My Alfa Life: Home Again
My #AlfaRomeo #916 #Spider returns home after having many mechanical parts replaced
As mentioned in my previous article I've spent lockdown without my Alfa Spider, not too much on a problem as we haven't been able to go anywhere, but rather than let the time go to waste I looked for something to do whilst it was away.
One of the reasons for getting the Spider in for repair when I did was that I have been moving house to one with a garage but a smaller driveway. This means that I need to keep one of the three cars in the garage. I could have left the garage as it was left by the builder, bare breeze block walls and concrete floor, but that didn't seem like an appropriate place to keep an Alfa.
New garage empty but dirty
The first thing to do was to decide what to do with the walls. The alternatives were to clad the walls in plasterboard, dry wall in the US, or to simply paint them. The best result would be to clad them but would require more effort than I was prepared to do so went for simple white garage paint. It took a couple of tins of paint to put two coats on but I was pleased with the finish.
Painting complete
The next step was flooring. There are a number of options here; paint, resin, or flooring of some kind. I wanted something that I could do myself, so didn't fancy the resin option. I've used paint before, which looks good initially, but grippy tyres tend to pull the paint away from the unsealed concrete over time. That left tiles, which have the benefit of adding a little a insulation to the floor.
I did some Internet research and got some samples of different types of tiles and decided to go with 50cm square PVC tiles and a custom design. The tiles took a week or so to arrive, just as the weather turned hot and dry, and I got set to lay it.
Armed with a rubber mallet I started at the front, in the centre and parallel to the entrance, and worked my way backwards. It was at this point that I found that the garage isn't exactly square. I moved the mat of tiles around a bit to try and get it to be straight at the entrance and parallel to the walls but this wasn't happening and so I decided to go with straight at the entrance. Laying the full tiles took half a day. I then needed to cut the tiles at the back and the sides to fit, leaving a gap for expansion, this took a while and I went through a pack of blades doing it. Two days later I had the floor finished and skirting in place, with an appropriate trim.
Finally I wanted add something to the wall to prevent chips when opening the door. I had some vinyl flooring left over and initially looked to put that on the wall, but decided instead use some cork tiles.
Cork to protect the door
With the garage complete the next thing was to chase the garage again about the repairs to the Spider. The new brake hoses were fitted but one of the rear calipers was found to be seized when the new pads were being fitted. So a new caliper was needed and, with the delays due to COVID-19, this added another week to the work.
Finally, last Friday, it passed the MOT with flying colours, just an advisory about some pitting on the front discs. Picking it up I was told that the battery was flat so may need replacing. I decided to drive it home anyway and stick it on charge overnight. The charger set to work but in the morning reported that the battery wasn't taking a charge and was done. So a replacement was ordered locally and I went to pick it up.
The battery for the Spider sits to one side of the luggage bin behind the front seats. Its a great position for front/rear weight balance but doesn't provide the easiest access for replacement. After 30 minutes, and a bit of cursing and bloody knuckles, the battery was replaced and the car started first time.
The only issue with changing the battery is the alarm is reset and, in order to let you know that is has been disconnected, reports this with four rapid beeps on lock and unlock. Well I say on lock, its usually about 15-30 seconds afterwards. Just enough time to have walked away from the car and attract people's attention.
Reading various forums there is a procedure to clear this, which is reported as turning the ignition on and holding the locking button for 15 seconds. The caveat is that it doesn't always work. I tried it for a couple of days every time I started the car to no effect. Then, two days ago, it worked. No more beeps. I have no idea what I did different, perhaps turning off and removing the key afterwards, but am putting it down to Alfa Romeo eccentricities.
Spider in its new home
It had taken longer than expected, and there was more work that initially planned, but I now have the Spider back and it sounds and drives better than ever. Of course as soon as I picked it up the weather turned from the weeks of endless sunshine to wet and windy. Hopefully this won't last and I'll be able to enjoy some topless driving later in the summer.
Engine bay looking used but in decent condition
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Comments (4)
What are the minimum garage requirements to house an Alfa? @tribe
Gotta have a Perrelli sign for sure
Waterproof ;)
Great to see your nearly back on the road Mick! Great article! We've all been there!