Steve, I would look a little harder at the carburetors. It sounds like there is something amiss with the idle circuits on the 2 and 4 cylinders. If you are getting power at throttle and stumbling/not firing at idle, that might be the place you'd want to look. Start with the simple things like the idle air adjust screws. If no luck, back inside with attention to the idle jets and circuits. If the car has been sitting for a long while the jets may have varnished up. Try a direct application of Gumout or some other carburetor cleaner.. As to the distributor, the rotor should face forward when the No. 1 cylinder is ready to fire. If it faces rearward it's not "correct" but it probably is not contributing to your problem. There are two possibilities here. One is that when the engine was assembled, the oil pump was installed with the slot on the top of the shaft 180 degrees out from its normal position. (The distributor is driven from the top of the oil pump shaft.) This is not that hard to do (amhik) but the engine will still run fine as long as the plug wires are inserted into the cap out of phase but in the proper firing order. If this happened, leave it that way until the next rebuild. The second possibility is that the distributor was inserted into the block 180 degrees out of synch. The slot in the top of the oil pump shaft is cut off- center and should mate with the coupling on the distributor shaft. It is, however, possible to force the coupling to mate 180 degrees out. Again, if the plug wire are installed out of phase but in sequence the engine will run. This isn't good long-term and should be corrected, but it isn't likely to be contributing to your problem because if the distributor was actually wired 180 degrees out of phase your engine would not run at all. Try .025" for a spark plug gap. Good luck. I'll look for you at the convention. I'll be driving my Ivory 1969 Spider Veloce. Bob A. Kenosha WI In a message dated 6/16/2010 9:28:30 P.M. Central Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Alfisti- Im trying to get my Duetto running right after a long hibernation. Its been missing on two cylinders and carbon fouling plugs 2 and 4. Ive replaced cap, rotor, plug wires and plugs (many many plugs). Ive checked, rechecked and checked again the firing order and plug wire connections. Ive opened the tops of the webers and cleaned everything out and gone through the standard weber set up. Gas is fresh. Compression is 180 across all four, which seems pretty good for 109,000 miles. The car will idle on cylinders 1 and 3 (I can pull the plug wires off 2 and 4 and there is no idle change at all). Test driving the car seems to get all four firing with plenty of power but when going back to idle, same problem. I goose the throttle and the engine stumbles badly, but I can get all four to kick in at speed (at least I think Ive got all four hitting since it feels smooth and strong). Idling in the garage it hits on two and the engine will not rev easily. Distributor has been lubricated and the timing light seems to show an advancing distributor. One thing I noticed is the rotor points to the back when Im at TDC on the compression stroke on Number 1 cyl. Cap and plug wires are correct for that being number 1, followed by 3-4-2 clockwise looking down at the distributor. I seem to remember the rotor pointing forward for No. 1 on at least one of the other Alfas Ive owned (and its pointing forward in the diagram in the owners manual). Ill try running the car for longer tomorrow (with Italian tune up), but would love advice on what else to check. Also, what is the plug gap for a 1600 when you replace the Lodge with a standard gapped plug? _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your inbox. http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:W L :en-US:WM_HMP:042010_2 -- to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected] -- to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected]
