Milano Manuals and Parts Books

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

In AD8-0128 David Morales asks about service manuals and parts manuals for the
Milano.

 The Parts Book problem is one of the grand reasons (among several others) for
loving the 105/115 cars of the sixties and seventies, which had exemplary
parts books, usually not too hard to find on the used market. With the
Alfettas (at least on the US market) Alfa went to a compact formula (the
"Catalogo Rapido") which compressed into 170 pages the information (for all
USA coupe and sedan variants) which the 2000 Berlina parts book spread over
about 550 pages, and with the later cars Alfa went to a microfiche, spreading
the same information over one or two 10.5 cm x 18.5 cm transparencies, each
containing up to 480 4 mm x 6 mm negatives of a more rudimentary page. The big
advantages of the microfiche are cost (a dollar or two, compared to the $22.50
which a 1750 Berlina parts book set cost in 1970 dollars), and ease of
producing (and/or updating) many versions - there are fourteen microfiches
covering Milanos, what with two displacements, two transmissions, and a few
model years - and shelf space, and use is not too inconvenient if you have
access to a fiche reader, which most libraries have.

 Fiches are easily ordered at negligible cost from your local Alfa dealer. I
also bought, from another list member, a hardcopy printout of the fiche which
he had bought from the AROC Technical Library, but it is an extremely faint
image; by goosing the contrast on my own copier I was able to make a second
somewhat more usable copy, but the image quality and information are still
pathetic compared to an earlier parts book. (There are also commercial
services which do printouts from fiches for businesses). A major part of the
difference is the clarity of the exploded drawings of assemblies, which used
to be very useful; the other major difference is in the space allocated to
descriptions. Find a particular stud in the Alfetta Catalogo Rapido and the
part key-number on the drawing just lets you find the part number in a table;
the microfiche goes one better, also telling you it was a stud (but you knew
that) and the old archaic full parts book gave you the threads at both ends
and the length of the particular stud, which can be invaluable information as
(for example) some studs will differ from others by as little as one
millimeter in length.. But, the fiches are available, printouts are available,
and one can get by with them until, as a more mature and developed Alfa lover,
one graduates to simpler cars with chain cam drives and minimal electronics.

 The factory shop manuals for the Milano (at least the two I have) often say
that a particular assembly is similar to that of the GTV 6 and you should look
in the GTV 6 shop manual for that information. Neither of them deal with the
isostatic shifter (which is what started David Morales' search), and the later
of the two says that information on the LSD will be sent out later when it is
ready. I don't know how many comparable gaps there are elsewhere, but I feel
it is a safe bet that there are some inconvenient ones.

 Centerline publishes, for $79.95, "The most complete GTV/6-Milano technical
tome available, combining the standard Milano book with all of the "missing"
GTV/6 sections, plus ABS, auto trans, and self leveling suspension manuals."
It may include the isostatic (doesn't say) which was a late GTV 6 feature and
was probably covered in a service bulletin for the GTV 6 rather than in a
manual.

 I don't have the CarDisc, and don't have an opinion on it. It may be
wonderful, but I am partial to hardcopy first, and would probably start with
the Centerline product and the microfiches (for the '87 2.5, #60495122
mechanical and #60495123 body) and perhaps add a CarDisc later to ice the
cake.

 Modernity partisans will undoubtedly show that there are comparable gaps in
earlier documentation, but I believe they are fewer and/or easier to work
around, at least for codgers. As for the 164 (which wasn't asked) there are
two large volumes of equal size to the shop manual, one for the electrics and
one for everything else. If that is your cup of tea, look forward to 2005 when
(I assume) your cup will runneth over.

 Cheers

 John H.

--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided