Stumble, stumble....grumble, Grumble!

As my regular readers know the Alfa Spider and I sent swimming the other day, as tropical storm Faye made her way across central Florida. I drove into 12-18 inches of water in a parking lot...not on purpose, I could not see it)

Anyway the Alfa conked out in the Faye-made pond but eventually restarted. It was running fine...until last night.

I headed out to take a little drive and maybe get a bite to eat and just after I left my driveway the Spider started to stumble and sputter and not be able to hold an idle. So I pulled back into the garage and started diagnosing the problem. I checked the coil first....good spark there and dry connection.

Next the distributor, again the connections were good and dry and the cap and rotor looked fine.

I checked two of the plugs and both were getting spark but the electrode and insulator were covered in black soot, unlike the last time I checked and re-gapped them a few weeks ago, when they were of a beautiful whitish/tan color.

Hmmmmm, appears to be a fuel mixture problem. Running WAAAAAY to rich. So I started looking at the air intake. The airbox and attached snorkel are in the left front of the engine bay. I opened the airbox and checked the filter. It was completely wet! There was even a little puddle of water in the airbox. Obviously my previous visit to the pond allowed water to enter the airbox.

So I replaced the filter with a dry one and dried up the water in the airbox and reassembled. I fired up the Alfa and the same symptoms existed. It went stumble stumble and I began to grumble grumble.

Integrated into the air box is something called an air flow meter. This is a device which measures the amount of air intake and sends signal to the fuel injection computer so the proper amount of fuel can be mixed in, helping to create magnifico combustion.

In my previous readings at the www.alfabb.com forums, I recall issues on occasion with this air flow meter not functioning properly. So I removed it from the airbox. The air flow meter has a moving metal flap inside it which constricts airflow as needed. I noticed this flap was not moving well...it was hanging up. I also noticed water inside the air flow meter and some drips of water even coming down from the "sealed" area of the meter where the electronic parts reside!!

Oh no, I knew this was not good. Water had actually infiltrated the electronics :( I went about disassembling the meter, painstakingly removing the "sealed" plastic top to expose the electronics. After what seemed like an eternity I got it off, and sure enough there were drops of water inside. I dried it out as best as I could. While in there I "modified" it to tell the computer to send slightly more fuel across the board. Just a little trick I learned on alfabb.com. Nothing wrong with a wee bit more performance from the ol' Spider :)

Next I turned my attention to the sticking flap inside the airflow meter. I used a lot of carb cleaner spray and about 45 minutes later the gummed up moving parts were gummed no more and the flap opened and closed freely.

So again, reassembly time. Once all back together, I crossed my fingers, said a prayer to Nicola Romeo and fired up the Graduate once again. Presto magico! She idles now perfectly and runs like a dream! Viva Italia, Forza Alfa Romeo!