1979 308 GT4

O'Reilly Auto Parts has a cross reference, sorry I don't have it with me. It's a Fiat Spyder alternator 65 Amp. around $115 w/lifetime warranty.

Had a blast in mine this weekend just cruising around. Had somebody in a VW Karmann Ghia convertible cruise up next to me and attempt a conversation. It was one of the very few times I had the stereo on (Led Zep Physical Graffiti). In the time it took to turn it down and lower the window the bonehead got frustrated thought I was being a snob and floored his VW passing me on the right. Seconds later the tell tale blue flashing lights appeared behind me. Both the VW and I were excceding the speed limit though not by much. I thought "oh crap, arrest-me-red Ferrari, it doesn't matter how fast I'm going, I'm getting pulled over". The cop was kind enough to pass me on the left before pulling over the VW. Whew

 

Got the Lucas radiator fan and got it installed. Not as simple as I had imagined as the connectors on the fan did not match the hodge-podge mess of connectors on the car. Had to redo all the connectors. Also, the finish on the new one did not match the old crusty one, so the working fan motor had to come out and the fan needed to be cleaned and it needed a new grommet and wires. Otherwise inside it looked OK. I then painted both of them silver and re-installed them after cleaining up the front end of the car. BTW I got them out by loosening them first and pulling them back a little from the radiator then using an 11mm wrench I was able to loosen the front nut and then 'unscrew' the fan. Although the fan is not formally threated, the compresson from the end-nut and years of heat formed threads such that the fan needed to be unscrewed to be removed. This was easy on the 'frozen' motor, but the working motor required that I use narrow pliers and grab the shaft inbetween the motor and the fan to keep the shaft from turning as I unscrewed the fan.

I also took out a jury-rigged mess of wires that some 'mechanic' used to wire up some cheap-o aftermarket fan. This aftermarket fan was stuck to the back of the radiator by some nasty long plastic nails with keepers on the end that ran RIGHT THROUGH the radiator fins. This ruined a perfectly good radiator, now all the fins are chewed up where this catastrophy was attached.

BTW, the radiator fans say "do not drop" on them and I believe this is because the ceramic magnets inside are fragile. As I had previously posted, the reason one of my fans was bad was that one of the magnets had fractured and jammed in the arm. This was a good example of how a fuse only protects the wires and not the end-device. The motor was totally fried, as were the 16 guage wires leading out of the motor. The larger guage wire going back to the fuse box was fine and the blown 25A fuse was still in place.

Still waiting on my alternator from the local re-build shop. I realized now why I have no heat shield for the alternator. The car had been retrofitted with european headers at some time. I see that this is a big advantage and this explains how the aftermarket exhaust bolts right up to the headers without the need for 'test pipes' inbetween. The three mounting points for the alternator heat shield match with the picture of the european header in the parts book. A new heat shield is on its way form superperformance.

 

Picked up the alternator from local shop. They replaced the exciter coil, brushes, regulator and the diodes. Filled with coolant and removed air. So far no leaks. Got it up to operating temp and both fans work! (and they both spin in the proper direction)
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Wow, your car looks great!!!!

I love the blue carpet on the interior.

Dom

 

OMG you car is georgious my friend.

 

I got many tasks accomplished today. Here is a picture of the new heat shield from superperformance. The mounting holes fit perfectly! Since I had already put the alternator in and re-filled the cooling system I tried to squeeze it in under the alternator and it just fit. Also shown is the 'home made' heat shield I found on the car.
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A previous owner had used the rear sway bar bushings as a 'feeler' when backing up over solid objects. They were both squashed. Superperformance uk provided new brackets and 'D' bushings.
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New reverse light lens and gasket.
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These little stainless steel plugs came from a Porsche web site. The originals got trashed getting them out.
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Almost all of the fuel hoses have been replaced at one time on this car, except the fuel filler hose. The original was cracked and looked like it had leaked at one time. This new one came from superperformance.
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Replacing the fuel filler hose was no problem after the dirver's side rear wheel liner was removed. After replacing the hose I cleaned the engine with Gunk and looked for more surprises.

One suprise was the there were no nuts on the lower distributor studs! Guess they were just too hard to get to by some prior mechanic.

 

I got the carbs aligned well and wound up with the idle mixture adjusters at 5.5 turns out to get rid of that little hesitation when the throttle is just opened.

I was still getting a lot of popping. You can see the black on the venturi of the carb that pops. I suspected this was running too lean.

The next photo shows the idle jet from that same carb barrel. There is a piece of crud blocking the opening.

 

Popping carb.
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The car came with documents that indicated carbs were 'rebuilt,' however, after finding this contaminent, tomorrow I will tear down this carb and look for more junk.
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Great info and pics so far, but I think you need a new digital camera, as I can't see enough DETAIL in that last pic!!!!

*JUST* kidding - of course.

Fantastic thread so far...

 

Wow! From one gt4 owner to another..your car is beautiful. Nice post too. Enjoy the ride. Blaine.

 

Had to get all the cars out to have the garage door fixed. They are packed in the garage like sardines. This is the first time I have had them all out at once.
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Here is a 1976 Lancia Beta Scorpion. I have tried to keep it as original as possible. The engine does have a 'period' modification in that the single weber was replaced with twin webers. These are 42 DCNFs! The cams have been upgraded and there is an aftermarket header and exhaust. This car really drives great. The transition from idle to main jets is smooth and the low end torque is fantastic for a 1.7 liter engine. With these big carbs this car has a low pitch rumble that sounds like some big V8. It has an incredible sound when you nail it at 5000 rpm. The main reason I have had this car for 20 years is that it is so much fun to drive and the engine is dialed in just right.

Driving the GT4 after driving this Scropion made me realize the GT4's carbs were not right. So I finally got them off and I am cleaning them out. I have some good pictures of the horrors witnessed inside these carbs! I will post them soon. The plugged idle jet was just the "tip of the iceburg."
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That is one nice Lancia - very impressive.
Looking forward to the weber pics.

 

After getting the door to the garage fixed I can get back to working on the 308. Crud in one of the idle jets led me to take the carb off and check it out.

The idle jets in the car are marked either 45 or 50. However, they all have been drilled out to 60.

I don't have exact metric drill bits, however, the metric caliper shows one of the drill bits in this assortment to be almost exactly 0.6mm. This is the drill that exactly fit each of the idle jets. So, someone knew that the car with european headers and a loud aftermarket exhaust would need larger jets. I actually then drilled each one out to 0.62mm. This is not so much as to make it richer, than to ensure that each jet is exactly the same size.

No real disasters here, but at least I know not to trust the indicated value on the jets. BTW the air and main jets (130 and 200) were as indicated.
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When taking the air box off I noticed some small black carbon particles. I cleaned them out of the air box and I guess I should not have been too surprised to find them in the carbs as well.

After removing the top cover of the carb I could see that these particles from the airbox had worked down into the top of the carbs and fouled the cold-start jets.
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The float chamber contained more of the black particles. They got in to the float chamber through the vent hole at the top of the float chamber, not through the fuel line. The screen filter on the fuel line is clean.
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The carb body was stripped and all the air and fuel passageways were flushed with isopropyl alcohol and an air compressor was used to blow out all the passageways. The jets and emulsion tubes were cleaned out in the same manner. There were black bits stuck in the emulsion tube holes.

When everything was cleaned the carb was reassembled. The floats had all been set to 47mm. I put them all to 50mm.

Could not get the carbs back and maintain the same synch settings as the spring loaded coupling between the carbs required me to loosen the adjusting screw to get the carbs safely back in place without bending the linkage. I also just unscrewed the threaded coupler rather than trying to take off the ball joints. The one nut on my threaded coupler was a little screwed up but, of course, this nut is a reverse threaded nut and was not able to replace it with a new one from my stash of spare parts. I bet it got rounded from people trying to loosen it by turning it counterclockwise (this tightens the nut).

I did not have time to fully synch the carbs tonight, however, I can tell just pulling out of the dirve that this is like a whole new car. It used to bog when I let the clutch out. Now it maintains RPMs as you ease the clutch out and moves ahead smoothly.