Colin, The whole smog business is on the verge of being taken over by corporate chains that don't have employees with expertise (as in oil change chains), at prices that have the old timers who know what they're doing retiring! This sounds like a job for a highly experienced Alfa mechanic with a tail pipe sniffer available. Where in California are you? Stevan Thomas 73 Berlina 83 GTV6 that passed by 1 ppm after not being driven since since 1998. In a message dated 8/8/2011 9:48:13 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2011 23:46:38 -0700 (PDT) From: Colin Talcroft <[email protected]> Subject: [alfa] The Smog saga begins again.... I was very disappointed that my 1978 Alfa Spider failed smog in CA yesterday. I inherited the car six years ago. It failed its first smog (in my possession)miserably, four years ago. Eventually, that was corrected with a new catalytic converter, after which it passed with numbers so low, the man testing it doubted his equipment. Next smog, two years ago, also passed fine, with good numbers. This time, HC very low at 25 and 20 ppm (max allowed is 415 and 365 ppm) and NO low at 59 and 52 ppm (max is 1396 and 1256), but CO is in the gross polluter range, at 5.04 and 5.03 (max is 1.41 and 1.21). What baffles me is that this car has had only about 4,000 miles on it since the new converter (and a top-end engine rebuild), in September 2005. Why would it suddenly go so wrong? Any ideas anyone? What strategies would you suggest? Any help much appreciated. Thanks Colin -- to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected]
