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Preparing my old Alfa Romeo for a bi-annual roadworthiness certificate

15th May 2024, 17:06 by Brij Gawde

I always check a few things, just to make sure the basics are working. Which means checking all the lights. For the MOT/APK every outside light that has been installed, has to work.

BHPian Jeroen recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I have made an appointment for the bi-annual APK (MOT) of the Spider with Goos.

I always check a few things, just to make sure the basics are working. Which means checking all the lights. For the MOT/APK every outside light that has been installed, has to work. So that means all headlights, in all settings, rear lights, fog lights, indicators, reverse lights, registration plate lights, and brake lights including 3rd centre brake light.

I had actually checked all the lights before I took the rear unit off to be fixed. I had a spare half hour so I thought I would quickly put the fixed rear light unit back in.

Here you see the studs and how I fixed them with JB Weld. Let's hope it holds!

Before putting the unit back in I also applied a liquid gasket to the rubber gasket. This will hopefully help a little by keeping the unit fixed in place, but also if it does become loose prevent water ingress.

With the unit back in, all wires cleaned and attached I tested all the lights again. And it was a mess!!! The fog lights would only come on, with the headlights on full beam. With the headlights on, the indicators would not work. And the right front dipped beam light was not working at all.

This is the problem with the car's electrical system. One small problem can offset a whole host of seemingly unrelated issues.

I checked the fuses. I know they get dirty and I twiddle them a bit inside the fuse holder.

Nothing, so I took the headlight unit apart to check the bulb.

The bulb was fine, I checked I got 12VDC on the connector, for both the dipped and the main beam.

So I decided to check the fuses a bit better by removing them. You can see that the fuse is not popped, whilst still in the fuse holder.

But with the fuse out of the fuse holder, it became immediately apparent what the problem was. Terrible corrosion of the fuse, on both ends! Cleaned it and all problems were gone!!

The next day I drove over to spanner mate Peter. He had a few little jobs, nothing he could not have done by himself. But we enjoy doing these things together.

Lots of Spiders on the drive! When I first met Peter more than 20 years ago, he only had the white S3 Spider. It is very similar to mine but has a different dashboard. Otherwise identical (well apart from the colour obviously)

First job, was an engine oil change. So we drove Peter's Coda Tronca for about 15 minutes to warm up the engine. Next drained the oil and put a new oil filter on.

We also replaced the air inlet filter. The weather was not cooperating and we had to work in between various showers.

The final job was to replace the lock on the boot. There are some earlier posts in this thread on this one. The lock was stiff, which means you had to pull very very hard on the plastic handle inside the door frame to open it. These cables and the plastic handle will snap at the best of times after 40 years. We tried to make it all a bit more smoothly but were only partly successful. The main problem was you couldn't get these locks anymore.

By sheer chance, Peter had managed to pick one up the other day.

We pushed the Spider in the shed, so the rain would not bother us.

Very simple such a lock and it did the trick. We had to adjust it a bit to get it to open up smoothly, but all is working well now!

Later today I am picking up my Mini!! About time too, it has been away for quite some time. But it should be fine or so I am told. I have several trips lined up over the next few days to rake up sufficient kilometers to check out everything.

Jeroen