I just made the classic British mistake.

I was eyeballing his winch setup and might just have to put a cheap surplus winch on my car hauler.

I got the idea from one or maybe several youtube channels. I welded a standard 3" hitch receiver to the trailer and a ball mount to the winch mounting plate- it's a cheap harbor freight winch. This way the winch is easily removable if you keep the trailer parked outside.
 
I owned a string of Fiat 124 Spiders. Great cars, and not nearly as unreliable as reputed. But they did require more attention than an American car of the same era.
aka the infamous "Italian tune up"?
 
I'm willing to bet that I'm the only one here who owned a Sunbeam Alpine.
Great car.
Kept me off the streets.
 
Against my dad's advice, my brother bought a Fiat 126 for his first car while he did his military service. Air cooled rear engine, not much hp (28 or so). A few months in he got the one of the pistons stuck. A friend's dad still had a few engines stacked in his garage from when he owned a 126, and we swapped the bum one with one that ran. So my brother loans me the car. I go down the road at it's maximum speed of 50mph and suddenly the rear wheels lock up. Hit the clutch and pulled off the road. Engine wouldn't turn over, even after it cooled off. Towed it home, autopsied the engine. Couldnt get the head off at first as the exhaust valve had broken off and embedded itself into the cylinder head and the piston. So dad taught me how to do a top overhaul on an air cooled engine. We used the one with the stuck piston for a core. Got the cylinders rebored and honed , installed a set of oversize pistons, new valve seats etc. Ran like s top, but dad noted that the rear axle bearings were noisy and wanted to replace them. Brother being somewhat opinionated refused as he didn't want to sink any more money into the car. Sunday night he headed back the 150 Miles to his base when 5 miles from the gate one of the rear wheels departed the car ;-)
Other than that it was a good car.
 
When I was in high school my brother bought himself a Fiat 128. It was a really great car when it worked, which wasn't often. Later my brother managed to not learn from his mistake and bought himself a Fiat X19, which worked even less. Soured me on Italian motor vehicles.

My workmate bought a FIAT 128 in 1980 and came into the shop completely overjoyed with his latest purchase. He offered to take us all for a ride so we said sure, let’s go. Strapped in and ready to go, the car wouldn’t start. No ride and had to have it towed to a mechanic. In and out of the shop a few times, he sold it 2 weeks later after the mechanic got it running (again). Caveat emptor. Learned that FIAT stands for “Fix It Again Tony”.

My uncle (Dad's brother) bought a Fiat shortly after WWII. Dad loved telling about the time they hauled an engine for that car in the back seat of another one when it gave up the ghost out in the middle of nowhere. "Fix It Again, Tony" is absolutely right!
 
Is it possible the 124 Spyder was in a different class reliability-wise?

I don’t recall ours being especially troublesome over the time we owned it. Maybe not Japanese-reliable but much better than the MG Midget I had owned. I do recall it failing inspection once because the rear brakes were not working - something we didn’t notice in daily driving. I don’t recall getting the proportioning valve (?) replaced was a big deal or expensive deal.
 
124s were probably the best car Fiat ever made. Easy to work on, if a bit strange mechanically ("that's Italian!").

When I bought my first 124 Spider (used, for $400) it came with several boxes of spare parts and records from the original owner. It was kind of like an aircraft logbook, The original owner must have been a med student, I could trace him from a dorm room at Princeton in 1971 through a couple of hospitals in different towns where he must've worked.

Anyway, I was out for a drive on the back roads on the first warm day of spring when the engine quit. Coasted down the hill and rolled into a commuter parking lot at the highway entrance. Had tools with me, hmm, good spark, must be a fuel issue, soon realized the fuel pump had failed. Well, some of the spare parts were still packed around the spare tire, and I remembered seeing a fuel pump there. Pulled it out only to find its case was cracked.

The Fiat's trunk floor was a a piece of masonite, so I took it out and laid it on the ground as a clean work surface, removed the fuel pump from the engine, sat cross legged on the grass in front of my "workbench", and disassembled it... bad check valve. The broken pump from the trunk had a good valve, so I swapped parts and was starting to reassemble it when somebody stopped by. "What's wrong?," he asked

"Oh, my fuel pump failed," I said.

"So what are you doing?"

"I'm rebuilding it," I replied.

"Oh," he said, and quickly got in his car and drove away without another word.

You'd think there was something strange about rebuilding fuel pumps on the side of the road.
 
I had a 76 Alfa Spider for about 15 years. Bought it got $2200 in 92 and had to put in new rocker panels and paint and interior. Previous owner worked at an Alfa shop in Seattle and the Spica FI pump had been rebuilt by Wes Ingram so solid. I drove that at Whidbey Island then down to Monterey for Naval Post Grad school and back up then towed it to MD on my last PCS move.

East coast heat meant a new radiator with electric fan and remote oil filter (upping the oil to 13 quarts) to keep it cool. Enjoyed it for a bit but found I just didn't drive it much. Sold it for more than I had in it (plus a box or two of Alfa bits). Looking forward to another Alfa in retirement but thinking GTV.

Only time it broke on the road was a stuck cold-start solenoid. A little tap with a ball peen in the right spot fixed that.
 
So have you decided what level of rebuild you want to do?

Final decision will be reserved for what I see when I get it open. However I’ve seen evidence of wiped cam lobes from watching the valve train with it running so we’re leaning towards a complete overhaul.
 
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Final decision will be reserved for what I see when I get it open. However I’ve seen evidence of wiped cam lobes from watching the valve train with it running so we’re leaning towards a complete overhaul.

If that’s the case, I hope to see upgraded cam, pistons, etc.
 
Is it possible the 124 Spyder was in a different class reliability-wise?

I don’t recall ours being especially troublesome over the time we owned it. Maybe not Japanese-reliable but much better than the MG Midget I had owned. I do recall it failing inspection once because the rear brakes were not working - something we didn’t notice in daily driving. I don’t recall getting the proportioning valve (?) replaced was a big deal or expensive deal.

All cars from that era were reliability challenged compared to what the Japanese brought here in the early/mid '70's. I drove a TR-6 for years and found that the car (like my airplanes over the years) talked to me and if I listened, I was able to correct issues before they became "stuck on the side of the road" problems. I would argue that the biggest problem was that you couldn't go to the local auto parts store and pick up a brake master cylinder, an ignition switch, or other common part, like you could for a Ford or GM product. Therefore the cars got a reputation for being problematic/difficult to work on.
 
Had a productive day. That cam lobe Is definitely wiped. The sticking valve only moves with hammer taps. Overall though it’s not horrible… need to pick up a socket for the crank pulley and a valve spring compressor to continue disassembly…
42F4872E-9F4E-4388-80A6-3EA49C0C5F2C.jpeg A543986D-431A-4D9E-9E95-9FAD318E9E74.jpeg 0019507A-5AB6-4BB0-BD48-129E72A55F08.jpeg 31E33892-F7EC-42CC-9500-23804308287B.jpeg 0BF445E2-C79A-48A0-AA5D-96BE3563EEB7.jpeg
 
If he wanted to go faster, a different car is in order.

Or a different engine. Yesterday I watched an episode of Hot Rod Garage where they put a Ford 302 into an MGB. Not a very good swap, though, as that engine is too big. A 4.0 or 4.6 V8 from a Land Rover would be a better pick.
 
Almost ready for the machine shop. The valve spring compressor I have doesn’t work on the dual-spring setup this head uses so waiting on another one5431C0B6-04D1-4660-973F-916AE768FD0A.jpeg92C42C75-BB69-4DF9-911C-945DF8E451B2.jpeg2A95F65E-1849-42A8-B1F9-B845BCE6E6B2.jpegCC5CA4BA-7420-4A1B-BE2C-ED0EC3493FB8.jpegFA9D1CC0-D68B-4A9A-910A-C626D082E1B3.jpeg
 
Definitely looks like it was due for an overhaul.
 
Or a different engine. Yesterday I watched an episode of Hot Rod Garage where they put a Ford 302 into an MGB. Not a very good swap, though, as that engine is too big. A 4.0 or 4.6 V8 from a Land Rover would be a better pick.

That's called an MGC... Well, almost.
 
While in the Air Force (1969), I was training in Denver, and a guy from our outfit got assigned overseas and sold me his 1965 Red Jaguar XKE convertible for a ridiculously low price.
Silly me.
I soon discovered why.
It would only run 199 miles in a row. Then you towed it back to the base.
Carburetors. Multiple, out of synch.
I would work on the car, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday so I could drive it Friday night, Saturday and Sunday.
As long as I was back to base by 199 miles.
Jaguar did sell a kit to fix the problem. It cost substantially more than what I paid for the car.
Happy ending (for me). When I received my overseas assignment I put a "For Sale" sign on the car. Some guy offered me the actual Bluebook value of the car.
Hey, he also got a trunk full of required tools and instructions for how to adjust the carbs at no extra cost.
 
Yeah, but the XKE vert was gorgeous. Probably the nicest looking car Jaguar ever made.
 
Carb sync issues were a notorious issue for anything with multiple carbs in those days. Eventually it got better. The real ticket with the E-types was triple SUs or Webers, but the SUs tended to have better street manners and hold their tune a bit longer. But any of those multi-carb setups tended to need some sort of regular attention.
 
The "high tech" portion of my MGB was the dual carbs. The trick was to take the air cleaners off, and get a piece of plastic tubing. Hold the tubing flush against the bottom of the carb protruding about 1/4" into the intake. Listen to the sound. Move the tubing to the same relative position on the other carb and adjust until the sound was the same on both sides. Good fun.
 
Valves are out, the sticky one(pictured) needed to be tapped out with a hammer.

Its in the hands of the machine shop now, here’s hoping for no major issues.
 

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Peter Egan once wrote in Road & Track about an "E-Type Anonymous" deal he had with a friend: When either of them started lusting after an E-Type, he'd tell the friend and the friend would send him a copy of the service manual's exploded view of the 12 bolt rear differential. That would cure him for a few more years.

But oh, they're so gorgeous!

I guess the arrangement wasn't foolproof because Peter owned several E-Types over the years (as well as a J-3 Cub).
 
Peter Egan once wrote in Road & Track about an "E-Type Anonymous" deal he had with a friend: When either of them started lusting after an E-Type, he'd tell the friend and the friend would send him a copy of the service manual's exploded view of the 12 bolt rear differential. That would cure him for a few more years.

But oh, they're so gorgeous!

I guess the arrangement wasn't foolproof because Peter owned several E-Types over the years (as well as a J-3 Cub).



I seem to vaguely recall that he owned a motorcycle or two as well....
;)
 
Yes, he wrote for Cycle World as well as Road & Track. He's an entertaining writer, pity he didn't write aviation stuff as well.
 
Yes, he wrote for Cycle World as well as Road & Track. He's an entertaining writer, pity he didn't write aviation stuff as well.

Peter Egan is/was (he's retired) one of the finest columnists ever. And he did dabble in aviation, being a pilot who restored a J-3 and flew it around the continental US with his wife Barb, plus making the occasional Spitfire/Stuka/Messerschmidt reference AND doing an April 1 article comparing a Mustang vs a Messerschmidt. Although the Mustang was a P-51D and the Messer was one of the tiny cars (3 wheels?) produced in post-war Germany.

Most of his articles have been reprinted as collections in books. Well worth having on your bookshelf as a reference when you're contemplating taking on a character building project like restoring a 1976 MGB with rod knock, rusted floors, and a horn button that activates the windshield wipers.

I dropped my decades long subscription to R&T when he retired.
 
One of my favorites - maybe because I can relate:

51375799282_400a88b1ee_z.jpg


I love his reference to “The Ascent Of Man”!
 
Not mine but a nice example of a Mk3 Spitfire used as a daily driver by a co-worker

Spit.jpg
 
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