Alfa Romeo 75 3.0 V6 & 164 3.0 24V Cloverleaf

[75nut]

Did not get done much at weekend, naffed off as I want to crack on!

I had agreed to a lads day out (or day in pubs to be exact) on Sunday and family stuff on Saturday plus after a desperate call from a mate on Friday I got involved in this (as if I didnt already have enough cars that needed my attention



It was overheating and we think we have tracked it donw to a fualtly fan, but to get to that EVERYTHING on the front had to come off!!
You can see why these car go through auction for nothing, the labour would have been half the cars value! Now I have to wait for the used one to arrive and then try and remember how to put it together again! But in our village we swap skills and bearing in mind he set my offic eup with 8 pcs and all he networking for nought its a fair deal!

So I only really had a few hours over weekend, so I got to tarting up the a frame and anti roll bar with some silver ronseal anti rust pain that I found s alot thicker than hammerite and goes on nicer. Gave it 3 coats. Sorry bout the pics I tihnk there is alot of crap on my blackberry lens!





Also tried burning out the gearbox bush as its not playing ball a the moment, doused it in white spirtis but did not burn for long so have started using a chisel to break it up being carefull not to damage the casting. But half way through I had to go out.

Need to get these bushes out now so I can crack on and get driving in this sun, so going to hacksaw through the sleeve of the rear engine one and chisel that out too in prep. My plan this week is to try and get set to put it all back in next week

[mach1rob]

You can see why these car go through auction for nothing, the labour would have been half the cars value! Now I have to wait for the used one to arrive and then try and remember how to put it together again!

Wait till the cambelt needs replacing, or the clutch goes, or the VIS valves or motors in the inlet manifold pack up, then you'll know what expense is, and all bar the manifold are right ball ache jobs to do!

[75nut]

Yeah luckily its a friends car not mine , spent all yesterday evening on it with him as the new motor was a two speed not 3 so had to be adpated then we found the resistor on the new one was shagged and bypassed that to find one the the other resistor in the control box had gone! Proper pain in the bum

[75nut]

Little bit of progress on the bushing front.

New gearbox bush was put in freezer Tuesday, ever freezer should have one!

I then set about getting the old bush out on Thursday by setting fire to it. This burnt the inside out but left the thin part of rubber between the metal sleeve and the casting. So to resolve this I hammered a very small carpentry chisel between the two and bent the sleeve of the old bush down and sprayed WD40 in there and set fire to it again. This burnt a bit away so I repeated the process of hammering the sleeve down and spray again and set fire again.
By the 4th time the majority of rubber burnt away and I was able to push the sleeve out.




Got a bit of a result last Saturday too. Wen to a local auction for a laugh with the lads and picked up a huge box of bolts,washers,split pins,springs,etc for £20!!! I think a old boy had a motor factors and had stock piled some after shutting shop. Its all you can see on the middle shelf there is tons!



Still dealing with my friends Rover 75 today , turns out its plastic thermostat which is hidden in the V of the V6 under 2 manifolds, injector rails, breathers,battery and tray and airbox, cracked! This si after we had to take the entire front end off to change a bust fan. You'd be looking at £500+ to get this done so again its no wonder they are so cheap everwhere.






Il never complain about a Alfa 75 having little space again!

Only to get home to find my father in law needing help with a bust ride on mower! So I help him out to discover a destroyed bearing





So I felt I was on a roll and got back onto the gearbox bush.

My plan was to heat the casting and then use a puller to push the frozen one in.
I don't have a powerfull enough blowtorch to heat ti so I came up with the idea of stuffing it with barbecue coals and set fire to it again lol!

With the bush to hand I flicked the coals out let it cool a little and put a thinck glove on and ran a bit of 240 grit around the inside to clean it up, and the new bush simply slipped in by hand with no puller needed!!!

So of course now I was worried it was too lose but after 10 mins the bush had defrosted enough already for it to be solidly fixed!

Result!

[Peter-109]

Haha now that is ingenuity!

[75nut]

Well I eventually got my friends Rover back together and sorted after taking apart again due to bust injection rail seals!

So I send a stolen hour of two today under the Alfa 75 again trying to swap out the rear engine mounting bush.

I had got a 62mm holesaw, the outer diameter and a 80mm one for the rear of the housing.

Using a bottle jack I jacked the front of the engine to push the mounting down to allow access.

So using threaded bar I trying spannering it out, but there was not enough space for the large 80mm to go over the rear, so I cut it down to form a large washer.



But it held fast even when I put enough elbow grease in to do this much bending -





So Im still stuck! Next plans of action are to either use a hackaw blade and spend a couple of house cutting the sleeve into quarters and then chisel out the sections, or high a oxy torch to super heat the casting and try and knock the bush out with the 62mm holesaw.

[75nut]

Well on Saturday I decided the rear engine bush was coming out hell or high water!!

So after picking up the car from the pub (I love the countryside check out my walk to my local!) I got under the car again for attempt 100!


So first I tried using a hacksaw blade to cut it up wih the plan to chisel it out.

First the remaining rubber need to come out as the blade just keeps getting stuck so a small fire was in order with extingusher at hand!


But I found it nigh on inpossible to get the blade level enough to cut even slots and the bush casing is so thick I was going to take forever!

So I had a re think and got out my Dremmel which always gets me out of a tight spot! Using the small cutting discs but doubling them up (as they are so brittle they break a the slightest knock) I ran it round the inside of the bush ending up cutting a V. I then used a chisel to bend a tab up and then dug out a chisel and got ready for some serious hammering.

But its started to slide out immediately! Few more taps and it was out!!!





THis is where I well and truly mucked up!!

Rather than sticking with the rule of not rushing when I was short on time, I grabbed the new bush fromt he freeze and attempted to bung it in.
I started in ok but then got wedged. Looking at the angle I was only very slightly off so I gave it a tap with a rubber hammer and it went in further, so thinking I would now level out I hit it some more, and you guessed it, it completely wedged!!

And as I had used no lube for fear of it compromising the function of the bush it would not hammer back out even with a chisel (at this point I accepted I was ordering another bush so I just wanted it out!) so IM back to square one with a bush rammed in there!

I could of happily killed a kitten!!!

The issue it to tight a fit to do without heat from what I read so the pla is to hire a blowtorch heat the casting and try and get the bent up new one out ready to try again!

[TerryG]

My mechanic has a BRILIANT way of removing a stuborn outer bearing race or the outer sleeve of a bush, when the middle bit is broken up and removed he runs a bead of weld around it, has a cup of tea while it cools then it just drops straight out.
You've gotta love physics.

[75nut]

Nice idea Terry, thanks for the tip!

Half the new bush us still sticking out and has an out metal casing not rubber, I wonder if I welded a bead around the bit sticking out it would work a similar way?

[TerryG]

I can honestly say i don't know. I would say that welding on the metal that is inside would work better than the exposed steel as it's the stuck bit that you want to shrink.
There are lots of people documenting that they have done it (if you have a google for "bearing removal mig bead" or something similar) including on the MIG welding forum so they may be of more use. If you can get a mig in to the exposed bit you could always weld something to it to pull with or attack it with a slide hammer