A wee drive

Took the Alfa for a decent drive tonight - a bit of town and country - and drove nearly 200kms over a period of four hours. Got some open road country, some motorway, some stop-start Queen St boy-racer-style action, some suburbs - pretty much the whole broad spectrum of NZ road types.

Was very impressed with the road holding, and to use a cliche - it really does corner like it is on rails. Rides a tad too high - the boxer engine sits quite low and is conducive to a low center-of-gravity, but the back needs to come down a couple of inches, perhaps. The wheel alignment is out - pulling slightly to the left ordinarily, but tramlining on dodgy road surfaces. Might take it down to Drury Tires to get that sorted in the morning. I have to say they have been a bit hit-and-miss with their alignment jobs - the last alignment they performed on the Skyline was excellent - the car still handles like a dream (compared to pre-alignment) nearly a year later. But I have had the odd shonky job on the old Datsun in the past.

The brakes are on the ill side of satisfactory, and a car that popped out of nowhere nearly 'joined forces' with the Alfa. Apparently the brake master cylinder has been replaced recently, so I should really check everything else out too. The fact that the handbrake pulls up to the ceiling indicates that the rear brake pads are most probably in need of renewal. The fluid lines may need bleeding also.

The engine is in perhaps the poorest state (may be on a par with the paint/body work) - a 1.7 litre with twin Dellorto 40s should almost be competitive with a 4AGE Corolla (twin-cam 1600 fuel injected) - but despite glimpses of torque, it really does not leave the scene in a fashion other than can be described as ordinary. The valve-train clatter and over-fuelling carbs can hopefully be sorted with a good tune, so we'll see how it performs once that is done.

As long as the rust is kept away, the bodywork will go unattended to for now, apart from a wash and polish etc. The interior needs a few things sorting - the glove-box is pulling away from the dash, so I may need to fabricate some means of reinforcing to go behind the glove-box mounting points - the whole car needs a really good vacumn out. The rear central-locking is not working - I should be able to whip the door linings off and diagnose that problem with realtive ease. I can hear the actuators working, but they're just not operating the lock mechanisms - perhaps a missing linkage, or stripped gear teeth or the like. I would like to replace the lost section of skirt under the right rear passengers door, also.

Otherwise, thats about it for this evening. I will make a 'parts wanted' list under the links section, so if you have any Alfa 33 bits lying around, please keep me in mind. Hope you all have a great weekend!

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