Tech Tips

41.) Rusting petrol tank.

b.) Water entering the petrol tank and causing all kind of problems can happen because of a blocked de-watering hose. The hose is running trough the boot and ending at the rear right side under the car ( together with the de-air-hose from the hydraulic pump ). The hole making the water disappear trough this hose is often a bit hidden under the rubber tank flap ( see pics ). If dirt blocked the opening or the hose itself, than it can happen - during heavy rain or washing the car - that water enters the petrol filler cap. Water is than running into the petroltank and it will not cause only extra rust, but can also give all kind of engine problems.

42.) Axle boot cover rear wheel side.

The metal part with the holes fits as original on the SZ / RZ, but the rubber is different. The original rubber parts moved in and out the metal housing. The replacement has to move outside of the metal base and in some situations there is not enough room to move outside the metal part without touching suspension parts when the car is put in the up or down position, making the rubber boot rip within some time. At some cars it hold longer than a year, but also at some cars they ripped within a year.
It looks different under the car, it can be seen as an emergency solution to get the car trough MOT / TUV / APK / Yearly check-up and is as far as I know the only simple and low budget solution to solve the problem ( temporarily ?? ).

43.) Adjusting / repairing the rev counter.

44.) Taking off the glued modar bodypanels.

According to the official Alfa Romeo workshopmanuals ecc. it is only possible to take the old / damaged panels off the metal - where they are bonded to - by cutting those modar body panels in pieces to have them replaced by new ones.

45.) Problems with windshield wiper nozzle.

After having the car stored for some time it is possible that there is coming no water anymore out of the wiper nozzles ( In The Netherlands a MOT item ).
In 99 % of the cases it is caused by dryed-in rust or residue in the part showed below.

Other possible problems:
1.) Broken window wiper pump ( when activited you will not hear a buzz,... also check the fuse ecc. ).
2.) Broken / stucked plastic valve placed in the hose coming from the spray water tank ( left top corner engine bay ).
3.) The hose at the drivers / left side running from the nozzle as shown in the pics makes a steep bend directely when entering the engine bay, and it can get clamped by the wiper motor mechanism running directely along that hose.

46.) Interior door-pull handles replacement.

The interior door-pull handles are almost similar to the ones used on the first type of the Fiat Tipo.

The plastic clip that holds the metal pull-rod has to be swapped over and 2 lips on top of that plastic Fiat Tipo door handles frame have to be cut off.

Also the plastic cover behind the pull handle can be used from the Tipo.
At the most SZ / RZ's it can be clipped on to the door handles frame, but at some cars it will not hold properly and because of that in some SZ/RZ's at Zagato they drilled a little hole in that cover and put a little black screw trough it into the metal frame behind the cover. That will keep things in place.

47.) Hydraulic jacking system.

It is a KONI system and one of the best shocks they ever produced. Even after 20 years most SZ / RZ's do not have any problems with those shocks and the system is almost maintenance free.

That is the good news, the bad news is that no parts for this system are available anymore.
At Koni they do not want to service those shocks anymore and also the individual parts to rebuild a shock are not available / known anymore.

a.) The system has been filled with hydraulic LHM fluid. It can be bought at every car part shop, because it is also used in Citroën cars.

b.) The left and right front shock absorber do have different part numbers, the rear ones (left and right side) do have the same part number which makes them interchangeable.
There is a possibility to make the front ones interchangeable also, because the only difference I can detect between both front shocks is the metal pin pressed into the rubber bushing at the bottom of the shock has been placed out of the center, depending on which side of the car that shock is to be used.

So if one of your front shocks is beyond repair and you were lucky to find a replacement, but for the wrong side, you could push the metal pin out of the rubber bushing and rotate it 180 degrees and push it in again.

c.) In many SZ / RZ's the red warning light ( high position of the car ) can light up spontanuously when driving at high speeds or driving over some bumps. This is normal and a quick push on the green switch makes the light go out again.

d.) Should the hydraulic switch controlling the system (making the warning light on the dash light up when the system is in the high position) be broken then these are no longer available from Alfa Romeo. I once visited a company that was specialized in restoring Citroën cars. I showed them an original hydraulic switch used on the SZ. They had suitable switches that were used on the Citroëns from the 70/80-ties. The only difference was the connector but these can be swapped over easily.

e. ) Problems with the "pump unit jacking system" are normally caused by a too low level of hydraulic fluid, a broken switch on the center console or corroded relays on top of the pump unit in the boot. The black left and right side relais are from Bosch, they are 12 Volt, 20/30 Amp. and they do have the production number: 0 332 204 151. The center relais is also from Bosch 12 Volt 30 Amp. and production number: 0 332 014 411.

A too low level of hydraulic fluid can be noticed easily. After activating the red switch to raise the system you will hear the pump buzzing for a long(er) period than normal.

f.) Checking the hydraulic fluid level at the pump. The car's hydraulic levelling system has to be in the DOWN position (consequently all the fluid is in the reservoir) !!

At the top end of the reservoir you will find a small sticker with a min and max mark. The problem is those stickers were stuck at random levels, some higher, some lower.
Conseuqently these are not a good indication of the correct oil level. Over the years I have been advising owners to keep the level between min and max to avoid problems. To my great surprise the service manual confirms my story!

* To top-up or refill the reservoir the bolt on top has to be removed. Do not damage or bend the "de-air" / bleeding hose during that process.
*The car has to be in the DOWN position.
*Fill up to somewhere in between the min and max level as indicated by the sticker.
*Refit the bolt.
*Start the engine and make the hydraulic levelling system go up and down a few times ( activate red / green button )
*Switch off the engine when the car is in the lower position as before.
*Check the level in the reservoir again and if neccesary repeat the process.

g.) If you filled the reservoir to the max or in case of excessive, the excess fluid will be pushed out of the reservoir trough the "de-air" / bleeding hose on top of the pump, making it difficult or even impossible to bleed the system. It will take much longer to get the car in the down position and this problem can last for some time. You will find oil stains under the right rear end of the car, where the bleeding hose is penetrating the floor of the boot.

h.) In 2011 at 2 SZ's we noticed another problem: When the car is in the upper position, it lowers itself slowly. The system does loose pressure somewhere and allready mentioned possible solutions could not solve the problem. After some investigation it turned out that the solenoid valve contained some dirt particles. The particles even could not be seen but it was enough to prevent the piston in the solenoid valve from closing hermetically.

The good news for him was that the solenoid valve's internals were unblemished. Even the seal appeared to be undamaged. These parts were consequently not replaced. They would be hard to come by anyway !

How to fix that problem:

1. Remove the solenoid valve from the pump. ( it is the black unit connected to the red and black wire )

If you raise your car by pressing the red switch on the dashboard and it then slowly drops again to its lowest level, obviously something is wrong with the pump and/or the solenoid valve on the pump. Assuming the electrical side of the system works fine (can go little wrong with it), the problem is caused by using dirty hydraulic oil. I therefore should stress on the importance of making sure your oil remains clean. Dirty oil will cause damage to the solenoid valve. More is explained below.

First, for those who do not know, I should start explaining what a solenoid valve is. It is a valve that is operated by an electro-magnet. In other words, if you send a current through the magnet by operating a switch on your dashboard, the magnet will activate the tiny little piston that keeps the valve closed (in this case closed because the valve used in the SZ is a normally closed valve as opposed to a normally open valve ). The oil then can run freely through the valve, until the current is removed.

The system used in the SZ is actually simple. Hydraulic oil sits in the reservoir on the pump. When pressing the red switch on the dash, the pump will start pumping oil into the hydraulic lines going to each of the shocks. The oil is pumped out at 70 bar (that is the pumps pressure) and is pushed through the solenoid valve. When I say pushed through that is exactly what is happening: the valve is closed because there is no current running through the electro-magnet.
But the valve is cleverly constructed the pressure coming from the pump is higher than the force of the tiny spring that keeps the piston pushed down (refer drawing). So the hydraulic oil pushes the piston up and the oil runs freely to the shocks. Once a pressure of 30 bar is reached in the hydraulic lines/shocks, the pressure switch (fitted on the backside of the pump) will switch off the pump. The piston will drop down by the force of the spring (and the difference in pressure at the top and bottom of the piston but this is a bit technical), sealing the hydraulic lines/shocks from the pump/reservoir. When lowering the car, the green switch is activated. As mentioned above, a current is sent through the magnet, pulling up the piston the oil now can run back into the reservoir.

So what causes the system to leak? Dirt particles may get stuck into the solenoid valve the bottom of the steel piston has a seal (not sure what material is used) and this will get damaged overtime, if dirt oil is used.

Note 1:

*** Koni discribed this problem also in January 1991: "Leaking systems due to dirt in the valve". They had to replace several valves because of that. To prevent that to happen again they advised Zagato to change the filling procedure and they modified the pumps with an internal filter. Those upgraded / modified pumps got a blue sticker with a white dot on it, you can check it on your car.***

The repair is fairly straight forward. Remove the pump from the car (this is a messy affair) this is simply disconnecting the hydraulic line (car in the lowest position), disconnecting the electrical plug and unbolting the pump. Undo the plug through which you can fill the reservoir and hold the pump upside down, to drain the oil. At the back of the pump you will see the black electro-magnet, on top of the valve.

STOP: !!! take a picture of how the valve sits on the pump because you can mount it incorrectly ! Remove the magnet and then undo the 2 black screws holding the solenoid valve on the pump.

Open up the valve by undoing the remaining 3 screws holding the pieces together (refer to the exploded view drawing). Take care not to lose the tiny spring and the copper cross shape! Clean and dry all components. Inspect the seal in the bottom of the piston.

If your car lowered itself you will probably see the surface is pitted or has an indent.

This seal needs replacing since I had no access to a lath, I went to an engineering workshop and they replaced this seal by Teflon bush. The simply drilled out the old seal (including the tiny little flange that holds it in place) and fitted a tight fitting new bush. Make sure you put the copper cross shape back on top of the piston its function is to prevent sticking of the piston into the stem. Once all is clean and tidy, put the valve back together.

The next thing to do is cleaning the pump. Mine had metal shavings inside so I cannot stress enough the importance of opening your pump. Undo the bolts fixing the reservoir to the pump. Clean reservoir. Some of the pumps may NOT have a mesh filter on the inlet to the pump (refer to the photo you will see my pump did have the filter on the long tubular inlet that sticks out from the pump, into the reservoir). I would advice to make up a mesh filter yourself and put it on the inlet with a hose clamp. Next you unbolt the electro motor from the other side of the pump. Lots of additional oil will come out so be prepared! You now will have access to the internals of the pump. Undo the 2 circlips this will allow you to carefully remove the internals of the pump. Remove it slowly so that you know how to put it back!! Clean everything and blow it clean using compressed air. By the way if you blow air into the 2 tiny little channels to which the solenoid valve was fitted, you will understand how the system works.

One note of advice. You can unplug the electrical connector to the pressure switch (which is fitted to the T-junction) but do not tamper with the switch itself because you can alter the pressure setting without realising it!

Once all is clean, put it back together. I put a tiny little bit of fluid gasket between electro motor and pump and also between the solenoid valve and the pump housing (and also between the bottom plate of the valve and the top plate. Use very little because you do not want to obstruct any openings or contaminate the hydraulic oil.

When all is put back together, it is time to fit the pump back into the car. Before you do this however, ensure all hydraulic lines are free from contaminated oil. You should remove all 4 wheels and put the car on car stands. Open the connectors at the shocks one by one and blow the oil out by blowing compressed air into the connector at the pump (so open one shock connector, keep the other 3 closed and make your way around the car). Probably best to start with the rear wheels, then the front.

i.) Filling / bleeding the hydraulic system.

!!! PLEASE read first note 2 at the end of this techtip carefully !!

There is no guidance given on how to fill and bleed the hydraulic system but I understand that you need to AVOID running the pump dry because that is what causes the metal shavings you probably found in your pump. You would expect the pump to be flooded when you fill it with oil but this is NOT the case. So...I filled up the reservoir and I opened the hydraulic lines (where they connect into the shocks) once more.

Again one by one but now starting with the front wheels and then the back wheels. So what you are doing is bleeding the air from the lines by letting the oil push the air out at the shock’s end. So wait until you see the oil seep out and then close the connector and move on to the next wheel. You will notice the oil will not come out by itself. What I did is use the pump to push it out.

Remove relays 1 and 3 from the pump (refer bottom note 3.) and with one connector at one shock open, push the red button for 2 seconds max.

Repeat this until you see oil dripping from the open hydraulic line.
You will hear the pump is running dry for a few seconds that’s why you should do it gently, using small intervals of operating the pump, avoiding heat build up and wearing it out. You will notice the sound of the pump changing when it finally sucks in the oil. In hindsight, you probably should insert some oil into the pump before putting it together.
It is weird that although the pump is submerged, it does seem to remain dry until operated for say 10 seconds.... OK, so once you have drained all air from the lines, you can now finish your work. Make sure you top up the oil to the required level and make the car go up/down a few times and check again.

Test if all works fine and refit the relays you removed. The car should stay in its highest position now. I of course will need to check how the new Teflon bush will work out over time. Teflon is available in different grades of hardness...

On last thing there is now LHM plus oil available on the market. Apparently it provides better lubrication then LHM oil. Worth considering...

*** Note 2: till the end of January 1991 the connectors on the shocks where soldered. They may not be opened / closed with more than 3kg/M otherwise they can break from the shock. At the end of January Koni welded those connectors on their new shockabsorbers and the problem was gone. So has your car a productiondate before Januari 1991,...be carefull with those connectors !!! ***

*** Note 3: on the relays: when relays 1 and 3 are removed from the pump, your system will still operate but you will need to hold down the green and red switch to operate the pump/valve. Normally a quick push on the switch will automatically make the car go up/down, now you can do this in little steps. Removing the relays will allow you to operate the pump in short bursts, as required to facilitate the bleeding process. ***

j.) If there are problems with the hydraulic jacking system I myself would proceed as follows (in sequence):

1) Check oil level and fill up as required.
2) Remove and replace the up and down switches on the console (on several SZ / RZ's, not maintaining the high position was caused by the switches.)
3) If there is corrosion on the relays, either clean or replace the relays.
4) If there is a poor ground connection in the boot, disconnect and clean.
5) The solenoid valve (it opens when de green switch is activated and the car will lower itself through its own weight).
6) The shock absorbers.

k.) If you have problems with your shock absorbers,... it is since 2011 possible to have them serviced and rebuild. The parts needed have been remade and improved. In stead of the normal sealings there will be used high pressure sealings to prevent the shocks from leaking again. Even the orange-painted metal parts will be sand blasted and powder coated in the original colour, to prevent them from rusting ecc.

48.) Broken seat adjuster.

A.) It is possible to use / modify a Fiat 124 sport or a Lancia HPE ( 1981 ) seat adjuster, they are almost identical to the ones used on the SZ seats.

The mechanisms from the SZ versus RZ are slightly different, but also for the RZ it is easy to change that Fiat / Lancia mechanism. The pictures below will tell the story.

The unit as shown in the photos is almost identical to the SZ unit, with the only differences being:
·The lever is incorporated in the adjustment mechanism whereas on the SZ, the lever is on the mechanism on the opposite side of the seat.
·There is an additional bracket of some sort, attached to the bottom of the adjuster.

To make the unit identical, cut off the lever as shown in the sketch ( 1), preferably by using a dremel with a cut through disc.
Make sure you give the cut a nice finish because it may rub against your upholstery, any sharp edges will damage your seat.
Then grind off the weld that holds the bracket (2) in place, again using a dremel with a grinder. Be careful not to touch the plastic cover
There is a screw on the back, holding the cover in place, undo it and wedge the plastic open to create more room for the dremel. The weld is not substantial and the bracket will drop out easily.

However on the unit I used, when fitting, I noticed the spindle opening size (4) of this unit is different to the SZ unit whereas spindle opening (3) is identical. To avoid having to modify the square opening in the adjuster, it is easier to slightly grind down the spindle itself, again using a dremel. Carefully remove a bit on all 4 sizes of the spindle until it fits into opening 4. Put it all together and job done!

B.) Possibly also the seat adjusters from the Alfetta GTv(6) could be used. They look almost identical, but not tested yet.

At several SZ's the plastic covers over the seat adjuster mechanisms are broken and the good news is that also the plastic covers on the Fiat / Lancia / Alfetta GTV adjusters are - almost - the same and could be used as a replacement for a broken plastic SZ/RZ cover.

49.) Mirrors not moving anymore.

a.) Before you start opening the mirrors,.... First check out the mirror switch because that switch is in 99% of the cases the source of the problem, and making the mirror motors disfunctioning ! So do not try to open the mirror inmediately but first check out the switch.

That mirror switch is not available anymore via Alfa Romeo but luckily also used in the Alfa Romeo 164, so maybe on the scrap yard still available.

b.) If the switch ( fuse ecc. ) is not the problem, than you can carefully open the mirrors by pulling off the mirrorglas with backing plate. Be very carefull, the glass can brake easily. Spare mirror glasses where never available via Alfa Romeo, but I have some available.

c.) Another thing that happens often is that the little stick from this switch is falling out of the switch. Often it is lost than and the switch has to be replaced. Before that happens it would be best to pull out the little stick yourself and place it back with a drop of ( second ) glue on it, to prevent it from falling out and making the switch useless.

50.) Removal of the steering rack.

51.) Changing the petrol screw cap and replace the original lock/cylinder.

You do not like that,... so here the solution to use your old cylinder in the new screw-cap. You still can use the original ignition / door key to open that new cap.

If you have bad luck and one of the door locks or ignition lock has been broken and if you do not want to have several different keys to use, than you probably need a new completely new lock set ( ignition / doors / petrol cap ) with matching keys. Those sets are not possible to get via Alfa Romeo anymore. Luckily I still have some complete sets in stock.

If you have any TechTips that can be used for Alfa Romeo SZ or RZ, I am intrested to know about that.
Please email me if you have a special Tip or solution for a problem,..thanks,...Ed.

BACK to the former page

evdbeek@wxs.nl