Ricambi Originali

This is a story and a pictorial about the gigantic logistic operation of moving the spare parts and cars of our transaxle buddies from their ricambi barn to our ricambi barn. You can see us in our favourite pose, letting other people do the work.

	It took the break horsepower of an alfa 156 to lift the 2.5 v6 engine into the pick-up!
	This is me (Frank) next to the 'ricambi moving train'. I couldn't drive facter than 90 kph because of th load I was pulling

A couple of months ago I was looking for some (very hard to find) parts for our Giulietta. On the internet I stumbled on the site of the transaxle guys. I send them an e-mail wondering if they knew where I could find the parts I was looking for. After some serious e-mailing we decided to get together to talk about our common interest, being Alfa Romeo. Jurgen and Eur were the owners of a small fleet of alfa's most of them in a more or less sorry state. A couple Giulietta's had already changed owner but they still had two (and a bit) GTV6's. Hille and I became very interested when Jurgen told us that he wanted to sell the cars.

We met with Jurgen at his place in Den Haag (the hague) and the first thing we saw were two beautiful alfa's, being a 156 and his GTV6. Although it was a bit rusty you could feel the sheer power of this car by just standing near the sidewalk. After a couple of hours debating the ins and out of alfa's Hille and I thought it was time for a spin in the red GTV6. I must admit that although I've driven GTV6's before that I'm still very surprised of the power and driving pleasure of this 20 years old machine.

It took some negotiation but we quickly agreed to buy Jurgen's GTV6's. The red one could be driven from Den Haag to our ricambi barn but the burgundy GTV6 (which killed a FIAT Panda but didn't completely survive the accident) couldn't be driven anymore. I borrowed my uncle's pickup truck (thanks Johan!), rented a flatbed and made an appointment to pick up the remaining 'ricambi' and GTV6 in Enschede (in the east of holland, almost Germany).

Arriving in Enschede the first thing we did was pick up the burgundy GTV6. It had been sleeping in a neighbour's barn for a couple of years and formed the habitat of at least 4 generations of mice. The mice were very displeased when we opened the bonnet, they were living between the bonnet and the isolation material underneath. We probably moved some mice from Enschede to our ricambi barn.

The next step was to get the pile of spare parts out of the pickup, especially the v6 engine is pretty heavy for one guy (Hille was occupied elsewhere). Fortunately there were a couple of fellow alfisti who gave me a hand and now the heap of ricambi is sitting comfortably in its new home. The first time we needed our new spare parts was when we changed the gearbox of our grey GTV6. This was also a renewed meeting with the many changes in parts that alfa romeo submits. When we finished the overhaul of one of the spare transaxle gearboxes we noticed some differences between the old and the new gearbox, this gave us a very unpleasant feeling. We should have known that our dear friends in Italy changed their cars more often than the weather changes in Holland. But with some determination we found the correct parts in our heap of spare parts and know our GTV6 has a brand new gearbox. We didn't have time yet to finish the gearbox project (Yes, busy, busy, busy) but I suspect that the engine will be roaring again next spring. We'll try to keep you updated.

April 17th 2000, phewww, it's been a while since I kept you updated on our GTV6. This weekend we finally finished the gearbox and to our big joy the box shifts like a hot knife through butter. The next step will be the engine overhaul of our spare GTV6 engine. We will be surfing the web for special camshafts etc.(more to follow soon!)