now somewhere between 5 and 10mm out of line with eyes on the linkages. I assume I should just wind the eye down until its in line with the ball again?

Not being overly familiar with how the carby operates, I dont understand what readjusting the arms will do to the overall setup i.e. for me to make up the 5 to 10mm on the rod, will this affect anything else?

[colcol]

The 2 relay rods should be the same length, so they are opening each carb the same, just put them together and make sure the they are the same over all length, when the throttle linkage assembly is fully open, the carbs should be fully open as well, and when the linkage is closed, then the carbs should be closed as well, use the adjustment on the relay rods to achieve this, but make sure they both end up the same, check the bearings in the ends of the throttle linkage, as they sometimes seize up, replacement is quite easy and they are a common bearing, this adjustment should be done with the gas pedal cable dissconnected from the throttle linkage, Colin.

[stuka]

Thanks Colin, I did as you said and everything is lined up again sweet. I finished off replacing all the cooling system hoses, it will be much happier now given that a couple of the miner hoses were blocked due to corrosion of the tee.



The motor started up first time after as number of weeks so was pretty happy with that. I let it idle until the thermo fan kicked in, everything sounds smooth and as it should.

Before I refit the air filter box, I was not sure about the connectors for the alternator. Obviously the green one goes to the top but what about the red one? I cant remember if its connects to the middle or bottom as I didnt pick up there were 2 locations when I took them off. Anybody know??

[colcol]

I cannot remember either, as i have fitted an amp meter and i have 2 red wires, going in to the alternator, i would say it goes on the centre terminal as this looks like its had a wire on it, the green wire is for your alternator charge light, so when the alternator is being drained, the power flows backwards and this light shines, connect the alternator up, and if the alternator light shines, put the red wire on the outer terminal, but DON'T run the engine with the wires disconnected on the alternator as this can burn out the diode pack in the alternator, Colin.