Spider tires & gulling the ignorant

["Eric H" <ejham@domain.elided>]

When considering tires for our 14-inch-wheeled Spiders, I can safely
recommend the Pirelli P400s. My no-power-steering '76 is wonderfully nimble
with these narrow, quiet, and surprisingly sticky tires.

Obviously, if you're racing the car, these aren't the best choice unless you
*really* know how to control drifts (and you have the room.) But if you're
simply tooling around town, enjoying the drive these are excellent.

The Kumhos on my S-cammed, S-pistoned Verde are a good fit for it. But I
couldn't see trying them on a pre-85 (?) GTV6 where there's no power
steering to help out. Unless, that is, you're like me and view driving as a
type of workout (the Spider currently has no power braking -- I sorta like
it that way.)

On the subject of 'stealing' cars due to an easy fix, I'd have to say it's a
gray area: I think I would have popped the inertia switch back into place
for the owner but, since I don't generally like car dealers all that much,
would have taken the discount on the GT Junior.

In a similar vein, I profited from a similar experience -- but took a risk
doing it -- with an '88 Milano Platinum I bought from a buy-here-pay-here
lot in Ft. Worth, TX. After spotting the car in a copy of Auto Trader where
it had been advertised as a 'parts car' for $800, I drove over for a look.
Their story was that they'd picked it up from another dealer where it had
been a new car trade. They noticed a thunking on acceleration and assumed it
to be a torque converter. They had their favorite garage 'fix' it...to the
garage's credit, they correctly diagnosed it as being giubo trouble and
replaced all 3 of them.

To everyone's dismay, though, the car wouldn't start after the work was
done. Car dealers are not known for long-suffering patience in these
scenarios, so the car was advertised for parts. I asked a few pointed
questions about what had been done to try to correct the problem, heard the
answers, and offered $400. They countered with $500 which I accepted and had
the car towed to Dallas.

Vowing not to 'spend any money' on the car, I had it running the next day
after I set the cam timing which had been bumped totally off by the
mechanic's having rotated the drive shaft the wrong way while tightening the
giubo bolts. It turns out that the valves will not bend even if they kiss
the pistons IF turned only under starter power.

So, after replacing the chewed up timing belt, I had a $500 Platinum with <
80,000 miles with working a/c and a lifetime of service receipts in the
'hidden' glove box which the dealer missed. The tires were even in good
condition. The car ran reliably for a year needing nothing...then I sold it
to AlfaBill. His experience varied from mine in the long run, but he
profited from the car too. But that's another story...

Feeling long-winded in Georgia,

- Eric Hambleton, Marietta, GA
  1988 Milano Verde - 1976 Spider - 1993 164 L - 1977 Alfetta GT

  164 parts!, search on ejham_2001:
  http://pages.ebay.com/search/items/search_seller.html
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