Reflection 1

Since I finished my King Bleu the driver's mirror did not work very accurately. The adjustment is not optimal, I can't adjust for the utmost corners and when  I do the possible, it just springs back in a middle position. Very annoying when you tend to drive many highway kilometers and frequently use the left lanes.
So I looked for another adjustable mirror on the Alfa Romeo Forum SCARB. In fact this is a great place to be and to virtually wander around a little bit. It is a forum, so everbody's calling out: don't expect  an accurate advice when you have a technical question, there's is always another member with another opinion. (I sometime visit the FIAT forum and that's even worse).
Mechanics, in my opinion is about facts and figures, opinions not often work in this profession. It fits of it fits not! My advice, throw up a ball at the forum's and make your own plan. But it's a great place for finding cars and stuff is plenty there for reasonable prices. When you trust the seller and practice a little patience.

I found a left side mirror for my Alfa 33, and the guy who sold it even claimed it was a New Old Stock piece in it's original box. That I took 'with a good grain of salt', I guessed it couldn't be true: the fly corpses still stuck on the back side of the mirror, even on the photo. But hey, everybody has to believe his or her own stories. I payed 20 euros ex shipping and I think it is a fair price.

When I got the package however, the questionable mirror had a 'no stock' not even an original mirror glass, it didn't fit the cover of the mirror housing. It worked, but it looked dreadful.

My cellar is a gold mine, but sometimes I forget. Now I had to look for some spare parts and I knew I had a mirror dismantled in an old shoe sack. To my surprise I found in the box with the shoe sack two original mirrors, a left side and a right side mirror in a used state. Not bad at all, but used. In this state I wouldn't have put one of these on my car. But surprisingly again, they had good mirror glasses. So my sunday afternoon was saved: hobby time again.

This is my set up for the afternoon, the kitchen table with some tools and spare mirrors.

(The scale in the background was my wife's, who was baking cookies)

The NOS mirror from the Alfa Forum member: not very new at all!

My old mirror with the proper mirror glass and a respectable inside mechanism.

Mind the three colored little cables. Make a note for the color on the right place at both ends.

The adjuster with the three recieving pods for the other cable end.

The lower one is the most practicle (and original).

Put some grease on the guiding ends to make it move gently in the inner adjustment ring.

Another view from the side Adjustment ring with color (B) note.

The cables from the adjuster end.

The cables are fit in the backside of the mirrorglass with a little iron triangle.

To get them off, you'll have to bend them.

One by one they come off... but mind you..

.. you can never put them in the right place again, with the triangle in the inside of the backside of the mirror glass. (At least I don't have a trick.)

You can prevent getting the cables out of the mirror cover by clamping them together. The ring keeps the bundle to not slipping through the cover whole.

The triangle put in place on the outside of the cover backside 

Don't forget to pull the cables through the inner adjustmentring on the backside. If you do, like I did, you have to pull the cabels out of the mirror cover (which you just prevented by clamping them to gether with the ring)

A trick to get the cables back in the cover again is to bundle them in a small rubber hose, that was inserted in the cover whole.

Put the hose throough the cover to bundle the cables in it...

... then pullt the hose through the whole in the mirror cover...

... puling through ...

... and Kees is ready.

Put the cables in the pods of the adjuster by pulling hard at the cables and pressing the spring.

Don't forget the two screws to fasten the inner adjustment ring on the mirror backside.

Ready

With a small brush you can finish the ALFA ROMEO logo

Winter vs summer

I like winter, today the first natural ice skaters were busy in my home town. This afternoon I came across this video of my future alter ego and summer is laughing at me again.

Seasick Steve today

Natural ice skaters on the park pond

Tulipo in 20 years

FIAT adventures

In this place I sometimes mentioned the Fiat Punto we also use. In fact, we drive the 1994 Punto 60S as a daily driver. We bought it back in january 2014. Our Alfa 146 turned out to be a costly adventure, so we got rid of it. The Fiat came instead. Eventually for one year, but it still runs. And runs and runs...

Until last month. Marianne had gone shopping with it - it seems to be ideal fo shopping this little Fiat - but it broke down with a strange reason. I suddenly stoppe delivering power, but didn't stall. 

When I arrived at the place they've stranded and started the car, it ran. So Marianne drove home. After 1 km it broke down again. Out of precaution I towed the Punto home with the Bleu King.

At home there wasn't an obvious cause of the problem. My senses told me ithe problem had to be an electrical, but I couldn't point my finger on it. It als could be the ignition, but it's na computerizes car, so for me this was not reparable.

The interweb FIAT forum did not make me any smarter: CPU damaged, coiles (bobine) damaged and other strange reasons. While the dashboard stated an injection issue....?

This went on a few weeks with some disturbances once or twice. Until yesterday. We wanted to go for another Alfa 146, an 1.8 TS and were happy we could drive the Fiat to the dealer. Just after we passed the longest land tunnel in our country (no safety lanes) the Fiat decided to stop delivering power. We were driving 120 kms per hour and only by running the car out, we reached an exit and parked on the safety lane.

We decided to call the ANWB Road Assistance (Wgenwacht), we are actually a member since 1989: Platimum membership! Well after a short while,  the mechanic arrived and opend the bonnet. After starting the car he needed no 5 minutes to determine what the problem was; there was a broken cable to the camshaftsensor, in front of the engine, next to the oilfilter!

I don't now what a camshaftsensor is, and at that moment I couldn't figure out what it's purpose was, but with a new cable for € 46 (got it at M&R's in Echt), the Fiat is out of trouble.

Haha.

 Happy drivers in a Punto

Clutch

Now we've done 2000 kms to France and came back, the clutch turned to be unwilling by the end of october. Since a few days there was less pedal pressure in the brakes, and later that week I wanted to start the engine and the clutch was dead. No pressure at all.
Now what?
It turned out te be the minor clutchcilinder that had a broken rubber, oil is leaking away. So an new cilindre has te be bought. But first the old one must be retrieved from the car.

Two arrows point out the clutch cilindrelocation.
It can't be seen directly but it is there, believe me.

That's a tricky job. In fact the cilindre sits on the clutch housing of the engine. One can see it rather bad, and to dismantle the thing is a simple yet fiddly work. After disconnecting the oil pipe, the only thing that holds the cilindre is a so called Seegerring, a ring that holds the complete cilindre before it can be pulled out of the clutch housing. But mine was broken, it missed one eye...
This partially blind Seeger gave me a hard time. After a few hours of fiddeling around in an impossible corner of the engine compartment, captain Seeger loosened and gave 'way the captivated cilindre.

Captain Seeger at last gave away the faulty cilindre (below).
The inner rubber rings were dry and damaged, setting oil free.

I replaced the original ATE cilindre by a Brembo-bargain.

A new cilindre was found very quickly on the interweb at Autodoc's: http://www.autodoc.nl (I've even got me an app on my iPhone.) Very accurate and solid delivery, a German company. The new cilindre was a Brembo and costs only around 24 euro's, shipping included.

Putting the new cilindre in its place proved to be almost as tricky as dismantling it. I did not buy a new Seeger ring, too complicated. and by the way, when it is that difficult to get it off, it won't get off easily by itself. I figured.