Re: alfa-digest V8 #639

[Simon Body <body@domain.elided>]

Dear Keith, Kevin, Stan, Mike, Charlie, Brad and John

Thank you very much for your excellent advice. It is really very heartening 
to a relatively new Alfa owner that there is such camaraderie and help only 
an e-mail away. And of course thanks are due to Richard Welty for running 
the group.

To summarize your excellent help (mostly for my benefit), the suggestions 
in logical order (I think) were:
1. Check air intake hoses for leaks
2. Check plugs for spark
3. Check cylinders for fuel supply
4. Check connectors to reset sensor, cold start switch and others
5. Check air regulator

An update: the car died on the commute home last night (5pm) at the lights 
on one of the busiest routes in Boston (Route 9 - for those that know 
Boston). Miles and miles of pissed off SUV drivers behind me, all on their 
cell phones. Total choas. Had to call the State Police to stop traffic so 
that I could push it off to the side. A true joy and pleasure of Alfa 
ownership!@#$%^&   Some bad words from me and other people I pissed off but 
a very helpful Police guy. Eventually managed to get it restarted and drove 
it via back routes to my local Alfa shop where I dumped it and had my wife 
pick me up.

I'll let you all know what they found.
Many thanks
Simon







At 10:49 PM 4/11/2002, you wrote:


>Simon--
>Hopefully someone will answer your query who knows exactly the problem. I
>don't own a electronically injected spider, but if I did, I would find the
>small sensor connections at the big water hose just before it enters the
>radiatior; there should be two or three of them that you can pull apart and
>clean with fine sandpaper and a little WD40. These detect the water
>temperature for the ignition system and/or act as a "cold start" switch". If
>they are dull or dirty from lack of use, they could cause the inabilty to
>idle, but should also be making the car hard to start. Of course, don't
>forget to check the spark plugs if it's been sitting with the same plugs
>since last year. Bad plugs would account for the inability to idle and rough
>running once underway. If it was just the connectors, the problem would
>probably disappear once you were off and running. Good luck!
>
>Kevin Murphy
>AONE

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