Lancia Beta Forum

Hi All

I am feeling a bit silly this morning. Ages ago I bought a pair of replacement dampers which Matt organised as a group buy anticipating needing them on my S2 pre F/L Spyder. This was well before I even started to do any work on the engine bay, so assumed that as the car has stood for over 10 years etc they would be shot from previous 20 years of use.

Now I am cleaning up the engine bay and front subframe and realised...... there are no dampers I can see and cannot remember where they were exactly on the scrap car I had a couple of years ago (F/L Spyder).

So I visited the S1 and S2 pre f/l books I have and got even more confused.

According to the books, the S1 did not have the dampers for any version. The S2 pre f/l should have at least one, though the picture in the book is unclear which, but my car has a whole zero from what I can see.

So, given they are a good idea and that the engine mounts have not changed, where exactly do they fit?

Peter

One damper goes from the gearbox to a mount just below / in front of  the battery.

The other from the offisde engine mount to a mounting near the water pump, access to the top bolt is through a hole behind the offside strut.

My pre f/l has two.

Hi Stuart

Just looked them up in Haynes and there is a picture 5.28 showing the gearbox one, but.... my gearbox does not have the extra flange and the bodywork does not have the extra welded bracket to accept the damper.......

Will have a look at the engine side one later, but suspect the same at that end.

Maybe as mine is an early S2 they did not make the changes until later? Anyone else with an early S2 have the same thing?

Peter

Mine is an early S2 - how odd.

Would pics of the dampers on mine help or is the Haynes good enough?

Peter

I will try to check this out later, you are right that your car is very early s2 and with parts going back and forth to from zagato I suppose it is possible that yours has a mix of series.

Thanks, one other point I thought of is that mine is a 1600, maybe it was the early 2ltr which started with the dampers, then added to the rest. From memory there is someone who has a very early S2 Spyder here, maybe they can check if they have both dampers.

Peter

My late p/f 1300 has both dampers. While on this subject I recently drilled out the bolt holes as required. Gearbox one was no problem but the engine side is made of much harder steel. It blunted three (admittedly cheap) bits before I'd finished.

there is no indication on the s2 parts book that the damper were omitted other than on the 1300 berlina, as I understand it spiders were assembled on the main lancia production line only the body being completed at zagato so it would seem unlikely that any car received earlier mechanicals, does the car definitely have the 1585 engine as opposed to 1592?

That was my reading of the parts book, and from the picture there should be the two as mentioned above. Not sure if mine is a 1585, but suspect so, have not had the enthusiasm to contort myself to check the markings on the block yet......

The main issue though is that the bracket for the gearbox damper is not present on the body which is 100% S2, hence why I posed the question of if anyone else here has an early Spider (or Coupe for that matter), and if they were not present.

Peter

Haynes says that there are two dampers of the same type what is obviously not true. Another question is if they play any essential role in the whole system since a drivetrain is mounted on two solid rubber elements that in real not allows for too much play... honestly to me it is questionable.

Lancia added these dampers for good reason, when they fail the other mountings are put under a lot of stress I think it is best to have them fitted

It's called "The Haynes Book of Lies" for a reason. 

A quick glance at two engine dampers and they go to print stating they are the same, which they are not.  Do they correct the error?  No, too costly.

I rarely use the Haynes manual nowadays, because I've discovered that there are too many inaccuracies.
(Plus I guess I've done most things several times now)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

agreed it is difficult to beat the detail of the pucka Lancia issued manual and technical books the Haynes manual like all Haynes is approximate at best as they never cover all variations and production updates