Fire!

Blower motor failed, causing blower motor resistor to get cherry red hot, causing leaf litter that makes it into the blower assembly to ignite.

Luckily, no damage done, need to find a blower motor now.

Some updates

This past Monday, I drove the Milano to work as I do every week day, with out issue. I left for lunch and the shifter was incredibly hard to move. I was very worried. I had drove the car up on a curb and crawled under while a coworker went through the gears. I could see no obvious binding in the isostatic linkage.

Later I removed the center console to look at the shifter bushing, only to find a riveted rubber boot. So after work I jacked up the car in the parking lot and removed the heat shield between the body and cat. I could see the rubber boot came off the bottom of the shifter, I liberally squirted WD-40 and the car shifts like butter. I was planning on properly greasing the bushing last night, but I ran into some problems.

Last night I wanted to replace the thermostat and grease the shifter bushing. I started with the thermostat and managed to shear on of the bolts. I decided to press forward, as I knew I needed to modify the thermostat housing for the thermostat I purchased. Proper thermostats for the Milano are $60, as the housing and thermostat are one unit.

The thermostat I purchased at Autozone is for some model of Ford, I am unsure of the actual application. Autozone sells it in their interchange, but it doesn't fit the housing as delivered.



The Milano thermostat housing and thermostat are one unit. The ears that hold the thermostat into the housing must be removed and machined flush with the housing. The ears are circled in red in the above photo. My precision machining consists of a cutoff wheel and die grinder. I love my air compressor.

I was unable to find the required M7x1.0x55mm bolt at Autozone last night. I went to home depot this morning and found a M7x1.0x50mm that will work temporarily until I can source a longer stronger bolt to replace the one that sheared and the other two as well.

The car heated up much quicker this morning, no leaks, and the car hovers just over 175F on the gauge. Hopefully tonight I can properly grease the shifter bushing.

This past weekend I cleaned the heck out of the oil separator between the valve cover and the intake. Oil was not separating and pooling on the air box cover. No more leaks from there now, much better.

I also I have a pigtail for the distributor hall sensor, so I can finally finish the Megasquirt harness.

A supposedly functional a/c compressor is also in my possession, purchased very cheaply from a 24 Hours of LeMons team. I'll bake the receiver dryer and see if I can't get cold air to come out of the vents soon.

Fan :)

I finally had an opportunity to install the Perma-Cool fan controller, which was excellent in timing as the next morning I was stuck in traffic for a long time.

I'm still waiting to get Megasquirt in. Hopefully within the next month, everyone in the house has been sick in some way or another for the last month.

Things starting to move forward

I have not done much of anything to the Alfa since changing the clutch, it has been an excellent car so far.

That said, I have been preparing for the Megasquirt2/Extra installation. At first I had decided to make a "plug-n-play" installation built around another Bosch 35 pin ECU. But upon further reflection, I've decided to remove the factory engine harness and build my own own replacement harness.

I pulled the engine harness from an early 90s Audi 90, so that gives me connectors for the injectors and coolant temp, I have a GM IAT pig tail that I will add to the modified Audi harness.

I found some 18 gauge/3 conductor shielded wire at Intertex which I will use for the distributor to MS and MS to coil wiring.

With any luck I'll have MS in and running within the next couple of weeks.. and then I get to start working on the Turbo setup.

Week 1 w/new clutch

Wow the Milano is a blast. The 4.10 rear end makes it seem much quicker than it should be with it's meager power.

So far I am liking the Milano more than any car I have ever had, except the Megasquirt'd Fiat X1/9. However, when the added practicality is added in, it is a toss up.

I really am stuck on Italian cars now.

Clutch!

The clutch is in! It took all day, but the clutch is in. I spent more time futzing around with the exhaust than with the driveshaft/guibo/tranxaxle/clutch.

Big thanks goes out to Mike for letting me do it at his place, even though it didn't rain.

The clutch bites HARD.

Alignment - continued

I got the Milano aligned today. Two Fat Guys on Babcock did it for $45+tax.

I also went out to the SEA meet tonight in the Alfa. Most though the Alfa was pretty neat.

The clutch is slipping more, but hopefully that will be resolved this weekend. Also, the cooling fan stuck on. I removed the fuse on the relay for it so it wouldn't run the battery down. I'll have to trace the fault this weekend as well.