Last week we changed all the filters. Rear gas tank fuel filter, the large fuel filter just before the spica pump, the filter inside the spica pump, engine flushed the oil and put in a new oil filter, and cleaned the injectors. Also the valve cover was leaking so I pulled it and put a new gasket on, and stripped and repainted the valve cover, looks pretty nice if I do say so myself. When the cover was off Benny noticed the exhaust side of the head wasn’t getting much oil, so we pulled the cam to find no grove under the cam cover near the chain sprocket. This grove allows oil from the block to pass and lubricate the cam, since these are 11mm aftermarkets thats probably why theres no grove, so we machined one in, as well as groving the cam block. We cranked the motor over, and before our eyes oil appeared from around the cam, mission accomplished. One thing about the older Alfa’s is the lack of interior lights. At night you come to the car, open the door…and nothing, I wanna see some light, I wanna see that wooden steering wheel and that cool dash, and the door panel reflectors…how come there’s no light inside of those? Well I had some spare time and set about to change all this. Using the door switch’s I put 2 interior lights under the dash footwells and drilled out those door reflectors and put small fixtures inside of them. The result? Very cool stuff. Now lets say I go out with my lady and get the door for her, the cabin illuminates quite nicely and the little red door light looks fantastic, I’ve thought about wiring the rear view mirror light as well but the switch is of such poor quality I can feel a slow short that will leave me stranded… yeah, imagine that, being stranded in my sportscar with a dead battery, at least its not Lucas!! Somedays I love the Alfa, here in LA its a great car to put the top down and race through traffic, since its so small and efficient its a great car for all my location scouting, and then there are those days….I’ve replace the gas tank sending unit 3 times, the pump inside twice, it never gives a clear indication of how much fuel is in the car, which of course leaves me practically stranded when it starts to sputter as if the pump is failing. Its so frustrating!! Last week my Alfa Guru Benny, at Jons Alfa Romance, had a two piece exhaust manifold, we both looked at each other and smiled. I took it over to a local machine shop and had them sand blast it clean, then took high heat paint and gave it a nice coat of silver. Back at the shop I had it off with the new one on in about and hour or so, it started raining and I had to bring it inside. We stuck it on the lift to get to the underside exhaust bolts, and replace the sump guard protector, I bottomed out one to many times causing the guard to push itself onto the oil pan allowing vibration to be felt throughout the car, we’d tried bending it, but the poor guard was beat, and everyone else in LA, beware when exiting out of the pretty new Santa Monica parking structure at the Civic Center, its like falling off a 1 foot curb, with out the guard my beautiful finned sump would of been crumbs…does anyone in the city ever test these things? Anyways, with the new manifold, and only one middle muffler installed the Alfa flew. And noise? well, the grin factor was so high I didn’t care about the noise, at least people get out of the way now!!! We also put on a super cool looking set of vintage CIBIE european headlights., and orange taillight inserts. I’d really like to get a set of chrome bumpers from a 74 spider, if anyones got a set please let me know! As for the fuel sending unit…we’ve got another used one to try, maybe this time!!………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Since we all love cars I thought I’d add a post about my car as well. I run a Silver 1978 Alfa Spider as my daily driver. I did a full bare metal re-spray a few months ago, When the paint came off it revealed a body that was in perfect condition, no rust, no dents, no bondo! I removed the rubber side moulding and the car looks very clean. I’ve put sport springs on, running yellow koni’s in the front, and bilsteins in the rear, and have put on a rear sway bar that runs from trailing arm to trailing arm on 195-60-14’s tires. The car sits nice and handles like a go cart. I’ve kept the Spica injection and put in hotter cams, rebuilt the motor, and valves, a more straight thru exhaust and rebuilt the gear box and so many things I’ve lost track, but since I run the car everyday there is always something small to tinker with. This car is great!!