New 1500 build + new 5 speed install

[Agnelli]

I used a drill with a socket adapter on the auxiliary shaft nut to generate oil pressure when the engine was out. I haven't checked to see if that would work with the engine in but perhaps with the right engine shield removed it might have a chance. Your right angle drill would make it interesting.

Aux shaft nut method will not work due to no clearance - the frame rail is only an inch from the bolt head.

Today: dropped the transaxle, starter, clutch, flywheel. Suspended the block from a wooden brace across the engine bay, removed rear crank cover and oil pan. There is a plastic plate on the firewall but appears no port through to the cabin. Hoping I can spin the pump from the engine bay tomorrow to test this afternoon's work: Blue Hylomar, set new crank seal in OE NOS seal carrier with fiber gasket, and pan gasket. Fastidious in cleaning and mounting the carrier and pan to try to get a solid seal.

 

[Agnelli]

Next episode: distributor out. Fitted the tool referenced above (Ducellier distributor shaft) into 90 degree limited access electric drill. Eased timing belt tensioner and slipped belt off the cam and aux pulleys. Spun up the oil pump for a good 10-15 seconds. Peeked under the car. Gratified and ungratified to see a trail of oil seeping from the new oil galley plug, took a quick picture attached here. In uploading from phone to PC and zooming in, sure looks like I may have cut a crease through the galley plug when setting the plug with a steel drift. Lesson learned to carefully inspect and observe before and after doing the work. Also learned, use a brass drift next time vs. steel with a sharp mushroomed edge, the likely culprit. Will head back in to the garage with a bright light and report back.

Glad to have spun up the oil pump and find the fault. Also glad even if neither were the root cause to have replaced the rear carrier and seal, and pan gasket, hoping that the second iteration yields better long term longevity.

EDIT - turns out I did not pop a hole in the plug. Repeated spinning up the oil pump, the plug is leaking at the periphery. Would welcome any advice on solving this. Going to try to source more plugs (conventional) and maybe at the same time a tap if I don't have the right one in stock and threaded plug solution.

 

[Agnelli]

Next episode: distributor out. Fitted the tool referenced above (Ducellier distributor shaft) into 90 degree limited access electric drill. Eased timing belt tensioner and slipped belt off the cam and aux pulleys. Spun up the oil pump for a good 10-15 seconds. Peeked under the car. Gratified and ungratified to see a trail of oil seeping from the new oil galley plug, took a quick picture attached here. In uploading from phone to PC and zooming in, sure looks like I may have cut a crease through the galley plug when setting the plug with a steel drift. Lesson learned to carefully inspect and observe before and after doing the work. Also learned, use a brass drift next time vs. steel with a sharp mushroomed edge, the likely culprit. Will head back in to the garage with a bright light and report back.

Glad to have spun up the oil pump and find the fault. Also glad even if neither were the root cause to have replaced the rear carrier and seal, and pan gasket, hoping that the second iteration yields better long term longevity.

EDIT - turns out I did not pop a hole in the plug. Repeated spinning up the oil pump, the plug is leaking at the periphery. Would welcome any advice on solving this. Going to try to source more plugs (conventional) and maybe at the same time a tap if I don't have the right one in stock and threaded plug solution.

View attachment 38039

Removed recently installed leaking oil galley plug. Tapped the galley hole with M14 x 1.25 tap. Sourced an M14 x 1.25 oil drain plug from Napa parts counter. Shortened the drain plug with a Dremel cut off wheel to eliminate the magnetic end, and reduce its length so as not to interfere with oil flow. Went with this hopefully superior solution as finding conventional plugs unobtanium. Picked up a large bag of various sized cotton swabs on sticks (giant Q tips) from the discount table at the parts store. Handy to clean out the remnant tap shavings, and also discovered the end of the galley dirty. This lead to the conclusion that for future builds, better to pull the galley plugs. When I removed the oil pan, it was interesting to see the layer of somewhat dirty oil in the bottom of the pan, this on a motor that been not driven and fired up a grand total of four times. Now I know the source of the minor contamination. Cleaned the bottom of the pan while I was in there. Note that the block had been jet machine washed by the machinist, so if all galley plugs had been removed in advance, the result would have been a more sanitary build. Next step, mount the shortened plug with Hylomar Blue, wait overnight, then oil pressure test.

 

[Agnelli]

Here's the oil galley plug that failed. In trying to source, learned there are deep and shallow. This one is deep. This style worked for me in the front of the block next to the Aux drive oil galley port. But did not work on the rear of the engine port. I looked at the good running block that had come out of the car, the OE galley plug sure looks to be shallow.

Here is the new threaded, modified solution. We'll know tomorrow if it works.

 

[lanciahf]

Wishing for the best.

 

[MikeHynes]

I looked at the good running block that had come out of the car, the OE galley plug sure looks to be shallow.

The plug in the front of the block has to be shallow or you'll block a main oil passage.

 

[Agnelli]

Appreciate your kind support.

Crawled under the car and made sure the periphery of the oil pan and area around the oil galley were dry and clean to baseline the test.

Spun up the oil pump.

No leaks!

On to reassembly, ignition and carbs tuning.

 

[Agnelli]

Assembly insights:

Modified oil galley plug (now a drain plug) sits proud of the block, not so high as to interfere with the flywheel, but does so with the sheet metal shield residing between the bellhousing and the block. Had to relieve the shield with tin ships, didn't substantially compromise its integrity, sits nice and flat.

Flywheel back on correctly oriented, bolts installed (61 ft. lbs.). When re-installing the clutch, while torquing the fasteners (28 ft. lb.) periodically slid the splined dowel clutch alignment tool to ensure perfect clutch alignment. I think this made the job of re-installing the transaxle much easier. Yes, having done this now three times in solving the leaks made for knowing exactly how to jockey the unit up and in past the left A arm and clutch, while rotating the unit and clearing past the A arm much faster and easier, once I had the unit up and close the block, it popped right in to place easily.

Improved technique in mounting the axles also. First, the passenger side axle had remained in place bolted to the passenger side CV at the stub axle. When I slid the transaxle back in place, just made sure the right axle was aligned with the transaxle CV mount. Cleaned the hex bolts thoroughly again with a wire wheel to remove red loctite debris. In mounting the 3 CV's, marked the aft bolt on the driver's side and 6 O'clock position right inboard side with a yellow paint marker, and proceeded to set handbrake, torque, release, and spin the axles to the next bolt. Quick work. Shifter had been marked before removal, so that was easy. Did more BFH / brass drift work on the left frame rail to improve the relief for the end of the five speed, perfect now, and squirted some flat black paint on the rail to protect it. Distributor back in place, added a new hose clamp to the breather tube at the breather. Cam belt re-installed. Lower right sheet metal shield installed. Notable: Could not see an easy way to re-install the left lower shield, since this is a 4 to 5 speed conversion. Wondering if a 5 speed shield might work. Clutch slave mounted. Topped the transaxle with MTL. I had left the fluid in the unit and some had seeped out the upper vent during the process.

 

[Agnelli]

Fired the motor, fourth heat cycle. Yet to tune the carbs, or set the ignition timing with a timing gun. First time out of the garage since the rebuilds of engine and trans. Oil leak(s) resolved. Snugged up hose clamps at coolant reservoir return, and lower large thermostat hose, both were leaking coolant.

Transaxle built by Steve Hoelscher, so following his first run protocol: run up to full operating temperature in the driveway, then around the block once, then QA. Clutch fine, reverse good backing out, first and second gear good, Webers sounded nice in second for the one minute drive. Then:

Coolant emerging from the Alquati intake manifold return. Second attempt at sealing the coolant ports from the head to the manifold failed (threaded grub screws + blue hylomar).

Questions for you: I think I'm done with the grub screws as a solution. Fixes could be: (1) replace grub screws with cap screws if there is enough clearance for the bolt heads within the intake. Probably not a good way to go. (2) revert to a water heated manifold. The question is, where to run the return line out of the manifold? I was motivated to omit the heated manifold to simplify the water lines and barbs, and understand the performance advantage of an unheated manifold, and advantage of not having to drain coolant when removing the intake. Following are photos of the barbs that came out of the car with its former motor. One is a T-barb that is the output from the thermostat back to the coolant reservoir. It's closer to the manifold output. The second is a T-Barb that resides on the water pump housing.

Which barb solution is best for the intake coolant return?

I could potentially swap the whole thermostat housing, though prefer not to as the newly mounted housing has a brand new Savara thermostat, and it's a nicer, simpler housing. I could also just cap off the Alquati coolant output barb, but think that's a hack fix.

Thanks in advance.

 

[CnC79X19]

I swear to God Jim if you don't get this thing completed to a point where I can sleep at night knowing that the valves you installed work as expected (so I can proceed with the same route myself) I'm sneaking across the border and camping out on your lawn til it's done. Biden/Trump/Covid- don't care. I'm addicted to this thread. It's like Christmas every time I see something new on it pop up

 

[dllubin]

It is hard to imagine why those screws leaked. I used Rectorseal on mine. I got turned on to it years ago by a plumber. Never gave me a leak.

 

[Ulix]

Threads don‘t seal.
Hylomar is not a sealant and stays soft.
I used thread locker and it worked fine.

 

[Agnelli]

Cliff - you elicited an incredible grin last night when I read your post. It would definitely be good to meet you someday when it is again possible. Yes I want to see how the compression, cam, valve combination works, especially when tuned and broken in. It was quite interesting to note how the easily the bottom half of the motor moves (don't worry I did not move it much when the timing belt was off, definitely did not want valves hitting pistons).

Don & Ulix - much credit to you. Recalling studies show persistence is a huge correlation with success, and the Oracle of Omaha says patience is a critical factor in business, I will make attempt #3 at sealing up the grub screws. Took off the intake, observed for sure the left side coolant port was leaking. And yes Ulix, Hylomar Blue for this application was totally wrong. I need to get in the proper habit of reading spec sheets. In retrospect, the reason I tried it was due to the first attempt failure of the Teflon Loctite (product number somewhere above in this thread) that did not work at all. I did read about Rectorseal, will definitely get some of that next time @ the hardware. Good to have on hand as I live in an episode of This Old House.

Manifold off, very thoroughly cleaned the tapped coolant ports, then applied a liberal amount of Blue Loctite to new clean grub screws, now installed. One of the manifold gaskets is a bit compromised from the on/off action and heat cycles, so I'll wait til the loctite is completely cured, then pull the exhaust and refresh both gaskets.

Hoping attempt #3 works, would prefer not to touch the thermostat or heater return, and have the benefits of plugged coolant to head ports. Coolant temperature stability is really good.

One positive of removing the intake, this will provide an opportunity to further tune the throttle linkage - re-mounting the forward ball on the new lever affixed to the cam box cover pivot to reduce pedal effort and increase its throw range and sensitivity.

Another interesting observation. Clutch effort is crazy light. Changes there were major flush, twice, new Valeo clutch, new T/O bearing, new flex line.

 

[Agnelli]

Waited two days for the blue thread locker to set. Re-fitted intake and exhaust with new gaskets. Careful to be sure both manifolds, especially the intake, are well mounted. Realized the lower mounting tabs for the intake is like the upper outboard, of mismatched heights, so employed shouldered hand made washers there as well. Slow, even torquing hoping for clean, leak free mounts. Refilled coolant. Adjusted the throttle pivot arm on top of the cam box - moved the ball mount closer to the cam box to increase pedal throw / sensitivity & reduce pedal pressure effort.

Fired the motor for another full temp heat cycle. DCNFs are spitting at low RPM, but it runs. No oil leaks. Now no coolant leaks, seems like the blue thread locker on the grub screws succeeded. Discovered my cheapo timing lamp is inop, so will need to get something better to dial in ignition. Attempted to listen to the vacuum per carb throat to listen for vacuum difference with a hose - will try a narrower hose next, as I could not ascertain any difference.

Ran the car up the hill above my house, runs well except for slight hesitation and spitting at low revs. Idling back in the driveway, no leaks. Time to break in and tune.

 

[fiatfactory]

you will be fighting that carby linkage with it laying over like that... both levers need to be standing up more... if you drew a line between the pivot and the ball the linkage on the cambox and the linkage on the carb should be close to parallel and they should also be leaning back at approx 37 degrees, yours are a lot closer to 90 degrees by the look of it, and that will be the reason for the high pedal effort.

the interlink parts have been NLA for a long time, but someone has reproed them now and the quality is very good.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/THROTTL...BER-DCN-DCNF-CARBURETOR-long-arm/293448570358 for the "long arm" version

and

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/THROTTL...-DCNF-CARBURETOR-compact-version/303464773634 for the "compact" version

these sit the adjuster screw straight up/down which I find easiest to use

I like the tye of pivot ball / socket you've chosen, the type with the "alfa clip" is neat and never comes apart / siezes

SteveC

 

[Agnelli]

you will be fighting that carby linkage with it laying over like that... both levers need to be standing up more... if you drew a line between the pivot and the ball the linkage on the cambox and the linkage on the carb should be close to parallel and they should also be leaning back at approx 37 degrees, yours are a lot closer to 90 degrees by the look of it, and that will be the reason for the high pedal effort.

the interlink parts have been NLA for a long time, but someone has reproed them now and the quality is very good.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/THROTTL...BER-DCN-DCNF-CARBURETOR-long-arm/293448570358 for the "long arm" version

and

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/THROTTL...-DCNF-CARBURETOR-compact-version/303464773634 for the "compact" version

these sit the adjuster screw straight up/down which I find easiest to use

I like the tye of pivot ball / socket you've chosen, the type with the "alfa clip" is neat and never comes apart / siezes

SteveC

Steve -

Much appreciated, and fully understand your advice. I studied your linkage here and do realize I need to shift pivot angles to 37 degrees. And coincidentally did acquire one of the reproed linkages, the first one you referenced. Problem is my Alquati manifold sets the two carbs a bit farther apart that the reproed linkage can accommodate. I see your linkage looks like something you've modified - I may need to do that, or change manifolds. I will measure another vintage 128 Abarth twin DCNF and compare the distance between carbs and report back.

https://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/new-1500-build-new-5-speed-install.39075/post-356782

Meanwhile took another drive today. Starts instantly, but hesitates at low revs, pops and sneezes. Just ordered a correct SKE synchchrometer. will start to tune and if that doesn't cure the issue, will dig in to removal and full cleaning of the carbs. Good news is, motor runs great at higher revs once into the main circuits.

 

[dllubin]

Regarding the hesitation at low revs: What emulsion tubes and jets are you running? I had that issue when I first installed my carbs. Changing the emulsion tubes made a big difference to the performance in the low speed transition region. Also, the float levels can also affect it as well.

 

[Agnelli]

you will be fighting that carby linkage with it laying over like that... both levers need to be standing up more... if you drew a line between the pivot and the ball the linkage on the cambox and the linkage on the carb should be close to parallel and they should also be leaning back at approx 37 degrees, yours are a lot closer to 90 degrees by the look of it, and that will be the reason for the high pedal effort.

the interlink parts have been NLA for a long time, but someone has reproed them now and the quality is very good.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/THROTTL...BER-DCN-DCNF-CARBURETOR-long-arm/293448570358 for the "long arm" version

and

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/THROTTL...-DCNF-CARBURETOR-compact-version/303464773634 for the "compact" version

these sit the adjuster screw straight up/down which I find easiest to use

I like the tye of pivot ball / socket you've chosen, the type with the "alfa clip" is neat and never comes apart / siezes

SteveC

I think I've got this solved. Ordered a "Weber Carb Universal Adjustable Throttle Linkage Rod - 8"- Swivel Ends w/5mm End" which will stand up the laid over lever to the desired 37 degrees. Upon closer inspection of the existing carb to carb linkage, its pivot angle should be good as it is.

 

[Agnelli]

Regarding the hesitation at low revs: What emulsion tubes and jets are you running? I had that issue when I first installed my carbs. Changing the emulsion tubes made a big difference to the performance in the low speed transition region. Also, the float levels can also affect it as well.

200 air correction
F25 emulsion
125 main jets (which on the one I pulled, was totally crusty with a weird dark mottled surface
50 idles (the one I pulled, o ring disintegrated)

No wonder it doesn't run well! Carbys are in need of attention.

 

[dllubin]

I could never get the transition region to work well with F25 emulsion tubes. I'm currently using F36 tubes and I've heard that F24 tubes also work well for this application. Probably best to get the carbs cleaned up and in working order before swapping parts. I'm currently running 50 idles, 130 mains, 220 air correctors.