Must resist, again....

There's a handful on eBay. They look truly horrific compared to the=20 early ones.

--=20 Conor

I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't=20 looking good either. - Scott Adams

The thing about the Alfa Spider is that they feel /really/ old now, and other than making a nice noise they're not much fun to drive.

I like old cars as much as the next man (I don't own a car built after '89, ffs) but the Spider was getting slated for being pretty crap in the early 80s, and the late ones are ugly enough to make even a rubber bumper MG BGT look tempting. I certainly wouldn't even consider one of those Spiders, and I own a Renault 30...

snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk (SteveH) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Is it a LHD-RHD conversion?

Hmmm, good question. It's RHD, but I can't recall if that generation were sold as RHD or just LHD officially.

Actually, 'Bell and Coalville' were the people who did the conversions, so I'd guess it's a conversion.

snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk (SteveH) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

All the RHD ones are conversions, IIRC. Bell & Colvill were indeed the boys who imported & converted.

I recall they were sold officially through UK dealers as RHD cars, though.

Ahhh, that's why I couldn't find them....

IIRC the last of the Spiders weren't RHD. ISTR that Bell and Colvill had a spate of converting them to RHD but that the later ones were just left as LHD (unless you actually wanted to pay to have it butchered to RHD).

If the 'Lancia Approved' conversions of Integrales are anything to go by I'd avoid a converted Alfa. That RHD Integrale I had was atrocious and the car I most regret buying, I really should have bought the identical but LHD one I'd seen for £1000 more.

The difference with the Spider is that RHD parts were readily available

- using, as I recall, 'Bertie' GTV bits.

The Integrale had to make to with bits that were never meant to be fitted to it.

It's not the mechanics of the conversion that would worry me - it's the interior re-trim to suit RHD that could be shoddy.

True - the steering rack was from a diesel Strada, about 400 turns lock to lock.

That was the truly horrific thing about the Integrale. LHD sunvisors, LHD carpet, grabhandles in the wrong places, scotchloks all over the place behind the dash, wiring loom that changed colour all over the place, central locking that worked from the LH door but not the RH one and a load of other irritations. It had a proper RHD dash and probably squeaked less than a normal Integrale, but it was incredibly badly done even though it had been an expensive (£7000) job done when the car was new.

Really pissed me off because I missed the central locking being wrong with it having a remote locking alarm, I tend not to use sunvisors so didn't notice that for a couple of days, and it had lovely new mats in (I mean that, they actually were nice mats..) so even though I'd checked the carpet for wear and burns etc I'd missed the footpad being on the wrong side. HF Turbos used to have pads on both sides anyway.

All Saab C900 models were converted. Proper dash, but the clutch and brake master cylinder and servo stayed on the left, then two big linkage bars went across the car from left to right, the whole bars rotated on a couple of big bearings. It meant you got play at the pedals, play at the linkages on the left, and play in the bearing, but they still seemed to go on forever. The brake light switch might be on the servo side some years and on the pedal side on others. I know because I had to change the servo on my old one, and spent an afternoon crawling under the very tight passenger side of the dash, moving the relays and things out of the way, just to get at the servo bolts working blind by touch and with a long extensions, then trying to refit split pins into holes that you can't see.

Elder gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

No, they were built RHD at the factory.

The Alfas we're talking about were built LHD, imported, then converted.

Not exactly unusual. There's quite a few cars do that. On the c900 (especially on 16v cars), it's because there's a cylinder head in the way of where the master would go...

Umm, why not just take the lower dash out? It's about 20min work...

My E30 has the brake servo on the left.

Hehe, I hate it when that happens :-) You spend a whole taking things apart, suffering many pingfuckits and successfully removing all the skin from your knuckles, among other various wounds and potentially fatal electric shocks. You successfully finish the job and stand back to survey your own awesomeness, then someone says "Ah, what've you been doing?" and then they go, "Oh, why didn't you just . You're a good man if you don't use harsh physical violence on them...

Agreed, but they were converted at the factory rather than moving everything properly.

I did take the lower dash out, that was how I found the cruise gear, a whole bunch of relays, the overboost protection switch, the vac hoses that go to the boost gauge and the cruise switch on the pedals, the central locking brain, and the main loom, all of which were between me and the servo, and all neatly bolted and cable tied.

I did actually take out the lower dash to be faced with a very packed space of cables, hoses and electricals.

Elder gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Only in the same way as EVERY car designed as LHD is "converted". Which isn't quite the same thing as that Alfa Spider...

Elder gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Ah, OK.

Not quite the same experience I had doing the clutch master, then.

Sounds like a lot of the Fiat / Alfa RHD conversions. And most older VWs as well.