1974 Alfa Romeo 2000 GTV
I bought a
1974 2000 GTV in 1976, the car had been neglected and I thought that I
should rescue it. Just in case your wondering, I parked the wipers that
way because I could. The wipers didn't park when you
turned them off. Sometimes during use they would bump into each
other and lock up, I had to carry a stick to unlock the wipers.
I got pretty good at releasing them while driving in the rain. It
wasn't as bad as it sounds.... I drove it for a while and then
the head gasket let go. When
changing out the head gasket, I
dropped the master link from the chain into the sump. It took
about an hour with a magnet before I fished it out. Later on some
old guy with really thick glasses
drove into me.
I had to wait for a whole winter to
get new body parts. Waiting for the parts gave me time to order
new tires (185 XAS) and hot cams from Shankle. The car looked
really
great after the accident as I had it repainted. I put in the new
cams and found out that the fuel injection
couldn't supply enough gas,
so I had to change to twin Dellorto's.
When you put
your foot into it, the engine would hesitate at around 4000 rpm and
make this weird gargling sound, clear its throats and take off! I
learned that the chokes were too big, I replaced them with the right
chokes and the engine no longer gargled. I could never sync or
adjust the
carbs properly, I had the guages and everything and the car always ran
poorly when I did the adjusting. I then drove to Continental
Motors, where Tony my mechanic would laugh and two seconds later the
engine was purring!
I went to Brainerd, Minn. with the
Alfa. I use to go regularly to Brainerd with my brothers and
friends, it was during the IMSA
races
when Porsche and BMW were at each others throats! I
got to take my Alfa out on
the track, the picture is me about to blow away a
BMW 2002 tii. After a few years I decided to go back to school
and
sold the car to a guy in Vancouver. BTW the car was very reliable, the only
problems I had were the wipers and a slow syncro in first. I
learned a trick that right before shifting into 1st you just touched
the lever into 3rd and then smoothly into 1st. The "bump" stopped
any rotation of the gears.
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