Steve-Be aware when you pull the door panel off to search for the rattle
that Rootes assembly line workers were notorius for "adding" personal
touches while car assembly. I have heard of two cases of Alpine owners in UK
where one found a small bottle and another found a slim wrench. Enough of a
noise to drive one crazy. Brent Kasl
steve sage wrote:
> Howdy Alpines:
> I had mentioned, a couple of weeks ago that my Series V and its
> Strombergs (I assumed) were sputtering and hesitating from around
> 2500-3000 RPM. Messing about with the car yesterday I discovered that
> the piece that attaches the front carb throttle bar with the rear carb
> (the piece you loosen when you "synch" the carbs) had come loose a bit.
> The result was the rear carb was barely operating off of its idle
> position so I basically was running on one carb. It's amazing that the
> car did as well as it did that way.
>
> I tightened down the throttle pieces and re-synched the carbs (they were
> just about right as it was), and today, in 90 degree weather, took it
> out for a serious drive. Miles on the freeway plus lots of stop and go
> city driving could not induce the car to "miss" anymore. It of course
> accelerates much, much better (actually feels pretty powerful through
> third gear between 3000-4500 RPM) and was just generally a lot of fun to
> drive again. Now I'm debating if I need to do the changeover to the
> Weber 38/38DGAS carb I was going to do. I might still do it later, for
> more HP.
>
> Of course, with that solved for the moment, my next job to tackle is
> engine cooling. The car does not overheat, but at freeway speeds under a
> load, temp. gradually goes up nearing 2/3 (not quite, though) of the way
> over on the guage, exceeding my own comfort level. I've had the guage
> tested and it is, amazingly, dead on accurate (the needle straight up
> indicating 180 degrees). When I head down a long hill, temp. goes back
> to slightly below the middle of the guage, where it should be. (I'm
> running a 160 degree thermostat for the summer). The cooling system
> itself seems to be in good shape so I'm going to take a roll of duct
> tape and close up all those holes and crevices in front of the car where
> air gets into the engine compartment without going into the radiator
> (horn holes, the gap above the radiator, etc.) and see what happens.
> I've heard this forces more air through the radiator. I need to address
> this as I plan on adding A/C in the next few months.
>
> Lastly, I've got a rattle in the driver's door that's driving me more
> nuts than I already have been. I'm going to pull the door panels and see
> what's back there. I know when I've looked in the past the plastic
> sheets are completely deteriorated and I think this is where why rain
> came in a few months ago and left an inch of water on the floorbards.
> I'm sure the rest of the rubber and trim inside is just as bad, causing
> the rattles, so I guess I'll be spending a bit more on some new parts.
>
> P.S.....I fixed the trunk lock a couple of weeks ago (I installed the
> new trunk lid piece and took the lock apart and re-tightened
> things...the internal nut had come loose). So far, the trunk has not
> popped open once so I'm hoping I've solved this one for good.
>
> Thanks again to everyone for the tips you posted on the trunk and the
> engine misses.
>
> Steve Sage
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Sep 05 2000 - 11:01:21 CDT