Alfa Gear linkage - direct route

[Steve Strain]

Hi Guys

Sorry an old topic covered many times before.
I have a converted HF2000 to HF3000 with a 164S and have gone down the direct route with the gear linkage. (This is a carry over from the previous Beta set up).
What I have is not perfect to say the least, the angle from the extended gear box selector shaft down to the central gear lever shaft is just wrong and is baulking if changes are rushed.

I need to add another universal joint on the top of the gear box to straighten the angles but would like to see how this has been done before

I have been trawling through all the Gear Linkage threads and the photo gallery looking for a photo of a Corse/Alfa linkage set up especially the joints at the gear box end but without luck.

Would someone mind posting a picture or 2 or emailing them to me

Much appreciated

Thanks

Steve

[CorseChris]

Hi Steve,

I used a variation of the 'standard' Corse solution that Mick (catswhiskers) came up with. It means you can bolt the linkage to the gearbox selector shaft rather than welding it on, this has a number of benefits, not least the ability to make fine adjustments.

I don't have any pictures to hand but do have some at home. Unless anyone beats me to it, I'll mail you later.

I think a cable change would be best personally, although the stick end is going to be tricky due to lack of space. Perhaps some un-holy hybrid might work! Alfa 156 parts maybe?? The rod & UJ linkage I have ended up with works OK, but it does give problems when removing/installing the motor unless you add a joint just aft of the bulkhead, or remove the entire thing (Tim's idea). I guess if you are making one up fresh, adding a suitable joint wouldn't be hard. I didn't think of it when I was making mine so I worked round it during the recent engine & box swap.

[pimms]

Guy Moerenhout has some kind of direct likage , I think, in his Corse. There are some pictures on this link, but poor quality.

http://www.abarth-gmr.be/forum/index.php/topic,1139.0.html

[CorseChris]

Steve,

I've got some good shots that Mick sent me ages back. I'll mail them to you if you PM me your addy.

[CorseChris]

Just looked at those pics on Guy's site. Neat idea to run the rod inside the tunnel, but I'm not convinced that making the linkage an even more acute angle is so wise myself. Plus it takes up valuable space in the tunnel. Just my opinion of course, Guy is the professional here, not me.

FWIW, once I was happy with the alignment of the linkage on mine, I cross-drilled every joint and put an HT M4 bolt through to stop them coming undone.

[rutthenut]

I think a cable change would be best personally, although the stick end is going to be tricky due to lack of space. Perhaps some un-holy hybrid might work! Alfa 156 parts maybe?

The 2.5L V6 unit from the 155 has a cable change, which Phil Jordan had fitted into his car. Graham Bates made up some sort of adapter between rods and cables, but I don't know the details.

I like the idea of the near-direct linkage as fitted to Corse-type kits, with UJ's fitted, but that can intrude on tunnel/handbrake/passenger seat space unless the angles are increased more, which makes it less efficient.

Whichever form is used, be sure to avoid any stress points in the whole linkage assembly. I seem to recall that Dave Watson broke his linkage at some time, and I also fractured the main linkage rod on my car some time ago!

[Chris J]

I think a cable change would be best personally, although the stick end is going to be tricky due to lack of space.

The Elise uses cables, and it has a nice change. I wonder if it would be possible to use the Elise stick and a modification of its cable set up?

[CorseChris]

As John says, the 155 has a cable change on a basically identical box. Nice feel to it as well (my 155 is OK at least). The 155 stick end might be a bit bulky but the 'box end should fit without too much trouble.

Lionel & John D are working on a cable change solution for the Corse at the moment AFAIK.

[pimms]

If the Corse in this thread is the same as the one in Abingdon 2005 than it also has cable shifting. I have detailed pictures of the system if youre interested. I was thinking of going that route but will stick with the Hawk system.
http://www.stratossupersite.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4090

[Steve Strain]

I have finally done it!

Just in case anyone else is interested is this process I thought I would try and document what I did. The result is a shift equally as good as the 164 that I drive most days. It uses 3 UV joints to soften the angles from the gear box to the front of the car.

Parts used;
- The Alfa 164 gear lever with a small box section welded to the Stratos centre tunnel to support it.
- The long shaft joining the Alfa gear lever to the Alfa gear box.
- A small Toyota steering shaft including the 2 x universal joints.
- A rose joint from the Stratos front top wishbone (a stuffed one)
- A socket type universal joint donated by NZ Corse builder Graham Osborne.

I started buy cutting the flat bolt tag off the standard Alfa selector shaft then in its place I welded a 55mm vertical extension with two predrilled holes. One to fit over the selector shaft to ease the welding and the other to take a 1/2 inch bolt to attach the socket type UV joint. I am not sure what the origin of this extension was except its approx 55mm long 5mm thick with two holes already in it. When I stripped the Alfa donor I had 6 of them!

Image 1 shows the extension in place. It gives the whole set up some height clearance past the top edge of the clutch release arm. The welded extension was then heated and twisted and angled forward to better align the UV with rest of the selector mechanism.
A couple of small tags were welded to the UV joint to prevent it from twisting undone.

Image 2 shows a length of 12mm rod connected to the socket type UV joint. The rod is joined to the first of the steering rack UV's. I chose this latter type of UV because it has roller bearings and a spline so that the gear lever can be centred left to right and moved back and forth slightly (and I happened to have one available).

Image 3 shows the high angle rose joint (didn't have to be high angle but was free having been rescued from the bin) was mounted to a handy gear box bolt to support the 90mm rod. Being slightly flogged the rose joint moves freely with no resistance to the selector mechanism.

Image 4 is a top down view.

What you can see in image 3 and 4 is the linkage disappearing into the car via a X19 gearlever boot. On the other side of this UV and boot the selector mechanism continues down to the top side of the centre tunnel. The second UV is just behind the handbrake mount above the cables. From there it travels parallel to the centre tunnel to the Alfa gear lever.

Next time I have the interior apart I will post more pictures.

Thanks guys for your helpful comments (especially Chris Savage for copying me Mick's idea).

Cheers

Steve :)

[CorseChris]

Nice job Steve. I like the extra support at the gerabox end.

[Chris J]

Well done Steve,

'Reminds me of the Honda/Hawk linkage I made (with Mark Cowling's help).

Used front wishbone rose joint at the back, and an X1/9 rubber gator/boot.

Two photos joined....

[Patriq Backlund]

I started buy cutting the flat bolt tag off the standard Alfa selector shaft then in its place I welded a 55mm vertical extension with two predrilled holes. One to fit over the selector shaft to ease the welding and the other to take a 1/2 inch bolt to attach the socket type UV joint. I am not sure what the origin of this extension was except its approx 55mm long 5mm thick with two holes already in it. When I stripped the Alfa donor I had 6 of them!



Hi !

Do you think you can guess where you found these ?
I'm almost about finished stripping my donor 164 - and am giving it away to someone who needs other parts from it. But before shipping it away - I thought I'd try to find these extensions.

Regards,
/Patriq

[Steve Strain]

Hi Patriq

They come from the lower front 164 Struts. If you look under the front of your 164 you will notice 2 pairs of bolts attaching the strut to the hub carrier. You may be able to remove the bolts liberate the spacers the replace the bolts.

I know you are passing the donor onwards but I completely stripped the 164 then cut the body up (it had been rolled). Over here you have to pay to dump a wreck but they pay you for scrap metal. The bits, nuts & bolts etc liberated have been a fantastic resource for the Beta/Alfa conversion.

Attached is a photo of the part - I hope this helps

Regards

Steve

[Patriq Backlund]

Hi !

Thanks !
I'll try to look for them.

Here you actually get money back when you scrap cars. That's because when you register them, you pay a fee that you get back when you scrap it.

But this particular one was imported - not as a car, but as car parts. Therefor it has never been registered. And therefor it would cost me to scrap it. Now, I won't have to deal with that...
;)

By the way - how the heck do you disconnect the drive shafts from the gearbox? There just ain't no way of getting to both sides of the bolts that hold the shaft to the gearbox.
I gave up, and used my grinder !
:D

And, my oh my how tight it is under the hood. I wouldn't want to own and maintain a V6 164. Everything is covered by something else.....
The rear engine/gearbox mount is a pain to remove when getting the engine out.

Hi Patriq

They come from the lower front 164 Struts. If you look under the front of your 164 you will notice 2 pairs of bolts attaching the strut to the hub carrier. You may be able to remove the bolts liberate the spacers the replace the bolts.

I know you are passing the donor onwards but I completely stripped the 164 then cut the body up (it had been rolled). Over here you have to pay to dump a wreck but they pay you for scrap metal. The bits, nuts & bolts etc liberated have been a fantastic resource for the Beta/Alfa conversion.

Attached is a photo of the part - I hope this helps

Regards

Steve

[Steve Strain]

Hi Patriq

Yes maintaining hard to get at engine mounts is one of the many joys of owning a 164 but that is nothing compared to changing the clutch and pressure plate. You have to remove the exhaust and starter motor off the back of the engine!!!
Perhaps this is why “petro-sexuals” (a Top Gear term) love them, imagine the over whelming satisfaction of having done it yourself. No-one would pay a mechanic to do it, the cost would be more than the cars worth.

I bought a 1989 164 to use as a donor but shortly afterwards was offered a later but heavily rolled Cloverleaf version. The good bits salvaged have gone into the original donor to turn it into a nice car.
The first job I did was to replace the engine mounts you mention plus the lower front control arm suspension bushes. The best thing I did was use nolathane for everything, it’s now locked solid (nice noise in the car). The kids and I had fun burning out all the old rubber stuff then filling what was left with a nolathane pack. I bought the control arm bushes.

A possible tip for Stratos owners – harder engine mounts plus some tension on the top mount (i.e. push the engine a little towards the rear of the car) reduces clutch judder on the 164 and might do so on the Stratos. On my Stratos I have used (I think) Land Rover gear box mounts. They are a cheap metal, rubber, metal, rubber, metal bobbin but still aren’t stiff enough to cure the judder. I am going to look for something harder again.

Getting back to the thread - I found the best way to get the engine out of the 164 was to undo the sub frame and then lift the body off over the top.
The drive shafts will undo with an Allen key/socket. The nuts don’t need a spanner as they cannot rotate due to interference with the drive shaft flanges.
I put small rubber castors on the sub frame so I could move it around in the garage. You obviously need to put the sub frame and suspension back onto the donor for its next journey.

Some might laugh at this but I stripped all the wiring, relays etc and reused a large chunk of it certainly all of the fused relays for the lights, hazards, radiator fans etc. The red cable from the battery is a way of moving heavy duty volts to the front of the Stratos for driving lights etc.
Perhaps save one of the multi-pin (25 pins) sockets from the rear doors. When I cut and shortened the wiring loom I used one of these to reconnect everything. Its water proof and has a screw thread (see my gallery for a picture). You can buy new connector pins from Dick Smiths over here. On the clutch master cylinder there is a nice rubber boot that fits nicely over the engine side of the connector to finish it (make sure you pass all the wiring through this first before putting the pins into the socket – another story!!).
Believe it or not I even used the ABS unit which works very well and my daughter won a Wearable Arts contest at school with an outfit made from the left over wiring.

I reused the torque bolts from the round 164 door striker/catches. These look better on the Stratos than say ordinary hex or Phillips head bolts. I also reused the hand brake cable although I may have shortened it and I have already mentioned reusing most of the gear lever mechanism.
You could save the heavy 164 bulk head rubber seals and reuse these for supporting the speedo and throttle cables etc through the Stratos bulk head.
Finally I kept the exhaust and used part of the front section to join up to the Beta muffler.

So much for the ramble.

I hope this helps

Regards

Steve

[chris.richard]

164 forums talk of resurfacing the flywheel when you're changing the clutch to cure judder.

[Patriq Backlund]

Neat !

I'll try to salvage most of the parts you mention. Thanks for all the input!

Some of the parts where already gone when I got the car. But most of them are still there.
I'm actually thinking of reusing the AC. As I imagine it can get quite warm in the cockpit. And I'm not to worried about the powerloss from the compressor.

Regards,
/Patriq

Hi Patriq

Yes maintaining hard to get at engine mounts is one of the many joys of owning a 164 but that is nothing compared to changing the clutch and pressure plate. You have to remove the exhaust and starter motor off the back of the engine!!!
Perhaps this is why “petro-sexuals” (a Top Gear term) love them, imagine the over whelming satisfaction of having done it yourself. No-one would pay a mechanic to do it, the cost would be more than the cars worth.

I bought a 1989 164 to use as a donor but shortly afterwards was offered a later but heavily rolled Cloverleaf version. The good bits salvaged have gone into the original donor to turn it into a nice car.
The first job I did was to replace the engine mounts you mention plus the lower front control arm suspension bushes. The best thing I did was use nolathane for everything, it’s now locked solid (nice noise in the car). The kids and I had fun burning out all the old rubber stuff then filling what was left with a nolathane pack. I bought the control arm bushes.

A possible tip for Stratos owners – harder engine mounts plus some tension on the top mount (i.e. push the engine a little towards the rear of the car) reduces clutch judder on the 164 and might do so on the Stratos. On my Stratos I have used (I think) Land Rover gear box mounts. They are a cheap metal, rubber, metal, rubber, metal bobbin but still aren’t stiff enough to cure the judder. I am going to look for something harder again.

Getting back to the thread - I found the best way to get the engine out of the 164 was to undo the sub frame and then lift the body off over the top.
The drive shafts will undo with an Allen key/socket. The nuts don’t need a spanner as they cannot rotate due to interference with the drive shaft flanges.
I put small rubber castors on the sub frame so I could move it around in the garage. You obviously need to put the sub frame and suspension back onto the donor for its next journey.

Some might laugh at this but I stripped all the wiring, relays etc and reused a large chunk of it certainly all of the fused relays for the lights, hazards, radiator fans etc. The red cable from the battery is a way of moving heavy duty volts to the front of the Stratos for driving lights etc.
Perhaps save one of the multi-pin (25 pins) sockets from the rear doors. When I cut and shortened the wiring loom I used one of these to reconnect everything. Its water proof and has a screw thread (see my gallery for a picture). You can buy new connector pins from Dick Smiths over here. On the clutch master cylinder there is a nice rubber boot that fits nicely over the engine side of the connector to finish it (make sure you pass all the wiring through this first before putting the pins into the socket – another story!!).
Believe it or not I even used the ABS unit which works very well and my daughter won a Wearable Arts contest at school with an outfit made from the left over wiring.

I reused the torque bolts from the round 164 door striker/catches. These look better on the Stratos than say ordinary hex or Phillips head bolts. I also reused the hand brake cable although I may have shortened it and I have already mentioned reusing most of the gear lever mechanism.
You could save the heavy 164 bulk head rubber seals and reuse these for supporting the speedo and throttle cables etc through the Stratos bulk head.
Finally I kept the exhaust and used part of the front section to join up to the Beta muffler.

So much for the ramble.

I hope this helps

Regards

Steve

[CorseChris]

Patriq,

I can heartily recommend A/C but I doubt much of what's on the car will be of any use. The compressor maybe, and assuming it's in good order and using R134, but the rest likely won't fit anywhere near or even be worth saving. Condensor rads rot, receiver/dryers are a cheap consumable and shouldn't really be re0used etc etc. I used an aftermarket kit on mine (well, bits of one). It was an American item I think but similar things can be had from Car Builder Solutions for one.

[Patriq Backlund]

Patriq,

I can heartily recommend A/C but I doubt much of what's on the car will be of any use. The compressor maybe, and assuming it's in good order and using R134, but the rest likely won't fit anywhere near or even be worth saving. Condensor rads rot, receiver/dryers are a cheap consumable and shouldn't really be re0used etc etc. I used an aftermarket kit on mine (well, bits of one). It was an American item I think but similar things can be had from Car Builder Solutions for one.

I was suspecting that not too many parts would be usable. But I guess I'll sort that out as time goes.
What is the R134 ?

[CorseChris]

R134 is the refrigerant - early cars used R32 which is no longer available (or approved). Using R134 in a previously R32 system can give rise to problems with seals etc. There are plenty of 24V cars that will have had R134 in them so swapping bits over isn't a problem.

I think the condensor rad has somewhat compromised the effectiveness of the main coolant radiator on my car but it manages. Packing it all in is a challenge, but it can be done, and there are a few different solutions out there.

Wouldn't be without mine in my soft southern jessie of a car ;)

[Patriq Backlund]

That's what part I suspected it to be. Is it the black "can" situated close to the heater fan ?

How can one distinguish them from one another ?

[CorseChris]

The black can is most likely the receiver/dryer. It's basically just a swirl pot with a desicant in it to remove any water present in the system. These are considered to be unusable once a system is open to atmosphere or drained, so you'd want a new one anyway.

[Patriq Backlund]

ok,

but the R134, where would I found it then ?

[Steve Strain]

164 forums talk of resurfacing the flywheel when you're changing the clutch to cure judder.
__________________
Chris


Yes Chris you are right about resurfacing its a must do and I did resurface the flywheel when fitting the new clutch and pressure plate.
From what I have read on the AlfaBB this judder is common to 164's.

If there is a next time I will also dial gauge the crankshaft drive flange well as the surface on the back of the fly wheel to make sure all surfaces are true.
All that is required is a slight high spot somewhere and the engine will rotate against the wheels until it meats the resistance of the engine mounts then drop back, move drop back etc thus causing the judder.

May be the pressure plate and clutch surfaces need to be trued as well?

As this only happens on light throttle (maneuvering in the garage) but not with say brisk or hard acceleration its not a huge issue but more of a disappointment. I now consider this to be challenge in further developing the car.

I found that tightening the top mount slightly reduced the effect so suspect that either another gearbox fixing point might stiffen things up or perhaps a heavier (less elastic) mounting bobbin might stop the gearbox "bouncing".

The previous beta engine set up had two gear box mounts and it never juddered.

I might see if I can adapt the original gear box mount - something else I saved.

Regards

Steve

[CorseChris]

ok,

but the R134, where would I found it then ?

Sorry Patriq, misunderstood you I think.

There is usually a sticker on the compressor and on the car saying what type of refrigerant it has. The other way to tell is by the type of service valve fittings that are on the A/C system. The R32 type are very like a tyre valve whereas the R134 type are much larger. (The actual internal valve itself is almost identical to a normal tyre valve - I'm talking about the fitting it screws into).

Hope this helps.

[Patriq Backlund]

Sorry Patriq, misunderstood you I think.

There is usually a sticker on the compressor and on the car saying what type of refrigerant it has. The other way to tell is by the type of service valve fittings that are on the A/C system. The R32 type are very like a tyre valve whereas the R134 type are much larger. (The actual internal valve itself is almost identical to a normal tyre valve - I'm talking about the fitting it screws into).

Hope this helps.

Ok, thanks !

That helps !

[CorseChris]

Steve,

I used quite a few odd 164 bits on my car too. The red warning lights from the doors, the lower white courtesy ones too, the rear door multi-way connectors I used for the doors ('cos I've got all manner of electrical stuff in the doors), the overhead console (cut down and re-trimmed in Alcantara of course!), the rear view mirror, some of the wiring was very useful. I wired for, but didn't actually install, the rear interior courtesy light units. I had intended putting them down in the footwells. Lots more odds & sods I've probably forgotten about now. Engine & box of course... ;)