Tempest Tires

Alfa has tires on it I never heard of - Tempest Touring HR. Made in China. Appear to be all-season. Anyone ever hear of these? Any good? Anyone ever use them? They're 195/14 because the Alfa is a Veloce model.

And I thought the thread was about a Pontiac! :highly_amused: PJ

Take a look at this mentioning a recall of those tires: https://markrice18.typepad.com/blog/2012/07/tempest-touring-plus.html

I think they were rebadged Sumitomos sold by Tire King. Son claims they were put on within the last couple of years. Very hard to read the code on the tires - very small 14" rims. Ordered a new sunvisor for the passenger side. Old one was shot - but very interesting - the mirror in it - now broken out - had a flap covering when not in use. It was a GM part - I looked it up. It was from a Corvette. How it got into an Alfa sunvisor I don't know. Maybe the Vette had the same visor. The part was $59. One peculiarity of the engine - you adjust the valves with shims. There are about 40,000 thicknesses available. Here's a picture.

Shims are a common way of adjusting valves on many ohc engines. Very efficient and long lasting too as nothing to "slip."

Nice Alfa. The DOHC in my Fiat 124 Spider also used shims. Not very handy for a DIY guy. They required a special tool, which wasn't bad at about $25, but you needed to have a large collection of shims to do the job properly.

That's why you need a Luciano. On the TRs, all you need is a wrench, a screwdriver and a feeler gauge. I wonder if the Jaguar DOHC uses shims?

pdplot said:

That's why you need a Luciano. On the TRs, all you need is a wrench, a screwdriver and a feeler gauge. I wonder if the Jaguar DOHC uses shims?

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:lol:

Jag uses shims, Lotus T/C uses shims, I've a collection of all three types here, full range of Lotus and Alfa. Strangely, Alfa changed the shape of theirs from the 101 series to the 105 series. Not sure about the ones in the later 1800's.

Sun visor came in today by priority mail. Two days from Colorado. No trouble installing. Took the wife for a short ride on the back roads. 5-speed box is nice. But watch that shift into first. Better stick it in second first. Weak synchros.

The Rover 2000 also used shims. Spent several days setting the valves on my Rover in the UK. Used feelers and a note pad as far as I remember.

David

Hmmm, A Corvette sunvisor. Now I know that Alfa can't be ALL bad. eaceful: It looks pretty Pd. Yeh shims on OH cams. Besides the requisite tools remember to bring along patience. Dave.

Yes it is a bit fiddly dealing with the shims but once done they stay done for a really long time.

The valves seem quiet and the car runs strongly. I haven't checked the compression but I have no reason to doubt that it's right up there. I put in a quart of 20W-50 the other day. These cars burn about a quart a thousand miles I'm told.

My 1750 began to use considerably more that a quart in a thousand miles... Think: mosquito fogger! Gotta rebuild the engine again. Put this one together in 2000, proceeded to drive the wheels off it running 100 mile daily commutes to our shop in Sarasota.

I put a set of Kumhos on the MGB a couple months ago, they seem to be better than the Sumitomos previously on the car. Much stickier, too.

I used to mount Semperit tires on all the cars but they seem to have disappeared from the states.

Dave said:

Yeh shims on OH cams. Besides the requisite tools remember to bring along patience.

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hehee... and it involves micrometers and MATHS! :highly_amused:

Oh, oh. Took me 4 years to pass 2 years of algebra. No kidding.

pdplot said:

Oh, oh. Took me 4 years to pass 2 years of algebra. No kidding.

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For whatever reason, I was lovin' math courses. "New math" in 7th & 8th grade, burned thru algebra, plane and solid geometry, had trig and differential equations as a H.S. senior. My downfall was languages: two years of H.S. "Latin-I". Ugh. No better with a semester of French in college. So I'm embarrassingly monolingual.

Just the opposite with me. I'm fine with writing - in fact I've written several newspaper and magazine articles and a couple of books that still reside in my computer. I'm always working on them-never satisfied. I was a journalism major in college. However, when I took my written exam for my pilot's license, I got the highest mark in the class, even the weight and balance and time and distance problems. Why? I was motivated. It made sense to me. Math in school should never be taught by math professors. They hate and have no patience with math illiterates like me. Quadratic equations and theoretical problems are boring to a teenager not interested in becoming an engineer - but make it relevant to their world, and they might get interested. I did ok in Plane Geometry. I could see it. As for Calculus - I don't even know what it is. Something the dentist scrapes off your teeth?

I can empathize with you pd. I hated math way back when. As such I didn't do very well with it. And to this day I consider it a great loss. I do love to read and I write often. My first career was as a professional barber. I think my father and the local barber down the street conspired to get me into Barber School so that I might have at least some chance of doing something with my life. After I barbered for about 2 years I decided to join the Navy. The recruiter after my battery of test decided that I should go to Electronics School. I said 'Oh No, you don't understand, I hate math'. But they sent me anyway, and I commenced to do a good job of flunking out after the first couple of weeks. The Master Chief of the School told me they were going to '**** Can' me to the fleet. That meant that I would be scrubbing decks for the duration. But he said I have one more chance. He put me in a room by myself, with books & TV. He said you can do anything you want, watch TV, Hit the Beach, or study, but at the end of 3 days you better, blankity, blank, blank pass that Bleep'in Test. He put the fear of God in me, but I still wasn't getting it. A good friend that I had met there snuck into the room and tutored me for 2 days. On the 3rd day I passed the test. As they say, 'the rest is history', I retired as a Lieutenant Commander 27 years later.