{"id":1517,"date":"2008-10-30T12:11:35","date_gmt":"2008-10-30T19:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/giuliettas.wordpress.com\/?p=1517"},"modified":"2008-10-30T12:11:35","modified_gmt":"2008-10-30T19:11:35","slug":"berlina-project-part-5-road-report-and-teething","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/2008\/10\/30\/berlina-project-part-5-road-report-and-teething\/","title":{"rendered":"Berlina Project part 5: Road report and teething"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I started this project I had one goal: to make an economical, mechanically simple yet comfortable commuter to try and keep my BMW 3 series wagon from reaching the end of its warranty miles (100K) a year before the warranty termination date (3\/10).\u00a0 I think I have achieved my goal but I have had some small teething problems in addition to the\u00a0long list of perceived problems I made\u00a0before\u00a0I started driving the Berlina daily.<\/p>\n

At 83961 miles I put in 10.7 gallons in to fill it up.\u00a0 This morning at 84,300 miles I put 10.17 gallons in.\u00a0 339 miles on 10.17 gallons of gas equals 33.3 mpg.\u00a0 Amazing for a 1750 with dual Dellortos and 10548 cams being driven ‘spiritedly’ as the Brit’s like to say!\u00a0 Even if my odometer is off by 10% I’m doing good.\u00a0 I guess the economical part of my goal is currently exceeding expectations.\u00a0 It can also be said that when the fuel gauge starts looking low I still have about 5 gallons of gas.\u00a0 I will take a few more MPG readings over the next few weeks and report.\u00a0 I will also try and check how many miles my car thinks a mile is.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Leaky Axle seal?\u00a0 Probably.\u00a0 Squeek from a loose sway bar mount?\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 Worn out trunion bushes?\u00a0 I hope not.\u00a0 In addition to the obvious leak I get a little more wiggle in the rear end in cornering than I am used to in an Alfa and some squeeks.\u00a0 I’ll probably have to stick my head under here this weekend.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My old list of complaints from Berlina #4: “The radio is SUPER quiet at full volume, the windshield wipers don’t work, the drivers side rear turn signal doesn’t work, the front brakes are wore-out, a good stink gets into the cabin through missing fire-wall grommets, there is no horn, the high beams only work on one side, there are no sun visors because the bosses are being used to hold the wink mirror, the drivers side carpet bunches up under the pedals, the drivers window regulator is almost dead, the parking brake is weak…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The radio:\u00a0 It sounds low-tech but I stuck my hand in the back of the radio and jiggled the wires and the drivers door speaker came to life and has worked ever since.\u00a0 It even get s NPR in pretty good for having had vandals (or crackheads) rip the antennae off.<\/p>\n

The windshield wipers:\u00a0 I noticed the #1fuse was bown so I replaced it and checked for power to the blue wiper circuit wires, yes, power.\u00a0 I toggled the wipers to on but nothing happened.\u00a0 While checking for loose connections I noticed the wires were getting hot like they were carrying a lot of amps trying to overcome resistance.\u00a0\u00a0I reached out and gave a wiper arm a nudge and they came to life.\u00a0 I think they sort of froze in\u00a0place from a lack of use.\u00a0 They have worked ever since.<\/p>\n

Drivers side rear signal:\u00a0 Started working on its own once I put the\u00a0new fuse in above.\u00a0 The signals, except this one, \u00a0worked for a bit so the fuse above must have blown after I\u00a0started using the car.\u00a0Maybe I left the wiper toggle on?<\/p>\n

Brakes:\u00a0 Have improved though still are a little rough feeling.\u00a0 I think maybe there was some rust on the rotors as suggested by Andrew.\u00a0 Still need to check pad wear and maybe replace the rotors if the harshness persists.<\/p>\n

Stink:\u00a0 The spare tire well is rusted out so I duct taped over the holes and the stink is greatly reduced.\u00a0 I’ll have to look elsewhere for a cheap buzz…\u00a0 A permanent fiberglass fix is probably in my future.<\/p>\n

Horn:\u00a0 Andrew pressed on the horn button while test driving it and it worked.\u00a0 I guess it needed some driving vibrations to make it come to life.<\/p>\n

Highbeams:\u00a0 Started working after a few days of driving.<\/p>\n

The rest of the complaints have gone unanswered but progress, no matter how unintentional has been made.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Here’s a view of the rust from the underside<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0The white is the sticky side of the duct tape patch I made seen through the holes.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some teething issues: the drivers side headlight burned out yesterday morning with a flash and the throttle linkage came undone this morning.\u00a0 I spent 5 minutes roadside and got dirty but it’s a pretty light issue for such a major transplant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This is the view a lot of my fellow commuters see as I make my way to work.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There you have it, even after all these years a Berlina is still a pretty good way to get around.\u00a0 I imagine my cost of ownership will be quite low if things keep to the current track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I started this project I had one goal: to make an economical, mechanically simple yet comfortable commuter to try and keep my BMW 3 series wagon from reaching the end of its warranty miles (100K) a year before the warranty termination date (3\/10).\u00a0 I think I have achieved my goal but I have had … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Berlina Project part 5: Road report and teething”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,39],"tags":[103,114,118],"class_list":["post-1517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1972-berlina","category-working-on-my-cars","tag-alfa-romeo","tag-cars","tag-classic-cars"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rufushamilton.com\/giuliettas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}