Category: Features

So where were we with the Lancia Fulvia?

I’d been frustrated by the radiator and some headlamp surrounds…..

Well, the radiator is gone, but the headlamp surrounds remain….. for now.

As you can see, the grille isn’t in great shape. A few of the horizontal bars are no longer connected to their vertical companions and one of the corners was secured to the body by a twisted piece of wire. If it was complete then I’m pretty sure I could repair it but with that section missing along the top, I might be looking for a replacement.

The radiator probably needs a good clean but first impressions are that it might just be OK. It looks to be in remarkably better shape that nearly everything else under the hood.

My aim at the moment isn’t to disassemble the entire car. It’s to take off as much stuff as I need to in order to speed up the bodywork/painting process when I finally hand it over to the professionals. To that end, I’m picking off some of the low-hanging fruit at the moment. I guess it helps me feel like I’m making faster progress.

So I started working on a few bits of exterior trim. Small stuff, but fun stuff.

The mirror came off easy, secured by two screws hidden inside the front guard/fender. The mirror needs some of the aluminium foil treatment to remove pitting from the chrome.

Back to the radiator removal….

One of the reasons I had to take the radiator out was because I wanted to take the grille out. I wanted to take the grille out to get an idea of how skewed the front end is without the grille influencing the picture. It’s still out, of course, but doesn’t feel like it’s out by quite so much. Here’s the photo again, compared to an earlier one with the grill still in.

Actually, it still looks just as skew-iff. There’ll definitely be some straightening work for somebody in the coming months.

It’s interesting how the Lancia shield isn’t centered on the grille. I wonder why. I’m pretty sure it should be.

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I have a mate in Sweden named Mats. He’s doing a bare-metal restoration of a Porsche 914 at the moment and he’s really, really good at this stuff. Mats sent me an email last week and he advised that I take my time when undoing old screws, etc. His advice was to hit the fixture with plenty of penetrating fluid (WD-40 in my case) and to do it a few days ahead of when you want to attack.

It was wise advice and I listened. I promise I did.

The problem was that I didn’t exactly act on it and I paid the price with two sheared (very thin) bolts.

The first of them came when I was taking off the stainless steel strip that runs down the middle of the bonnet/hood.

It was the second bolt from the top that sheared off. Luckily that piece is held in by four fixings so I don’t think it’ll be much of a loss.

The second bolt that sheared off was one of two securing the rat-eaten washer bottle. I only gave this one about 2 minutes on the penetrating fluid. I waited another 15 minutes on the second one and it came away with no trouble at all 🙁

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Actually, I had a win with the stainless still bonnet strip, too. The last nut I had to get off was the one nearest the windscreen, which is actually behind a piece of metal that makes up the frame of the bonnet. There is a gap between this piece of metal and the bonnet itself so my first idea was to slide in my thin 7mm spanner and turn it from there.

This worked, but it was going to be a very time consuming and laborious process. It was hard to locate the spanner head on the tiny bolt and even when I did, I could only do a quarter-turn at a time before I had to take the spanner off and locate it again.

My fancy (read: expensive) Sidchrome socket set doesn’t have an 8mm socket, so that was out.

Fortunately, I still have the first el-cheapo socket set I ever bought. And fortunately, it does have smaller sockets, including a 7mm. It was a perfect fit into the little access hole, too.

It’s amazing how quickly things can happen when you have the right tool.

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I took the wiper arms off the car, but getting the rest of the mechanism out is proving to be difficult.

The two wipers are controlled by a mechanism that spans between them but it’s located behind this fresh-air intake box that feeds the ventilation system.

I tried to get the box out but I think it’s secured from inside and getting to the fixings might involve removing the whole ventilation system. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do that as it’s very delicate and will be very complex to reinstall later on. I might have to seek some advice.

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Some happier notes to finish on…..

I’m not sure it’s the most efficient solution and I know it’s weird to say this, but I really love my radiator fan.

It’s not an electric fan attached to the radiator itself. It’s a belt drive metal fan that is bolted on to the front corner of the engine. It looks like a beautiful little sculpture sitting there.

And check out my dual horns!!

They both looked like the one on the right when I first pulled them out of the car. I gave one a quick blast with the remnants of a can of degreaser and it showed definite potential. In fact, it looked quite stunning. I’m not sure, but it looks and feels as if it’s made from bakelite.

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So that was my few hours of tinkering on Sunday.

I spent another good portion of the afternoon helping Geoff tinker with the X1/9. We got the point where Geoff went and bought a battery and we tried to start the little bugger. Sadly, it didn’t want to start, which may or may not be down to the empty fuel tank.

We’ll try again soon. Fuel, air and spark.

There will be video when it finally happens.

The little Fiat still needs the brake and clutch master cylinders to be changed, but we’ll get to that eventually.

So…..

I didn’t just ponder the colour of my car on Sunday. I actually did a little work, too.

My first job was to remove the clock from the dashboard, something I couldn’t figure out initially but took all of about two minutes once I saw the fixings at the back of the bracket. The dashboard is now completely clear of instruments and is just a mess of wires. And heating stuff.

Remove Pitting From Chrome

While I was inside, I decided to have a crack at some of the pitted chrome. Most of the metalwork on the Fulvia – especially the outside trim – is actually stainless steel. No problems there. There are some old fashioned chrome pieces, however, and these have succumbed to pitting over time.

Here’s the housing for the indicator stalk, for example:

I looked up a few resources for advice on how to remove pitting from chrome and I was amazed at how quickly and easily you can treat this. It isn’t a permanent fix, of course. You’d probably need to get things re-chromed to have yourself a real long-term solution. But this quick fix will most likely last quite a while.

The solution I found: aluminium foil and a little bit of water.

I simply tore a strip of aluminium foil about 5 inches wide, folded it to make a suitable sized square, added a little bit of water and rubbed the piece until it looked almost like new.

It took all of about 10 minutes to clean the majority of it up. The grooves around the edges will need a little more work but it was good enough to screw back on for the photos above.

I found this handy tip here. Go there for a fuller explanation, but in short….

The aluminum oxide that is created by friction when you rub the surface of the chrome leeches the rust away and when combined with the water you added creates it’s own polishing compound so you end up with a clean, smooth, shiny surface.

I could still see evidence of the pitting after I’d done this so I’m sure it’ll get ugly again after a while but for the moment, it’s looking good.

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Headlamp Covers

This was a small job that I couldn’t get finished. These headlamp covers are secured by just one screw each but three of the four screws were rusted on and attempt to get them off just rounded the hexagonal head of the screw. The headlamp surrounds are stainless but the fixings aren’t.

These screws are the first items I’ve come across that have been difficult to remove. I might have to get out the drill to get them off. The one on the left in the second photo is the only one that came off.

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Radiator

While I was at the front of the car I figured I might remove the grille and take some more photos of the slanty front end. To get the fixings for the grille, however, I have to remove the radiator.

The top hose was very squishy but yielded eventually. The little strap bolts to the left came away easily enough. There are four more fixings at the bottom, however: Two bolts and two more hoses. I got the bolts out quickly but we had to go to the movies so the two hoses are still attached (we saw “Finding Vivian Maier” and it was good).

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It feels like I got next-to-nothing done while I was tinkering on the Fulvia yesterday but I guess that’s the way it goes sometimes.

I found the following photos online. This car is for sale in England at the moment. It’s a 1967 Lancia Fulvia 1.3 Rallye.

I’m posting the pics because I’m pretty sure this is (close to) my Fulvia’s original colour.

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It’s called Mendoza Blue. The pics above look a little green compared to the colour I see on my car, but I did a search for “Lancia Mendoza Blue” online and found this image, which looks spot on.

Here’s some of the blue I’ve uncovered on my car….

What do you think?

I wasn’t a fan when I first uncovered this blue but it’s growing on me. Quite a lot, in fact. I’m not sure how it would look bumperless, but still…..

I got to thinking about the original colour again over the weekend as I did some more stuffing around with the Fulvia in my front yard. I didn’t get much done, sadly. Just a few more items removed from the interior, some cleaning up of pitting on a few chrome bits (photos soon), I made a start on removing some more exterior trim (rusted on screws, be damned!) and a start on removing the radiator. I had a few fiddly connections to deal with on the radiator when I ran out of time last night, but it shouldn’t take long to finish off.

But back to colour…..

I have to paint the car. That’s a no-brainer.

Normally I’d prefer to keep the car in the colour that I bought it but the red that exists now is not original so I don’t feel bound to anything except my budget and my own free choice. Red is nice. Very nice, in fact, but then everyone who has a Lancia Fulvia seems to paint it red.

The original colour is this Mendoza Blue, which I do like, but I’ve always been more partial to the creatively named Lancia Blue, which is a dark navy blue colour. I think Lancia Blue will wear the bumperless look quite nicely, too.

Going Mendoza Blue would mean a (slightly) easier and less expensive job, but then there’s so much to do that going the extra mile for a complete change of colour shouldn’t be that big an issue.

I do like the Mendoza Blue but I have to say I’m a bigger fan of the bumperless look and either red or Lancia Blue will work better with that.

What do you think?