Spyder restoration - long time coming

[WestonE]

Hi Peter

Fantastic work with a great interior. For the rear door card top screws you probably want cup washers with dome head stainless screws. Try Westfield Fasteners if you decide to go for it. NB My VX rear trims needed backing panels with more holes as only the front 2 matched the S2 FL door cards.

Eric

[mangocrazy]

Hi Peter,

Those rear seats look lovely. Fabulous job. You're definitely on a roll now... 

[JohnFol]

Hi Peter, hopefully this link to your engine image works . .



Looks like you have the radiator shifted across to the near side, and the air intake facing more towards the off side. Was this part of the original setup or a modification you have made?

[peteracs]

Hi John

That was one of the pre f/l setups. The air filter on facelift carb cars are different and have a thermostatically controlled inlet from either the exhaust area or the front left of the car. On pre f/l you have to physically rotate the lid of the air filter to decide on intake from exhaust area or from the front right area of the car.....

I suspect the lid on most folks cars never moved!

Peter

[peteracs]

Started assembling the door cards which have been recovered. One part is the ‘chromed’ plastic kick panels which also act as a speaker cover on some cars. I have purchased over the years a few of these, mainly left side ones oddly and have found 3 types. No idea which fits which car, but thought I would share in case anyone has need of any as I have a pair for mine and a few spare, albeit they may have pins missing. The photo shows the three types I have found.

Botttom is the one with pre drilled speaker holes and has 5 pins to secure. The middle is the same as the bottom but no pre drilled holes. This came off my car and was drilled by previous owner.... The top one has only 4 pins, I have 2 unused ones of these with all the pins. I suspect they may be Berlina ones, but not sure. As to identifying which side they go, there is a S and D on the back (left/right).

If anyone can use them please get in touch. If you know which car they originally went on that would be interesting to know.

Peter

[peteracs]

Several weeks ago I stripped down the front bumper. Main reasons were that the lights looked in need of attention, one broken lens, mismatched screws and rust on the rear earth connection between the bulbs, and the edges of some of the rubber bumper pieces were sticking out. I managed to remove everything without damage which was a surprise especially the small nuts on the rubber pieces and the two clinch nuts for the lights. I then cleaned up all the non stainless parts and gave them some paint to try to give some measure of protection. The rubber parts were treated with rubber restorer and came up very nicely.

For the lights I had a spare lens which although not perfect was good enough, a very small crack which is hard to see. The bulbs were replaced with LEDs as mentioned before. One had the original colour coded screws which disintegrated on removal, the other a mismatch of self tapping screws. I decided to replace all with stainless self tapping screws which look ok and will last.

I had been waiting for a good weather day to complete the bumper, this was it. One thing I was originally expecting was that where the metal stud is embedded in the rubber it would be badly rusted and hence expanded, hence the sticking out, but all of them were very good with little rust. The issue was actually on the stainless part of the bumper where the studs fit through. The area was slightly raised giving an uneven surface to mount the rubbers. A quick application of the press and the area was flattened and the rubbers fit pretty nicely now.

The stainless part of the bumper had some marks, so having had good success with the polishing kit I bought for the door sill covers etc, I set to on the bumper. The first pass of the procedure resulted in a not very good result with a lot of tiny scratches being obvious when viewed at a certain angle. I then had two more goes at trying to get a better finish and then ran out of enthusiasm and time, the sun was going down and it was getting cold. The end result, which is now staying, is ok, but not as good as I had hoped. I managed to get the whole thing assembled and ready to mount back on the car, I used stainless nuts, bolts and washers where I could to reduce the dreaded rust. One point I had not realised was the main bolts which hold the bumper to the mounts are M10 x 1.25 pitch. The bolts I had were a mishmash so I ordered some new ones up.

Photo shows the bumper, rubbers and lights. Bumper is after the first pass of polishing.

[peteracs]

A slight aside and I may have mentioned this before, but in these days of freezing temps in the garage it is worth mentioning again. A while ago I bought a Clarke Little Devil propane heater and inherited a couple of large propane bottles with the new house which were made redundant after fitting a log burner. Result is a nice a toasty garage after several minutes of use and the propane bottle does appear to last for a goodly amount of time. I did have a roller shutter type garage door fitted which keeps out the drafts as well. The heaters are not so expensive and the propane bottle was around £60 for a refill. I tend to get the garage to a reasonable temp then switch off and switch back on when I feel the temp is getting low again. The garage is a pretty typical double width one. I also have a mixture of cardboard and old carpet on the floor to help with any lying down/kneeling requirements!

Peter

[WestonE]

Hi Peter I support the warm garage/workshop idea! I have gone the electric route to reduce condensation from combustion. Currently I have a de-humidifier running to keep the condensation issue under control. This is the desicant type that still works at low temperatures and even provides some heat.

Eric

[peteracs]

Hi Eric

Not had a big issue with damp fortunately, but it is a potential issue, dehumidifier would be a useful acquisition.

Peter

[peteracs]

A little bit more done today, mainly working on fitting the carpet, more on that later.

I then moved into the utility where the temp is house level...

The window winder handles have always been a bug bear on these early cars as the ones I have were scratched and the knob on all I have seen wobble way too much. Many also suffer from the knob being made of too soft and thin plastic and break away, I guess mainly due to the winder mechanism becoming very stiff with age. I had a play with a scrap handle and found you can remove the cover piece of the knob using a thin blade after you soften the plastic in hot water. This is a little delicate, but can be done without damaging the plastic or the cover piece.

I then rubbed down the metal part and repainted using model paint, satin brown and satin black mixed to give a similar colour to the original. The next part is to reduce the wobble of the know by hitting the rivet which holds it. I made a suitable stake to suit the splayed end of the rivet and this worked nicely to allow the knob to turn, but not wobble much. Time will tell how long it lasts, but I am hopeful after refurbish the winder mechanism. The later handles are so much better, but I wanted to keep the original ones if possible.

[peteracs]

A hour or so spent in the garage before dog walking.

One problem I had was one of the nuts for each of the seat mounts. On each side two are captive nuts set into the cross member and one is set into the centre section where the handbrake etc is. These were all in good order. The last is on an upstanding bracket and I assume had some sort of captive nut (welded?) to the bracket. Neither of mine had this nut fixed when I removed it and you need to have it captive as the carpet gets in the way. So a quick bit of fettling with flat file, tidied with a bit of paint and purchase of a couple of stainless cage nuts gives a nice secure fixing which should last. The bracket itself is made of pretty thin metal, not the best design, but the other three fixings are very secure so should do the job.

After fitting the cage nuts the carpet could finally be fitted and tucked into the stainless trim which runs along the door seal. The end result I am fairly happy with given the carpet is a new one stuck over the original. Not ideal, but will do for now as the original was faded and not that presentable.

Peter

[WestonE]

Hi Peter This will probably be annoying sorry! There is a large square block with an 8 mm thread that goes in the space with the tab then tapped in place to hold it. I think that is how Lancia spread the load. What you have done will work fine I just thought others might be looking at this in the future.

Happy New Year

Eric (smartass) 

[peteracs]

Hi Eric

That is no problem, always happy to learn. Definitely do not remember it and given the state of the holes in the bracket suspect that they had been replaced at some point and I do not recall finding any such blocks.

Peter

[peteracs]

Bit cold in the garage today... and no point turning the heater on as ordered a Powerspark electronic ignition and wanted to fit it and try it out. Unlike facelift cars the early ones had good old points and condenser/capacitor which for the purist I am sure would say should stay. For myself I always wanted to move to electronic ignition and ones like the Powerspark kits now just retrofit points effectively, so keep the external look and are simple to fit.

I have the Bosch non vacuum disti and the kit p/n is K6.

Peter

[HFStuart]

There is a large square block with an 8 mm thread that goes in the space with the tab then tapped in place to hold it. I think that is how Lancia spread the load. What you have done will work fine I just thought others might be looking at this in the future.

Eric,

Interestingly not on my Spider. The rear mounts on that have the same smaller metal clip-in nuts seen elsewhere on the car. The ones I have from an HPE are the same as you describe. Possibly a series 1  / pre facelift thing?

Stuart (Spider anorak....)

[WestonE]

Hi Stuart

You are probably right on the change between Series. I can almost feel Alan reaching for the parts books to confirm this.

Stay safe and hope for being allowed out in the Spring.

Eric

[peteracs]

The parts book simply says ‘nut’ and the drawing does not show anything specific. Looking at the holes which were not simply round, but deformed which makes me think that some sort of captive nut was used rather than a cage type of nut.

Peter

[peteracs]

Yesterday during the cold, I fitted the runners back on to the seats which are all ready now to go in once the final bits of the interior have been fitted.

At last the temperature outside has improved sufficiently to allow for a bit of outside fettling. I had fitted the centre console a few days ago, but the last part of it are two side strips which comprise of a strip of stainless with a strip of tailored carpet attached to it. This is fixed using self tappers to the console. The fettling outside was to polish these stainless strips, after that, fit the carpet strip and screw it to the console. After that the centre seat belt clamps were installed.

Peter

[HFStuart]

New carpet or old carpet cleaned up well?

[peteracs]

New carpet or old carpet cleaned up well?

It is actually new ‘carpet’ stuck onto the original which was too far gone to re-dye etc. This was the idea of my trimmer who also trimmed the whole of the centre console, seats, door cards etc. The new carpet is more of a hard wearing thick fabric rather than a carpet.

Peter