Tonight on my way home from work I made a spur-of-the-moment decision. I decided the engine was going in the Sprint. I have spent 3 weeks talking about it, worrying over getting help, clearing the headers, centering the lot on the engine mounts and a thousand other things, it was time to put it in and tonight was the night.
The catalyst was Conrad telling me he usually put the engine and trans in Sprints separately, that it really ended up being about the same amount of work. I got to the shop, unbolted the transmission from the engine, hoisted it up and dropped it in. It took maybe 15 minutes and I had the motor mounts resting in their cut outs. The only hard part of putting the engine in was I had to remove and then reinstall the exhaust side motor mount to clear the headers.
Here it goes. A good quality hoist is key so you can lower it really slowly, allowing you to check clearances and guide it. Note the engine mount on the head.
A complete runner, very blue and pretty good looking. I was in my twenties and wanted a Giulia sedan in the worst way.
Here it is being delivered to me when I bought it off eBay for $3500 in late 2002. Car looked great in the pictures and the plan was to fly to Atlanta and drive it home, but the seller changed his tune about it being capable of making the 3000 mile drive so I shipped it. That’s a younger version of me and my cousin Norm pushing it onto the loading deck. Car needed a clutch almost immediately and would likely have stranded me if I drove it home.
Looks like a greasy Alfa engine to me. Note early Marelli distributor, I think this may be destined for the 1300.
Here I am at the first attempt, the easy out wasn’t so easy and even with a nut welded to the end it wouldn’t turn.
Here it is, cam timing adjusted, everything torqued and cam chain tensioned. I plan on dousing this all with oil before the initial start-up, probably a few weeks away.
I suppose the color of the turn signal lens could be called ‘impatient Orange’. When this was taken I had just made all the head nuts finger tight after fishing the timing chain up through the timing case.
Is it just me or is coolant more viscous than it used to be? All this was apart a few weeks ago so since it’s fresh in my mind I suspect I can get through it pretty quick. I popped the hood at 5:30pm after picking up a set of sparkplugs, some carb cleaner and some ultra gray from my neighborhood chain auto parts store. I had a date to keep at 7:30pm so I had to hurry.
