General 16V Turbo or 20V Turbo Diesel???

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General 16V Turbo or 20V Turbo Diesel???

I know, but mine will add value to the concourse lot. ;)

Besides I'm doing this properly and not cutting springs, roughing up paint and sticker-bombing dents and scratches. :D
 
Drivers side headlight removal.

Open bonnet.
Undo the two 10mm bolts and two 10mm while supporting the unit.
When undone remove the headlight and unplug the leads.

Should take about a minute.

Passenger side headlight.

Bonnet's still open.
Undo the 10mm bolts, undo the one 10mm nut and swear because the forth lug is held on with black silicone.
Use a putty knife and a rubber hammer to knock the lamp free without breaking the lug itself.
Swear some more because the rear inner lug nearly snaps off.
Trim the excess black silicone off with a Stanley knife.
Repair the nearly broken off lug with Q-Bond.
Swear some more about the pandemic use of black silicone by idiots who don't deserve Oxygen let alone a bloody car. :bang:

Should take about an hour depending on how much you swear and if the Police are called out.
 
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I have all the bits I need and a few choice parts for eBay. You may notice the car is sitting lower and has no plates.

Lower...

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...rollin' on 13's! Yeah boy!

Elite registrations have offered £150 for the number plate so that's a new front bumper. :)
 
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13266010_10206540473097557_7205940537457715697_n.jpg


I have all the bits I need and a few choice parts for eBay. You may notice the car is sitting lower and has no plates.

Lower...

13331018_10206540498018180_7556994811886301212_n.jpg


...rollin' on 13's! Yeah boy!

Elite registrations have offered £150 for the number plate so that's a new front bumper. :)

A sad end for a beautiful piece of automotive art. :(
 
Final parts removed and the shell will be ready to go as soon as the number plate is sold. It is sad and I'd love to be able to save them all but at least this one has donated parts to a good cause either directly via eBay or the classifieds.
 
So the N/A Coupe postmortem continued to a conclusion today.

But first I had to improvise.

I had let someone borrow my M socket set, they were returned with a broken M12 and guess which one I need to undo the head bolts?

The closest to it is my T55...

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...but the fins aren't wide enough and the bit wobbles.

To remedy this I used a folded sheet of kitchen roll...

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...to fill the gaps and it worked brilliantly. :)

So the postmortem.

Some of the head bolts weren't torqued down properly. 1, 2, 9, 10 were to spec', 5, 6, and 8 were nowhere near. 3, 4 and 7 were close enough to be okay. Water had got into cylinders two and four and where the car was sat the liners are ruined. So bad the pistons are rusted solid.

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Chances are it only lost enough water to evaporate while the car was in use but filled the cylinders as she was sat. The head looks to be in fine fettle so I'll be pulling the valves out and polishing the ports before deciding what to do with it. ;)
 
16V Turbo Project

The Coupe has issues starting sometimes. I thought this down to the coilpack, crank sensor or old fuel. The old MOT gives an oil leak as an advisory for the last four tests. I had no idea these were related.

The paint job on the cam' cover is. For want of a more polite term of phrase complete and utter (n) .
As this was where the oil was leaking from and I have the original cam' cover from the N/A car it was destined for the bin from the first time I saw it.

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Once I took the plug cover off I noticed a few things. Some of the bolts had no washers and weren't holding the cover down properly (at all). This caused the external leak the MOT guys were advising about and the one in the middle of the cover was tight but about 5mm too long also with no washers. I pulled the spark plug caps off to discover number two and number three plug chambers were full of oil. I took the cam' cover off to see that instead of spending £20 on a cam' cover gasket set and "O" rings my old friend silicone was applied. I pulled the plugs so some of the oil dropped into the cylinder and I could mop the rest and clean the plugs before fitting the newly painted cam' cover.

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It's still the wrong colour (I had some wheel silver left in the shed) but a million times better than it was (make that a billion when I put the new belts and original cover on as well) and now it won't leak oil as I've used the right bolts and washers with a new gasket set I bought with the money from the gash spoiler (yep some mug bought it). With clean plugs she starts first turn of the key. She smoke like Molly Brindley for a while. Next I'll fix the flexi-pipe and fit the more grown up exhaust so I'll stop setting car alarms off in the next village. ;)
 
I would like to say I've taken the old exhaust off the Coupe and fitted the one from the donor car; but I would not describe what removed as an exhaust. At best I would call it a tragedy.

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The middle box had been replaced with scrap yard bends that went under the handbrake cable instead of over it so that's why those need replacing.

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Pigeon crap welding that my nephew could have done better when he was six whilst wearing a blindfold. My guess is it was done on the car by someone who thought welding was something you need a pre-nup' for.

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And of course the Chavesty back box was held in place with silicone before being pigeon crap welded.

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It's more than fair to say the donor car paid for itself today. ;)

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Once fitted my mood was lifted so I finished the cam' cover. I filled the scripted sections with blue enamel paint yesterday and rubbed the silver from the blocks so it has a straight brushed Aluminium effect (not good enough metal to mirror polish) and where some of the silver paint has dropped into the blue it looks aged. Almost like it's supposed to be there.

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While I was under the car I noticed a few holes in the floor that need addressing. Where the wiring loom has had clips drilled into the floor water has got in and between the metal and the under-seal so I have a couple of playing card sections to cut out and weld up. I'll need to take the carpet out and go from inside lap welding a slightly bigger patch and lapping from underneath as well.

Now do I bother putting the carpet back or fit bucket seats? ;)

Sorry to go on about the misuse of silicone but this is a 150+mph car for bloody Hell's sake!

Somebody looked at that and thought "Hmmmm; that'll do"? :bang:
 
Re: 16V Turbo project

Just a little update.

My engine has gone from "Meh"...

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...to "Ooooooommmmmwah!"

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I've also painted and replaced the fuel tank straps but that wasn't rally worth a photo. ;)
 
Not much of an update as I've been at work but a couple of items have bids on eBay and I may have found an airbox so the chav filter can be destroyed. :devil:
 
Shopping list for future reference.

Brake pads.
Brake discs.
Shocks.
Springs.
Wishbones.
Brake lines.
Airbox and Filter.
Flexipipe.
Welding.
Paint

MOT

Wheels and tyres, road and track.

Starting to look expensive.
 
I'd agree. It's slightly ironic that 2 of the best looking Fiats ever made weren't actually designed by Italians, lol!

Thank heck they got rid of the Sir Mixalot rear end. It was the undoing of the Alfa (156) GT and (159) Brera. Made those otherwise brilliant cars look like a Vauxhall Signum and handle like beached whale.

I have other items ending soon and payday is tomorrow so it will be discs and pads this month to go with the cables that arrived the other day. :)
 
Thank heck they got rid of the Sir Mixalot rear end. It was the undoing of the Alfa (156) GT and (159) Brera. Made those otherwise brilliant cars look like a Vauxhall Signum and handle like beached whale.

With regards to the GT: I actually don't mind the rear styling, lol!

With regards to the Brera: granted, it does have a rather distinctive butt, but don't forget it stayed quite faithful to the concept car.

I can't comment on the driving experience of either car, but I'm sure they're not that awful, lol!
 
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