Lancia Motor Club

Having seen all the recent epic Appia and Fulvia progress reports I thought I should update on my Winter Augusta projects.

The Augusta I bought from Modena last year has run for about 1000 miles this year mainly for me to enjoy, which I did greatly, but also to see what needed doing on the mechanical side. The car is very good bodily with no rust and seemingly very correct and original. In fact the previous now departed owner was meticulous with the bodywork, having stripped it completely to bare metal and refurbished the whole car during his 35 years ownership. He was very keen on rust protection as everything is heavily greased, even the inside of the headlights!

The mechanical side is a bit of an unknown as there are no bills, although it appears to be fine, with good compression, no smoke, uses no oil and goes well. All the brakes had been relined with new hoses and the car rewired. Apart from the dreaded fuel gauge which I mentioned earlier (no progress on that), everything works. It has been converted to 12v although I suspect the starter motor is just boosted not converted, and I fitted a 12v to 6v voltage reducer to the wiper motor which ran hot and had a poor contact in the switch. Interestingly the voltage reduction has not slowed the motor and it no longer overheats. The fan bearings were noisy so I replaced them and the engine is now pretty quiet.

I had a fuel starvation problem which was confused by a failing ignition coil, and as I eventually discovered, rather inadequate plug leads. The fuel starvation arose because although the filter is correct, the fuel tap is Ardea not Augusta and the outlet fitting on the tap lacks the circumferential groove which lets fuel through the integral banjo fitting on the filter. I tested the fuel flow rate and the maximum flow would only feed enough fuel for about 25mpg which was evidently not enough for full throttle at 45-50 mph uphill. The ignition lead problem was unexpected as there was no evident misfiring, and being unused to the feeling of a 4V I did not detect anything out of order. When I changed the leads and plug caps there was a marked improvement in smoothness and power. I  had fitted a cheap digital rev counter which gets the signal from a wire wrapped around the coil to distributor lead and had attributed the slightly flickery reading to the nature of the £25 instrument - more fool me as once the leads had been changed it reads very steadily. Interestingly it also counts the hours run so I can see that my year's motoring has been done at an average speed of about 28mph.


Jobs to do include searching for the cause of vibration at about 2800rpm which could be engine or transmission and the need to improve the front suspension which had unfortunately been greased so that the shockabsorber function was absent. The steering seems a bit heavier than I expected and the right hand side gives out a clonk when crossing a pothole, of which North Yorkshire council provide us with plenty.

I've made a start, having had the propshaft balanced and last week having removed and dismantled the gearbox which needs new bearings and attention to wear on the mainshaft centre spigot and the clutch shaft spigot. More of that later.

Meantime I've more or less finished making the tools needed to strip the front suspension which as you can see from the picture include a large "G" clamp to remove the lower spring, an unusual spanner with 4 pegs to remove the kingpin, a "C" spanner ( not yet cut to form the "C"), two castle box spanners, and a large double ended ring spanner for the top of the pillar.

Keeps me going!!

Mike

Love the photo of the tools.  Am greatly looking forward to the saga continuing. 

Good to hear of progress, I did my front suspension a few months ago.
Both had water in them and as a consequence some rust. The damper rods were serviceable but one of the smaller damper drive springs was broken and the other rusty so had some more made, available if you need any.
The water was there because the upper dust cover was absent. The top cap has about a 12mm hole and the damper rod is 10mm. so nothing to keep the spray out.
I have not been able to find out what the original arrangement was, would be interested to know what you have. I have made a couple of push-on covers.

Mike I'll take some pictures for you - there was a rubber washer nipped by the  oiler nipple and the aluminium dust cover. I'm on with the gearbox at the moment so have not yet attacked the suspension.

I can do a running commentary on the these jobs as I do them if this is of interest to members. I am well aware that Morris Parry has covered much of this in the Newsletters but I find the reports on other models interesting so perhaps others will enjoy seeing how the Augusta works.

This was the state of play earlier in the week:-

Gearbox investigation so far!

We have a vibration which I am trying to track down. I worried at first that this could be the engine but after sorting out the ignition problem, making a new locating spider for the front fabric universal joint and having the propshaft balanced by Dunning and Fairbank in Leeds. I concluded it must originate in the gearbox or clutch. The u/j discs are in good condition.

The curious thing is that the vibration does not always show, but when it does, at about 45mph, it can often be suppressed by a quick pump of the clutch pedal. When in full vibrato mood, holding the clutch down and letting the revs drop makes no difference, so it is not engine related. The “quick jab at the clutch” cure must therefore mean clutch or gearbox - so out with the box and dismantle - hoping not to forget how it all goes together. Fortunately Morris Parry’s Newsletter tells all, and I am photographing it as I go.

Removing the box from underneath the car was surprisingly easy, with the help of a chum in case the whole thing fell onto me! I don’t have a pit, but with some extra tall axle stands at the front and blocks under the back wheels we could get to everything comfortably.

After removing the propshaft, and the lever controlling the freewheel, disconnecting the speedometer cable and clutch pedal link, lifting out the gearlever, propping the front of the engine with a simple wooden stand (the engine will tip forward when relieved of the weight of the gearbox) the clutch actuating fork must be disengaged. This is a very clever feature but you need to see it to understand - the fork which presses the thrust race is asymmetrical so it can be tilted away from the race and moved sideways to disengage from the race. The shaft on which the fork is mounted crosses through the bell housing and is retained by a circlip on the left of the bell housing. Having removed the circlip the shaft is pushed  in about 12mm to the right and wriggled about until it can be felt to have disenged the fork. This is a very ingenious feature and a good example of the fully designed nature of the Lancia - all thought out and drawn up rather than being made up as the prototype builders went along.

From this point the job was easy, just remove the cross bolt which supports the tail of the box and the five bell housing bolts then wriggle the box back and out - it clears everything, although only by millimetres and is light enough to manhandle with no need for props or jacks.


Next task was to strip the gearbox. A full description of the procedure is written up in the Augusta Newsletter and all went to plan.  All the gears look to be free of wear, including the notoriously noisy second gear - although it was noisy. The lock up driving dogs on the freewheel show no signs of tapering wear but the bearings were like the curate’s egg - good in parts - so I shall change them all.

Here are some photos

Mike

I am curious about the Salmson car, is that a Trials car built by Colin Salmson ?

Ha Ha! It's a nice little French light car which goes very well. Mike took me for a ride in it a few years ago and it's quite impressive.

"I can do a running commentary on the these jobs as I do them if this is of interest to members. "

PLEASE!!!

The clutch release is new to me. 

I enjoyed reading first and pictures after, the reverse of a magazine article.

I’ve taken the shafts and bearings to HB Bearings in Honley near Huddersfield to sort out replacement  bearings for those which are non standard sizes and also grind the circumferential grooves in the outer races of the three bearings which are located by a dowel. The tiny roller race between the input shaft and mainshaft is worn, as is the spigot on which it runs on the main shaft - there is a standard needle roller race which Karl Sanger has used here so I shall do the same, getting HB to grind the shaft and housing to fit. The front spigot on the input shaft which engages with a small bearing in the flywheel is also in poor shape and I’ll await HB’s suggestion for this - most probably a light grind to the shaft and then make a new ball race with a smaller bore to fit.

When I got the car the freewheel had been locked out of action and on a short You Tube video the previous owner mentions that the freewheel was a bit problematicaI so I did not try to re-activate it. Just as well as it turned out. There are no signs of the overheating which can arise if the driving dogs become worn to a taper and overload the freewheel selector fork but the 10mm bolt which screws into the tail end of the mainshaft to retain the freewheel cam and roller unit had sheared off and was floating loose within the freewheel driven drum. The bolt has an over-large hexagon head 27mm across flats so care is needed when tightening it. I managed to remove the detached end of the stud by cautiously drilling it with the shaft in my lathe and using an “Easyout” stud extractor. I made a new bolt of EN24T, and a new tab washer. The wire locking the freewheel lever out of action was holding the freewheel selector fork and cam/roller unit forward, taking load which would normally be taken by the now sheared off bolt. Ughhh! The freewheel seems to be perfect and does operate as it should when turned by hand although the selector fork is a bit worn as expected since it had been wired to hold the unit in the locked position.

The large ball race at the back of the mainshaft is a problem, being non standard in outside diameter so that when dismantling, the freewheel unit can be withdrawn from the back of the box. HB will make a new ball race to fit, a job they do frequently, being among other things, specialist bearing suppliers to the motor sport industry.

Apart from the bearings the rest of the gearbox parts, including gears, dogs and splines look to be in very good condition and the standard of finish and detail is superb. There are a couple of quirky bits of design. The large rear bearing is kept in place by a pair of 12mm studs, notched on one flank to straddle the outer race and inserted with the bearing into the housing which has semicircular grooves to take the studs, which are tightened by a dome nut outside the back cover of the box to pull the bearing back into place. Three bearings have circumferential groove round the outer race which engage with dowels inserted through the side of the gearbox. The input shaft main bearing is retained by a pair of Belville washers (a dished spring washer) retained by a 4mm pin through the shaft which has a notch at each end which allows the washer to lap over the pin onto the notch and so stop the pin from coming out.

Overall I am very impressed with the quality of the gearbox which was certainly a no expense spared piece of kit. Having owned and worked on a couple of vintage Rolls Royces I would say that the Augusta is well up there in quality and is perhaps like the RR, a bit more complex than it needed to be!

The Salmson is another story - I've owned it since 1984 and have done about 70,000 miles with it. A brilliant car, 1100cc twin overhead cam engine and weighs less than 600kg. It's done some epic trips and can cover the ground amazingly for its age as it has a happy cruising speed of 58-60mph at 3000rpm. Lots of trips to France and 20 years ago a double crossing of the USA with complete reliability.
Mike

I follow with great interest your proceedings of the gear box overhaul. Looks all very familiar to me.

Regarding the free wheel selector fork, I had mine straightened because it got bent while hot and then I had it welded up before ground to original dimensions.

In you picture No.10, I can see those dogs in very good condition, but the wear would be at the opposite part with the small dogs as in picture No. 5.  If those dogs are much worn, tapered, the only solution would be to make a new part 31-1739. There is an original drawing available.

For the unbalance you have described, it looks as there is a slight unbalance in the crankshaft/fly wheel assy. and in the clutch assy. Depending of the relative position of those part to each other, the inbalances add up or cancel themselves. I have had that on my car. One part in the clutch assy. which is unbalanced by design, is the clutch spring, which is very assymetric.
Another suspect would be the pressed sheet metal part which compresses the spring. The 6 mm holes can be enlarged, therefore the part can be displaced.

Regards

Karl

Fascinating as ever.  Has this been a living or "just" a very serious hobby? 

Have you a "potted history" of the Salmson, perhaps an old article you'd written, you could easily post on another thread?

"Belville washers" I last came across reading about the early active suspension Williams, I expect in one of the new style Haynes Manuals. 

Mike - the seal at the top of the pillar seems to have been a soft sponge rubber washer about 4mm thick on top of the pillar and beneath the dust cover, the whole thing being clamped down by the oiler nipple. My car seems to be pretty much unmolested as none of the rubber seals or bushes, washers etc seem to have been replaced so I think what you see in my picture is what was fitted from new. I had to replace the rubber supporting bushes under the engine mounts and they were certainly original, athough so compressed that I could not insert the (non existent - had to make that!) starting handle as the front of the engine  was so low.
Thanks for the offer of buffer springs - I may well need to take you up on that as the offside front suspension does clonk on potholes, however that comes after the gearbox job.


By the way has anyone found a source for the dust cap for these oiler nipples? They are similar to the Enots oilers and caps used on Rolls Royces, but smaller.

Mike

Now the gearbox bits are away to be fixed I am taking a look at the clutch which as Karl has mentioned could well be the source of vibration, certainly looking into the thrust race cover and spring, they do seem to be a bit off to the right. Picture 14. Very hard to photograph but with a feeler gauge the offset is about a millimetre.

To replace the ball race in the flywheel into which the very worn spigot end of the gearbox input shaft “fits”,  involves removing the clutch and taking off the flywheel to access the bearing. I ask myself whether the worn spigot is due to clutch imbalance, displacement of the spring retaining cover, or whether the clutch plate goes offset because the spigot is worn? Chicken and egg!

Another tool was needed and made today. Others have made a widget to engage with the fitting on the clutch shaft and compress the spring so that the bolts which hold the dished cover against which the clutch spring acts can be safely undone. I did not have a big enough piece of steel bar to do it that way so made a cross bar and plate which bolts to the bell housing flange on the crankcase which will take the load while the three bolts (tiny 6mm) are taken out and replaced by longer bits of studding to progressively unload the spring. It may be that the cross bar alone could do the job but it’s belts and braces for me as it’s a jolly strong spring. Picture 15.

It’s not possible to remove the small bolts one at a time and replace them with studding as the clutch cover is very lightweight and would distort. I suspect the original method was to use some sort of cross bar clamp as there are two 8mm holes diametrically opposite in the crankcase flange although oddly there is not enough room on the back of the flange for the head of a standard bolt. Not using these two holes creates a problem as the five gearbox mounting bolt holes are not diametrically opposed so an extra bridging strip is needed.

Karl I got the dogs wrong as you say! Here are the driving dogs which act when the freewheel is locked out. They are a bit worn but I think they will clean up with a slight grind on the flanks. Pictures 12 and13.

David thanks for your interest - I can bore forever on the Salmson but will just do a short bit on another  thread so as not to pollute the Augusta saga.

No I'm not a professional just a vintage petrolhead. I'm self taught as an engineer although I had a half share in an engineering company in which my business partner did all the engineering and I did everything else. My first car was a 1926 Bullnose Morris bought in 1954. Since then I've had and restored a couple of Rolls 20's, a Three Litre Bentley, the Salmson, and a 1907 Stanley Steamer. I've also restored a Brescia Bugatti and fiddled with some GN bits. All of these cars are still in action with their current owners which is very pleasing. I like fettling as much as motoring and enjoy the challenge of something new to me. I've no great interest in modern cars being a vintage man at heart, and the Augusta is the newest old car I have owned.

Mike

Here another tool for releasing the clutch spring.

regards  Karl

That's the way I do it, with a length of angle iron between the two holes, held in place with tapered nuts on studding. I also make sure the spring goes in the same way round each time, as well as everything else. A spiggot is also needed to centre the clutch plate. Please keep up the reporting, as it's very interesting.

Clutch removed last night without difficulty. As I suspected the spring is out of line. I’ll put some pictures on here tomorrow so you will understand how the clutch works - it’s very ingenious and very lightly built, the clutch plate weighing almost nothing which no doubt contributes to the extraordinary ease of changing gear despite the absence of synchromesh.

The spring is not original, but of heavier wire, 8mm x 9mm rather than 8 x 8, perhaps to discourage slip. The clutch cover plate is a very thin pressing and it looks like the stronger spring is right on the limit of loading for the cover plate as it is a bit distorted.

The problem is that the spring is not very accurate and the coils which should seat in a lipped recess in the thin steel cover plate are too tight a fit so that the spring is canted over a couple of mm to one side. This does not affect the clutch plate, which rides independently on the gearbox input shaft between the box and the flywheel  but because the clutch thrust race is carried on a tripod of thin spring steel there seems to be a possibility that the thrust race housing is pushed more on one side than on the other. This in turn might cause the clutch plate to be squeezed more at one side of the axis at the instant of engagement which would put an asymmetric load on the front spigot of the input shaft. This could explain the wear on the spigot and perhaps allow the clutch plate to move a little off line before being trapped as the clutch finally engages so contributing to an imbalance and vibration. It could also explain why the vibration I am chasing is affected by pressing the clutch pedal. Just a theory!

In fact the clutch behaves perfectly as a clutch, taking up smoothly, never slipping and permitting easy reversing up hills. I can’t fault it and the faces of the flywheel and the pressure plate are perfect and the lining absolutely unworn, flat and even.

Unless I can grind the existing spring to sit properly in the recess I’ll have to seek a new one from the supplier used by Dale Hicks a while ago.

Mike

I modified my Augusta's clutch by adding three small springs - a copy of Mike Wheeler's system because I found there was a tendency to slip after I fitted the blower.

Here is the Augusta clutch. Top centre is the pressure plate (the disc) with the central boss which carries the clutch release bearing. Inside the bearing is the clutch release dog, mounted on a  hollow shaft with a nut on the inner end which is pulled back by the action of the clutch pedal and via the thrust bearing pushes the pressure plate back away from the lining to disengage the clutch. The pressure plate unit is fixed to the flywheel by the three spring steel arms which flex to allow the plate to move away from the flywheel.

The spigot shaft, not shown, goes through the hollow centre shaft, is splined to the clutch plate and aligned by the gearbox input shaft between flywheel and box.

Top left is the cover plate, a very thin steel pressing, attached to the flywheel by three bolts, which compresses the spring against the central boss of the pressure plate unit.

The flywheel, most unusually does not fit to a taper on the crankshaft but is held in place and driven by four bolts which screw into the end of the crank - they are strong! I’ve seen that many of the components have a small round indent, showing that they were routinely tested for hardness, and this includes the four bolts.

Today I have made a fixture to prevent the flywheel from rotating while I undo the four flywheel bolts to replace the centre spigot ball race. I work on my own, often for a couple of hours in the evening so I don’t have a handy assistant.

Mike

On the last photo, I note that the friction plate is of a different construction as the original, which is made from aluminium, slotted and wavy. The linings are attached alternating to the front or rear of the plate. The original assembly has a weak point, that are the rivets who attach the plate to the splined hub. They can become loose allowing the hub to move on the plate, resulting in elongating the holes. The one of Mike's Augusta seems to have those rivets spaced on a greater radius.

Karl

My clutch plate is certainly different to Karl’s as the disc is steel rather than aluminium. It all looks fairly new and the riveting is really tidy, so perhaps having found that aluminium is a bit weak the previous owner substituted a steel version, or did the later cars use a steel plate (mine is 1936)?  With the cut out holes just inward of the lining it looks like a very professional job. See photo 16 above. The part behind the lining is wavy as it should be. . The more I look at this the more I suspect that it is a clutch plate from some other source rather than a specially made replacement but as I said it works perfectly.

There are other differences - the rivets attaching the linings are all on 133mm, not alternating diameters as in Karl’s photo. The centre boss of mine does not have the cylindrical flange seen on yours Karl. The rivets fixing the centre boss are on 43 mm diameter.

Decision time - new clutch spring ordered from Tested Spring Co, who previously made a batch for Dale Hicks. The spring is slightly stronger than the standard Lancia version but very similar to the rather inaccurately made spring on my car. Not cheap as a one-off at £98 plus carriage.

If anyone else would like to have one please let me know by Dec 16th and I will see if a better price can be negotiated.

Having looked into all the likely sources of vibration I could imagine in clutch, gearbox and transmission there remained the possibility that the problem might originate in the engine. So today I started the engine which is still in place in the car, but shorn of clutch and gearbox. The engine is now supported just by the two leaf springs which connect the crankcase to the chassis which appear to be more or less at the midpoint of balance as it stays level with no assistance apart from than the two radiator hoses. However I supported the sump at both ends just to be safe.

I let it warm up and then cautiously let it rev up to 3800 rpm. It’s bad for an engine to rev free of load so the test was very brief but nothing untoward happened - no obvious vibration periods so that’s a relief. The flywheel runs absolutely true both in rotation and wobble. I did note that the starter pinion just occasionally tinkled against the flywheel teeth at tickover. A good result!

Mike. Thanks for the detail on the dust cover and all the other posts. I am following it all with interest so please keep at it .
I didn't drive our Augusta before I repaired everything so I don't know what noise, if any, my broken drive spring would have made but from my (limited) experience with Ardea and Aprilia the clonking could be from the bottom bush, particularly if it was only lubricated with grease.
The Ardea also had similar clonking from play in the bearing housing fixed with locktite.

The flywheel runs absolutely true both in rotation and wobble. I did note that the starter pinion just occasionally tinkled against the flywheel teeth at tickover.
 I'll see if I can find a spare pinion return spring for you.

John thanks re starter spring. I'm not in there yet but will let you know if I need one, and if you find it!

Not much progress - precedence given to domestic decorating last weekend - we moved house a couple of years ago and there are still some projects in hand. House is 110 years older than the Augusta but perhaps not as well made.

I've ordered a new clutch spring and have silver soldered the parts for the front suspension tools. This evening I removed the front brake drums which it seems have been skimmed. It has had new moulded linings fitted and the rubbing contact is uniform all around and across each shoe - no wonder it stops well - the brakes are massive for the size of car. I'll change the wheel bearings to sealed  ones as a precaution although the shielding of the brakes from escaping grease looks very thorough. It was very satisfying to find that the stub axle threads and the nuts are pristine with no brutal burring or monkey wrench marks as are the slotted screws holding the backplates to the pillar housings. This seem to be the case with every part seen so far.

Mike

Dismantled the front suspension today. All the tooling made to Morris Parry's Newsletter drawings worked fine. The hardest task is to remove the lower cap retaining the main  spring, a two man task, using a jack to hold the tool in place to free the thread and then the monster "G" glamp to take the load of the spring as the cap is unscrewed. It takes two to do this as heaving on one end of a 5ft lever is not enough and makes the car on its tall axle stands seem very unstable. However with the bar (a 1 metre length of 25mm steel bar)  extended through the box spanner with a pipe on the the other end we each had about 800mm of leverage, symmetrically applied, and the cap was soon freed.

No broken springs and so far nothing seems unduly worn, however it was filled with grease which just does not allow the shockabsorber valves to work, as noted when  using the car. More investigation needed and perhaps (Christmas preparations permitting) tomorrow when I'm a bit less greasy, some pictures.

Mike

Getting very grubby today cleaning up front suspension parts. Lots of springs (five per side!), numerous tiny spring and ball or plunger flow valves and unfortunately masses of grease. On the off side spring unit several of these flow valves were tightened to the point where no flow could occur, and the brass head of the cylinder was mounted upside down so that the rebound shock absorber action was lacking as I had noted.

The operating piston has a thin steel disc non return valve which I replaced, and the face of the piston was worn and renovated by lapping with a diamond lap plate.

All these parts are tiny as the bore of the shock absorber cylinder is only 24mm and the threads on some of the bits are of minute 0.75mm pitch. Beautifully made though.

Mike

Progress between crackers and Christmas cake.

I finished dismantling the sliding pillars. The nearside main spring is distorted at the lower end so that the coils do not sit flat on the thrust bearing when not under load. The track of the bottom race shows evidence of this in the wear marking although the bearing seem to turn smoothly. I can see no reason why the spring is distorted as unlike the clutch spring, it seems to be original, not a dodgy replacement but I’ll have to sort that out.

At this point I checked the sliding pillars for wear by cleaning all the grease off the pivot and bushes then replacing the bottom (spring retaining) cover without the springs so that free play can be felt. With the spring in place, the spring pressure masks any play. There was nothing detectable in the top bush but a small amount could be felt in the bottom pivot.

I disconnected the brake pipes and removed the complete stub axle, brake and swivel unit so I shall have to refill and bleed the brakes later. Not a problem though as I have to replace the brake fluid reservoir which is corroded, There is a Girling replacement which is used on the Series 1 Land Rover from 1954-58 and readily available - it is very similar to the original Lockheed part, just needing a change of mounting strap and the correct flared pipe fitting (UNF 7/16 x 20tpi ) to the outlet pipe.

Now I had to remove the lower spring pivot (effectively the bottom end of what on lesser cars would be called the kingpin), the bush for which is the bore of the lower spring retaining cover  The most difficult part of the job is to remove the small circlip which retains the pivot. The circlip is inside the bore of the pivot and can only be attacked from beneath the axle end while grovelling on the floor. With this removed the pivot is easily unscrewed for inspection.

Both pivots showed some wear, which is as expected more pronounced on the side towards the centre line of the car. Checking the clearance between pivot and bush with a narrow feeler gauge showed about 4 thou on the most worn area (0.1mm) and 3 thou on the least worn area (0.08mm). The pivots which are slightly barrel shaped show a wider band of wear on the loaded side. The “bush” seems unworn with no marking or measurable departure from its 35mm bore.
I’d like to rectify the wear on the bottom pivots but how? Others have built them up with braze or white metal or I suppose they could be hard chromed and reground. I’m reluctant to use any heat on this rather critical component which must be made of high quality heat treated steel. It is also a very difficult thing to reproduce should anything go wrong!

I wonder whether I could nickel plate to build up the worn area and then hand fettle to size. I’d copper plate first to give both a base and a “guide coat” for the fettling then nickel the worn area. I’d get a home nickel plating kit and experiment before committing to the job but also need to find out whether plating can by hydrogen embrittlement damage the steel. Nickel or maybe cupronickel should have sufficient wear resistance for the task.

Now back to the Christmas cake.

Mike

I took the flywheel off to replace the 10x30x9mm spigot bearing which carries the nose of the gearbox input shaft - my clamp to prevent rotation while undoing the four bolts worked perfectly and also held the flywheel in place until I was ready to take it off. There was very little oil leaking from the rear main bearing. There is a large oil scroll on a fitting on the engine side of the flywheel and very well designed channels for leakage to be returned to the sump. The spigot bearing seems OK but I’ll replace it with a sealed version.

Back to the sliding pillars and shock absorbers. I’d already spotted that the tiny spring loaded non return valve at the bottom end of the shock absorber spindle on the offside (R/H) had been screwed up tight, completely stopping oil flow and I now see the consequence of this. The cap closing the lower end of the bore of the lower spring pivot, within which the shock absorber spindle slides had been forced off its seat by hydraulic pressure of oil which had no other escape route. The non return valve is just a ball and spring in the end of the tubular spindle with a tiny spider further up the tube for the spring to seat on. The screw which provides a seat for the ball screws into the end of the spindle but there seems to be nothing to stop it from being screwed right in and locking the ball between cap and coil bound spring, and nothing to stop it from unscrewing. Perhaps it was originally retained by solder - maybe a job for Locktite.

In view of this, and all the grease, it's no surprise that the shockabsorber function was poor  on that side.

Mike

Mike ,could you not drill 2 holes diametrically opposite each other and put a small splitpin in when the screw is in the correct position, or is there no room?
Excellent article by the way. Even though I have zero knowledge of Augustas and that type of suspension, I find any engineering problems/solutions interesting, as we learn something new everyday.

The tube is the main piston rod of the shockabsorber which is a good sliding fit in the bottom pivot of the sliding pillar so nothing can protrude from the outer surface of the tube. I wonder whether the screw might have originally been stopped by the end of the thread but that this has been made deeper than it should be by some misguided person running a tap in to clean the thread? Or perhaps the screw was soft soldered in place.

Mike

There is no history of the valve becoming loose. The screw is spring loaded via the ball and for additional safety, loctite or similar can be added. The original drawing does not show anything securing the screw.

Regards Karl

Mystery solved Karl - thanks for the drawing.     In the drawing it does look as though the screw should be stopped by the end of the thread and on the left side suspension of my car this is the case and the ball is still free to move with the screw fully tightened. On the right side, which has the end cap of the lower suspension pivot displaced, the cap screws further in until stopped by the ball contacting the inner stop pin. So is seems that my guess about the thread having been cut deeper is right - so Locktite it is!

Happy New Year to all - I've had my Salmson out today for 110km on a locally organised NYD run (a tradition local members of the VSCC have maintained since 1980) followed by a pub lunch in magnificent sunny weather.

Here are an Alvis 12/50, Chenard Walcker, Vauxhall 30/98 and the Salmson at the pub.

Mike

Gosh it’s March already!

Steady Lancia progress, interrupted by the need to go over the steering of my Salmson which was becoming a little wandery. I overhauled the steering box making a new bush for the droparm shaft and new thrust washers for both box and kingpins. The steering is only ¾ turn from lock to lock so has to be set up with very little play in the system. A nice design touch is that the bronze bush for the droparm shaft is bored about 0.25mm eccentric and can be rotated to adjust the mesh of worm and wheel. The Salmson uses about 25mm of trail (stub axle mounted 25mm aft of the kingpin) to give straight running and self centering and the kingpin itself should have no rearward inclination (castor). It turned out that the springs have settled a little since last reset in 1985 which had tilted t the kingpins forward, partially negating the positive trail. Wedges between spring and axle with a 2.25 degree taper resolved that and a short test run on a salt free day showed a worthwhile improvement. So now back to the Augusta.

I’ve obtained a new clutch spring to replace the one which was fitted which was of too large diameter to fit into the retaining cover as well as being rather askew. I’m hoping that this old spring was the cause of the vibration which sent me into the intricacies of the transmission.

I have also trued up the driven dogs of the freewheel unit which were slightly tapered, resulting in end thrust under load which had worn the selector fork, a known Augusta problem. The selector fork was welded and ground true and I set the freewheel unit up on a mandrel on a dividing head mounted horizontally on my milling machine so that each tooth could be ground by a diamond grinding disk in the chuck of the mill. The diamond disc of 22mm diameter came in a set of 6 for (£5.45 delivered!! Silverline via Amazon). The mandrel supplied is far too skinny so I made another of 20mm diameter so that the disc is supported across almost the full diameter and runs very true. This worked a treat and the job of grinding the teeth took just minutes and no more than 0.002 inch was needed to dispose of the taper. Working out how to do it and making the mandrels took much longer!

Of course dismantling the free wheel to regrind the teeth involved letting loose the nine small rollers which ride the central cam to give the free wheel effect. This is a pain as the rollers come in three diameters varying by 0.5mm and have to be fitted in the right order which at first sight is tricky unless you are equipped with ten fingers on each hand. I made a sleeve to fit over the roller unit with a slot through which the spring, the spring loaded stop, the larger, middle and smaller rollers can be inserted for each group of three, turning the sleeve as each is popped in.  Again a two minute job with the right tool.

I dismantled the front suspension and built in hydraulic shock absorbers to remove the grease which was clogging everything. As mentioned earlier I found a coil bound spring in the relief valve at the bottom end of the offside shock absorber spindle. It also turned out that the springs of the two tiny pressure control valves in the piston of the shock absorber were too long and completely coil bound. As the travel of these valve is only about 1.5mm, an extra 1.5mm of length of spring completely blocks the valves so it is hardly surprising that  the ride was a bit bouncy.

I compared the spring rate of the dodgy springs with those which seemed to be original on the nearside shocker. This was easily done by inserting the spring in a blind hole in the end of a brass rod so that the spring projected from the rod, then with the rod in the chuck of a pillar drill, the spring was pressed down onto kitchen scales to show the load needed to compress the spring by 3mm. The spurious springs were significantly stiffer than the originals as well as being too long. Now coil springs are not quite as one might think as, if they are shortened by cutting off a few coils, they actually become harder to compress so that was not an option for me. Springmasters in Redditch have a huge catalogue of springs and within a couple of days I had a sample which seemed about right when tested. I bought three sets, weaker and stronger than the sample to try in situ and in fact my sample was the closest to the original. I then assembled the shock absorbers and oiled them to get a feel of their action. Result both shock absorbers had the proper easy action on bounce and stiff action on rebound, however the offside shock absorber was now noticeably stiffer than the nearside. I tried swapping shock absorbers from nearside to offside and the stiffness was related to the shocker not to the pillar which forms the cylinder in which the piston slides. Swapping the valve springs to put the weakest springs in the stiffest shocker improved matters so I will leave it at that. I did note that the piston of the weaker shocker had been chromed in the past but was still about 0.005 inches less in diameter than that of the stiffer one so quite probably leakage around that piston explains the difference in stiffness.

If you are wondering why shortening a coil spring makes it stiffer, imagine two spring torsion bars of different lengths. Twisting the shorter through a few degrees takes more effort than twisting the longer through the same amount. A coil spring is just  a coiled up torsion bar in which, when the coils are compressed, the twisting of the bar provides the resistance.

I managed to straighten the distorted main suspension spring for the offside pillar by brute force using a large pipe wrench to tweak the lowest two coils into line. All re-assembled and feeling quite free now it is properly lubricated. I must say I can’t see how, when oil is applied to the top of the pillar, the excess over the running level can do anything other than dribble out over the knuckle of the axle for a couple of days as it has nowhere else to go. Just have to catch it with a bit of cardboard against the tyre and then mop the floor.

Hopefully the gearbox bits should be ready at HB Bearings next week so that both Lancia and Salmson will be ready for Spring, whenever that comes. :)

Mike

Mike,

Thank you very much for keeping us informed on the process of work on your Augusta.

Regarding filling the front shock absorbers with oil, I found the instructions from the owners manual resulting in a patch of oil on the floor (and tyre)
Unfortunately one does'nt know when the oil needs to be replenished unless most of the oil is gone and the wheels start bouncing.
When I want to know if there is enough oil and the shock absorber is working fine, I proceed as follows:
Jack up the front
remove front wheel(s) (for better access)
remove upper aluminium dust cover by unscrewing the oil nipple
unscrew top cover
remove damper rod drive springs upper, flat nut and lower.
Now the rod can be moved up and down full travel. There must be resitance felt in both directions, especially when reversing the sense of travel at the bottom. If there are any light spots, then there is air in the cylinder. By filling a little oil at the top of the rod and repeated movement of the rod, the air can be expelled. If there is uninterrupted resistance both ways, the absorber is fine and no more oil needs to be added.

I hope this helps

Karl

Thanks Karl - a tedious process but it is logical. A very strange design oversight on Lancia's part! Perhaps one could fit a glass sight gauge to see the level as on a steam locomotive boiler. ;)

The oiler nipples are like the Enots equivalent fitted by Rolls Royce in the 1920's but smaller. I don't have an original oil gun and so I have to temporarily replace the nipples with a modern version to oil the pillar. I shall have to make an appropriate size connector for my oil gun.

I must say the whole process of oiling is a very messy job and can see why people were tempted to use grease. I bought a rather expensive Wanner oil gun which was claimed to be intended for oil not grease but it leaked oil everywhere as the pressurised oil flowed back past the piston and came out at the wrong end of the gun. I made a new piston in aluminium with an "O" ring to replace the rubbishy plastic piston supplied in the gun. This solved that particular leak and I suspect the gun supplied must have been fitted with the wrong piston in the first place.

Mike

I have used a Wanner oil gun bought new in 1968; loaded with 140 oil it has never shown any sign of leaking ...

In 1968 they still made quality stuff....I was born in 1968  :D

Now it's just difficult to find quality gear, and sadly even a high price is not always a guaranty for good stuff.

No physical progress this week as I am awaiting the gearbox bearings and so on from HB Bearings and hoping to collect them tomorrow.

However I've been looking closely to see whether is is possible to replace the free wheel with an overdrive 5th gear. Probably will never do it but the thought process keeps the mind ticking over and if it were done would be a nice improvement.

I'm thinking of a simple mainshaft/layshaft arrangement with helical gears for silence an a simple dog engagement. A very similar overdrive box is used in the US to fit in the torque tube of the Ford Model A. Sold as the Mitchell overdrive. It would involve making a modified layshaft for the main box and a new rear cover but no further modifications to the gearbox.

I'm curious to know how the fifth gear was done on the Ardea. Pictures of the Ardea 5 speed gearbox show what looks like an extra compartment at the back, although this is also present on the 4 speed version. Has anyone been into an Ardea box and are there any parts book drawings or even better proper sectional drawings?

I'm also a bit flummoxed with the gear pitch on the Augusta box. The plain spur gears for 1st and second are 3 Module pitch (three mm of pitch diameter per tooth) and there are a total of 39 teeth per set which indicates a shaft centre distance of 58.5mm which is correct. However the silent third gear which is helical is of a different pitch as the pair have a total of 41 teeth although obviously fitting the same shaft centres. My problem is that I can't find a matching pitch gear on any of the Goggleable gear charts. I'll have to take it to a gear cutter for advice - unless anyone reading this knows something.

Mike

I came across this useful website

 https://www.carpdfmanual.com/lancia/

which has many Lancia manuals available free to download. There is a manual for the 4 speed Ardea which does show an empty compartment at the back of the main box. Perhaps Lancia always intended to offer the Ardea with 5 speeds but only implemented it after the war. I could just do with a sight of the manual for the 5 speed version.

Mike

Found a drawing of the Ardea 5 speed unit on this site in the Ardea section.
https://www.lancia.myzen.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2742.msg53836#msg53836

 I need a bit of time to get my head round it but translating the design to the Augusta box does look feasable. At least when we locked down by the plague I'll have somethong to think about.

Mike

The 5th gear of the late Ardea takes the drive from an extension of the layshaft on the main box and gears it up to a gear on the output shaft. A bit of a compromise because the layshaft is already geared down from the input shaft so the step up gear has to be correspondingly  higher ratio than it would be for a simple step up overdrive. I wonder if the Ardea 5th gear is noisy - has anyone any experience of this?
.
Mike

Time flies when your having fun!  Lots done since my last report - in the garden (mornings, under supervision!!) as well as on the Augusta (pm). No time to think about 5th gear recently but will return to the subject later.

The front suspension is all back together, the new brake fluid reservoir in place and the brakes bled and refilled with new Dot 4 fluid. A Gunson pressure brake bleeding kit worked well as long as I pumped the pedal as each cylinder was refilled.

The gearbox shafts and new bearings were collected just before we were locked up. A snag arose in that the three deep groove double angular contact thrust bearings which are each attached to the end of a shaft by tightening a nut, proved to be tighter than seemed right so have to go back for rectification, at the moment held up by you know what.

I had planned to get the car up and running by now and to leave attention to the engine until next Winter. However I decided to lift the engine out, inspect what I can, deal with the oil leaks and fix anything else which turns up.

Working on my own with the aid of my engine crane, removal of the engine was straightforward, more so as the gearbox was already out. With straps looped around the engine bearers the engine is nose heavy (flywheel already removed) so an extra string looped around the fan pulley keeps it balanced. Unfortunately my home built engine support frame is a bit too wide and in any case would block access to the two crankcase side panels so the engine is now sitting on blocks on the floor - the effort of crouching down then getting up eliminates the need for less productive forms of exercise.

After a good scrub with solvent, and paint stripper on the cast iron parts I looked at all the gasketed joints to see where oil was escaping. It seems mainly from the fan bracket which acts as the front cover of the timing sprocket compartment, and from the crankcase side covers. The rear main bearing oil catching arrangement is fine and most of the leaks in that area came from the gearbox.

For those unfamiliar with the Augusta, the crankcase and sump are a single unit so that the crankshaft and bearings can only be accessed by removing the crankcase side panels which are pressed steel plates attached by means of screws along the rim. The gasket is compressed by the screws and tends to bulge between them letting oil out. Vintage Austin Seven owners will sympathise as their crankcase is closed at the  bottom by a similar plate which also leaks.

The immediate major problem was corroded studs, on the exhaust flange and the retaining stud for the water inlet elbow / tap. The exhaust flange has two 10mm studs with brass nuts, one of which unscrewed with some effort, more than I expected, while the other stud snapped, the nut being more or less fused to the stud.   Both studs were severely corroded.  I tried a roller type stud removing socket (which works in the same manner as the Augusta freewheel!) to no avail so had to resort to drilling out the core of the studs, and wangling the remaining thread out.  I shortened both studs to about 12mm, trued up the ends with a file and then made a sleeve bored 10mm to fit the stud at one end and 6.35mm (¼ inch)  at the other to fit a centre drill which would give me a true centre for the main drilling operation. I did this in two stages, first with a 6.35mm drill then (in another 10mm / 8.7mm sleeve) with an 8.7mm left hand drill bit, which clears the core of the stud, leaving just the thread behind. The left hand threaded bit came in an inexpensive set of 4 sizes from Sealey. No doubt the idea is good but the drill bit was far less able to bore into the stud than a normal drill bit and with a severely corroded stud, the L/H rotation failed to wind the threads out as it should so I pried out a couple of turns and then used an M10x1.5 bottoming tap ground flat on the end to make a clean cut. It is a very fiddly job, made more so by having to work with the engine on the floor and concern that I might damage the cylinder head but both studs came out leaving clean threads in the head.

I then had to tackle the manifold face on the head which was badly rusted and eroded. Two hours of filing and lapping made a reasonable job of it, although if the head were off, the milling machine would have been quicker.

The water inlet stud was corroded down from 8mm to 5.5mm at one point so there was
no chance that it could be unscrewed. The boss in the cylinder block into which the stud screws is recessed within the water inlet and so is truly hard to access but I was at least able to lay the engine on its side making it much easier to work. I cut the stud off flush with the end of the inlet pipe and made an 8mm/6.35mm sleeve to guide the centre drill and followed this up with another sleeve to take a 4mm drill down the stud as a pilot for the 6.35mm drill. This worked really well and the hollowed out portion of the stud came away in one piece with a very thin wall (imagine a corroded 8mm with a bore of 6.35mm) leaving me with a nicely centred 4mm hole into the remains of the  stud in the block. However  I now discovered that the boss had already been drilled and tapped 9mm, and worse, the tapped hole in the boss was about 0.8mm eccentric relative to the boss. I made a new stud, having spotted that the hole on the aluminium outlet fitting was offset, optimistically thought that would accommodate the offset. No such luck as the aluminium casting ( a repro version) had been machined slightly skew and would not seat properly on the block with the new straight stud. I set it up true in my aged milling machine and relocated the hole so at last it all goes together with the water passage of block and casting aligned.

The next job is to make new studs, stainless steel for the water inlet (this had already been done for the outlet on the head) but what would be the most suitable steel for the exhaust studs? Instinct says stainless steel but this has a reputation for galling up and seizing in hot conditions, and the exhaust port on the Augusta gets truly hot, believe me.
There is no need for huge strength so I thought perhaps mild steel with a brass nut would be the best choice. Has anyone any thoughts on this?


Mike

The next job was to remove the cylinder head to make sure there are no particular issues leading to excessive heat in the exhaust port area. Easier said than done as the stud holding the head at that corner was completely seized into the head and so had to be drilled out. Not easy as I could see no way of mounting the engine under the pillar drill to keep the job aligned. However I managed to drill the stud down to about 12 mm above the face of the block, then used a mini jack between the exhaust outlet and the bell housing to raise the head - very carefully after heating the corner of the head to 200C. The roller type stud remover was able to grip the remains of the stud and with heat, it unscrewed so no more nerve wracking drilling was needed. When I said I would retire to stud I didn’t mean this!!

With the head off I found that the waterway between block and head, right in the exhaust corner was just a tiny 5mm hole, whereas the gasket has an 11mm hole at this spot. I suspect the engine is rather a bitza and that the block and head are earlier than the 1936 date of the car. Later cars have a 10mm hole in block and head as per the gasket so perhaps this small hole was a factor - certainly the flow of water in this corner must be minute. I enlarged the hole, having to slightly offset it from the 5mm hole to line up with the gasket. The other water passageways which wriggle their way around the internal inlet and exhaust ports all seemed to be clear of crud and I soaked the head for 24hrs in Fernox F3 central heating descaler.

I’m mulling over whether to take the common route of adding a second exhaust port on the side of the head to divert the exhaust from cylinders one and two, or whether to seek another way of removing heat from the back corner with an extra water outlet at that point, or perhaps feeding more water in by means of an auxiliary electric pump. It’s not a case of general overheating, just that local hot spot. As the Augusta when new clearly worked in a hot Italy driven by hot shoe Italians, perhaps, having enlarged the hole, I need do nothing more.

Now for the good news, the head has all new guides and valves which will just need a light regrind, the bores are oversized to 71mm and seem unworn. It has new Alloylit pistons which look perfect. The crank has been reground but it is only about 0.35 mm undersize, the journals are unworn and the white metal bearings are perfect. The cam drive idler bearing and eccentric spigot is unworn, the camshaft bearing bores in the head have no play, the cams are slightly worn but the rocker arm cam follower faces need a regrind so I shall have to copy Morris Parry's grinding rig.

However it is just as well I’ve opened it up as the split pins on the conrod bolts were badly fitted and too thin so that some had worn and fallen out.  Why were they like this? Presumably because it is so damned fiddly to get the castle nuts and the hole on the bolt to line up, while at the same time trying to apply the right torque to the nut when the only access is via the open sides of the crankcase. One useful tip is to make a couple of small centre punch marks on the free end of the bolt, wiping them with white paint or Tippex so that the alignment of the hole can be seen as the nut is tightened. To get the alignment and torque right I had to skim a minute amount from the underside of the nut - not much as turning the nut by one flat only represents 0.16 mm. I would I have used all metal (Philidas) self locking nuts in this situation to avoid split pins but so far I have not found such nuts with the correct 1mm pitch and in any case my bolts are fractionally too short for the self lockers.

I need to get a new gasket - most likely from Johnson's Gaskets whom I have used before - he's speaking of a 2 week delivery time on receipt of my old gasket, which as seen in the photo is of the original type. The new gasket will be copper/asbestos substitute which I hope will better transfer heat than the more modern composition variety.

Mike

With great interest I follow your findings of your Augusta engine. Now you have reached the "hot spot". Many years ago this problem was raised initially by Kees Jan Boosman. I always wondered why I did'nt have any heat problems on my car but other Augusta owners had problems and even went to great lenghts to modifiy the cylinder head by fitting a second exhaust port.
Over time, I was able to inspect a number of cylinder heads and compare the connections of the water channels near the No. 4 Cylinder. I found that at some cylinder heads one or more water channels where blocked, this of course would impair the cooling of this particular hot spot. My guess is that on some cylinder heads, during the casting process, the very small sand cores have collapsed and closed up the water channels. On the photo I have marked the channels by colored wires. I have fond that on some cylinder heads the blue and/or the red channel were blocked. Obviously those cylinder heads will not stand up to the heat and cracking of the valve seats etc. can occur.
The diametre of the water way between block and head is 6 mm by original drawing, I did enlarge that to 11 mm as well.

Originally, there were treads for attaching the water outlet and tap, not studs.

Regarding the conrod bolts, I think it was a good idea to check the split pins. I once had a split pin gone astray and the result was the conrod going through the side cover. Some times a small mirror helps to align the castellated nut with the bore in the bolt.

Regards  Karl

Karl all the passageways you trace with coloured wire were clear even before I de-scaled the head so the problem must relate to the hole we have both enlarged. I see from the cylinder head discussion in the Augusta Newsletter that people have been able to drill through that hole and enlarge the passageway behind the spark plug. On my head I would not dare do that as there does not seem to be enough metal there for a larger hole to be made, although the passageway itself is clear.

I have also pushed a wire down the long water passage above the exhaust, feeding the wire in through the water outlet at the front of the head. The wire went right to the end of the passage so there is neither crud nor foundry sand left there.

I wonder whether, without modifying the head I could draw more heat out at the critical end of the exhaust outlet by inserting a finned copper plate in place of the gasket between head and exhaust downpipe. I would make it 12 or 15mm thick, the same general shape as the gasket/flange but with three fins projecting radially outward 15mm or so.

I wonder if in its earlier life the carburation was running too weak which would have led to overheating. I did have a problem with an incompatilblity between the fuel tap which is Augusta, and the fuel filter which is Ardea which requires the filter to be mounted at a slight tilt to avoid restricting fuel flow. This might not be noticed on flat roads but was immediately obvious on our Yorkshire hills. It took me some time to find out why the engine just faded away on hills but was fine on the flat and did not get too hot in normal use. It certainly performed better once I'd worked this out.

I must say writing this up on the forum certainly helps to bring ideas into my head -as well as the Augusta's ;)

Mike

What surprises me is the "fire ring" of the gasket especially over #4 is perilously close to (and also covers (seen from Karl's photo) those miscreant water ways. On a much later lancia engine of the Fulvia the head gasket has a few punched out holes for water ways that do not line up with the holes in the head/block castings. The thought was they developed the gasket to act as a restrictor to get the right temperatures around the block/head. It is a weird though.

To lob another idea into the pot, from the research of modern fuel in classic engines, it has been found that classic engines with distributors run better with about 5 degrees of extra static advance. So running by the manufactures settings is in effect causing more heat than optimum running (more power less heat). We all know a retarded engine gets hotter. Just a thought....

Yes the holes in the gasket are far smaller than those in the head. The Augusta Newsletter reported some experiments to investigate the water flow which did indeed show that the flow could be modified but I'm not convinced that any of us know better than Lancia did when the engine was developed.

You could be right on the ignition/fuel issue but that will await the end of lockdown and remantling the car. When investigating the mixture problem I was very tempted to buy an Air Fuel Ratio gauge and in fact ordered one which failed to arrive as the importer went bust. I did get my money back. I had previously fitted one to a Twenty hp RR and found it very useful to control Mr Royce's strange carburettor. The Weber on the Augusta is also a bit odd as the "choke" is also a lean mixture control and to use that function it would be good to know what is going on. I recommended the AFR gauge to my ex business partner who has a Phantom 2 of 7.6 litres - the gauge he said, paid for itself very quickly - easy when you are getting 12mpg.

I cleaned up the valves this evening - the exhaust valves and seats of the two rear cylinders were noticeably more eroded than the others.

Mike

When I cleaned the head with Fernox F3 descaler the brew was blue-green afterwards which I assumed was a part of the process. Once the head was dry I could see the same blue colour on the internal ports but again thought nothing of it.


Today on looking inside the block and scraping off deposits I found the same blue colour, underneath the deposits, almost like paint. I wonder if this was some early means of reducing corrosion? The block has not yet been chemically descaled so it's not that. Any ideas?


Mike

My guess: The colour of the anti-freeze backed onto the hot exhaust channel.

Regards  Karl

Gasket ordered from Bob Johnson who quoted £96 and 2-3 weeks delivery.

I looked for a source of new big end bolts and found that the MGs from TB to TD, and the 1950’s Wolseley 4/44 which use the XPAG engine have a bolt which is suitable, being M8 x 1mm pitch, a size which was used in the UK from the 1920’s to the 50’s and known as System International (SI). The only variation being that the MG bolt has a filet radius under the head whereas the Lancia bolt is relieved at that point, a slight countersink on the seating on the rod would solve that. They are available either as very high tensile (12.9 grade) which are very carefully torqued up to a measured amount of stretch and do not need locking nuts, or in a more normal (presumably Grade 10.9) variety with a castle nut and split pin. I dismissed the extra strong variety as there is no way to set the torque so accurately since no torque wrench will fit through the crankcase side panel. (Picture 46). Unfortunately the other variety when I bought a set turned out to be a disappointment as they were not accurate in diameter and a slack fit to the rods. So at the moment I shall content myself with checking the existing bolts, which seem OK and not stretched or otherwise dodgy.

The head  is away to have the face resurfaced in honour of the new gasket and the exhaust seats ground. The valves and guides seem good, the guides new and the valve stems a very good fit so nothing needed there. However I’ve just been advised that the number 4 exhaust valve head can fall off due to the excess heat in that corner and that there is a stainless steel Nissan valve which can be fitted so I’ll mull that over.

The next job was to look at the water pump body for corrosion, to replace the ball race at the pulley end which was noisy at tickover,  and check the bronze bearing and seal on the spindle at the impellor end.

They are a bit fiddly to dismantle and at least one special tool is needed. The bearing is retained in the pulley by a threaded disc which has four peg holes to take a tool rather like those used to take the disc off an angle grinder. Luckily I had an adjustable version of this which worked well, provided the pegs are kept tight into the holes. A hydraulic puller with claws long enough to bite on the solid part of the pulley removed the pulley from the bearing.(Picture 47)

Next to remove the ball race from the housing another tool was made following Morris Parry’s design with four short pegs on the rounded end which fits into the plug. The pegs were cut from the shank of a 4mm drill bit and were pressed with drop of Loctite into slightly undersize holes in the end of the tool. I found that putting the pump body in the chuck of the lathe and pressing the peg spanner with the tailstock allowed the plug which retains the bearing to be unscrewed. The bearing was then pulled off using another puller which by chance was exactly the right size. (Picture s 47,49,50,51)

So with it all dismantled I found that the alloy pump housing was fairly corroded but that although the spindle is worn a little by the traditional asbestos gland seal, the rest of the spindle and the bronze bearing are sound. As the gland does not leak in use I shall leave that alone and just replace the ball race. This is an odd size, but available from Simply Bearings. KG Brand 98305 Deep Groove Ball Bearing 25x62x12mm. I would have preferred a higher quality SKF but the KG seems to be the only one around and for £6.24 plus post and VAT I can hardly complain. A similar size double sealed bearing is used on the crankshaft of a Vespa scooter and seemed a good choice for the pump. However these are C3 grade which means a relatively slack clearance for use in very hot situations and I am told would probably be noisy at radiator temperature.

The corrosion of the pump casing is not terminal (he said hopefully!) so I shall use JB Weld Original metal filled epoxy putty to protect the corrosion. I have even used ordinary Araldite in similar situation before so the JB Weld should do the trick. (Picture 52)

Mike

Mike,

Following my experience with the aurelia engine valve drop, I would suggest renew them if a suitable replacement is available.  I would'nt take the risk as the extra cost is probably low in the total rebuild cost....

I agree. Mine are Nissan and needed very little modification to make them fit.

John do you have the part no or model for the Nissan valve and what mods are needed to make it fit. It was your experience mentioned to me by Mike Rauhaage which put me on to this. Does it go with the original Lancia springs and valve collets and caps? It does seem a good idea while I'm in there. Thanks.
Mike

Sorry, no. I didn’t keep a record of the part number. I had to modify where the collets fit to suit the Lancia collets. I remember taking an Augusta valve to Paines near Oxford and asked “what have you got like this?”

I'll delve a bit myself on the valves then. I've used similar stainless grade valve (ex Austin 1100) in my Salmson and they last very well - so far at least 65,000 miles.

I’m thinking about the problem of the overheating corner of the cylinder head due to the integral manifold and tortuous water circulation in that area.  Having no spare cylinder head I don’t wish to make an extra exhaust port for cylinders 1 and 2 which has been used solve the problem but I have a couple of ideas to throw at you for comment.

First and very simply replace the usual copper/”asbestos” gasket at the flange joint to the down pipe with a sort of heat exchanger to draw heat from the flange on the head. This would consist of a sandwich of 3mm copper plates, three of normal flange outline alternating with three of similar outline but 12mm larger all round to form fins. It has the advantage of eliminating the insulating layer of “asbestos”.

Secondly and also rather simple, increase the coolant flow by fitting an auxiliary 12volt electric water pump drawing from the bottom of the radiator and feeding to the back of the cylinder block above the starter motor with an internal nozzle directed upwards at the 10-11 mm water passage to the head right at the back corner. The nozzle might also have a sort of venturi effect, pushing more water from the block into the head. This would enhance the flow, rather than possibly interfering with it if the additional water were fed directly into the head. One of these pumps  advertised has water pipes of 10mm bore and flows 9 litres of water per minute which sounds about right when compared to the output of the main pump which I read is 36 litres/minute at 2600 engine rpm The auxiliary pump could no doubt be electrically controlled to lower output if needed and or thermostatically controlled.

Any thoughts?

Mike

My only thought on the cooling issue is that you're breaking new ground, so doubt there's a substitute for experiment.  As for which to try first?  The heat sink is a lovely idea.  Perhaps the challenge is knowing if its working.  How are you going to measure temperature at the spots that matter?

With the rest of progress greatly enjoyed from my arm chair.  Using the lathe to hold that tool in place was clever.

Mike, The valves are from a Nissan Vanette Serena 2.3 D LD23
Sorry, meant to have included that info.
Mike

No easy way of measuring temp inside apart from adding a thermometer probe to the back of the head but experimentally an IR thermometer gives a good local reading of the outside of the casting.

Thanks for the valve info Mike

Mike

Don't know too much about Augustas, so forgive adding to this interesting thread.

On the exhaust port issue - attached find a revision done in Australia, that looked pretty impressive. One can imagine that long periods of high speed running (expressway?) wouldn't make cyl 4 area very happy. This seems like a pretty good solution which I'm sure you all know....

On the choke mechanism - just learned that the early Aurelia B20 with two single barrel Weber 32DRSP carbs had an odd choke mechanism - where there was off, then fully out was choke on, but the middle position was called "ESA" or Economy-Super-Aspiration, and leaned the mixture out. Might be similar.... More detail here: http://www.lanciaaurelia.info/carburetors1.html

If there are more images of the crankshaft in the car, please post! Fascinating to see. Especially the center bearing housing.
Interested to see how you end up.

Thanks!

The extra port is an attractive idea or would be if I had a spare head (for the car of course :)) but as there are many who run Augustas without major problems and the cooling  must have been alright in Italy when new I’m looking for a less radical solution.

I have a feeling that the long term owner and restorer of the car in Italy probably used it more for shows than energetic motoring as when I first ran it I had a lot of trouble with fuel starvation on long hills or at speeds over 50mph. This turned out to be due to a design incompatibility between the fuel filter which is Augusta, and the tap which is Ardea, a problem which took a long time to diagnose but once done, noticeably improved the performance as well as the starvation. I suspect it had been running too weak for years.

Augustas like mine with the Weber carburettor have the same economy weak mixture control as Geoffrey mentioned on the Aurelia. It is a quirky  feature which I’ve avoided using until, in future I fit an Air Fuel Ratio gauge so I know what is going on.

I found a very neat Bosch auxiliary water pump which looks ideal and is small enough to fit neatly under the dynamo, taking no more room on the left side of the engine than the Autoclean oil filter does on the right.

I've cleaned and dismantled the starter motor, a superbly made Bosch unit. Despite being fed 12v rather than the desiged 6V it seems in good shape, although the armature shaft has a bit of end float which can be resolved with a thin spacer washer. I'll also need to get the very slim spring which should be there to keep the pinion from tinkling against the starter ring as the original was missing.


Mike

Hello all,
I am sorry, I cannot share the opinion that the Augusta engine has a tendency to drop valves. There is no history on that. It is true that there are heat problems on some Augusta cylinder heads and the cause has been found almost certainly beeing faulty castings. The lack of essential water channels causes overheating around No. 4 cylinder and the exhaust port. In general, the Augusta engine is capable of many ten thousends of km running if everything is within factory specs. It can climb the Stelvio pass 2760 m / 9000 ft without fuss or do 900 km / 560 miles on motorways in 12 hours incl. stops for petrol and food. Lancia quality.
Pardon my English.

Regards Karl

Karl - I'm happy to be guided by your experience on this - you car has been in the family for longer than many of us have been alive (not me though!). The only caveat would be if modern fuels do not suit the engine (I'm not worried about the ethanol content though as that was around throughout the 1930's to 1960 in the UK in Cleveland Discol at 15%) and if the car is driven too hard on motorways, remembering that it was probably rare in the past for a car to be able to go at full speed for more than a few miles - certainly in the UK. I'm just going to do what I can to cool that corner of the head.

Your English is perfect - a whole lot better than my Swiss ;). We lived in Bex les Bains in the Canton of Vaud for 9 months in 1963 and have very happy memories of that.

Cheerio
Mike

Ethanol petrol does not burn hotter according to the new book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Classic-Engines-Modern-Fuel-Solutions/dp/1787115909

worth a read through....

I dressed up the JB Weld repair on the pump impeller - more functional than pretty.(53)

Here is the starter drive pinion (54). There seems to be nothing to stop the pinion from floating forward to tinkle against the flywheel which it sometimes does. I thought a light spring was missing but now I don’t see how that would work as it would be squashed against the main spring when engaged. Can anyone advise?

The dynamo (55) is an original 6v Bosch marked RG 90/6 but running on 12volts with a replacement regulator (56) marked 12/130. I assume this permits the dynamo to operate on 12v which it seems to do happily. Can any electrical expert out there confirm that this is the case?

Mike

Mike,
I see you have one of the rare steel dogs.

On your starter motor the return spring is missing. I hope you have a spring maker on hand nearby. At rest, the dog is pulled back to the flange. On starting, the inertia enables the dog winding towards the ring gear and stops at the the heavy spring.

The dynamo does what the regulator tells it whatever voltage. However the voltage and current should be checked when back in use. Nominal output is 90 Watts. I think it will stand 130 Watts.

Regards  Karl

Karl - my pinion may be the wrong one as I can find no hole to insert the wire tag of the spring. I suspect it will be too hard to drill but I can try - if you can tell me where! I assume it was drilled from the outside of the cylindrical part of the pinion.

There is a hole in the shaft which was invisible at first but visible now that I have fitted a spacer to reduce the end float of the shaft.

Mike

I have a spare one left from a batch I had made a few years ago, so will send it to you. Is your address as in the latest (2013) VSCC list of members, ending in 5SY? Regards, John 

I won't send the pinion,  just the spring. It won't go 'till Friday, 'cos I'm not allowed out. My "shopper" help will post it.

Brilliant John - thanks. We moved so I'll email our new address. We also have the same post problem - yesterday a friendly council chap who was sweeping the carpark played posty for me.

I can see the missing hole on your picture so will now experiment to see whether carbide drills, rotary burrs or diamond tipped tools will do the job. The pinion is hard!

Mike

Success! I found I could drill the starter pinion for the antitinkle spring using a carbide drill bit. (60)Tricky but 3000rpm in the milling machine with light pressure on the drill and cutting oil did the trick. I bought two 1.5mm bits, one of which became blunt immediately but the other, of a different brand, went through the 6mm thick rim of the pinion with no problem.

The starter and dynamo are ready to fit, these and a lot of other engine parts having been cleaned, phosphated, primed and top coated with POR15 Engine Enamel, a heat resistant paint which brushes on without brush marks.

I’m fairly convinced that adding an auxiliary water pump to feed to the hot corner of the head is possible without major irreversable modifications and worthwhile. I decided that if I put more water in I also need to help it out as the aluminium elbows to the radiator hoses are only 19mm bore, although the ports into the pump and out of the head are larger. I fabricated a new outlet elbow with 23mm bore and this now awaits a visit to the welder when we are unlocked (61).

Mike

I decided to make a new spindle for the water pump as the original, although the gland did not leak, was quite worn at that point. I was unable to find any stainless steel bar which was of exactly 10mm diameter as per the original so had to machine one, lapping the last couple of thou to size, making the taper and machining the recess for the half round Woodruff key. This involved making a cutter for the task which was easier than I expected using a piece of EN 19 alloy steel and cutting the teeth in the milling machine. The cutter was hardened by heating cherry red and quenching in 50/50 kerosene and engine oil. The challenge was that it is small since the key is a chord, 2.5mm deep, cut from a 7.5mm diameter x 2mm thick disc. The key, as you can imagine, is very easy to lose!

I had to machine out and re-make the spring loaded washer which compresses the packing of the gland as it was jammed in the housing and lastly to drill out the rivet holding the impeller to the old shaft to replace it with a taper pin.

I received the new gasket from Johnsons Gaskets, within two weeks as promised. Here it is laid over the original which it matched very closely, so closely that you can't see the original.

Mike

I made an experimental heat exchanger to fit between the exhaust manifold outlet and the down pipe as I suggested in an earlier post (photo 65). I concluded the only way to find out if it works is to try it. The fins are 12mm larger all round than the manifold flanges, in  3mm copper.

Likewise on the auxiliary water pump to add more coolant I bought a Bosch pump and rigged it up to test the output, measuring the flow with a water meter I have for the garden hose. The pump passes 12 litre per minute through a 10mm bore connection. Probably more than is needed so I shall need to slow the pump or provide a bypass for the excess, measuring the temperature at the corner of the head with  a thermocouple attached by magnet, and read on a multimeter. I’m still unsure about this idea but enjoy the experimentation. If I did go ahead the only modification to the engine would be a fitting to connect to the top corner of the cylinder block and a connection to draw water from the radiator bottom tank. (Photo 66).However on close inspection I concluded that the water jacket on the cylinder block at that point is only about 4.5mm thick and that installing an inlet connection might be a bit risky so I have decided to wait and see whether the enlargement of the water passage from block to head, and the exhaust port heat exchanger do the trick.

Mike

With the head back from resurfacing and a light re-cutting of the exhaust valve seats, I lapped all the valves, checking that they would retain a puddle of paraffin in the combustion chamber overnight and then turned to the numerous threads and studs which needed cleaning up. Luckily very few were stripped but I had a few calls to Tracy Tools when I did not have the right tap or die. A majority of the studs have a coarse thread into the casting with a finer thread for the nut and as they are high quality steel there is no point in using carbon steel (CSS) taps and dies but instead use HSS, high speed steel which are twice the price.

I next tackled the valve gear, finding that both camshaft lobes and rockers contact faces were scored. A chat with the ever helpful Morris Parry convinced me that I could make an improvement, short of having the cams reground, by carefully stoning the cams with the shaft held in the lathe so I could roll it while cleaning the cam profile with a fine lap stone. The rocker faces were a bit more difficult but following a plan suggested by Morris, I made a fitment to offer the rocker to  the side face of a bench grinder wheel to produce the proper curvature of the cam follower. The face of the rocker has a radius of 21.7mm and with the rocker fitted to a bush mounted on a lever pivoted at 21.7mm from the side of the wheel the lever can be rocked back and forth so the “shoe” of the rocker is ground to the proper curve. Like many of these things it took a day or so of messing to get the fitment right and then half an hour to grind the rockers. One point to watch is that the shoe of the rocker is precisely aligned perpendicular to the face of the grinding wheel so that when offered up to the camshaft the face of the shoe contacts evenly across the cam. I found I could check this with a straightedge across four rocker shoes and could correct as needed by adjusting the packing under the ends of the base of my fitment which straddles both tools rests on the grinder. While grinding the rocker face the amount of “cut” is adjusted by means of the tappet adjustment screw which presses against an angle bracket screwed to the moveable lever, pressure  being applied by hand, and limited by the screw.


Mike

I'm enjoying this.  Heat sink looks good, fingers crossed...

In photo 69 the bolt to the far right very close to the grinder-to-rocker contact patch is the pivot-bolt.

What I can't quite visualise is how the cam was lapped and if the lathe "just" was "a posh vice" to hold the cam.  Did you need something to guide the stone like a "filing rest" or was it possible by hand?  My assumption is that you held the stone by hand, braced on perhaps the tool post, and swung the chuck back and forth by hand.

I also like the peek at the Salmson mudguard in the background.

Yes the pivot is the bolt nearest to the grinding wheel and is placed at the radius (21.7mm) of curvature of the rocker face away from the grinding wheel so moving the pivoted lever allows grinding to follow the proper curve of the rocker. The stud on which the rocker sits is placed at 38mm from the centre of the rocker cam which is the radius of the rocker from the rocker shaft to the mid point of the rocker cam face.

I lapped the cams manually, starting with the 4 cams to the back of the camshaft which are aligned in pairs so that the lap stone straddles two cams which helps keeping it all aligned. The other set of cams are not aligned so a bit more care was needed. The action was a combination of rolling the camshaft in the lathe and movement of the stone. The wear on the cams was pretty much a series of grooves so I could lap enough to remove the grooves but not enough to change the profile. Probably only a couple of thou were removed.

All this was following Morris Parry's ideas for which I am very grateful.

Mike

I like the rocker facing kit. This will be good for very worn rocker arms. For less damaged rockers I have been using a drill press with a grinding disk covered with a fine grit emery cloth, and then polished to a smooth surface.
The damage on the camshaft looks to me as exessive valve clerarance or bad lubrication or both. Many years (and miles) ago I have set the valve clearances on my motor from factory 0,25 mm to 0,10 mm inlet, and 0,15 mm exhaust valve. This gave a reduction in noise and therefore in wear and so far no ill effects have been noted.
Regards   Karl

As we say in the UK - many ways of skinning a cat! Probably not allowed to use that expression now.
I intend to polish my rockers now they are back to the right profile - the grinding wheel is a bit coarser than I would like. Probably by putting emery paper on the side of the wheel or by your system Karl.

The rocker clearances were not too great and it ran without much noise so I think the wear was due to poor lubrication as the rocker shaft had a lot of rubbish inside which took a long time to remove washing with kerosene and use of the airline. I've bought a Mann spin on filter and a block of aluminium to make the mounting to replace the Autoclean.

Mike

To understand with the drill press - by "plunging" did the rocker rock against the elastic?

Can also see that's no ordinary drill press...  Was it made by Heusser or used by them? 

Here’s a curiosity. The 8 small “steam holes” connecting the block to the cylinder head have a copper insert, presumably put in with a small countersink to the face of the block, which reduce the hole from 5mm to 4.5mm. The oil feed hole which supplies the rocker shaft and rockers has a similar insert, also reducing the diameter from 5 to 4.5mm.

Has anyone else seen this feature on an Augusta block? The inserts projected about 0.25mm above the face of the block, possibly to compress the gasket around the holes, all of which are very close to the cylinder bore. The projecting parts were very uneven so I levelled them off in order to check the flatness of fit of the head to the block with a feeler gauge. Was this a mistake? As some Augustas (Belnas?) do without the small water holes the reduction of bore from 5 to 4.5mm is of no consequence but I wonder if it does matter for the oil feed to the valve gear and does the now missing projection matter?

Mike

I have seen this kind of repair before. The edges of the bores can corrode, causing leaks. An insert like this can save the block or head. IMHO the bores should not be closed complete, but a bit smaller diameter should be ok. They should be flush though. From factory the bores were 6 mm.

My drill press is a bit unusual I guess, as it has a sliding vice installed, which can be replaced by a flat plate. I bought it surplus from the Swiss Air Force in about 1985. I has done very good services in all the years. I think it's 60 years old or more. The manufacturer was MOSER AG, Heusser was the vendor.  I did grind the rockers by up-down movement against the rubber band. At one time I made a new trottle shaft for a Zenith carburettor and did cut the slot for the butterfly on the drill press, moving the vice by hand very carefully. The tools behind the drill press are back up tools. The everyday toolbox is on a trolly.

Regards  Karl

Oh heck I'm going to have to tidy my workshop!!

Mike

Mike, you could just claim that you are recreating the Scuderia Manning look.

I must admit that I did tidy the shop before taking the photo.

Karl

 :)

Mike

Is it fair to say that the radius on the rocker arm pad was not so difficult for them to make at the factory, but is a bit of a challenge to refurbish later? I could imagine most repair shops simply grinding and smoothing them, without attention to the radius. Thoughts?

Like so much of the work we get to enjoy here am sure many wouldn't bother, or would give it a quick go with a bit of emery paper, but isn't it lovely to see it done carefully?

In terms of "does it matter" the radius defines valve timing, a little bit.  One of the first tuning mods for an Austin 7 is to regrind the followers to a "flatter" profile to extend valve opening time.

Yes the profile does matter. Many years ago Oliver Langton the speedway rider, VSCC Member and vintage RR enthusiast was building a 20hp Rolls Royce special and planned to exploit the very wild looking cams which went with roller tappets by swapping the rollers for profiled followers. Sadly that project was never completed. Oliver was the chap who found and restored the oldest surviving RR, a 1904 10hp, the only RR eligible for the Brighton Run. I suspect going from a roller to a flat follower would be too much but a good mathematician could probably work out something in between. No inappropriate jokes about Rollers please. ;D

The kit which Morris devised for grinding the follower is very simple - I suspect the thought process was the hard bit.

Mike

Still awaiting some gearbox bits from HB Bearings - frustrated on the reassembly of the box but this week I made an adapter to take a modern screw-on filter in place of the Autoclean, hoping to maintain a clean flow of oil to the camshaft department. Dale Hicks kindly sent some drawings and the trusty but aged Beaver milling machine did the job. Some concentration is needed as it is very easy to confuse the in and out ports from the crankcase to the adapter when drilling holes to form the oilways inside the adapter. Photo 75.

When I took the cylinder head off I did not choose to remove the timing gear from the crank or the timing chain but found that a block of wood placed on top of the block can support the tiimng chain and allow the engine to be turned without entangling the chain which just turns round the block of wood like a sprocket. Photo 76

Mike

Very impressed with your adaptor Mike. What car/cars is the cartridge for, and what made you decide on that size?

I take no credit for the design of the adapter which I think originated in Australia, and as I said I made mine from drawings by Dale Hicks. It does make a neat job and with that spin off filter which is only 50mm deep, fits into the space previously occupied by the Autoclean filter leaving enough clearance to the front structure of the car to allow the canister to be easily replaced, although I imagine a bit of an oil slick will be released. The filter is used on many cars, particularly Renault and its derivatives like Dacia. The version W75/3 from Mann has a 20mm x 1.5 mm thread for which I fortunately had the correct die. The W75 version has a similar size but Imperial thread and is used on other makes.

Today I looked at the idler sprocket which adjusts the tension of the camshaft drive chain. The sprocket is sprung loaded and rides on a spigot in the timing case at the front of the block - guess what? The spigot shaft was worn which creates an extra means of escape for the oil which is supposed to be going up to the camshaft and rockers. The spigot is made integral with its supporting bush but that can be bored out to remove the old spigot and a new one machined to fit - done today, and the spigot is in the freezer overnight ready to press into the bush tomorrow.

I've also fitted the cylinder head using Blue Hylomar on the gasket an both faces and then torquing the nuts to the studs. The studs are 12mm and will take more torque than is needed, although I was surprised how much pulling on my 10inch  torque wrench is needed to get to 62lbs/ft (85N/m). I tightend the bolts in 5N/m stages and have got up to 52 Lbs/ft and will leave it at that for now and do the last tweak when I'm ready to start the engine.

I made a discovery today when looking at the block. Within the timing case there are two small lugs obviously intended to carry something which was not present on my car. The parts book does show a small curved widget but what is it for? Turns out from the Italian part number lists that it is a support to hang the camshaft sprocket on when the cyliinder head is removed. i just used a bit of wire!


Mike

I finished the timing chain tensioning sprocket mounting and am ready to fit the chain and set the valve timing. One question - is there a recommended way of adjusting the spring loading on the tensioning sprocket? It can rotate eccentrically on its mounting, restrained by a helical spring which is adjusted by rotating the mounting on the three studs which hold it to the block. I assume it is just set to the tightest position, relying on the natural tension of the spring, unless anybody knows different.

The gearbox input shaft returned today - late but beautifully done and fitted perfectly.

I'm now battling with the dreaded freewheel. The usual advice is to put a zip tie around the 9 little rollers to keep them in place as it is assembled - does not work easily as they are spring loaded up the ramp cam and so expand to a greater diameter than the bore of the drum in which they work.  All of this goes on inside the back compartment of the gearbox while trying to hold the outer splined engaging/disengaging sleeve out of the way and pushing the  tailshaft and driven drum in through the back of the box and then sliding the engaging sleeve over the outside of the drum. The fit of the engaging sleeve is very tight on the drum too. Just wishing for a nice simple Bugatti to work on!! Oh and yes I forgot - the three rollers in each set of three are of three diameters and have to be in the right order.

I imagine Lancia must have had some form of clamp to hold the rollers so tomorrow's challenge will be to re-invent it.

Mike

For installing the free wheel rollers I have been using strong rubber bands or a hose clamp.

I have never seen an instruction as how tight the chain tensioner must be adjusted. From memory I have been turning it about 1/4 turn or a bit more. Perhaps other Augusta boys out there know better?

Regards   Karl

Success with the rollers - a friend loaned a cable tie tightening tool which made it possible to progressively tighten the ties with one hand while using a screwdriver to compress the springs and guide the rollers to the lower part of the cam.

The next problem Karl is one you will recognise - as I mentioned some time ago the driving dogs on the output shaft were a bit tapered, which I was able to correct. There seemed to be no sign of overheating. although the selector fork needed building up. However the sliding splined sleeve which engages and disengages the free wheel was tight on the output shaft makng it impossible to assemble, a very fiddly job at the best of times. The sequence is to fit the freewheel unit to the tailshaft of the main gearbox (this is within a second compartment at the back of the gearbox), offer the sliding sleeve down through the top of the gearbox, push the output shaft in through the back of the box, slide the sleeve onto the output shaft then push the shaft fully forward onto the rollers and lastly heat the casing and press the back ballrace onto the output shaft and into the casing. If the sliding sleeve is tight, the task is impossible!

It seems that the sliding sleeve is slightly distorted oval by about 0.04mm (1.5 thou), just enough to be a problem. The previous owner had commented that the Augusta freewheel was a problem and it was locked out of action when I bought the car - perhaps this is why. So as the point of contact between the sliding sleeve and the output shaft is the peak of the splines inside the sleeve I plan to just grind away the very minimum to allow free sliding rather than risk trying to de-ovalise the whole unit in the vice! Although not obvious at a glance I could just see some signs of blueing of the bore of the sleeve so the distortion must have been caused by overheating due to friction in the selector fork.

Mike

Augusta freewheel thoughts and ideas.

I’ve spent much time on the Augusta’s freewheel which has delayed putting the gearbox back together but the subject is interesting enough to merit a detailed discussion so here goes!

I had thought all along that  using the  freewheel was probably not a good idea when driving an old car in current traffic, particularly on the hills around here. Discussions with fellow Augusta owners confirm that few of them use the freewheel and that some even disconnect the Bowden cable and wire the actuating lever in the permanent drive position, as had been done to our car. The previous owner in Italy had commented on YouTube that the freewheel can cause problems, so I expected the worst and never even tried the freewheel on the road, expecting to leave it disabled.

The freewheel is very similar to that used on Rovers from the 1930’s to the 50’s, with a three lobed driven cam which expands three sets of rollers outwards with a wedging action into a surrounding drum which takes the drive to the output shaft of the gearbox. When driving the rollers expand, assisted by a spring, but on the over-run they are rolled back down the cam allowing the drum to turn faster than the input shaft. A sliding internally splined sleeve, permanently engaged with six teeth on the outside of the driven drum is moved forward by a gear selector fork to engage with a six toothed dog on the input shaft, giving permanent drive, or backward, out of engagement with the input dogs to activate the freewheel. All the parts are superbly machined and surprisingly small and delicate, the drum being only 50mm bore and the rollers approximately 7.5, 8.0 and 8.5mm diameter and 20 mm long. At the front of the unit, running within the drum, and on a short length of 32mm diameter shaft between the front driving dog and the cam, is a set of three rollers 9mm diameter and 6mm wide, which act as the front bearing of the output shaft. These are static relative to both shaft and drum when the freewheel is locked, but rotate when the car is freewheeling.

Lots of wear was evident, both cam and the bore of the drum had axial ridges where the rollers took the drive and the rollers themselves had flats. The brass cage surrounding the rollers was quite worn where the ends of the rollers impacted the cage and it looked as though the rollers were trying to adopt a skewed angle to the cam rather than lying parallel. The 7.5 and 8mm rollers had at least two flats each whereas the largest 8.5 mm rollers had none. One obvious cause of the wear was that the bolt which holds the roller cage against the cam had sheared off, and lay loose inside the drum of the freewheel. This bolt is famously known to be a weak feature as despite the 12mm thread size, it has a 27mm hexagon which encourages  over tightening.

I think that Lancia  intended that the freewheel mode would be the normal way of driving as the freewheel selector is spring loaded towards the freewheel mode and is pulled into lockup mode by the cable. The three rollers which carry the front of the freewheel drum are I suspect too few and too small for the job they are expected to do when in lockup.   This may not have been a problem when the free wheel was mostly engaged as the rollers turn and even up any wear. However if always driven in lockup mode the rollers may develop flats, eventually allowing the drum and the front end of the output shaft a small degree of wobble. Permanently locking the free wheel by disabling the actuating cable must be a bad idea and even if the owner has no interest in using the freewheel it should at least be allowed to work once per trip so as to rotate the bearing and discourage flatting of the rollers.

Driving constantly in the lockup mode also takes its toll on the driving dog teeth at the input end of the freewheel which, as we know tend to become tapered, putting a load on the selector fork, assisted by the coil spring trying to disengage the dog from the sliding sleeve and only restrained by the Bowden cable. My freewheel had suffered this and showed signs of overheating due to pressure of the sliding sleeve on the arms of the selector fork.

Having seen all this I decided that, rather than relying on disabling the freewheel and ignoring its worn out state, or going to significant expense and hassle to regrind the worn surfaces and replace the rollers for  a freewheel I did not wish to use, I would eliminate it altogether.

This turned out to be quite simple as an idea but needed accurate machining of a split collar to clamp onto the input shaft between the driving dog and the cam to act as a supporting bush for the front end of the driven drum in place of the three small rollers. Since the bush does not rotate relative to either drum or input shaft it can be a tight fit on the shaft and a push fit in the drum, just loose enough that the drum can be slid over the bush during  assembly. The brass cage with the freewheel rollers was removed and replaced with a washer drilled to take the locating peg on the end of the cam and for the tag washer for the cam retaining bolt. This all worked out well and there is now no detectable slop between input and  output shafts and it all rotates freely and true.

I was concerned about the lubrication of the driving dog and the splined sleeve which is achieved by oil flowing through the shaft between the main gearbox and the freewheel and emerging from holes in the splines to escape through the front (three roller) bearing into the drum and out to the driving dogs. To allow this to continue I grooved the bore of the new bush and its front face and also machined an annular groove in the bore in line with the holes in the splined shaft to help spread the oil.

Following a suggestion by Karl Sänger, an idea which originated with Kees Jan Boosman, I reversed the sliding engagement sleeve. This increases the area of engagement between the splines of the sleeve and the driving dog. In the normal orientation of the sleeve, alternate splines at the front are cut away to facilitate the lining up of dog teeth and splines as lockup is engaged. As mentioned earlier, the splined sleeve was a tight fit on the outside of the driven drum and needed a very small amount grinding from the peaks of the splines, done with air powered grinding wheel mounted on the toolpost of the lathe. The selector fork has to be reversed to suit the repositioned sleeve and this involved drilling a new hole in the selector shaft for the locking screw of the selector fork to locate the fork in its new position. The hardened shaft cannot be drilled with a normal High Speed Steel drill bit but a carbide slot mill worked well. I also replaced the helical spring on the selector shaft with spacer sleeves to front and rear to keep the selector and sleeve in position, taking care to preserve a 3mm gap between the forward face of the driving dog and the dividing partition in the centre of the gearbox. This is a point at which wear can occur if the freewheel Bowden cable is too tightly adjusted. With the 3mm gap, the splined sleeve engages fully with the driving dog teeth, even allowing for some wear between selector fork and sleeve. Finally I removed the freewheel operating lever and blanked off its bearing in the side of the gearbox.

With all new bearings in the gearbox, reconditioned spigot bearings and the removal of the freewheel, the gearbox feels very smooth and free turning, although no doubt first and second gear will still growl away as before. We’ll see once I get the car back on the road.

I’ll add some pictures shortly – I’ve been a bit held up recently as the lawnmower and sundry gardening kit were given notice to quit their habitat in the potting shed which is now required for its proper function by the chief gardener. I’ve had to build a new shed as such mundane functional kit is not allowed to invade the car department!!

Mike

Mike,
Many thanks for all your posts and for this most interesting and detailed obsevation on the free-wheel.
I just resolved not to use mine believing that it would be reliable if not used, it seems I should worry a little.
Mike

Mike - I'm just doing what seems to make sense from info from real Augustinians - before you tear yours apart to make the same changes I'd wait to see how mine works!!

Making the split collar was interesting - I started with a disc oversize on diameter and small in bore, sawed it in two, milled both sawn faces flat and drilled, threaded and countersunk for 4mm screws with heads reduced to 5mm. The two haves were bolted together and 4 holes made so that the unit could be attached to a disc to be held in the lathe and finally machined to size. The O/D was easy enough as the driven drum of the freewheel could be tried for size with the workpiece still in the lathe. the bore was more challenging as being smaller in diameter than the cam the size could only be determined by calipers etc.

Here are some pictures.

Mike

Back to the engine.

Timing the valve gear is a fiddly process even with the engine on the bench - it must be a real pain when in the car.

I found that there had been a bodge when some previous fettler had failed to make the massive spring washer (which retains the cam wheel bolt and vernier adjustment washer to the end of the camshaft) seat properly as the bolt was tightened. In desperation the spring had been hammered and the washer distorted so a little remachining was needed. The recess at the camshaft side of the camwheel needed a few thou skimmed off to sit square on the end of the camshaft and the spring washer, an ugly very strong object, needed the ends of the coil ground to the right radius so it would fit into the recess in the vernier washer. The locating peg which does the vernier setting would not go far enough into the blind holes in the adjusting washer so the washer could not sit flat on the face of the cam wheel.

Anyway all came right with a little machining and after a few attempts I was able to get the timing right. I found the circlip which holds the vernier washer to the bolt is a pest as it prevented me from rotating the washer to align the peg while trying to engage the bolt with the thread in the end of the camshaft so I omitted the circlip - just needing a bit more care not to drop the vernier washer down into the timing case.

I've set the timing chain tensioner rotated by two bolt holes from the the neutral point of the spring. This feels about right and the free movement of the chain is about 8mm at the midpoint of the chain, observing this through the front timing cover. If anyone knows different I'd like to hear!

Mike

Thanks, the questions for me perhaps are, what symptoms might present if it is about to fail, what will happen if it fails and will it do any damage beyond the freewheel mechanism?
Re cam chain tension, I think I initially set mine to much the same but have just tightened it up another couple of holes as I could hear it. Now cured.
The most irritating current noise is the door latch rods rattling, I have wrapped the rods on two of the doors but not had a chance use it since.  There must have been some felt or something when new though no evidence of any.

I can't say what the symptoms of worn out freewheel are although no doubt wear in the three small rollers at the front of the unit will allow a certain amount of wobble at the end of the gearbox output - I could detect that when disconnecting the propshaft. If you recall I started this saga in search of the cause of annoying vibrations which seemed more speed related than RPM related. Of course I found more than one ( the lopsided clutvh spring being the main suspect) and am resolving all I find, hoping that when it is back together I don't have to go through it again to get the engine balanced! So my experiment is a lousy one having changed more than one variable. Reminds me of an academic I once knew who spoke of testing shampoo on one side of his hair and soap on the other - result - went bald in the middle!

Mike

They say that there is "No advice like the advice you want"  I am reassured by your comments.
I changed the fibre coupling at the gearbox end last week and there was no detectable play in the output shaft.
On another matter I am working on a casting for the tank mounted petrol gauge mechanism. Progress is a bit slow but do you want one when available and is anyone else interested? 

Tank casting - yes please Mike. I started on that but other more urgent problem arose!!
My new clutch spring turned out to be slightly too deep when fully compressed so had to go back to be ground down - only 5mm off the length but as the clutch travel is little more than that, the clutch could not be disengaged. Now I find it is about 1mm too small at one end to fit onto the clutch centre - today's task is to grind that out - interesting problem to grind a wobbly spring but I think I have a method.

Mike

Yes I did. Made a block of ply sandwiched together with a central hole into which the spring is a good fit then set the job up in the lathe with the die grinder to take a smidgen off the bore at one end of the spring. Turned out that it was just the last coil which was slightly undersize.

Finally the spring is a good fit onto the boss of the clutch plate - just tight enough to hold in place - and fits nicely around the inner lip of the clutch cover plate. The spring is now true enough that with the spring uncompressed, the three corners of the cover plate are equidistant from the flywheel face to within 2mm.

If the previously fitted distorted spring was the cause of the elusive vibration, the new one should solve that issue. I'm hopeful that this will be the case as the vibration definately related to the clutch as a quick jab of the clutch pedal would temporarily reduce vibration.

Mike

Love the block of ply and die grinder photo. 

My brother in law wouldn't let either into the same room as his lathe.

His is probably less than 60 years old - I give mine a good clean up afterwards but it has to do whatever is needed including wood - just make sure sawdust doesn't get into the suds pump.

Mike

After a hint from Karl I began to worry whether the new clutch spring, which follows the spec of a slightly stronger spring made for Augustas a couple of years ago, might be too strong for the cast clutch withdrawal claw (or whatever it is called) which has been known to shear by the retaining nut So I spent some time checking the spring rate of the previously fitted and new springs. I measured the load needed to compress the spring using bathroom scales and my pillar drill, noting the height of the spring with each additional 20 kg load. It turned out that both springs when loaded to 120kg were compressed  by 30-32mm. The compression in mm per kg of force applied was very uniform over the range I tested. However I realised that the new spring, being a bit longer to start with would, when compressed from 87 to 30mm, probably apply more load on the clutch as engagement compresses the spring very close to solid and more so in the longer spring.  As I could not apply more than 120 kg I made up a bar to turn the clutch actuating lever with the same 5 to 1 mechanical advantage as the pedal and used a large spring balance to measure the force need to disengage the clutch, this being detected with a weight attached to the gearbox output spider. The original spring required about 10.5kg and the new one about 11.5 kg to disengage the clutch which is very close to the calculated increase in the spring design - phew!

As a further security I also crack tested the clutch actuating claw with a dye penetration detection fluid which is applied to the test sample and penetrates any cracks, to reveal these later when chalk is applied. Nothing showed up so I felt confident in using the stronger spring and could put the whole thing together again. The thrust bearing runs smoothly and the nut which retains the bearing showed no sign of brutal spannering.

As you can imagine each time I needed to test a spring in or out of the transmission I had to remove the gearbox, unload the spring and then put it back. I got quite good at the task!

Mike

Many years ago I fitted extra springs to my clutch, copying the design of Mike Wheeler. I spent some while with Bill May with various springs and my bathroom scales under my milling machine, rather like your set-up.

 Bit more info, I bought a new spring when they were available a year or two ago before I had dismantled my car. When it came to it I reused the old spring  (not necessarily original) as it was marginally stronger. My notes show that when compressing the two in a stack the new one compressed by 29mm to 26 for the old one. Cannot find a note but my recollection is that the OD and wire section were the same but the new one had an extra quarter turn.

John - I knew Bill May for more than 60 years from the mid 50's when a group of us did vintage holidays together - one year buying a Trojan in the Highlands and towing it back to Yorkshire with a Humber 12/25. A jolly good engineer and a good bloke. Coincidentally another participant was the late Tommy Longbottom, later known to the LMC when he owned an Augusta.

Mike - I also found that the new spring seemed marginally easier to compress in the middle range of compression which is almost linear which was why I did the test of pedal force. I suspect that at the extreme of compression when the spring is nearly solid the force/compression relationship goes non linear and the new "stronger" spring arrives at this point sooner than the old spring so applies more load to clutch and pedal. It is not much different though.

For those who have not removed the clutch and gearbox here are a couple of tips. Firstly before trying to pull the gearbox away from the engine the clutch engagement fork must be disengaged from the claw fitting which operates the clutch. In the normal position the clutch lever is tight up to the gearbox side.


At the other side of box the fiddly wire circlip must be removed from the end of the clutch cross shaft.

Then the clutch lever is pulled out about 10mm away from the gearbox which separates it from the claw so that the box can be removed. The box slides off quite easily if this is done so beware if you feel a need for crowbars!

The clutch spring is compressed by the cover plate, held down by three 5mm bolts, about 50mm long. These amazingly take the full 200kg pressure of the clutch spring. To remove the cover plate and unload the spring I made this fitting which takes the strain off the small bolts as they are undone. Slacking the bolts and the nuts on the fitting evenly by 6 turns at a time allows the cover plate to come away evenly without binding on the bolt threads. I found that there is still a small load on the bolts even when they are almost fully unscrewed so the fitting is useful to line it all up to start the bolts in the threads.


Mike
 


 

Thanks Mike we see another means of compressing the spring of the clutch. What we are not seeing is how the driven plate is centred for easy installation of the gear box. I am sure Mike will enlighten us. I am using a shaft which centres the driven plate onto the ball bearing in the fly wheel. At the other end of the shaft, there is a female 8 mm tread, by screwing in a long bolt, the shaft can be withdrawn after the spring is compressed.
For compression of the spring I use a modified puller. 6 mm rods guide the cover plate until the attaching bolts can be fitted. However I believe at the factory they have been using just 55 to 60 mm long bolts to screw the cover plate home, drawings confirm that.

Regards  Karl 

The first time I fitted the spring the gearbox was dismantled so I could use the main input shaft to centre the clutch plate. Next time when the box was back together I expected a problem but in fact found that before the spring was fitted I could adjust the centering of the clutch plate (which is lightly nipped by the pressure plate and the three legged spring spider) simply by aligning it by eye with the pressure plate and pushing it by hand. This was evidently accurate enough to fit the gearbox and of course as soon as the clutch is disengaged and re-engaged the clutch plate aligns itself exactly. Unless your fingers are a lot stronger than mine the clutch lever on the bell housing cannot be moved by hand and needs an extension bar as I did when testing the likely pedal load.

I now need to make a new flange and downpipe for the exhaust as the original flange was very much eroded by corrosion and leaking exhaust. All a bit tricky as although the 60 degree angle bend at the lower end of the downpipe is easy, the corresponding bend where the downpipe connects to the cylinder head is rotated about 25 degrees towards the centre line of the car relative to the rest of the downpipe. I can't imagine just giving the old downpipe to an exhaust fabricator to copy will work out and because of the virus I can't get a welder to come and do the job in my garage, so decided to make a joint toward the bottom of the down pipe before it bends to horizontal so I can adjust it prior to taking it to my local welder. I found a very good supplier of exhaust parts, ordered two 60 degree bends on Thursday afternoon which arrived today Saturday so as soon as I get the engine back in place I can trim the pipe, make a new flange and get it to the welder next week. The only snag is that nobody seems to have the kit to make mandrel bends in 38mm (1.5 inch) with a curve radius of 3 times the pipe diameter as is the original so I had to settle for a slightly sharper 2 diameter curve. It would have been OK if I'd wanted a 3 or 4 inch pipe, but the Augusta is no hotrod.

I have bought a bolted sleeve joint to connect the down pipe to the rest of the exhaust where it goes through the cruciform frame of the car. With that the exhaust can be removed without having to cut is as I had to this time. There was a short section of thicker pipe connecting the pipes but it was too tight to remove. The new downpipe is in stainless which is a good plan re corrosion but looks wrong, unless grit blasted when it just looks like mild steel but doesn't rust. I would not use stainless for the rest of the exhaust or the silencer because its sound damping properties are less than mild steel so the noise can be annoying.

Mike

I had to make a new flange (and face the head) to stand any chance of it being reliable. I also made a jig to weld the flange at the correct angle to the pipe.
You are most welcome to borrow it if you wish. I am in North Glos but DPD could deliver for, I guess, £20 ish.
Mike R

Thanks for your offer Mike. I hope to get the engine back in tomorrow and will make up my mind then and come back to you.

Mike

The discussion about exhaust pipes and the connection to the cylinder head brings up the matter of exhaust gasket material.
On my car, the condition of the flange and face at the cylinder head is less than perfect. I have tried several materials until I came across a gasket material from the German company Frenzelit. Among the products is a material "Frenzelit novaMICA THERMEX". It can stand temperatures up to 1000° C and can adjust to small differences at the mating surfaces. But, without proper tools it's difficult to cut. I made 2 steel templates of the original gasket shape to clamp the material in between and was able to cut it to shape. Just!

www.frenzelit.com

regards  Karl

Engine refitted today. Crane to lift it, trolley jack under the back of the gearbox and slide it in. Luckily the angle that the engine and gearbox adopt when suspended from the engine bearers is close to that needed to wriggle it back under the bulkhead.  With everything set up it took just 45 minutes to put it in working on my own but there are few points to note so I'll post more comments and pictures tomorrow.

Mike

Mike - out of interest - where did you go for the exhaust components?

Am loving this series, even something as simple as numbering the photos is an inspiration.

David thanks for that - I do think sharing experience is worth while. The exhaust part supplier was https://exhaustpartsuk.com/shop// A very helpful outfit.

Refitting engine and gearbox - a few tips.

You probably found this on removing the unit but worth while remembering that the lever on the gearbox which actuates the freewheel can be removed to give more clearance, particularly needed  if removing the gearbox while leaving the engine in place.

Before the big lift, one headlight should be unbolted from the mudguard to give clearance for the engine bearers to pass and the distributor and its drive removed from the cylinder head. The bolts which connect the engine bearers to the leaf spring mounts should be pushed down so that they are flush with the upper rubber blocks

To refit the engine and gearbox a hoist or crane is needed from which the unit is slung by the two engine bearers. It will balance at a good angle to slide into the car. If you have a crane like mine it can be rolled towards the front of the car and the gearbox pushed down under the bulkhead. With a fixed hoist the car has to be rolled forward. A trolley jack placed longitudinally under the car can be used to raise the back of the gearbox as needed, and will roll back with the gearbox. Before pushing the gearbox under the bulkhead, put a wodge of rag  on top of the box so that it can slide freely without scraping on the underside of the footboard/bulkhead - don’t forget (as I did!) to take the rag out before the tail of the gearbox is jacked up into place!

It takes time to slide the unit in place as the sump and crankshaft pulley get very close to the front cross member and the studs for the exhaust manifold get close to the cover over the starter contacts on the bulkhead. Lower the engine in very small stages while pushing it over the cross member, each time watching the clearance at these two points until the engine bearers are over their mounting bolts and the sump is behind the cross member.  At this point the jack under the gearbox can be raised (while lowering the engine) until the tube through which the rear gear box mounting bolt goes lines up with the holes in the transmission tunnel and the engine bearers sit on the mounting springs. Before putting the rear bolt in, push the two engine bearer bolts up through the rubber bushes, easily done with the aid of a ratchet spanner, with extension inserted through the holes in the underskirt to screw the bolt up through the rubber. Next fit the rear cross bolt at the back of the gearbox. I found that a pair of washers had been welded inside the transmission tunnel to reinforce these holes and this made the gap fractionally too narrow - corrected by a prod with a screwdriver.  Lancia's precision really helps here as each part lines up and fits perfectly as long as nothing has been bodged.

Mike




 

Mike,
A very good description of the job! I like your last sentence.

Regards Karl

I’ve been working on the exhaust which appears to consist of the original silencer with replacement pipes. I may be able to salvage the silencer which seems very solid but will replace the pipes and insert a bolted flange joint just after the point where the down pipe passes through the cross member to make it easier to detach the down pipe from the cylinder head. All this is for the Winter though as I’m getting rather impatient to try the car and find out whether all this fettling has improved it and particularly got rid of the vibrations.

I thought the flange connecting the down pipe to the manifold was a write-off due to corrosion but decided that I could re-face it on the milling machine and at least temporarily re-use it and fit the old exhaust system back to test the car.

Facing the flange is quite tricky as it is hard to attach it to the bed of the milling machine at the correct angle. My first attempt using a large milling cutter as in the picture failed to hit the proper angle although I faced it to line up with the non eroded parts of the face. It turns out that the alignment is extremely critical if the downpipe is to avoid rattling against the hole in the cross member so I had to take a little more off, about 1.5 mm at one side tapering to zero across the flange. I could work this out by bolting the flange loosely to the manifold then aligning the down pipe through the cross member and measuring the gap between flange and manifold around the rim of the flange. I also swapped to a fly cutter instead of the milling cutter which (using a round carbide tip) makes a cleaner finish and also make is far easier to align the job to the chosen angle.

The silencer does look original with its rounded ends, the tags to attach the springs from which it hangs and the insulated shield on the top which presumably discourages noise from penetrating the floor. There is also small fishtail at the end of the exhaust, also original although quite rusty.

I’ve reconnected the clutch pedal and as I expected from my testing, the pressure is not noticeably changed by the stronger spring. In fact a lot of the force from foot to pedal is taken up by the pedal return spring which is really strong - certainly a sloppy driver would never damage the clutch by resting his foot on the pedal.


Mike

After an exhausting day yesterday lying under the car to re-attach the exhaust and the propshaft and a few final bits to the engine I filled the rad with water, the sump and gearbox with oil and waited for drips - none came overnight so today I had no excuse for not starting the engine. Oh boy - it started first push on the button, and ran! I let it warm up and gave the cylinder head nuts a final tweak to 60 lbs ft - surprising how tight that feels when using a short 250mm torque wrench. I was very nervous that I was over-doing it and spent some time checking the torque wrench against my ancient but accurate spring balance - it seems about right, if anything slightly over-reading. After refitting the radiator cowl the only excuse left for not trying the car was rain and lots of it. Tomorrow is another day.

Can anyone tell me more about the small steel lug at the top front of the radiator cowl (picture 103)?  It fits closely above the T shaped bracket which holds the top of the radiator shutter to the chrome grill with bolts through the square holes behind the radiator badge (Photo104).  I would like to know what fits into the large hole in the lug - possibly a rubber buffer as there are some black stains just where it would lie against the inside of the grill above the badge. As with many Augustas the thermostatic mechanism for the shutters is missing so I’ll have to decide whether to use an Appia pressure capsule or to make a manual cable actuated arrangement.

Mike

The large hole indeed holds a rubber puffer which leans to the chrome grille. The T-shaped bracket normally supports the levers which operate the slats via the push rods as commanded by the thermostat. A word of caution: the Lancia badge is very brittle, the thin brass nuts should be tigthened very carefully as not to break the porcelain

Regards  Karl

Sunshine and smiles all round - we had a test run and it is a different car without major vibrations, smooth and very willing at least up to 60mph. It also seems to pull much better than before. The only explanation I can think of is that the valve timing may have been a little out as I have really changed nothing else that could affect performance. It does have very good compression. There remains a slight vibration at about 3000 rpm which must be crankshaft related but it goes through that quickly and is otherwise very nice.

The gearbox is far less noisy in first and second and the front suspension works as it should with no clonks and with proper shockabsorbing. The clutch was always functionally good despite the dodgy spring and it still is, with no noticeable increase in pedal pressure.

I haven't quite got the exhaust rattle free so another session on the floor is indicated. :(   I fitted my copper sandwhich heat exchanger on the manifold with no gasket but with Heldite heat resistant pipe sealant - like the old Green Hermatite if you recall that. Time will tell whether it can stand the condition, or even do any good!

Thanks Karl for that confirmation of my guess. I'll make a buffer from a piece of polyurethane then I can refit the chromed surround. I found some extra screws whose job is to hold the lower part of the shutters to the surround. However these were not in use presumably because the previous owner prefered to be able to remove the surround leaving the shutters in place - which must also explain why the bolts behind the badge were missing.

Mike

Well done.

Just wanted to say what an excellent series of articles you've produced...  I'm just a few weeks into Belna ownership and have much to do. I'll be checking-in regularly as I'm not as technically competent as you guys and I'm hoping to learn lots! 
Regards to all, David

David thanks for your kind remark!

I thought I was getting to the end of sorting problems but yesterday after a 40 mile run and having just come down the Cote de Lofthouse (as trhe bicycle racers call it) the back brakes over heated. After a bit of crawling under the car I found that the bolt though the front eye of the N/S rear spring has disappeared. letting the spring and the axle slip back enough to tighten the handbrake and apply both brakes, make them hot but not to noticeably slow the car. The corresponding bolt on the off side was OK but the retaining tag washer had not been folded onto the hexagon so no doubt that was the reason for the escapee.

More crawling today and I took the spring off to sort it out. The thread on the chassis bracket into which the bolt fits was quite rusty but cleaned up with a tap and I can make a new bolt in EN24T which. although not perhaps as hard as the original bolt is extremely strong, being certified for the rotor shaft of a helicopter. However I will have to replace the Metalastic rubber bush at the front of the spring and attend to the bearings on the rear shackles which are still of the original roller bearing type but which can be replaced by a fabricated nylon version as Morris Parry decscribed in the Augusta Newsletter. I think I'll just replace the bolt for now and carry on motoring until the salt season when I will do all the bushes.

An annoying aspect of the job is that the bolts for the reas shackles have been fitted from the outside of the frame so that the top bolt cannot be removed without first taking off the mudguard. I'm sure they should be fitted the other way round and am reluctant to cut the top bolt to get it out as they are a super Lancia desgin and in perfect nick.. grrr!

Does anyone know a source for the Metalastic bush? It is 14mm bore, 30mm O/D and 45mm long on the outer, 48.5 on the inner steel parts?  Many suppliers list them for specific car applications but don't give dimensions.

Mike



Mike

Not sure specifically, but the name that keeps popping up on the forum for such things is:

https://www.robush.com/

Thanks David - they had one which was close enough in size and I should have two here in a couple of days. £6.78 each.

Mike

More crawling today to remove both springs. With care and with both wheels on blocks and an axle stand under the nose of the diff it is easy to undo the spring "U" bolts, the lower shackle pins at the back and the front spring bolts and take off the springs leaving the axle in place with no need to undo brake connections and shockabsorbers.

It turns out that under the head of the escapee bolt there should be a spacer which is clamped by the bolt and traps the inner sleeve of the metalastic bush, having serrations to increase the "bite". This too was missing along with the bolt so that is something else to make. The replacement bushes are 14.5 mm bore rather than 14, so new bolts will be needed for both sides of the car. I now have to remove the thick coating of grease applied by the previous owner, a great conservationist, to the springs and other bits under the car, much of it has re-applied itself to me and the garage floor.

Mike

To me, it seems to be an unusual occurence to lose a bolt as there is load on it. Maybe I did anticipate something like this, and did wire locking those bolts aviation style.
On my car I had to replace those silent blocks as they have settled and have become brittle. I bougth silent blocks of the same diameter but slighly longer than required. I then shortened the outher bush and the rubber to the required lenght and went to hand file the serations. I did work but is obviously time consuming.

Regards  Karl

The mystery of the missing bolt. Having tried fitting the bolt and spacer from the offside in place of the missing items from the nearside spring bracket I find that the thread into which the bolt goes is worn, as is the hole into which the  serrated spacer/bush fits. Clearly the now absent bolt had been loose for some time. More fettling needed and a call to Tracy tools for a Helicoil kit to sort out the thread which will be fun as it must been done underneath the jacked up car. The hole for the spacer is oval by 0.5 mm so needs reaming. Then a new bolt and spacer to make.

 How many time per day do I need to crawl under the car to equate to the recommended 10,000 paces exercise? ;D

Mike

Took some time today to work out how to ream the chassis bracket for the bolt at the front of the spring to remove the ovality, while keeping the bolt in alignment with the tapped hole in the frame. I finally made an adjustable bracket with four very strong Neodymium magnets to hold it  to the underside of the floor. This worked well as the bracket can be adjusted with the reamer in place so that the nose of the reamer lines up exactly with the tapped hole. It is a pain working with these strong magnets as they grab everything in sight including any swarf or filings and will if you let them loose fly away to the nearest bit of steel, smash into it and shatter but they were ideal for this job. This is why the base of the bracket is aluminium.

The hole in the bracket should be 19mm but I had to take it out to 19.8mm to clear the ovality and will now need to make a new serrated bush to fit. I found I can cut the serrations on this bush and on the inner sleeve of the metalastic bush  with a slitting saw mounted in the milling machine with the milling head tilted to 45 degrees.

One question though - clearly the serrated bush is intended to be pressed into the recess in the bracket by the main bolt to nip the inner sleeve of the metalastic bush to make the rubber do all the flexing but how much clearance (determined by the length of the bush) should be allowed to get the right degree of nip? The bush has two flats which engage with the bracket to stop it from turning and a tag washer locks the head of the bolt.


Mike

I had similar trouble on one side, the bolt was still there but had been moving so everything was worn.
Managed to recover it by a new bolt with slightly oversize thread, made a new washer and filed the serrations like Kari to fit the bush which I was able to dress up.
I concluded that no "nip" was required, that there should/could be clearance under the the flats but that the flats should be a really tight fit in the slot in which they sit.
Mike 

I had misunderstood  the operation of the serrations because the springs had been fitted to the wrong sides of the car which made me think that the serrations were intended to bite on the centre sleeve of the bush at one side and on the chassis bracket on the other end rather than engage their teeth. I realised what was going on and had a chat with Mike Raahauge. Having worked that out I decided that I could use a slitting saw to cut both sides of the Vee at the same time, setting the milling head  over to 45 degrees and with the work on a dividing head.  Of course this gave me 45 degree slopes and  90 degree included angle which will create more end force than the original 60 degree but I felt that the greater accuracy and the time saved made that acceptable. In any case anyone except Lancia would just clamp the bracket together and nip the bush!

It was very easy to do once set up and the result was very accurate and the serrations fit exactly together in my test pieces and to the original bush. Cutting the serrations takes about 15 minutes per component with no filing. The depth of the 45 degree teeth is 1mm.

The Helicoiling of the bolt holes in the frame bracket worked very well but did involve making guide bushes for the Helicoil drill and then for the tap. The one sound bolt now fits the thread well and feels very secure.

I now have to make new bushes for the bolts and new bolts.

Mike

Very good, a much better fit than I achieved.
I have other news which should not really be on a thread titled "Augusta progress".
I just made a new fabric coupling out of some conveyor belting (10mm thick and I have lots if anyone wants some) and went out to test it.
Vibration free, excellent but whilst out I lost some oil pressure and the engine was rough.
Dismantled to find this. (and another less serious issue)

Ouch .....

Oh B*gg*r!

Sorry to hear that Mike. It's that oilway so close to the journal. I can see a crack above and below the oilway going vertically in the picture.

Maybe a two main bearing crank is the answer  ;) - the Austin 7 racers all prefer two bearings to three. The Twin Cam Salmson can be either two or three bearings with, on the three bearing version a split disc for the centre main just like the Augusta. Three bearing Salmson cranks have been known to break but not the two bearing.

How much undersize are the crank journals? I do think the Augusta crank webs are very slim and wonder if there could be benefit (if making a new crank) in shortening the centre main and the big end bearings to thicken the webs?

Mike

Commiserations, Mike. When I had a new crank made, Phoenix made the centre main the same size as the rear one, rather than the same as the front, which is a bit smaller. So far, it has proved OK and nice and smooth, apart from having little oil pressure, which might well be to do with the shell bearings used for the centre main.

It might pay to get together with Peter Renou, who recently had a similar problem, to see about getting some new crankshafts made.

Thanks for the commiserations.
The centre main is 48.25 and the big end is 41.2. The crack looks to me to have propagated from the oil drilling to the centre main where there is only 2mm of material. I would be interested to know what the standard journal sizes are.
I will mail Peter about a possible collective effort, if anyone else is interested please come forward.
I do have a another crank in a wreck of an engine I bought last year but even if it looks good when I get it out it may have the same flaws.

According to the English version of the instruction book the big end would have been 42mm, the front and centre main 50mm and the rear main 60mm. The actual diameters are not shown but they do show undersize measurements to fit no 1 and no 2 undersize bearings. The no 2 undersize diameters are, for the big end 41.582 - 41.600mm, for the front and centre mains 49.182 - 49.200mm and the rear main 59.180 - 59.200.

The big end which I measured on my engine was 41.66, or about 13.4 thou undersize in pre Napoleonic measurement. I'm no expert but suspect that the undersizes to suit replacment bearings are pretty cautious and would think that the  bigend could tolerate a 20thou regind but an expert such as Ian Burlingham of JBL near York should be consulted.

John's oversize centre main is intended to give more clearance for the oilway as well as providing support a little further out radially along the crank web. I still feel the centre webs look too thin but the saying that "if it looks right it is right" is considered twaddle by real engineers. ;D

Mike

Spring cleaning this week!

New serrated bushes and bolts were made for the front end of the springs, both out of En24T, over-size on diameter to suit the now reamed holes in the chassis bracket and the 14.3mm bore  of the metalastic bushes. I hardened the serrated bushes - red hot then quench in 50/50 engine oil and kerosene, polish then warm until straw/ blue and cool slowly. They are hard enough to be pretty resistant to filing.

I replaced the bearings at the rear (shackle) end of the springs. These look like metalastic bushes but include small rollers in place of the rubber in metalastic bushes. I replaced them with a steel inner sleeve clamped by the original 9mm through bolt, surrounded with a bush made of nylon which is a press fit into the eye of the spring and a running fit on the inner sleeve. I thought that the nylon bushes would end up with a smaller bore after pressing  into the spring eye so bored them first and then made the inner sleeve to fit. In fact the reduction in bore was very slight but I’d still do it the same way. Googly research suggested that Vaseline (petroleum jelly) is the best lubricant for nylon so the medicine cupboard was raided. The lower bearings on the shackles were replaced but I left the top ones undisturbed as they turned smoothly and had little detectable play.

Next job was to clean the spring leaves, grease and re-assemble them, taking care not to mix the leaves, and to put the springs back on the correct sides of the car, which a previous fettler had failed to do so that the serrated bushes were not engaged. Castrol advised that a molybdenum disulphide grease was appropriate between the leaves, readily available as it is used for CV joints. Assembly of the springs involves a pair of large “G” clamps to compress the two top rebound leaves which are of the opposite curvature to the main leaves, and a length of 6mm rod to align the holes for the centre clamping bolt. Once the leaves are fully compressed the clamping bolt can be tapped in, displacing the 6mm rod and holding the spring together so the clamps can be removed.  A slightly fraught process as the greasy leaves are very slippery but trivial compared with the frightening task of fitting an Aprilia spring.

I then wrapped the springs with Denso waterproof tape which keeps the mud and wet out and refitted them to the car, nor forgetting the red fibre pads between spring and axle and between spring and U bolt plate. The U bolts were slightly spread and needed squeezing in a vice to  match the holes in the plate. They are a very hard grade of steel and I found that I had to re-tighten them several times, presumably as the red fibre pads get compressed. There is no means of locking them on our car, although I see from Karl’s photo that  a second locking nut could be fitted if there were enough thread projecting. Ours would need to be a half nut.

All back together for a test run this afternoon. All seems fine and the car improves each time and goes really well. There is still a small vibration of unidentified origin but I am becoming more and more sure that it is not engine related as it continues even if the clutch is disengaged and the revs allowed to drop. I thought I had found a cause as two of the (Michelin rim) wheels are a bit out of shape so although the whole is balanced, the tyres run slightly  eccentric, but swapping them with the spares which do run true had no effect. I wondered if the fabric U/J at the rear of the propshaft might be off centre but it does not seem to be. My only idea now is that the fabric may distort under load as that disc does look a bit skinny compared with the front one and the bolt holes are a fairly free fit.

Mike
 

A jar of Vaseline has been a standard part of my tool kit for forty years, if I need any for medical purposes I have to go and find it in the garage! It was always the thing to put on battery terminals and I generally apply it to any electrical connectors in exposed places, horn connections being a typical use.

Always interesting to read of the progress of Mike's car. One of the issues are vibrations of the drive shaft. I did have unpleasant vibrations on my car, which could be repeated when casting down on my favorite stretch of road where I could reach nearly 100 kph with the engine off.

I did replace the hardware store "8" mm bolts by close tolerance 8 mm bolts and that cured the problem. I think the flex couplings are very sensitive to out of alignment, considering the drive shaft turns at engine speed in top gear.

If the original roller bearings at the shackles are still fine, they should be greased now and then. Once it was suggested that removing the nut and filling it with grease before replacing would be a way to lubricate the bearings. When I still used the (hollow) 9 mm bolts, I did cut a tread in the bolt head and installed a grease nipple. Now I have Nylon bushes at the shackles.

The recent breaking of an Augusta crankshaft has prompted me to have my spare crankshaft crack tested, especially as the big-end journals are almost 1 mm less than the original 42 mm.
I'll let you know the findings, I hope none.

Regards   Karl

Vibrations. When I rebuilt the car I reused a fibre coupling that was not very good but I was keen to get the to project on the road.
In service it was fine but when I looked at it recently it looked to be deteriorating quite quickly so I decided I had to replace it.
I obtained one and installed it without close examination but it vibrated badly. Upon inspection the bore of the cup was 0.5 larger than the nose on the rear of the gearbox. Some clearance is obviously acceptable but unsurprisingly half a mm is not.
I have made another from conveyor belt using the original fittings and it is very smooth.
Crankshafts. I am gathering information and will start another thread shortly.
 

I reckon from what has been said that the fabric disc joint at the back of the propshaft is the problem. The front joint appears to be a period replacement with the trademark CAP. (Photo 117). It is 11mm thick but as you can see (photo 116) is somewhat distorted as if being pulled back by the propshaft. The rear joint is different, with no marking (photo 114) and is only 8mm thick (photo115) and also slightly pulled forwards by the propshaft. The bolts are a poor fit in the disc whereas the bolts for the front disc are a fairly tight fit.

Perhaps the 3mm lesser thickness of the rear disc is causing distortion, and who knows what happens at speed. Can someone confirm the correct thickness of the discs and also has anyone experience of the discs sold by Cavalitto?

I resolved another minor issue today. It surprised me that the water outlet tap by the pump has no provision for a drain pipe to direct draining water through the hole in the chassis side plate, resulting in water running all over the frame side plate and needing bowls and buckets to catch it. I had tapped the underside outlet of the tap when the engine was out, made a brass fitting to connect a thin plastic pipe, but then stupidly forgot to fit it before refitting the tap (it‘s an age thing). Having got the tap and the aluminium elbow fitted and leak free I was reluctant to remove them so had to attack the problem from benath the car. Access is really difficult but with the plastic pipe pushed onto the brass fitting, and guided by a stiffening wire I managed to feed it up through the hole in the side plate and engage the fitting with the thread in the tap.

Finally here (photo 113) is the road spring refitted and wrapped with Denso tape. There is an assisting spring hooked onto the hand brake lever on the back plate to encourage the handbrake to free off. The other end of the assisting spring was hooked to a rather flimsy bracket clamped around the leaves of the suspension spring so I made a 90mm link to allow the assisting spring to be hooked to the clamp holding the main spring leaves in line.

Mike

I did wonder whether settling of the rear springs might tend to move the axle back a fraction but the springs are more or less parallel with the chassis in the horizontal plane so any movement would be minimal and. although the rear shackles are inclined rather than vertical, the chassis is absolutely parallel with the ground so I doubt they have settled much. They do seem to have been reset by the traditional blacksmith's hammer whose imprints are visible, however the leaves all follow the same even curve so apart from one leaf which has a sideways curve, the job seems to have been done well.

Mike

The flexible couplings are 11 mm more or less. The rear one looks a bit thin, and depending on the stiffness of the material, can warp like the one on the picture. The trained eye will note that the spider with the centering bush is installed at the wrong position.
It might sound a bit picky, but I think the masses of the bolts, nuts and washers attaching the flex couplings, should be the same at every position. I am not ashamed to use self locking nuts.
The shackles are inclined about 30 to 40 degrees from vertical. The distance between the forward egde of the boot and the centre of the label on the diff is 115 mm on my car.

Regards  Karl

Thanks Karl. The material of your dodgy disc looks just like mine, although the plates are slightly different but I suspect they are from the same source. I agree re self locking nuts - particularly as I have run out of the correct thickness split pins. The original bolts are in good condition but are of finer pitch than the readily available 8mm self locking nuts. Two had been replaced with non matching. I will have to change the bolts and somehow organise a new disc.

Mike

Good vibrations!

A flash of inspiration hit yesterday - if one or both of the fabric U/Js were defective, swapping them from end to end of the propshaft should produce a change in vibrations and confirm my suspicions.

I think that the joint at the back of the propshaft is more likely to be able to set off vibrations as it is connected to the axle which, as well as bouncing with the springs and twisting with torque effects, is also a much smaller mass than the engine and gearbox and less able to contain vibrations.. The suspect 8mm thin joint was at the back so more crawling underneath today to swap them and a test run today proved the point - I need new fabric joints.

The vibrations are much less than before, seem to start at higher speeds (50 mph upwards)  and quite unrelated to the engine as they continue when coasting. 

I did check the height of the rear end as suggested by Karl and the mesurement was 90mm so my car is 25mm lower at the back than yours Karl. It is level relative to the ground so the back and front match.

Mike

Sorry to go back half a conversation , but I only came across these today ..... 3 NOS bushes and nuts, if they are of interest to anybody

Plus, I found 2 other bearings that aren't Aprilia, does anyone know if they are Augusta ??

Thanks

Looks like three bushes for the front of the Augusta rear springs and in the second picture a pair of the roller bearing bushes for the shackle at the back (four needed per car). I've done mine but no doubt someone will need them. Good that you have saved all this Lancia stuff Simon.

Mike

Crankshaft:  Just to let you know, that I got my crank back from Magnafluxing and no cracks were found. Good news! I am aware that with that method only cracks at the surface or slightly below can be detected. Now I will go on with restoring my spare engine.

Regards  Karl

I am negotiating for the supply of fabric propshaft Hardy discs (just the disc not the three legged locating spider) from a UK manufacturer. It looks like they will be £90 to £100 each plus VAT and carriage if I just get two but there would be saving of £12 per disc we can order three or more sets. 4-6 weeks delivery.

Anyone else interested?

Mike

Have you spoken to Morris and James Parry ?

Yes - Morris has the jig and belting to make them but no time available. I decided to go ahead and order a pair of discs from GMS Polymers and will be doing this tomorrow so anyone else interested - speak up soon!

I've been fitting an Air/Fuel Ratio gauge and tried it today. This measures the proportion of fuel to air in the mixture via a sensor fitted to the exhaust and I found a similar gauge very useful when dealing with the somewhat unusual Royce carburettor of a Rolls Royce 20hp. A quick test today shows that the Weber on the Augusta produces a mixture between 12 and 14 to 1 air to fuel which is probably about right for the present alcohol level in unleaded. However a bit more fiddling is needed as the gauge sometimes turns itself off.

Mike

I want to clean the oil pressure relief valve, not because the pressure is low but feel it should be looked at, having not done so when the engine was out of the car. However I am frustrated as the damned thing is too tight to unscrew. It has a domed slotted cap screwed flush into the block just behind the water pump but despite having made a 20mm wide screwdriver by grinding a 20mm wood bit I just cannot get the cap to unscrew. Any ideas? I don't think a right angle impact driver would fit. I must admit Lancia's aim of making the engine look tidy by using the domed screw insted of a hexagon for a spanner is not very fettler friendly.

Mike

I had the same problem once but managed to losen the cover with some kind of angle screwdriver. Perhaps you can make a tool which is wedged between the engine and the side of the engine compartment, so the blade of the screwdriver will stay where it should be. I am considering to make a cover with a hexagon, you probably will too!
Good luck  Karl

That's just what I tried - the shank of the "screwdriver" lodges against the chassis rail and the tool is turned with a ring spanner whose hexagon fits the 20mm blade. So far no success even with a 300mm long ring spanner.

Mike

  Can you get an induction heater on the head ?
 

  Dave

After a fruitless search for a suitable impact driver to turn the cap I moved to ever stronger screwdriver ideas but again without success - it was extremely tight. I imagine an induction heater might do the trick Dave but I don't have one. Anyway I decided to make a new cap with a hexagon for future use so could sacrifice the original which was by then a bit dog eared around the screwdriver slot. So I drilled a notch toward one edge and with a punch and big hammer was able to move the cap.

The relief valve was pretty grubby inside so the exercise was worthwhile. Why it was so tight I can't say but perhaps because it did not have the copper washer shown in Karl's picture. The paint on the block when I got the car extended over the cap so I suspect the previous owner never took it out. It was my mistake not to take it out when I had the engine out of the car but to be honest if I noticed it I probably assumed it was to do with the water jacket on the block not the oiling department.

Mike

Mike,
Perhaps you want to make two new hexagon caps, the second one for the oil filter safety valve on the lower L/H side of the engine?
Regards  Karl

Relief valve caps made and the one for the pump fitted. The oil pressure now stays within the Normale zone even at tickover and rises to about 2/3 across the zone to the "a" of Normale at about 1800rpm with the engine warmed up to 70C water temp. The pressure does not increase above 1800 rpm so I assume that is the point at which the regulating valve opens This is an improvement since cleaning the valve so the crud around the spring presumably was also between plunger and seat of the valve. I blew it through with the airline via the connection point for the oil pressure gauge.

I'm still struggling to get the Air/fuel ratio gauge to work properly as it frequently goes haywire, often after going down hill at which point the reading oscillates from one extreme to the other and then cuts out altogether. The sensor plugged into the exhaust just after the lower bend of the downpipe has a built in heater and at first I suspected a poor earth connection through the exhaust pipe and made a wired earth to the chassis. This seems to help but I now wonder if it needs the help of more heat from the exhaust - perhaps some lagging on the downpipe would help. When it is working the AFR fluctuates from 12.5 to 14 air to fuel on the level and on hills, dropping to 20 to 1 on the over-run downhill. I was interested to find out the effect of running with the mixture control pulled right out when driving with a wide throttle on a hill as recommended in the instructions for the Weber - it does make a slight difference to the pulling of the engine and the mixture strength increases from 12.5 to 11.5. The other option, running on a level road with the mixture control in the mid position where it acts as an extra air valve to weaken the mixture for economy also has the expected effect on the reading. All this was with the Winter/Summer setting on Winter. I did briefly try the Summer setting but the gauge playing up stopped me from seeing a sensible result.

Mike

Making the relief valve caps was more difficult than I expected as although the thread is nominally 14mm x 1.5mm pitch it is in fact about 13.7mm diameter. I have noticed this before on other bits of Augusta so rather than splash out on a die to cut the thread I opted to thread cut on the lathe, making a test 14mm sample in brass to try the fit of the thread in the cylinder block. I then made a couple more in steel but having to take the cap out of the lathe chuck to try it then return it to remove another few thou - tricky job to keep it concentric and also pick up the thread with the tool but it worked in the end. It's always difficult to  match a thread to a hole when there is no possiblity of trying the fit with the work still in the lathe. I put a 17mm hexagon on the cap in place of the hopeless  (if prettier) slotted head).

I refitted the cap with a plain copper washer in place of the previous red fibre version. It seems to have sealed perfectly with no need of sealant. So far after about 400km since refitting engine and gearbox there are no leaks or drips underneath, apart from the sliding pillars. The refurbished water pump is also dip free.

Mike

Now getting to some of the details - a couple of questions.

1. Has anyone a design for operating the radiator shutters by cable rather by thermostat?

2. I'm thinking of ordering new floor mats from Cicognani but question how the one which covers the firewall and pedal board is attached to the car - my car has carpet stuck with glue        but there is no sign of any other fastening and Cicognani's picture shows no holes or anything to indicate how the mat is fixed. Fitting this one looks a bit tedious as lots of things would need to be removed to get the mat to fit around pedals, steering column and various pipes and cables.

Mike

Please find below a suggestion as how to install the rubber mat. Perhaps not the most elegant solution, but it works fine for me.

Karl

Karl thanks - I took the old carpets out today and scraped off the mixture of contact adhesive and crumbling foam carpet backing from the footboard and firewall. Close inspection shows that there are some self-tapping screw holes in various places no doubt for the attachment  of the rubber mats. I rather favour using some ribbed fabric doormat material instead of the original style rubber mats as it has the advantage of being better at sound insulation and readily available in the carpet shop across the road. I use it in my Salmson and it looks  right. I've made a cardboard pattern for cutting the mat.

I came across this website on the tuning of Weber carburettors which I'm sure will help me shortly and probably will be useful for other Lancia owners equipped with Webers. It relates mainly to the setup of slow running jet screw and throttle stop screw. The Augusta engine tends to die when I stop after coming down hill, no doubt being too weak because the slow running is beig controlled by the throttle stop rather than the slow running jet. Once I get the AFR gauge working properly the answer should be clear as it was in my Rolls-Royce which had the same tendency.

http://www.redlineweber.com/html/Tech/carburetor_set_up_and_lean_best_.htm

Mike

Referring back to Karl's pictures of the radiator shutter mechanism on Sept 9th (p9 of this thread). I have all the linkage shown but lack the crank which fits in the bracket on the front of the radiator header tank and transmits the motion of the expanding thermostat capsule to the linkage on the shutters. Unfortunately the handbook drawings show the earlier flat radiator version which differs from that on Karl's car and mine. Could anyone offer a sketch or photo of that part which I shall need whether I go for cable or thermostatic operation? Might it be the same as on the Aprilia, Ardea or Appia? Also what are the springs like? These are also missing.

I'm also curious as to how the aforesaid crank is engaged with the ball joint of the lower arm (not shown in Karl's pictures) when the shutters are being refitted to the radiator shell. I assume that the shutters and chrome surround must be removed from the painted radiator shell to connect the springs to the brackets on the header tank but is there some kind of fork on the crank into which the ball is pushed? Come to think of it how to connnect the springs? These Italians are ingenious or am I just dim!!!

Mike

Indeed, not so easy to fit the whole assembly (chrome surround with shutters and the radiator shell). I have to do this as there are hidden screws attaching the chrome surrond to the the radiator shell. One more screw at the very bottom. On installation, I tie a string onto the rod 34-6849 and when the radiator shell is almost in place, with some fiddling, I can clip it to the lever 31-6857A.

The installion on my car is different from the factory set-up. Instead of the original steel cable, I use a rod with ball joints and the return spring is relocated to the top of the R/H shutter connection, as shown on picture 2958a further up on this tread. A long time I was without a working thermostat, Peter Renou in Melbourne did repair it.

Photo 100_4445a shows the original installation on the radiator. It is very difficult even look at the lever operated by the thermostat or take a photo when all is in situ. I wonder if Mike Raahauge would be willing to take photos and make a sketch from the lever 31-6851, as most probably his radiator is out of the car at the moment.

Please note that, on page 90, the lever 31-6857a is shown back to front.

I hope that helps.  Karl

Good evening, I will look at it tomorrow and take some pictures but ours is a flat rad and I had understood, perhaps wrongly, that the set-up was different.

Thanks Mike that would be helpful. The main bit I lack is the crank which fits on the radiator header tank bracket and is moved by the thermostat. I guess this part is the same on both versions. If you can also messure the lever length etc on that crank I should be able to make one.#

Mike

Mike. It is a bit fiddly and will be quite time consuming to sketch comprehensively so I suggest that I send you mine to copy.
Please confirm your address to me at raahauge@btinternet.com and I will send it Monday.

That would be great Mike - thanks. I'll email the address.

Mike

With the borrowed widget from M Raahauge I've started working out how to connect the radiator shutters for manual control. It can be done using a cable to actuate the widget in Mike's picture (above) in place of the thermostat cartridge if the levers, rods and springs of the shutter mechanism are switched around so that the pushing action of the thermostat is replaced by the pull of a cable. The cable connects to the widget through the header tank just like the thermostat and goes through the bulkhead to be controlled by a pull out knob below the dashboard. The original thermostat pushes the linkage against a spring to open the shutters so the default position is shutters closed which would be a pest with a cable system if something broke so  I prefer to have it so that they spring open and the driver has to positively close them when needed. Actually that is the only way I could see to tidily get round the limited ability of the cable to push ;). Fortunately no original parts have to be altered and only one new hole is needed so the setup can easily revert to a thermostat if I choose.

The doormat carpets worked out well after a day of crawling painfully under the dashboard to make a pattern for the placement of numerous holes for pipes, pedals and steering column. Even with the seats removed it is quite a struggle to get under there. The ribbed mats approximate to the ribbed pattern of the original rubber and are very practical. I've yet too bite the bullet of ordering a new rubber cover for the transmission from Italy.

Mike

More work on the shutter control, copying the complicated small bell crank which connects the thermostat capsule to the shutter linkage. Kindly loaned an original by Mike Raahauge, I made a CAD drawing (photo122) to work from and then started mowing metal from a 40mm steel bar on which I carefully marked the centres of the holes and of the various curved faces. The CAD drawing was very helpful in setting up the milling machine to do the curves using a paper cutout to line things up (123). The work piece was gripped in a three jaw chuck clamped to a rotary table which was rotated to machine the curves, each time relocating the chuck on the table to centre the chuck at the correct radius. I more or less followed the original design but simplified it a little to make life easier (125). I should have bought a bar of brass but being impatient to get on, used a piece of steel.

I planned to reverse some of the links and springs so that the bell crank could be operated by pulling a cable which passed through the original thermostat tube in the header tank and connected to a lever on the dash below the fuel gauge. However, impatience does not pay as I found that the mechanical advantage of the levers made the movement of the proposed dashboard control too small for fine adjustment. A rethink led me to make a more direct cable attachment around the offside (right side) of the radiator with the cable running inside the chassis frame by the engine, under the steering box, and up through the grommit for the steering column to an aged lawnmower throttle lever which had been waiting in my junk box for 50 years for just such a resurrection. The lever is fixed to a bracket clamped to the steering column below the dash. A fair amount of fiddling with lever lengths and spring attachments finally gave me a working system in which all the spring forces are taken between original fixing points on the radiator header tank so that no more leverage is applied to the outer radiator shell than is needed to move the shutters. It reverts to open shutters if anything fails.

I have now a working setup and a redundant new bell crank! Actually if I want to fit a thermostat of course the bell crank will be needed. Making it was fun  keep telling myself!

Mike

Brilliant! Very nicely done. In case you want to go for a thermostat, find below photos of mine. I think that the thermostat does not expand enough to make the slats go from fully closed to fully open. Therefore Lancia attached an adjustment screw which enables the thermostat to be moved fore and back in the tube. This way the slats opening range can be adjusted to the ambient temperature. The rear part has a  8 mm tread attached and there is a spring inside which holds the thermostat in the slot. The system must have been good enough, so that Lancia didn't install a water temperature gauge. I don't know if this is the same thermostat as the Aprilia, perhaps Aprilia owners can tell.
I hope that helps  Karl

Hi Mike,
You don`t know me but I have been following this thread and am constantly in awe of your engineering/machining abilities! I find things like this fascinating and at the same time frustrated that I cannot do it myself, as I have neither the machinery or the machining skills. Race car setup, spannering and electrics yes, but not your level of expertise. Keep up the brilliant work!

Jaydub

This tread puts a happy smile on my face time and time again! 

Careful chaps I might get bigheaded. :o But thanks for your kind words. I've no real engineering training but had a half share in an engineering business in which I watched my business partner do all the clever engineering stuff while I did everything else. So what I know comes from 65 years of fiddling with old car bits for fun.

Karl thanks for the picture and measurements of the thermostat unit. I have the adjusting rod and the large nut but nothing else. Are there any drawings of the unit to show how it is made or has anyone a scrap unit I could dissect to either repair or copy? That could be an interesting project.

Mike

Shutter control completed (photos 127 and 128) The link in my hand connects to the shutter actuating lever on the radiator cowl. The ball joint on this rod snaps onto the ball of the actuating lever and can only be disconnected if the radiator cowl is loosened and pulled forward. When the cable is pulled the shutters close and when released they are opened by the spring. The outer cable position can be adjusted as can the cable connection to the swinging lever. The small clamp on the  wire limits the travel of the cable when closing the shutters. (129) shows the control lever on the steering column.

While doing this I had to remove and refit the radiator cowl and grill many times and had to deal with a few problems. The bottom end of the cowl is trapped between the mudguard and the chassis so the bolts holding the front of the mudguard must be slackened. It is more difficult on my car because the normal leather or rubber strips between mudguards, running board and chassis frame have been replaced by an aluminium extrusion as they are on an Aprilia and these are a very tight fit. It looks OK so I will leave it in place but had to thin the extrusion  a little at the pinch point. The most difficult problem is to fit the upper bolts as there is very little room to manoeuvre bolt, washer and fingers in the gap between mudguard and cowl. I cleaned up the threads of the bolt holes which were  messy, presumably due to previous attempts to fit the bolts. I also made new bolts in brass so they could not harm the threads of the holes, making these bolts Bugatti style with an integral washer which helps a lot as they are fitted. Making these involves using round bar not hexagon as obviously the washer part is of greater diameter than the points of the nuts so this involved the milling machine as well as the lathe.  It is a job I am well practiced in from previous experience on a Brescia. The surviving original bolts were brass. I found it much easier to fit the tricky upper bolts if the two lower ones were fitted first so that the cowl only needed to be swung back and forth to line up the top bolt and hole.


Mike

Another excellent job Mike. Love the repurposing of the lawn mower throttle control lever.

I’ve fitted an Air Fuel Ratio gauge to sort out the peculiarities of the Weber 30DO carburettor of our Augusta. The device reads a sensor unit attached to the exhaust pipe as it leaves the engine compartment and shows the ratio of air to fuel, the ideal ratio is in the region of 13 to 1 by weight. I also fitted a temperature gauge, an electric version to avoid the need for extra holes in the bulkhead. Both gauges fit in a panel below the dash under the steering column, attached to the bracket for the upper bearing of the steering column.

I had earlier improved the running by fiddling with the only manual adjustment (as opposed to changing jet sizes) on the Weber but felt it was still not right. I read an article

(http://www.redlineweber.com/html/Tech/carburetor_set_up_and_lean_best_.htm)

which explains a good method of setting both the slow running mixture screw and the slow running stop for the throttle and followed these with an immediate improvement to the slow running. However the instructions indicated that the setting of the slow running screw which had to be screwed down to ¾ of a turn to get a smooth tickover suggested that the mixture had been far too rich and that the slow running jet was too large. The ideal setting of the idling screw is between 1.5 and 2 turns. The jet is the correct 0.55mm bore (marked No. 55 - jets are marked in 100ths of a millimetre so for example a 105 jet  would be 1.05mm bore) so how could the mixture  be so far out? It looks as though the conical tip of the jet which seats in a sharp edged 2.5mm hole is worn, along with the seating and since the jet controls the flow of fuel from a passage linked to the float chamber a poor fit of the jet to its seating would provide a by-pass route for excess fuel to get into the slow running mixture. So another machining exercise is needed.

Firstly to sort out the worn seat for the slow running jet. Tricky as it is 30mm down a 10mm diameter hole. To recut the seat flat and axially true can be done using a small slot drill, a milling bit which cuts a flat face, the hard part being to ensure that the slot drill is held vertically and central to the 2.8 mm bore of the seat, 30mm down the hole. I made a brass insert with a 0.25 inch bore to guide the slot drill and with a 10mm external thread to screw in place of the jet. (photo 135)The thread  on the jet holder which appears at first sight to be M10 x 1mm pitch curiously turned out to be 10mm by 24 turns per inch for which obviously there are no dies available. Luckily the aged Harrison lathe can do Imperial TPI as well as metric, although it needs the drive gears to be swapped around so that was possible if difficult because I was cutting a thread to the measurements of the male thread of the jet but not able to try the female thread on the guide. A small amount of thread chasing with a fine triangular file finished the job.

The brass guide and slot drill were next used to recut the seat. It is very hard to see the result as the recess is deep and hard to illuminate but using a camera was the best method. I rotated the slot drill by hand with very little pressure and frequent inspection until the seat looked clean. (photo 136 and 137)

The tip of the slow running jet can be pulled out of its holder and machined to the correct 45 degree taper, being very carefully centred in the lathe with a dial gauge.

As a final check I fitted the tip of the jet back into its holder,  blued the tip of the jet and inserted it into the carburettor then removed it, leaving a trace of engineer’s blue on the seat. The jet was cleaned and reinserted and - bingo- picked up a complete even ring of blue on the tip. (photo 138)

Hopefully this should result in a proper seal between jet and seat.

Amazing how Mike is performing open carburettor surgery. I am sure the Augusta soon will be running satisfactory with the Weber 30DO.
In my Augusta I am using a Weber 30DO for 10 years now. It never failed in several 10'000 Km's. At installing I made sure that all the jets and other parts are at factory specs.

For those not familiar with this carburettor type, I made a display of parts from a Weber I bought in bits and pieces. The figures shown are the factory specs. Although the most parts are bronze, brass or aluminium, there are a few bits from Mazac and amost impossible to get as spares. Its the diffusor (4,5), the choke tube (19) and the arm which attaches the bowden cable for the starting device. I am looking for the right needle valve, it looks as I will have to adapt a modern one, as I have not found a spare one sofar.

Regards   Karl

I ran the engine to see whether my slow running jet clean up had made a difference. It has and the response to twiddling the slow running (mixture volume screw) now is much more sensitive than before although it still needs to be less than one turn open. The Air Fuel Ratio gauge reading now makes much more sense and small adjustments of the slow running screw have a marked effect on the reading. The gauge seems more sensitive than it needs to be as there is a fair range of oscillation of the reading even with a steady throttle. I’m not sure if this is inherent to the gauge or if it is detecting the variation in exhaust composition due to minor but frequent changes in combustion while ticking over. The true result will only come when I can drive the car to put a bit of load on the engine.

I took the plunge and bought a new rubber cover for the gearbox from Cigognani in Italy to replace the perished original. Ordered Wednesday last week, it arrived today Tuesday, a remarkable service. It is not quite as good a fit to the shape of the gearbox and looks a bit bloated, however I think I can improve this with a bit of silicone used as glue. Not cheap though at 110 euros plus local TVA and carriage.

Mike

The recent book on classic engines and modern fuels has a lot to say on how much variation there is with combustion.  

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Classic-Engines-Modern-Fuel-Solutions/dp/1787115909

A lot of the content is here, but there may be more online and more in the book (I've a memory, as always with me quite weak, of the book mentioning a blog and maybe a forum).

https://www.mg-cars.org.uk/imgytr/paulireland/paulireland.shtml

I wrote somewhere else on this forum re this book. Although a bit repetitive it makes some good points:

Summer fuel better than winter.... Less front end components, less volatile, less gumming

Modern fuel works Better with about 5 deg more advance mid range (argument for programmable distributors??)

I could go on.

Thanks chaps. I had seen the MG website but now I should buy the book.

As soon as I get and fit the new propshaft fabric discs and we get a reasonably salt free road I can get out there and test the carb and hopefully find no more vibrations.

Mike

New fabric propshaft discs arrived from F Tooms. They are very accurate and were easily fitted, if lying on the floor for an hour or two is easy!

Photos 139 and 140 show the two new discs which are 11mm thick (7/16 inch) as was the thicker of the two which were on the car which looks like an original. The yellow one is obviously a more recent replacement and is only 8mm thick. The new discs after fitting remain absolutely flat with weight of the car on the axles whereas the previous discs always looked a bit wavy. They are very stiff compared with the earlier ones but whether this matters only use will show. Was the vibration a FLOPPY DISC problem?

Mike

Finally a dry enough day after days of rain (good as it washed the salt away) I was able to try the car to see the results of the  last month’s fettling.
First the carburation and the Air Fuel Ratio gauge. Success - the gauge works and interestingly has confirmed that the A/F ratio with a steady throttle and load is in the region of 13 to 1 as I hoped. This is with the standard jets in the Weber 30D carburettor and the slow running volume control set as advised in the link I quoted previously. The ratio does fluctuate by one unit or so but generally does make sense. I’ve evidently got the slow running correctly set as it ticks over reliably and very slowly and evenly. It was far too rich previously but went very weak when slowing downhill to a halt so tended to stall. It no longer does that.  I have not yet played with the economy setting of the choke (pulled halfway out the control acts as an extra air valve for economy) or pulled the choke fully out with wide open throttle to richen the mixture to climb an Alp.

The radiator shutters work fine and I can now maintain an engine temperature of 70-80 C with the shutters about half open.

Now to the subject which has been bugging me all along - the vibration, propshaft or not?
It has changed after fitting new discs U/Js but not gone away. Damn it!!

The propshaft was balanced last year and after fitting the new Hardy discs I checked whether the propshaft runs true using a depth gauge from the centre cruciform of the frame. It does, the variation of the reading as the propshaft is turned was only 0.5mm which represents 0.25mm out of true which may even be ovality of the tube rather than wobble, and I think is of little consequence.

On the road there is still  a vibration at 2800 to 3000 rpm in top gear. It does not occur at the same revs in the lower gears and continues even if the car is put into neutral and the engine revs dropped to tickover. It does not occur at these revs in the lower gears so it cannot be related to the engine. So still a mystery. However it is less intrusive than before and not enough to spoil the enjoyment of the car which I must say now that the carburettor is properly set, goes amazingly well and energetically and is great fun to drive. I suppose the next move must be to put it in a rolling road to see what is going on. That will have to wait until Spring.

Mike

Today some real progress on the vibration. Rather than wait for the rolling road I decided to jack the car up on four axle stands and run it to observe what is going on. I was a bit nervous about running it this way but I needn’t have been, it worked perfectly and did not feel in any way unsafe.

I could use the hand throttle to run the engine through the range of revs in top gear and see exactly what was going on. The vibration followed exactly the pattern I’d found on the road, coming in at 2600 up to 3000 rpm and continuing as the transmission slowed down when I knocked it out of gear and let the engine slow so, as I thought, is unrelated to the engine, clutch or gearbox. The propshaft runs absolutely true as do the new Hardy discs but the off side rear wheel has a wobble.

I had previously checked that the tyres run concentric to the hub and had the wheels balanced when the new tyres were fitted. but had not found a good way of seeing whether there was any swash-plate like wobble. Running jacked up like this, a wobble was very obvious. I then swapped wheels around which showed that the problem is with the wheel not the hub or half shaft. The offending wheel was demoted to spare and with a reasonably dry road I had a test run which showed a significant improvement, with far less vibration. In fact on country roads at 45-50 mph it is barely noticeable and even at 55-60 not intrusive. Freed of this dominating vibration, I can now feel that the engine itself is free of any major vibration period and hope that the remaining lesser vibration is due to smaller amounts of wobble in the other wheels.

The problem now is to see whether the wobble can be rectified which will mean finding a way of measuring it and putting it right. The wheels are made of fairly thin gauge steel and I suspect easily distorted by kerbing or a blowout, indeed some of the rims show signs of this. The wobble however may be caused by distortion of the supposedly flat inner face which the wheel studs clamp tightly to the hub/brakedrum. The offending wheel can be slightly rocked when laid on a flat surface. I can imagine that careless tightening of the wheel nuts as the wheel is fitted could be responsible. I think I can find a way of truing this mating surface relative to the main pressing of the wheel, either by pressure or a light skim, although there is very little thickness of metal to play with.

The Augusta has those very attractive  pressed steel wheels of the style which used to be called “Easyclean”. They also are unfortunately of the Michelin rimmed variety, a style introduced to get around patents on the "Well Based rim". The Michelin wheel has a well to assist fitting of the tyre but the well only extends around 60% of the rim which introduces an imbalance, corrected by the factory by three pieces of steel welded to the inner face of the wheel spokes or as on one of my wheel with weights fixed by three studs.  I hope that the minor dints in the rims and the alignment of the rims with the hub turn out to be of less consequence as welding new rims to the spokes would be very difficult as the spokes of the Michelin rim vary in radial length to fit the strange profile of the rim.

There is a small possibility that the wheels could be dynamically balanced to minimise the effects of the wobble. When the new tyres were fitted the balance weights which are plentiful(!) were all fitted to the inner side of the wheel so as to invisible. It is common practice when balancing wheels to put balance weights both inside the centre line of the rim and  to the outside to eliminate wobble. I shall speak to Longstone for their expertise.

So I think I know the problem, I just have to find how to sort it out. In the meantime though the car is now perfectly usable, very pleasant and great fun just as I hoped when I chose it.

Mike

If efforts to balance fail would you be able to source another wheel?

I was also wondering about "hit it with a stick" type rectification, but I've not got a solid sense of what the motion is. 

I haven't thought about replacing the wheel yet but will see how I get on straightening it. The wobble is like a swashplate - the rim is running on an axis which is at a slight angle to the halfshaft. I would call it SWASHBUCKLING. ;D

I think the stick approach might be a bit brutal and dint the rolled edge rims. I well recall my son's Delta Integrale regularly suffered bent alloy rims due to the very low profile tyres and the excessive local supply of potholes. He carried a lead sash weight to beat it back into shape.

Mike

Have seen this problem of wheel wobble in Aurelia and Appia wheels: the inner flat portion of the wheel distorts over time, likely due to sitting in one place for extended periods. I have a set of Aurelia B20 early wheels with this problem - at one time, there was a guy in St. Louis, MO, who would straighten them - he did the Appia wheels which had the same issue. Such people are very hard to find.

Possible fixes? Not sure. Have heard of people cutting out the section and remaking the surface from the wheel rim to the hub. Probably easier to source some untroubled wheels - I was able to find a set of Borrani steel wheels for the Aurelia that were in decent shape. Oddly, they weighed just the same as the originals - 18#, but seemed a bit better and didn't have this problem.   

I would bet that the problem is the balancing of the wheels. I spent a lot of time on mine getting them dynamically balanced and it was worthwhile. It seems that static balancing isn't good enough with sliding pillar cars as they seem to be more sensitive than other forms of suspension. Keep up the good work.

Just in from the shed having spent a couple of hours looking at the wheels and measuring wobble etc. Yes John I think dynamic balancing is the right way but will now wait until the New Year if we are allowed out. It looks like there is only one which is significantly out of truth and fortunately the car has two spares so it can be the emergency get you home  wheel for two punctures. I think the main problem is with the edge of the rim which seems vulnerable to being dinted. My original suspicion about the wheel centre is probably wrong as the distortion there is very slight.

I have another question  - has anyone found an ingenious modern electronic method to reduce the shock to the starter Bendix when running a 6V starter on 12V or do we just get it rewound and if so by whom? I doubt a resister would help as the voltage drop would only happen once the load was applied and would be too late for the Bendix.

Mike

Hi Mike

I have no idea what current is taken with the starter, but maybe a D.C. to D.C. converter could be an answer?

Peter

When my Aprilia was converted by a PO from 6 to 12v the starter motor remained unchanged. When I queried this with the PO I was assured it was OK so long as the starter was not used continuously (ie the car would not start due to another fault) - it would eventually overheat. It never did. Maybe the inductance of the starter/solenoid limits the initial action of the bendix.... Is the Augusta bendix a weak point of the starter?

No, as far as I know, not particularly - it's just a feeling that the engagement is rather fierce and a thought that this is hard on both Bendix and flywheel starter ring.

My son's 1927 Austin Seven was converted to 12V years ago and the starter seems to survive - we joke that we know when the engine has started when it slows down.

To ease the engagement would be ideal as we would then keep the benefit of the quicker turning of the starter under 12V.

Mike

If I remember right, the Aprilia has a different starter motor system, the dog is pulled mechanically into the ring gear, and then power is applied. Not so in the Augusta. There power is on by pressing the starter switch which causes the armature to turn immediately fast, thereby pushing the dog into the strong spring at the end of the armature shaft and the same time engaging the ring gear (Bendix Drive)
In the case of Mike's Augusta (and others), there would be about 10 volts at the starter motor whereas in a 6 volt system there would be about 4-5 Volts. Quite a difference which will increase wear on the dog, ring gear and the brushes.
In some Italian Augustas on the market I have seen converted starter motors, similar to those in the Aprilia. Once I had one of those on my bench, it does fit in the Augusta engine. But it was for a 6 Volt system, the advantage was saving the dog and ring gear from exessive wear. In such a system a resistor in series would make sense.
In the case of Mike's Augusta, it might reduce the amperage applied by using a cable of reduced section between the switch and the starter motor, perhaps worth to try, as the the starter motor has already a low resistance.

Karl

This is the part that suffers!

And that!

My ring gear is worn too! I think the bronze pinion might be a good idea as a sort of sacrificial item to save the ring gear. My pinion is steel.

Been out today swapping wheels around to see whether any more are distorted. Apparently not although I will get them dynamically balanced to reduce vibration. I find it strange that the back of the car seems more susceptible to vibration than the front as I've always found the opposite with other cars. Fortunately it now only become annoying at over 90kph which is not a problem as we are miles from any motorway.

Anyway can I just say thanks to all who have read and contributed to this thread. There is always an element of self publicising in forum posting although not in the same league here as on Twitface. I feel justified in describing what I'm up to in case at some point it helps someone else. I've certainly had a huge amount of generous help and advice from numerous Augusta fans and hope this can be seen as a means of thanking all concerned.

A muggy day today as we say in Yorkshire. I set out to take a nice scenic picture of Nidderdale but snow and mist caught me so here is the Augusta at the bottom of Nought Bank near Pateley Bridge. This was used as a trials hill in the 1920's (unsurfaced at the time) and you can just see it behind the trees snaking up the hillside.

Have a nice Christmas and all the best for 2021.

Mike

Regarding starter motors and 12 v.
I converted to 12 v but concluded (without any scientific appraisal) that the most current was probably on initial contact when the rotor was being accelerated from zero. As I have used my battery box for a heater the battery is now under the drivers seat so I used a quite a small cross section cable which is about a metre in length to feed the motor and induce some voltage drop.  I have not tried to measure the result, I think I would need rig up an oscilloscope.
The bendix is still in excellent condition though not much of a test as it has only been in use for about a year.
Thank you everyone who has made the effort to contribute, I will try and bring a bit more to the table in future.
Best wishes to you all for Christmas and especially for the coming year.
Mike

Regarding starter dogs and ring gears.

The Augusta left the factory equipped with an integral ring gear, not hardened, and a bronze dog. The starter dog was easy to replace and the ring gear lasted a fairly long time.

Decades ago, I have installed a steel dog (hardened), a Bosch part. However it did ruin the ring gear with time, the dog is still fine. Lesson learned.

Fortunately Cavalitto sells ring gears which can be shrunk onto a worn fly wheel. Then one has a hardened ring gear and a hardened steel dog. Should last me out.

Best wishes to all for a good New Year.

Karl

Please keep posting.  I find it entertaining, an education, inspiration, and hope in time a useful reference.

As we all know one thing leads to another!

One thing - an email from Karl told me of his experience with dynamic wheel balancing on his Augusta so that is my next move. I have tried all five good wheels on a front hub and all seemed well balanced in the radial sense and all five had the balance weights by the valve which Iies in the centre of the partial well of the Michelin wheel rim. Odd at first sight as I thought there would be more metal at that point, however I realised that the partial well brings the raised portion nearer to the wheel centre thus upsetting the balance. I also noticed that the factory installed rim weights are mostly near the valve to counteract the asymmetry.

Another thing - I began to wonder why the Augusta seems more prone to out of balance wheel vibration at the back rather than the front as I have found on all the other cars I have owned. Perhaps a combined effect of rather large fat and heavy tyres on wide wheels mounted on a relatively light axle on a lightish car. I’d already done the spring mountings, shackles etc, cleaned, greased and wrapped the springs which has perhaps modified the innate damping of leaf springs but this cannot be responsible as the vibration was unchanged afterward.

So the only issue left was the condition of the friction shock absorbers which are similar to  Andre Hartfords (Photo 142). They have a single moving arm made up of three leaves which join to discs sandwiching 6 wooden friction discs mounted on a chassis bracket, all clamped together by a bolt and spring which pre-sets the tension, unlike the Andre Hartford type where the clamping effect can be adjusted to suit the weight of car and for wear in the friction discs. A fabricated link connects the arm to the axle via Metalastic bushes.

It seemed unduly hard to move the arm of the shockabsorbers by hand, needing a force of about 48lbs/ft to start the lever moving although I have no idea what the correct setting should be. (Does anyone have a figure for this?) Once apart for a clean up, all the wooden discs looked heavily coated with what seemed to have started as grease but was now congealed and hard, looking almost glazed. Wire brushing and paraffin revealed a sound grained wooden surface.

The rubber bushes on the connecting links need replacing and both the surrounds for the upper bush and the links looked very battered, one arm having evidently been broken and welded together with a patch. (Photo 143) One of the connecting links is sound enough and looks original but the other is not very good. So more fettling awaits!

Making a replacement connecting link will be tricky so if anyone has a sound original  link they can spare I’d be glad to buy it. (Photo 144)

When it comes to re-fitting them to the car I will test the action of the friction by a simple technique I’ve used before with Hartfords. Jack the car up, supporting it beneath the chassis, jack the axle up and then set the tension of the clamping bolt on the discs so that the axle will only just drop as the supporting jack is lowered. This seems to work well for Hartfords and will give a guide as to whether the Augusta’s shocker setting is in the right zone, but what to do if it is not - I’ll wait and see.

Mike

Well this might be the first time I can help rather than be helped! Mine have almost disintegrated due to wear  (bush failed - see pic) so I’ve recently had these made by a firm called lasermaster, in Cornwall. I don’t have the skills which you have, so I had the spacers made and new nylon bushes produced by RST plastics. All for under £50.
Hope this might help.
Regards
David

Picture

Original link

Thanks  David

It's interesting to see that your original link is different to mine and a whole lot easier to make. I was thinking along those lines so it is good to see that Lancia obviously thought the same.

The saddle like brackets which clamp to the axle and carry the bushes for the lower end of the links of the rear shocker arms had been badly fettled, including cutting and rewelding the eye, presumably to remove and replace the metalastic style bush. One arm had also been reinforced and welded.  (Photo 145). One of the saddle brackets was distorted so the bush was way out of line. (Photo146). A little bit of vice and brute force straightened the saddle pressing so I can now machine off the damaged sleeves, leaving a true rim to the bracket so a new sleeve can be welded on. Anyway all can be sorted as long as my welder does not get locked down - he is an essential worker!

Mike

Lots of fiddly work involved to sort out the rear shockers.

First the saddle brackets for the connecting link. Hard to hold them to mill away the old welds on the bracket but a few clamps and a length of ex Stanley Steamer front axle tube did the trick (147. The shockabsorber arm ends were machined to take a new sleeve for the rubber bush (148).The arms had been severely fettled in the past and one had much welding done so rather than just welding the sleeve in place I copied a Hartford method, making a bracket fitting around the sleeve and bolting to the arm (149).The arm has three leaves held together with rivets, avoiding which meant making the bracket a bit longer than I wished. The trick with making multiple identical parts is to sandwich them together and machine them in one go (150). Lastly the bush sleeves will be welded into the bracket - but only when lockdown lets me out to visit the welder.

Then that strange offset link. I didn’t think I could bend the strip neatly to copy the design seen in David’s pictures and spent a while  pondering how I could simplify the job, eventually coming up with this design which just involves drilled steel strips bolted together with spacers between to provide the necessary 16mm offset between top and bottom bushes while still giving clearance between the link and the lower part of the floor and frame of the body (151).

I think the  position of the shock absorber and its connection to the axle are compromised by the offset and lack of lateral float. Perhaps the existence of two designs of the link indicates a recognition of this as a problem by Lancia.

On our car at least, the previous bodged repairs to the saddle bracket suggests that there are forces which the saddle bracket does not like. Davids’s second photo shows the wear to the inside of the link which must result from side thrust. I assume there are some side forces when one wheel goes over a large bump which are taken  by flexing of the arm and in the metalastic bushes in which the link articulates. The original offset links are made from something  harder than  mild steel and probably are just as stiff as my version. I am replacing the metalastic bushes with polyurethane inserts and will make sure they have enough side float on the inner sleeve to allow a bit of movement.

Mike

I love that machine work!  Makes me feel soo clumsy....

Mike, that’s impressive! I hadn’t given thought to the wear being based on stresses. I’d just assumed (perhaps naively) that it was because of having no bushing left due to degrading and general movement whilst driving. Your suggestion makes perfect sense, so I’ll need to keep a close eye on my brackets once I’m out on the road again.
David

Today while making connecting plates for the rear shock absorber links I had a flash of inspiration on how to hold the links to machine the rounded ends and smooth the sides.

Very simple in the end. Using the 300mm  rotary table with the stack of plates lined up with the centre of rotation of the table I found that a combination of two (sacrificial) blocks of aluminium bolted down to the table and then clamped together with a large “G” clamp made an excellent vice to hold the stack of plates. Face down to round the ends and sideways on to skim the width, with short lengths of 6mm and 10mm rod in the holes to keep the plates lined up. I had drilled the plates in a stack so that measuring and marking was only needed once.

So I learned something new which makes the rotary table much more versatile.

Mike

 
 Nice Job Mike, but only simple, as you put it, if the have the machinery and knowledge to use said machinery!
 Clever stuff as usual from you.

Slow progress on the rear shock absorbers. It turned out that both were well worn, the wooden friction discs being so thin that the protective rims on the blade like arms were nipped together and the arms themselves squeezed out of parallel. One shock absorber was extremely tight until freed off by cleaning the discs.  

The Augusta friction shock absorber relies on a very strong coil spring to clamp the arms and friction discs, the degree of clamping being determined by a nut on the bolt holding it all together, the nut is locked by a split pin and therefore not readily adjustable. I struggled to find a means of setting the friction to an acceptable level because the springs on both shockers are so strong that the slightest compression of the spring virtually jams the movement of the arm. Clearly something is wrong, perhaps a previous bodge, as one of the clamping bolts, which should have a peg/notch arrangement to restrain the head of the bolt, had been swapped for an ordinary hex bolt and although one shocker had a spacer on  the outer end of the boss on the body of the shocker which acts as the bearing around which the arm swings, the other did not.

I found when taking them apart or re-assembling them, a plate bolted across the chassis side of the cast base will hold the spring compressed so other bits can be removed or fitted. In place on the car of course the base is bolted to the frame so the spring is controlled and the arms can be detached if needed.

Looking through a box of Andre Hartford bits, it struck me that I could dispense with the Lancia coil spring and use readily available Hartford parts, along with a new centre bolt, a Hartford star shaped dished spring and a few other bits to convert the Lancia design to something of a Hartford which would be a much better option.

Pictures 155 to 157 show the original and replacement parts. A new bolt with peg to stop the bolt turning, a tubular spacer to replace the spring, a slimmer spacer (recessed to take a clamping nut to hold the bolt to the base) , the original Lancia dished washer, the Hartford star spring, the tension adjusting nut (with indicator needle) and finally a locknut. The recessed spacer is needed as it acts as the bearing for the outer disc and arm, the centre boss on its own being a bit too short. Note the tension adjusting nut has to be 28mm AF to fit the Hartford indicator arrow and also needs a short spigot on the inner side to adapt the 14mm bore of arrow and spring to the 12mm of the Lancia size bolt. The locating peg hole was drilled 4mm and the peg made from a short length of 4mm drill shank loctited in place.

The original wooden friction discs were under 4mm thick but after a bit of measuring I found that replacing them with 5mm material would work, although needing 0.5mm or 1mm packing between ends of the short arms where they are bolted to the base. With this the arms and discs are parallel and the protective rims on the arms are just slightly separated. Photo 158 and 159. I suspect the originals were about 4.5mm thick but that was not available.

The available wooden discs for Hartford shockers are of a different size to the Augusta version but I found a supplier who can laser cut 5mm oak to suit and these fitted perfectly. I have a spare set if anyone needs them. They need to be soaked in oil before fitting and the metal faces of the arms greased.

The shockers can now be adjusted simply and they feel to operate very smoothly with only moderate “stiction”. Now all I need is a visit to the welder before it can all go back together.

We know Lancia was an individualist but I do wonder whether the unusual design of the Augusta friction shocker had something to do with getting around patents?


Mike

While the shock absorber repair was held up waiting for the welder’s attention I turned to the back brakes, pretty much the last major bit of the car, apart from the rear axle itself, that I have not gone over.

The right (offside} brake seemed to bind very slightly and the handbrake lever on the back plate was very stiff and reluctant to release fully. So off with the drums - easier said than done as I do not have a puller which can engage with the wheel studs so had to resort to the correct method after making a disc to screw onto the male thread (58mm x 2mm pitch) on the centre of the hub. A fiddly job, having no possibility of trying the hub into the thread as I cut with a single point tool in the lathe, I first made a male threaded dummy , testing the final cut by screwing on one of the hub bearing covers from the front wheel. The threaded dummy was then used to get the final size for the internal thread of my puller disc. The  difference  between being too tight and being just right is only about 0.001” depth of cut and once the work piece has been taken out of the lathe chuck, it is almost impossible to put it back in to make another cut. I was worried that it would not fit the thread on the hub but luckily it did, very nicely after I had cleaned up the hub threads.

Removing the hub from the tapered half shaft takes quite a strong pull, but with plenty of tension on, a sharp whack on the hub flange and, with a loud crack it came off. I always leave the nut loosely in place when I do this so the hub and brake drum do not just drop off or worse fly across the workshop.

The seizure of the offside brake turned out to be due to corrosion of both steel and aluminium at the lower pivot of the brake shoes which prevented full articulation of the brake shoe. A good clean and some grease will sort that out. The linings are in good shape and the rubbing surface of the drum perfect, evidently having been skimmed true.
The linings have been bonded on rather than riveted as original as although this is normal for modern new shoes, it is a bit suspect when relining an old, possibly corroded aluminium shoe. However they look completely sound.
.
The drums are an amazing example of Lancia’s attention to detail - and complexity. The main part of the drum is aluminium, attached to the hub flange by 24 copper rivets. The wearing surface is a cast iron insert onto which the aluminium is cast. The completed drum was balanced,  the stamping  - equilibrato- on the outer face of the drum being lined up with a balancing steel strip n the inside. Little wonder the brakes work well but no doubt reproducing the hub and drum would be a nightmare.

Mike

Back to the shock absorbers, now welded ready to fit. I decided to replace the original worn out metalastic bushes with polyurethane turned from a length of rod of 80-90 Shore hardness, which is similar to tyre rubber. The tricky bit, having made new outer holding sleeves and fitted these to the shocker arms and to the saddle brackets, was to machine the polyurethane to size to achieve a tight push fit into the outer sleeve and a running fit on the inner sleeve which surrounds the  clamping bolt on the offset connecting link. A bit of experimentation showed that making the polyurethane bush about 1mm oversize gave a very firm push fit into the steel sleeve when the inner hole had been drilled. More difficult was to find the right size to drill the bush  for a running fit on the inner sleeve as this is hugely affected by the squeezing of the bush when fitted. I found the easiest way was to drill the bush about 2mm over the target size and then machine the steel inner sleeve to suit,  a 17mm drill suited a 15mm steel inner. Rubbery polyurethane can be machined but needs very sharp lathe tools and drill bits to cut cleanly. If all else fails, put the job in the freezer and when cold get it machined before it warms up!

I made the bushes just long enough to form a buffer to stop the outer sleeves from contacting the inside of the connecting links, and with a little side clearance to allow for lateral movement of the shock absorber arm relative to the axle.

Mike

I removed the rear brake back plates to clean up and paint and to sort out the brake cylinders, which although not leaking onto the shoes showed signs of seepage around the pistons. These were rather difficult to remove but responded to a little encouragement with a shot of oil applied by grease gun via the bleed screw. I was a little confused by the bleed screw which had the usual type of screwed bleed insert to connect drain pipe for bleeding but it turned out that the actual bleed valve was not the inserted screw but the threaded fitting it was screwed into which itself had to be turned to pass fluid.

I cleaned up the bores of the cylinders but found that the middle part of the bore, just where the piston seals make contact when the brakes are off, were quite pitted, probably beyond what could reasonably be honed out. Crud and corrosion at this point was what stopped the pistons from being removed by pushing them through the cylinder While pondering this I pressure tested the  cleaned up pistons and seals with the oil gun and they were able to hold pressure without leaking, however better safe than sorry so I ordered a set of cylnders from Power Track Ltd  brakeinfo@powertrackbrakes.co.uk who were very helpful, although the price was eye watering. They are made in Germany and are the bronze version as sold by Cavalitto whom Power Track also supply. A bank raid is envisaged. :)



Mike

I ordered a set of brake cylinders from Cavalitto one afternoon and they arrived just before noon the next day. Postage cost €20, which I thought was pretty good service.

Brake cylinders arrived and all back brake parts cleaned and painted ready to refit, along with the refurbished shock absorbers.

Back to the vibration issue which seems to relate to transmission  not engine. Being unable to try the car on the road I now have it supported on axle stands and props under the chassis and can run it after removing in stages, wheels, brake drums and even the propshaft to eliminate their influence.

Conclusion is that although the wheels do have an influence, the main source has to be the propshaft as, only when this is removed does the vibration diminish. There remains some engine vibration but nothing emanating from the clutch or gearbox as declutching or putting the gears in neutral makes no difference with no propshaft in place. Declutching  stops the vibration when the prop shaft is fitted .and the vibration is related to propshaft rpm  not engine rpm as can be seen by running in third gear rather than 4th. Watching the propshaft and feeling the back axle casing while running at vibrating revs showed no sign of anything amiss and I had already found the propshaft (at least at its midpoint) appears to run very true.

Having fitted new fabric discs and had the propshaft balanced the only thing I can think of is some problem with the three legged locating spiders which centralise the fabric discs to the gearbox output and pinion input shafts. I had already changed the centre boss of one spider to improve the fit to the pinion shaft but now took a very critical look at the exact position of the three bolt holes which connect to the propshaft and discs.

It is not easy to measure the concentricity of the bolt holes to the centre of the unit but on one spider a bolt hole was about 1 degree displaced on the circumference, and on the other spider the centre boss had a slightly loose fit to the pinion shaft boss. Neither spider seemed to be original so I decided to make a new pair which I hoped would improve the accuracy and fit.

Another interesting lathe and milling machine project starting with two squares of 3mm steel centre marked and bored 31mm in the four jaw chuck of the lathe. These were  mounted centrally to the rotary table, using a 31mm dummy centre fitted over my 8mm centering spike so that the bolt holes could be drilled. Then with the plates bolted down with a couple of washers under each bolt for clearance I cut slots to form the flanks of the three arms and the three sides of the plates, finishing off and liberating the spiders by rounding off the ends of the arms. I only had to position the cut once for the arms and once for the side of the spiders as rotating the work piece through 180 or 120 degrees automatically positioned the cuts precisely. I  could of course have had the new spiders laser cut rather than mowing them out myself but I am impatient to see if they work and enjoy the challenge.

I then made hat shaped centre bosses for the spiders, boring these to get a good fit onto the gearbox and pinion shaft spigots and screwed these to the plates with 5mm CSK screws which also retain a 2mm thick steel cap on the boss.

I am not convinced that this exercise will cure the vibration but I’ll soon find out!

Mike

Still there dammit although possibly reduced. With the car still raised on axle stands front and back with the wheels in place this vibration is at 2500rpm upwards in top gear, and does not occur at the same revs in third or in neutral, although the engine is not as smooth as I would hope. What next? I seem to have done everything I can think of which can be done without a proper vibration analysis. A road test will have to await an essential journey which is pretty rare just now, my modern having done under 400 miles in the last 12 months.

I’d like to get the engine balanced but am reluctant to get this done now as I am thinking of replacing the crank and rods if, as seems possible, new cranks are to be made.

Mike

Are you running it with the wheels on?

I've tried it with and without wheels and even with the drum/hubs removed. The result is the same, it is actually slightly smoother with the wheels fitted -presumably their rotating mass damps the vibration. The wheels have been balanced and seem to be well balanced if I put them on the front.

Mike

I am sure you have checked the shaft that it's not bent and runs true, at the ends and in the middle. There in not dirt inside the tube? Any balancing weights in place?

The flexible disks could be checked for inbalance if an adapter is made to enable to run them on a hand held power drill. Any inbalance is instantly felt! The 8 mm bolts, their nuts and washers should be the same mass.

Perhaps there is a difference, if the propshaft is running with load or no load.

Are the wheels dynamically balanced? Static balancing is not sufficient.

   Karl

All that done Karl. Propshaft clean inside , straight and rebalanced (it was not far out). Runs extremely true whether measured in the centre or at the ends. The discs and the locating spiders are new and although I have not spun the new discs as you suggest, they were very accurately made and lined up perfectly with the holes in the driving spiders. The bolts are all the same except one pair which have self locking nuts rsther than split pins, but these are fitted diametrically opposite to one another so that should not be a problem.

The vibration occurs when the engine (and therefore propshaft) reaches 2500 in top gear, but not at the same revs in third. The load does not seem to matter as once started, the vibration continues even when coasting in neutral. I can reproduce all of this with the car on axle stands and it occurs even when run with no wheels or brake drums fitted so not connected with wheel balance, radial or dynamic.

Possibly there is an engine vibration which coincides with some resonant frequency in the transmission and sets the vibration off. It would be interesting to borrow some electronic kit with accelerometers to fix on engine and the back of the gearbox to investigate this. Google does come up with a few ideas.


Mike

I thought you have done that all Mike. Just to let the readers in this forum know how delicate installing a simple thing as a drive shaft with its joints can be.
Some years ago, I had an annoying vibration in the drive shaft of my Augusta too. Running out of ideas, I have changed the commercial sort of 8 mm bolts to close tolerance bolts. That has cured the vibrations, but the only explanation I can think of is, that commerical "8 mm" bolts are often only 7,7 mm or even less. The small differences can add up and cause a flex coupling be out of centre. Perhaps repositioning the shaft by 1/3 turn in relation to the flex coupling and/or the driving spider could help, you might have tried this already.

Karl 

You are right about the bolt diameters Karl - generally about 0.2mm less than the nominal size. However the bolts are the original Lancia ones and a good fit to spiders and discs.
I've just found and downloaded a vibration analysis app which uses the vibration sensor of a smart phone and displays the results so I'll have a play with that. Cost under £9.00 my idea is to make contact with the engine etc with a steel rod with a plate on the top for the phone to sit on much as we used to connect ear and motor with a large screwdriver! I have a digital tachometer sensing the ignition so I can set the revs.
Mike

I have been following this thread with interest and admiration for the effort put in.
I did not drive my car before I rebuilt it but my car is vibration free using standard commercial M8 bolts in the couplings (replacing a random mixture of different lengths metric and BSF.)
The only thing I attended to in that area was the outer pinion bearing which had excessive end float. I did not measure for any radial play as I had decided to  change it anyway.
If I have read all your observations correctly the problem seems to come back to the propshaft even though it all is balanced and true.
Because centrifugal forces are high I wonder if it is caused by some small amount of play in that pinion bearing, a very small amount would certainly be felt at 2500 rpm. Best wishes.
 

The pinion bearings seem to be fine as is the output from the gearbox and no play can be felt. I will drain the axle oil and check for schrapnel but really don't expect anything as it runs quietly with little backlash. What oil do people use?

I've been trying the smartphone vibration app on Sue's Fiesta but was frustrated by a software glitch after a couple of tries. However it did show up a couple  of waves of vibration which corresponded with rpm and half rpm so it does look promising. This was with phone just lying on top of the dashboard.

Mike

Lots of investigations done with  the smartphone vibration app which proved to be rather tricky to use, however I did get some useful data which pretty much confirmed my subjective observations on the road. I’ll come back to that shortly.

I refitted the modified shockabsrbers with their Hartford adjustment system and all seems well (photo 169). I had to tweak the arms a little to get precise alignment with the axle brackets and replaced all the rubber bushes with polyurethane. They were easily adjusted on the car by setting the clamping bolts so that the axle would just drop when, with the car supported by the chassis, the jack under the axle was released. On the road they seem to work!

After conversations with Morris Parry and Mike Raahauge I decided that the leaf spring mounts for the engine needed attention. These consist of three leaf spring blades separated by fibre spacers, one end being firmly bolted to the chassis, tightly clamping the spacer and blades, while the other has a preloaded coil spring to clamp the blades and slotted holes in the blades to allow for back and forth movement as the unit flexes. I assume the friction and clamp spring loading together provide a modicum of damping. As the original fibre spacers were extremely mucky and seemed almost stuck to the spring blades I replaced them using woven brake lining material which was available from Saftec. On one of the spring units the blades looked polished when separated whereas on the other they were not, perhaps a sign of malfunction?

The spring units are a bit awkward to dismantle and reassemble as the coil spring is still under compression when the retaining nut is removed. My pillar drill was the answer for dismantling using a large socket to press the ratchet spanner to the nut and control the release of the spring (photo 170).To reassemble I used a short length of tube with the sides cut away so the nut could be engaged with the thread while the spring was compressed (photo 171). Refitting the leaf spring mounts with the engine still in place is tricky, particularly on the driver’s side, working under the steering box but if the left side unit is fitted first, leaving the bolts loose, a jack under the sump allows the right hand unit to be wriggled into place.

Mike

Glorious day and no salt so out with the Augusta to see whether renewing the friction pads of the engine bearer leaf springs has done anything. It has - it’s hard to be certain about such things but I do feel that the engine vibration has been reduced and it can now be comfortably taken up to 3500rpm with no major vibrations in the lower gears. I’ve never driven  another Augusta so am really unsure whether the feel of the engine is typical of a V4. It’s not silk smooth! The remaining vibration from 2800rpm upwards in 4th gear is still there and again I could set it off by coasting at speed downhill in neutral.

As I’ve gone through the propshaft and fabric disc U/Js and gearbox and eliminated the wheels as a source I’m wondering whether either the fact that the gearbox has its main through shaft in three pieces rather than two has an effect, or whether the propshaft itself, although balanced and perfectly  straight, could be subject to some form of whirling resonance (like a skipping rope).

I found formulae for calculating the critical speed of the shaft which take into account the length, diameter, wall thickness, properties of steel and bending resistance of such a shaft. Wishing I had paid more attention to maths and physics teachers 70 years ago, I did the sums and lo and behold the critical rpm for the Augusta propshaft is about 2200rpm. This assumes that the shaft is suspended between self aligning bearings. It would be higher if more rigid bearings were involved. Given that the fabric disc U/Js are something between self aligning and rigid, there seems a possibility that the vibration I find at 2800 rpm is down to this cause, possibly initiated or aggravated by the short output shaft through the freewheel compartment.

Of course all the maths involved would have been known to Lancia so it seems unlikely that this form of vibration was inherent in the design. The propshaft itself is a superb item, 1250mm long of 65mm outside diameter and 62mm bore so the wall of the tube is only 1.5mm thick. The whole thing including the three legged driving spiders weighs under 3kg!

So not there yet and more thinking is needed - unless someone else has an idea? A two piece propshaft with an extra bearing and Hardy Spicer U/J in the centre would eliminate whirling vibrations or some kind of vibration damper at the front of the shaft? These would be modifications but if the cause  is a fault, it would be better to cure that. Lancias do seem to be plagued with vibartions.

The first proper drive this year reminded me what a super little car the Augusta is. On winding roads its stability is amazing and although not particularly fast it goes so well for 1200cc of 1936 car.


Mike

Mike,
I like all your postings but especially the last two sentences of your last posting.
Karl

  :)

Mike

I have exactly the same vibrations on my Augusta.  I noticed that my gearbox mounting bush was shagged and so was allowing the gb/engine assembly to rock a degree or two around the axis of the engine mounts. I thought that a very slight imbalance in the shaft might be exciting vibration at the rear of the box because of this slackness. So, rather than drop the box to rebush the mounting I fabricated a cross strut/web with an appropriate bush pressed into it which bolted between the chassis "X" frame just behind the g/box.  I carefully drilled the lug that is conveniently provided underneath the back of the box and bolted it to the bush.  It has stopped the rocking and made the acceleration/deceleration feel more "solid" but, as I half expected, it has not stopped the vibration at 2700 revs in top. So I am currently remounting the flexible coupling using close tolerance M8 bolts but I am now pretty sure that the shaft is slightly bent - about 1mm out of true measured at the centre - and I'm not sure how to proceed.  These things are sent to try us!!

Reluctant to offer any thoughts, as you have done so much work already, but here goes. Hope they are useful:

I have been studying Lancia V4s, crankshafts and balancing, analyzing how Lancia addressed balance in the engines.

 So... did these engines vibrate? Yes, they all did - but it was more from being a variation of an in-line 4 than the V. So it shouldn't vibrate more than a 1200cc conventional inline engine - which should be more in the nature of a buzz than a vibration. All the V4s will vibrate, but Lancia went to very interesting lengths to moderate that. The engine mounts are designed to reduce vibrations in two different ways, a composite solution. So the following questions:

Do you feel it in the gearshift lever more than atop the engine?
Consider disconnecting the driveshaft, run the engine and gearbox and see if the vibrations are significant at certain rpm.
Is the crankshaft original, or was it "rebalanced" at some point?
Were the connecting rods changed? Lancia had specific weights for these, but more importantly, lengths. Sometimes people fit new pistons and move the wrist-pin (gudgeon) lower, and shorten the connecting rods. This impacts vibration, surprisingly.
Piston weight changed?

Years ago had a serious vibration issue in an Aurelia, which was almost impossible to get rid of. We finally found that an accident on the front right had shifted the left motor mount a bit, throwing off the axial alignment of the engine:rear transaxle. We only found this out by placing a laser on the crankshaft centerline, and noting when the block was installed, the alignment was 5" off to the side at the rear. Might you be able to check axial alignment coming off the gearbox to the differential? Imagine some large disc, bolted onto the back of the gearbox (minus the driveshaft) with a 90º hole in center, with a small laser.

Check the ancillaries - flywheels and fan especially. Sometimes...

Hope this helps.

Geoff

As you say, 4 cylinder engines (other than boxers) can't be perfectly balanced, hence the use of counter rotating balancer shafts but having said that, the V4 in my Appia is pretty smooth. I'm 99% sure that my problem stems from the propshaft.  Having now refitted the front flexible coupling with close tolerance bolts (not easy because close tolerance means that everything needs to line up perfectly), the vibration at 2700 in 4th gear is noticeably better but not completely gone.  I think that it's time to do a bit of empirical messing around with a jubilee clip on the shaft to see what effect that has in various positions.

Charles to answer your suggestions I have run the engine with the propshaft removed both with and without the clutch and gearbox there are vibrations but far less intensive than when the propshaft and axle are connected. I’ve run it in neutral, in top gear and in third with axle and  wheels being driven and the excess vibrations occur at 2700 rpm upward. Using the smartphone vibration app they do coincide with engine rpm and cannot be produced in third gear as the propshaft is then only turning at 2/3 engine speed, 2000 rpm. This corresponds with my experience on the road but I’m not about to try for 4500 rpm in third!

The crank is original and appears to have had one regrind. I doubt it was balanced but am unsure as the engine was rebuilt in Italy by a previous owner. The rods are original but it has been rebored to 71.05mm with new German made Alloylit No 321 pistons which others have found satisfactory. I didn't separate piston from conrod when inspecting the engine but the total weight of piston, rod and bolts was 822 gms. I do not know how heavy the originals would have been.

Its interesting that you also get the vibes at 2700 in the Augusta and in your Appia. My vibration app clearly shows a major peak at 3000 engine rpm which doubt corresponds to the axial rocking frequency of the engine due to the fact the No 1 cylinder is balanced by No3 and No 2 by number 4 rather than 1 with 2 and 3 with 4 as in a normal straight four. It may just be chance that the propshaft resonates at the same revs as can be seen when freewheeling. After playing around with the vibration app I had worked out that the critical speed at which the propshaft would resonate would be 2200 rpm upwards and discussed this with Dunning and Fairbank who had balanced my propshaft. They doubt this, saying that the critical speed for the propshaft would be over 5000rpm so either my maths or my theory are wrong!

Several people have wondered whether the propshaft vibration was the result of some misalignment of the engine, propshaft and axle as you found with the Aurelia with its transaxle arrangement.. I wonder about this as, after all, the propshaft and gearbox/engine alignment is changing all the time on a leaf sprung car as the axle bounces up and down relative to the car so a small lateral misalignment should be easily accommodated by the universal joints.

Anyway I spent a happy afternoon lying on my back under the car checking this alignment. I was surprised and alarmed to find that there is a significant misalignment of the propshaft with the transmission tunnel and other parts of the frame, the tail of propshaft being about 10mm adrift from the centre line towards the right of the car.  This was not what I expected as the car shows no sign of any accident or significant welding, all doors and the boot lid fit perfectly and the back wheels are equidistant from the frame of the car so the axle is not offset. After many more forays with tape measure and callipers I suddenly realised that the pinion shaft is located 10mm to the right (offside) of the centre of the axle so the propshaft must by design, be angled to the right of the car and not perfectly in line with the transmission tunnel. Presumably this allows a smaller offset of the crown wheel from the centre line and therefore a smaller centre section of the axle casing.  So nothing wrong with our car then - phew!

Mike

Had another short run today seeking a few steep hills (not hard to find around here!) to wind it up a little in the lower gears. I would say that the engine vibration on the road is now perfectly acceptable up to my self imposed limit of 3500rpm, no matter which gear is engaged so changing the fibre damping pads in the engine bearer leaf springs and freeing the one which seemed stuck has definately made a difference. It is also clear that the vibration of the engine is less under load than when tested with the car raised on axle stands which is understandable.

The vibration which remains must surely be propshaft related - but how? The small built in misalignment of propshaft to car centreline only represents 0.9 degrees so I can't see that having an effect. I assume that having a pair of Hardy Spicer fabric disc universal joints will, like a pair of normal U/Js, result in a reasonable approximation to a constant velocity joint.

Mike

I spent much time checking the propshaft finding nothing amiss with dimensions or alignment. I then thought I might find something still out of balance, despite the balancing done when I first got the car, so set it up on two level metal bars on which the bosses of the centering spiders for the fabric U/Js could roll. You have to be careful as of course the three armed couplings are orientated the same way at both ends of the shaft so the shaft naturally rolls so two of the arms are down and one points up. However it does always tend to end its roll with the added balancing weights towards the floor which suggests a problem so I'll try the jubilee clip trick first and then take the shaft back to the company who balanced it.  

Does anyone out there know what this small tag behind the wheel arch in the Augusta boot is for? There are two, one to each side of the boot, obviously to attach a spring or something - but what?

I did scratch my head about those tags long time ago. One possible reason might be, to attach springs who will hold back the rear seat back. The seat back might be spring loaded to have access to the shelf behind it, just below the rear window. In my car, I have installed clips to hold in place the seat back. I don't want the toolbox coming forward at hard braking. (Augusta brakes are first class!)

I look forward to hear of any findings in regard of shaft balancing.

Karl

Just to add to the general information our flat rad car does not seem to have the tags you mention and the seat back is held in place by the same springs that assist the closing of the boot lid.

I played around with bits of metal taped to the propshaft until it would roll uniformly on the two knife edges, eventually finding that a jubilee clip with the heavy bit diametrically opposed to the balance weights would work. It did not matter whether the shaft was rolling on the tube itself or on the bosses of the centralising spiders so clearly they are property aligned (photo 173). I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve removed and refitted the propshaft - suffice to say I am quite good at it!

On the road yesterday and there is a marked improvement with a reduced  vibration now coming in at about 3000 rpm rather than 2700. It’s odd that the added weight of the jubilee clip worked best when opposing the  weights fitted by the balancing company . They used their own kit to mount the shaft in the machine rather than the centralising spider so perhaps this was the problem. There is a further added balance weight at the axle end of the shaft so more jubilee clippery is planned.

For some reason the website will not accept photos returning an Error 403 access to the forum forbidden so no pics today.

Mike

Re the small tag in the boot - I’m sure it is to take a spring to prevent the seat back from tipping forward as I found a mark on the back panel of the re-trimmed rear seat which was evidently made by the trimmer to indicate the position under the new covering of a hole in the wood frame for a fitting to take the other end of the spring. The hole is there and if a spring were fitted it would run exactly parallel to the boot lid spring. I looked at photos of several other Augustas which I considered when buying our car - all had the tags but none had the spring so perhaps it was just a pest!

Picture 172 showing the tag worked today - the software does not like apostrophes in file names.

Next question - were there originally any means of clipping the jack, wheel brace and starting handle in place in the boot or in the compartments behind the rear seat instead of  wrapping them in old blankets and chucking them in? I can find no unused holes or other fittings which is surprising when you think of the care that went into the design of the car to use every centimetre of space efficiently.

Mike

I put a second Jubilee clip at the axle end of the propshaft counterbalancing the weight added when the shaft was balanced, just as I did at the front end - result vibration hardly changed. So then rather than taking the shaft off again to balance it on the knife edges I turned the clip around the shaft by180 degrees to increase rather than counteract the added weight and BINGO - it’s transformed, running happily up to 3500rpm with just a slight vibration when on a very light throttle. Quite probably only noticeable because I’m looking for it. Amazing what a couple of Jubilee clips can do!

What an annoying saga, especially as the shaft had already been professionally balanced. Quite what went wrong I don’t know, either the shaft was not properly centred in the balancing machine or a mix up happened as the balance plates were added. Perhaps the weights were put at the wrong ends of the shaft. I think I’ll leave the Jubilee clips in place rather than taking them off and getting it rebalanced with the possibility of further problems.

Having resolved the propshaft balance and improved the engine significantly by re-lining the damped engine mount springs the car now feels very usable - not a motorway cruiser but superb on winding roads and very nice to drive. Lots of work and learning Lancia was involved to get to this point though!

Mike

Hi Mike

I think you are being kind to them. Personally I think I would want to know why it was wrong on the first place?

Peter

They are a good outfit and when and if I choose to replace the Jubilees clips with proper weights, are very willing, as they should be,  to sort it out. For the moment I prefer to leave it as it is and get on with enjoying using the car.

Mike

This is very encouraging news and I will get under my car with a couple of jubilee clips next week, assuming that I can get my two new front tyres fitted.  My local tyre fitters are unwilling to try in case they damage them as they are very tight on the bibendum style rims on my car (I think that they are early Aprillia wheels).  A fitter at the same company managed (with difficulty) to get two new tyres on my rear wheels - 165 400 - a couple of years ago but he has now left.  So I'm off to Blockley Tyres at Moreton in Marsh next week to see if they can do it.

Nice to know they are willing to sort it out. Had a similar experience recently with refurbished wheels where some of the weights came unstuck. They had been sat waiting to be put on the car for a couple of months and I noticed the weights when I moved them. Company were quite happy to retest all the 5 wheels for me FOC.

Peter

Regarding mounting tyres on bibendum rims, I can only speak of Augusta wheels. For many years I use Michelin 165 X 400 tyres on my Augusta.
I always mount the tyres myself, using tyre levers. And I mount the tyres from the inside of the rims. I once was told that the diameter there was slighly less. It is important to start installing the tyre by placing the tyre bead into the cavity near the position of the valve.
Then I go to the tyre dealer and have the wheels balanced dynamically. My tyre dealer uses motor bike stick-on weights. The Augusta rims are made from thin sheet metal. They can be distorted when clamped onto a modern tyre changing machine.
I hope that helps.  Karl

Charles - before fitting Jubilee clips it's worthwhile although tedious, taking the propshaft off and rolling it as I did on two bits of steel angle set up level. This will give you a starting point to see what balance weight is needed to prevent the shaft rolling under its own out of balance, if indeed it does. The jubilee clip itself may be enough as the adjusting bolt is quite heavy in balance weight terms, or if not, use the clip to trap a strip of steel or lead to increase or decrease the balancing effect.
You'll also be able to see if the shaft is bent. It would be hard to determine from this test whether the out of balance is associated with one end of the shaft or the other, which is where the proper balancing machine has an advantage so I'd fit two clips, one at each end then try it on the car and fiddle as seems needed. When doing the rolling test you can roll the shaft with the main tube on the steel "knife edge" and also, with the centering spiders bolted in place,  on the bosses of the spiders to make sure they are concentric withn the shaft.

On tyre fitting, like Karl I use Michelin X 165 x 400 which were fitted by Longstone Tyres without evsn scratching the paint.

Mike

Much good advice.  I think that I must remove the propshaft as you suggest to find a starting point for balancing with jubilee clips.  I have alsways used Michelin millimetrics in the past (also on my Flaminia) but this time, after reading comments on many other classic car websites, I thought I would try the Blockleys - I can already see that they will look the part, if only I can get them fitted.

I had some Augusta wheels converted to 16" and had Blockleys fitted. Disaster - they are so wide they touched the sliding pillars!

I too had rusted rolled rims and found a place on Salisbury plain fro memory that used the old centres, made new spokes and fitted 16" ordinary rims and now very easy to get balanced. Use Avon Tourist tyre.

Coming back to the balancing issue, I am in doubt that the drive shaft would be out of balance. We can assume that, when the car left the factory, the drive train was balanced and without vibration. Later, the drive shaft does its work for decades and is only touched when a removal of gear box or rear axle is due, or a change of the flexible couplings is in need. Although the part is subjected to great torsional loads at high rotation speed, there is no wear at all, provided all the bolts are kept tight. Therefore, I cannot imagine how the drive shaft can become unbalanced, except maybe when damaged in a ground strike or similar when it gets bent or distorted.

On the other hand, the flex couplings are subject to wear and are replaced now and then. There are a few organisations and persons making aftermarket flex couplings in small numbers. We don't know if there are original specifications as to the material used, are avaliable. Sometime couplings are made using an old part as a template. It might be worthwhile to have a close look at the couplings. With some effort an adapter could be made to check balance on two parallel knide edges. After all, the flex couplings are spinning at the same speed as the drive shaft, but with a much larger diameter. Also, all the bolts and nuts attaching the coupling should have the same mass.

Back in 2013, Morris Parry has published a detailed instruction for making flex couplings for those who want to try. He does state the material as "Rubber disc". (The Lancia Augusta newsletter, Issue 9, March 2013)

Next week, I will put my car on jacks and will remove drive shaft and couplings. I will let you know my findings.

Just MHO  Karl

In general, you are right. One thought tho - in the Aurelia (particularly the earlier smaller shafts), the ends of the machined splined fittings are held in the tubes. Over time, there is a slight "tweaking" that happens (from torque) and they get slightly cocked off axis. Its not noticeable until you get a full drive shaft on a bench, and see the out-of-alignment over the entire length. The guy who balanced them (a marine driveshaft specialist with interest in the similar GTV6 shafts on Alfas) sweated the connections, and realigned them... that plus careful fitting of the alum paddles (also can get out of perfect alignment) reduced the alignment issues to very small levels, and thus the balancing requirements were extremely modest. Too often people use balancing to correct for problems that stem from alignment.

I don't know if any of this is relevant for the Augusta, but it might be - at the ends of the main shaft. Although it looks rather robust, and the forces aren't so great.

More fiddling around showed that the jubilee clip alone is too much of an imbalance to counteract the balance weights fitted so I was able to dispense with the second jubilee clip and just use one with a piece of lead at 180 degrees to reduce the effect of the clip. With this I was able to make the shaft roll evenly on the knife edges This made little difference to the remaining slight vibration. I then turned the propshaft end for end, thinking that perhaps the engine and gearbox might be a greater transmitter of propshaft imbalance than the axle, the jubilee clip and weights are now at the axle end. Again some improvement such that vibration is now rarely noticed, mainly with a light throttle on a downhill stretch at 3000 rpm plus.

Karl your observations make sense as usual, however I have checked the propshaft very carefully and it is straight and when turned by hand in place on the car there is no more than 0.5mm measurable eccentricity in the middle or at either end. Your thoughts on the fabric discs are very logical. I have to say that there was only a small improvement when  new discs were fitted although one of the old discs was in poor condition and the new discs, which were made to Morris Parry’s dimensions are very accurate and fitted perfectly to the driving spider couplings using real 8mm bolts not the 7.8mm ones which are usually supplied.

Certainly the diameter and the mass of the discs makes them suspect even if they appear to run true so I will have a go at them, sandwiching the disc between the two centering spiders  even if, dammit, that means taking the propshaft off for the umpteenth time!

In fact the car is very driveable now and the vibration only happened a couple of times today on a 40km run. In fact it is as you know completely brilliant fun on a winding road and puts a big smile on my face

Yesterday the oil pressure seemed a bit low but cleaning the pressure regulating valve resolved that.

Mike

It must be true that my propshaft was balanced by the factory and there is no reason to believe that it could have become "unbalanced".  I think that it maybe slightly bent, it does have a little dent in it near the middle, also when I bought the car the centralising spider was missing at the gearbox end and the shaft was only held to the coupling by one bolt (Morris Parry very kindly supplied a new spider). Over the weekend I removed the shaft and "trued up" one of the tripod arms which fitting close tolerance bolts had revealed was not a perfect match with the centralising spider - probably because that was the one that had been bolted up when I got it.  The photo shows the secondary gearbox mounting that I fitted.  So then I rolled the shaft on knife edges and added a jubilee clip to neutralise what appeared to be a bit of out of balance.  Having reinstalled it, the vibration was worse which didn't really surprise me as I hadn't been very scientific.  So I have removed it for now while I ponder taking it to a specialist.  Driving the car is quite pleasant, especially in 3rd and 4th so long as I don't try to go over 45mph whereupon the vibration suddenly cuts in and then persists until I slow down to about 35mph when is disappears again.  Perhaps it's a special mod to stop speeding!

Another day of tweaking propshaft issues yesterday!

I checked the gearbox output shaft and the pinion shaft spigots on the which the centering spiders of the propshaft run - they both run true.

I tested the balance of the Hardy discs by fitting  centering spiders to both sides of a disc and then rolling it on the knife edges. I must congratulate the supplier of the discs which were not only dimensionally very correct but very close to being perfectly balanced so no problem there. The discs weigh 490gms and needed no more than 2-3 gms added to one of the bolts to make them roll evenly. To give you an idea how small this is, an 8mm washer weighs about 2 gms.

I retested the propshaft with the discs fitted but they still were a little bit off balance whether they rolled on the bosses of the centering spiders or on the tube itself.

I then turned to the bolts, 10 of which are original with castle nut and split pin and two non original with self-locking nuts (these were mounted opposite to one another so should have been in balance). It turned out that the original bolts weigh 22gms and the castle nut 8 gms, a total of 30gms.  The spurious bolts weighed 24 gms and 26 gms apiece including the nut - these are 7.8mm diameter and 1.25 mm pitch rather than the correct precise 8mm and 1mm pitch of the original bolts, the lighter of the two spurious bolts also has a 13mm head rather than 14mm. I added two washers to one of the miscreants and three to the other and put them opposite to one another on the disc. The whole propshaft with discs would now roll pretty uniformly on the knife edges, whether riding on the tube of the shaft or on the bosses of the centering spiders. This also confirms that the centering spiders are in true alignment with the rest of the shaft

I was a little sceptical as to whether such small variation matters, but nevertheless put  it back on the car and this morning in brilliant sunshine had a test run. Amazingly even such a small balance correction on the bolts does have an effect as the vibration is now hardly noticeable just around 3100 rpm but then fading away up to my personal 3500 rpm limit. I’ll machine two new bolts to the proper size and weight, starting with a standard 10mm bolt, and leaving the head a bit deep so I can make a final weight adjustment. Too cold in the garage this evening and it's snowing!

I still find it hard to believe such a small weight difference could make a difference, but it evidently does.

This leads me on to a more general question - why is it that Lancias seem so sensitive to a slight imbalance which by all accounts is not confined to Augustas?

Brilliant! I think we should nominate Mike for the "Golden Drive Shaft Award".

The findings of Mike confirm that small amouts of mass at the wrong place can upset balance.

Yesterday I jacked up the car at the rear and run the the drive train up to 4000 rpm. All was fine, no undue vibrations noted. Then I have removed the drive shaft and the flex couplings.

I installed the couplings on a spare spider and together with a spare output shaft installed it in a handheld electric drill. There were no vibrations up to 2900 rpm. So far so good.

I have bought the flex couplings in Italy early this year, and when they arrived, I noticed that they are made from very stiff material, much more stiff than those I have been using before. They are stiff enough that the disk supports the drive shaft with little deflection as in the photo. Now my concern is, that the stiff material imposes exessive loads onto the arms of the spiders and bending loads onto the dive shaft at every turn of the shaft, leading to metal fatigue. For the time being I will install my old couplings.
 
Most probably there is no specification avaliable, but I would be interested in a possibility to compare the materials.
And I am open to any info where to get flex couplings in the UK.
May I send a PM, Mike?

Karl

Karl I have sent you an email with the details of the suppliers of the fabric discs but here they are in case anyone else is interested.

http://www.gmspolymer.co.uk/flexible-couplings.htm

I am very please with the discs they supplied.

Very encouraging news about the balancing - I will renew my efforts.  I got the Blockleys fitted - no trouble - and they don't rub on the sliding pillars - phew!

Just curious - does anyone know why Augustas so often  carry two spare wheels? It seems odd when the car was otherwise designed to save weight.
Mike

She thinks I’m a nut case - I wonder why?

It’s a fiddly job making nuts and bolts but as all  but two of the original propshaft joint bolts and nuts are present and correct (meaning a true 8mm with 1mm pitch and 14mm heads) I thought it worth the effort. In any case, they could not be bought, even 8mm x 1mm all metal self locking nuts are hard to find and the 14mm hexagon is obsolete.

The bolts were machined from stock 12mm bolts, milling the flats and cutting the split pin slots  worked out well with the milling machine and dividing head. The nuts were milled to 14mm hexagon from a 20mm round bar.

Mike

Augusta spare wheels: I think that was one of few options when ordering an Augusta, besides exterior paint colour and upholstery colour. At that time many cars had 2 spare wheels, probably the quality of the tyres was less than to-day and there were still many horses around, loosing their irons and nails. Dirt roads too.

I was wondering how my car would look with one spare wheel, so I made a short attachment to find out. I think it looks a bit stubby with one spare wheel....

The difference in weight is about 17 kg, which is about 2% of the empty weight.

Regards  Karl

I hate - and am somewhat frightened - to disagree with Karl on anything to do with Augustas but I like the less heavy look of the single spare wheel. I agree modern tyres are probably miles better than in the 30s so it seems rather silly to carry 2 spares! I have luckily never had a puncture on the Augusta. Now there is temping fate!!

No worries Brian, your opinion is accepted! It's for the looks. My car always had 2 spares. And I did have punctures. Decades back, in my juvenile ignorance, I have fitted 2 imperial size tyres onto the metric rims, which within a short time, slipped on the rims, shearing off the valve stems of the inner tubes in the progress. With spectacular flats within seconds.
Karl

I wonder if two spare wheels is like having two water bottles on a peddle bike?

Just don't ask me to wear Lycra
Mike

A final (hopefully) tweak to the propshaft balance. Continuing from my previous knife edge balancing method I felt an improvement could be made if I made a pair of short stubs of 1 inch steel which could be machined down a few thou to give a tight fit into the middle of the centring spiders. This would allow the propshaft to be rolled on the knife edges with a very accurate simulation of the shaft in place on the gearbox output and axle input shafts.
With the discs in place, attached with the now equal weight bolts, nuts and washers  and the stubs in the  centring spiders, I made a small  adjustment to the jubilee clip such that the shaft would roll evenly. I still noted the tendency of the shaft to stop with two of the attachment arms down and one up, but this seems inevitable with an odd number of arms but it would stop with any pair of arms down. Back on the car it now feels even better and runs happily up to 3500rpm in top without vibrating. So success - eventually!

So now on with some minor jobs including sorting out the driver’s door latch. On the Augusta when you open the door a tiny spring loaded sliding stop moves into place to hold the tongue of the latch in the retracted position. When the door is closed the sliding stop is pushed across releasing the tongue to latch the door. This is obviously safer than giving the tongue a radiused face as per a household door but is a bit complicated. On our car the small bowed spring had broken, requiring the door handle to be held down when closing the door which was definitely a handicap when the owner boastfully tried to show off how the doors close with one finger!

To make a new spring I used a strip of steel cut from a length of pallet strapping band. This, as it comes, can be cut with tin snips and  bent to shape. Being spring steel at a low level of hardness, it can be made into a proper spring by heating red hot and dropping it into water. It cools very quickly in the air and must still be red hot as it hits the water. It feels properly springy with no need for further tempering. The most fiddly job is to refit the catch to the door without dropping any bits.

More thoughts on the two spare wheels. I'd like to see how it looks with one spare so had a look at the mounting on the boot lid to see whether it is adaptable but could not see any way of doing this. I have seen a picture of an Augusta with the mount reversed although such an arrangement compromises the boot space. Does anyone know about this?

Mike

As I have mentioned before, I was wondering how my Augusta would look (and drive) with just one spare wheel. I bought some suitable thin walled tube and made a short stub to replace the original carrier. I have to point out that the boot lid has been modified before I have owned the car. Compared to the original there seems to be a heavier gauge sheet on the inside of the lid. I don't know if this has any influence to the dimesions of the spare wheel carrier. If there is interest to copy the short carrier, I am pleased to pass on the data.
Karl

Having fixed the things which really needed fixing I don’t have much to report on and am just using and enjoying the Augusta which is proving to be a delightful car and very well suited to the twisting roads around here. I’ll do a recap later of the problems we had and the outcome of the last 18 months of fettling but here is a note on the minor but rather challenging issue of the dreaded fuel gauge.

For those who haven’t come across this, the fuel tank  is mounted under the bonnet above the driver’s knees and connected to the gauge by a cable which is rotated by the gauge sender unit on top of the tank.. The gauge is just a dial with a 270 degree 0-40 litre scale and  a pointer.

The difficult bit is the sender which has to translate the position of a float to rotation of the connecting cable. The translation is done by hanging the float by a fine thread to a small drum about 25mm diameter which incorporates a tiny brass clock spring to tension the thread and turn the gauge pointer and is then geared with a pair of spur gears to the spindle which turns the cable. The cable then passes through a 6mm diameter tube, through the bulkhead to the gauge on the dash. I have the original float, drum and gears but the original casing in which they run, being Mazak, had evidently corroded and had been replaced by a rather crude affair. (Photos 185 and 186).The result was that the device was no longer capable of generating enough torque to turn the cable. I thought  there must be a better way. Others have adapted a modern electrical sender and gauge but I felt that a mechanical setup would be more in keeping.

Most float type gauge senders use a float and lever system but this is not possible for the Augusta as the original float works within the confines of a 62 mm bore vertical tube in the tank. However I found a simple device intended for the fuel tank of an outboard motor and cribbed the idea, adjusting it to suit the tank.  It comprises a metal strip  150mm long x 6mm x 1.5mm which is twisted through 270 degrees to form a very long pitch screw thread. This fits through a cylindrical float, engaging with a slot so that as the float rises or falls, the strip is rotated, the float being prevented from turning by guide rods. The rotating strip is connected by a pair of bevel gears to the cable, and turns the needle of the gauge through 270 degrees as the float moves from bottom to top of its range. The calibration of the instrument is easily altered by increasing or decreasing the twist of the strip. (Photos 187 and 188).

The main problem is that the bevel drive and the connecting cable must be very free to turn and the float free to rise and fall without sticking. The length of the connecting cable is also critical as the distance from sender to gauge is fixed. I used a tongue and fork arrangement at the ends of the cable to provide some tolerance. The float was made from a thick cork bung ( ex Ikea jug!) but could be made by laminating from cork floor tiles. Machined to size 58mm diameter and 42mm high, grooved at either side and  bored through 8.5mm, with a nylon disc at the upper end, slotted to slide on the helical strip, the float’s grooves engage with a pair of 4mm stainless steel rods. The rods hold a lower cross piece with a 5mm hole to form the lower bearing for the helical strip, and their top ends attach to the 80mm aluminium disc which bolts to the top of the tank. A brass fitting was made to carry the bevel gears which are 16 tooth 16mm diameter and run on a 5mm shaft, one end of which forms a tongue to engage with a fork attached to the end of the cable. A gland nut retains the outer tube just as in the original Lancia version. The end float of the  horizontal hear shaft is controlled by a pair of brass collars and the top end of the vertical gear shaft runs in a nylon bush through the top disc. An aluminium cover conceals the gears with just 5mm clearance from the underside of the bonnet top panel.

I made most of the parts in stainless steel and sealed the cork float using a marine grade epoxy resin. Although there  is no guarantee from the supplier that the epoxy will tolerate ethanol in fuel (it is proof against straight petrol) I have used it previously on a cork float fuel sender on a previous project and it was still OK after at least 8 years.

I still have a bit of tweaking to do to get the calibration right but the gauge works perfectly,
the needle being absolutely steady. It does read a few litres high when going downhill, and low going up but on the level gives a true reading.

So rather a lot if time went into the project but it was interesting and satisfying! I’ll add more pictures when I finish calibrating it.

Mike

Well done Mike.
I have taken a different route by trying to recast the original housing in zinc but have so far failed. I am getting closer and with my improving skills I think my next attempt might be a success.
The old unit had, apart from the common problem of distortion and cracking with ageing pot metal, been soldered into the recess in the tank and it was quite difficult getting it out.
The mechanism is attached to the flange at the top of the 62mm tube mentioned by Mike and the outer diameter of this flange is soldered to the underside of the roof the tank to seal it. This solder joint had failed causing a leak leading to some previous owner's expedient repair of soldering everything up. I mention all this to alert you, and anyone else, to the possibility that any leak you may have may be from this joint.

It seems the main problem with the original fuel gauge setup is the need to get just the right combination of float buoyancy and tension in the small hairspring to overcome the friction of the cable rotating in the tube connecting sender to gauge. Perhaps a better plan would be to simply put a pulley at the top of the tank sender unit, extend the connecting thread, and move the rest of the mechanism to a point at the back of the gauge behind the instrument panel. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Mike - I never tried foundry work although I have made a few simple patterns. An interesting challenge but you will still have some machining to do. I wonder why you are using zinc rather than tossing a few old aluminium pistons into the pot? My fuel sender also leaked a bit around the rim as you can see from my photo but this was due to a poor gasket and stripped threads in some if the retaining screws. It does look as though some soldering has been done around the rim.

Mike

Mike.
Foundry work is very satisfying in a sort of basic way and also interesting because it is outside my general experience.
The use of Zinc is part of my improving skills and part of the learning process. I started with scrap aluminium but the sections are very thin and I couldn't get it to flow well enough. I am optimistic (hoping) that I will not have to machine it apart from drilling some holes.
It has consumed a stupid amount of time thus far!

Now I’m down to the details - an annoying but minor rattle from a rear door led me to investigate the latch plates on the body for the top of the doors. These are another example of Lancia’s attention to the finer points. As mentioned in an earlier post the latch plates actuate the retractable sprung latches on the doors as they are closed but also incorporate rubber buffers for the doors and are themselves also rubber mounted  and able to turn to align with the closed door. They appeared to a bit loose because their rubber mounting bushes were perished and their fixing bolts loose. Luckily I had a sheet of 4mm rubber which when wrapped around the metal centre sleeve and pushed into the outer housing made a reasonable bush so that now the doors close and the rubber takes up any slop. Rattle gone!.

It took a day’s fiddling, as to get at the mounting bolts involves lifting the trim panels above the door which in turn requires removal of the panel above the windscreen, the mirror and the sun visors. All of these are fixed with 4mm screws which pass through a wooden filler behind the trim and into holes drilled in the inner body panels around the doors and windscreen. The wooden filler panels are a work of art rather than the usual scrap of hardboard! They are machined to incorporate various recesses and fit to the metal body frame. Interestingly the bolts (more like self tapping screws) which hold the latch plates are 5/16 inch and have half inch A/F heads, perhaps American origin.

Mike

More experience with the helical drive of my geared fuel tank sender (Photo 189) showed that despite the epoxy coating, the cork float absorbed fuel over a week or so and messed up the calibration. The float grew in diameter by 3mm and so stuck on the guide bars. I bought an ethanol proof SU float from Burlen and was able to use a metal bridge piece across the top of the float to engage with the two side rods to stop the float rotating and it now seems to work very well without sticking. I must say the reading is much affected by the gradient of the road and possibly needs  a slight reduction in pitch of the helical bar to match the fuel level shown on my dipstick. One issue I noted was that it is essential to have a little end float to the connections at either end of the thin connecting cable from sender to gauge as any end loading puts a wave in the cable which make it bind in the guide tube.

I am now reduced to working on the only remaining known issue - rebinding the braided grab handle for one of the rear seat passengers! A job more suited to the denizens of “The Repair Shop” on TV! Of course as once famously said there will be unknown issues which I don’t yet know about, but so far I can’t see anything else which needs fettling.
Mike

Great that you have overcome all those niggles Mike. Often, owners, especially those not using their cars so much, just put up with them.

 Neil - I like fettling just as much as driving and I must say that during lockdown and two salty winters it's been a much appreciated challenge and learning experience.

Having now done about 2000 miles with the Augusta I thought a few comments on the success or otherwise of my fettling activities might be in order.
I bought the car from Italy, mainly on the basis that it is in very nice, sound bodily condition and was from long term ownership by an enthusiast who had recently passed away. There was no opportunity to really assess its mechanical condition which turned out to have a number of issues, fortunately none too serious. Mechanical problems are more easy to solve than bodywork issues.

The most trying problem was vibration which has taken a lot of effort to cure. The culprit was, as I first thought, the propshaft. After being sidetracked by having it professionally (but badly) balanced, which seemed to make no difference I replaced the fabric discs and centerng spiders and eventually worked out a way of balancing the whole unit by supporting it  on two level bars on which the centering spider bosses could roll. A Jubilee clip and a small piece of lead resolved the issue.

There were also vibrations from the engine, significantly reduced by replacing coil, points condenser and plug leads, grinding the valves and getting the mixture right. I had not understood that the two leaf springs which support the engine bearers also incorporate a vibration damper in the form of strips of brake lining between the leaves. One side was seized and the spring leaf surfaces covered with solid black gunge whereas on the other side the leaves were polished. Sorting that out greatly reduced engine vibrations to an acceptable level. The carburettor (Weber DO) suffered from a worn slow running jet and seat which I remachined, greatly improving the carburetion as confirmed by readings on the Air /Fuel ratio gauge I fitted. Subsequent experience shows that the carburettor is as it should be since the A/F ratio fluctuates around 13.5 to 1, dropping to about 11.5 to 1 when pulling hard uphill. One curious feature of the carburettor is that the choke can be used to enrichen the mixture when pulling with the throttle wide open - this works and the A/F ratio goes down to 10 to 1 with a small but detectable increase in power.

I had the cylinder head re-faced and ground the valves, fitting a modern oil filter and rebuilding the water pump with a new stainless steel impellor shaft but re-using the original rope gland.  I improved the water flow to the rear corner of the head/manifold and made a simple copper “heat exchanger” to replace the exhaust flange gasket with the aim of drawing more heat out of that corner of the head. This does seem to help as there is only a slight degradation of the paint at this point after 1000 miles. I sealed the flange joint using “Heldite” sealant which has worked well in sealing this unit of three plates of 3mm copper but no gasket. The engine is now leak free,  starts immediately from cold and runs with no flat spots or stalling when braking to a standstill. It had been rebuilt by the previous owner with a crank regrind, rebore and new pistons and cranking by hand tells me that the compression is excellent. It runs about 1000 miles on a litre of oil and does not smoke either on starting or after a steep descent. The modern oil filter leaves the oil clean on the dipstick for at least 1000 miles.

The gearbox needed a full rebuild with new bearings and attention to wear on the front end of the input shaft and at the front of the main shaft. The freewheel was very worn but, thinking that I would probably not use it I decided to remove it altogether rather than tackle the worn parts. With the gearbox out of the car I discovered that the large coil spring of the clutch was very much out of true and would not sit squarely in the recess. A new spring was fitted. None of these gearbox or clutch jobs made the slightest difference to the vibration, or even to the characteristic growl of second gear! The clutch did not need relining and with the new spring is smooth to engage and does not slip. It’s a delightful box to use - who needs synchromesh!
 
I abandoned he curious float and string operated fuel gauge sender and made a new unit utilising a helically twisted metal strip which is turned by an adapted modern E10 proof float and connects via a small pair of bevel gears and cable to the gauge. This works .

Two more major tasks were involved. The front suspension was filled with grease so had to be dismantled to clean and check. It turned out that some of the minute sprung loaded valves  were coil bound on their closing springs so hardy surprising that it bounced and clattered. All is now in order although it does still drip oil from bottom of the sliding pillars.

The final major task was to rebuild the rear friction shock absorbers whose wooden discs were worn very thin. I replaced these with new discs laser cut from thin oak and reassembled the units which are preloaded with a coil pressure spring, changing this for an Andre Hartford style star spring and adjusting nut. The links connecting the arm to the axle were remade to a more machinist friendly design with polyurethane bushes. The shock absorbers appear to work satisfactorily but made an annoying creak at low speeds when greased with normal grease but this was cured by using molybdenum disulphide CV joint grease on the discs. I replaced the front eyebolts and all bushes on the rear springs and fitted new brake cylinders as these were scored and tended to seize.

Of course there were many more small jobs done but I finally have a very useable, nippy little car with superb road manners which makes other cars seem clumsy. I have really enjoyed fettling the car, the design of which is so different to other makes, sometimes eccentric, but mostly very effective and full of character. I am now making every excuse to use it and enjoying that too.

I don’t have much more to report having gone through almost every part of the car with the exception of the rear axle (which touch wood seems to be in good order and reasonably quiet. Hopefully these are last words but not famous last words!

I’d like to say many thanks to all those who have advised and helped me over the last couple of years and to thank you all for your interest in Augusta Progress.

Mike

Bravo indeed, what an inspiring tour de force.

Hi Mike,
Although only an Augusta (well, Belna actually) owner for around a year, I’ve found your articles so very helpful. Your passion and expertise will undoubtedly keep a few more cars on the road.
Thanks and kind regards
David

Thanks David - I try to keep a diary of work I do on my cars so writng it up is not much of a chore. Glad you appreciate it!

Another small problem fixed. A few months ago the oil pressure fell so I cleaned the piston of the pressure relief valve which lurks behind a very difficult to remove domed, slotted plug in the side of the cylinder block just behind the water pump. This cured the problem so other than making a new hex head plug to improve access I left it at that. However yesterday the pressure dropped again so I had another look, discovering that the conical valve surface of the spring loaded piston was worn and evidently could seat itself badly in the valve. A few minutes in the lathe (Photo 190) sorted that out and the oil pressure is now back as it should be, well over the midpoint of the gauge at 2000rpm

A useful tip:-  after the plug is unscrewed and the spring has been removed from the valve, the piston usually stays behind in the valve so I keep a piece of plastic tube to push into the piston to help pull it out. With the hexagon plug and this piece of plastic the job could easily be done by the roadside if needed, otherwise with the original slotted plug it would be a workshop job.

Mike

Thank you for your posts, they are very helpful and interesting. I am about to overhaul the sliding pillars on my Belna and would rather borrow/hire the tools needed, rather than make a new set. I met a lovely and enthusiastic gentleman at the rally, who's name I have forgotten, that offered to lend me his, so if he or anyone else has a set for hire, please let me know. Daniel Bangham . Cambridge.

Daniel I've emailed you. You are welcome to borrow my pillar tools (as on the first post on this thread).

Cheers Mike

Hi Raahauge
I have just taken my Belna suspension apart and found spring number  34-5583/6 has broken. Is this the one you had made. It is middle spring of the trio on the top section of the suspension. I also had to remake the oil cap/cup found at the very bottom of the suspension. The existing ones have been soft soldered in place, does anyone know if that was the original method of attachment. (part number 34-5595) The original caps are pressed steel with oil tube brazed in place. I have machined the new ones out of free machining mild steel and then re brazed the original oil tube. That way I did not have to cut the very fine thread for the retaining cap.

Hello all,

The spring NR. 34-5583/6 is the uppermost one, the longer one of the two. To keep water and dust out, there is a alu cap 34-5626, which is held in place by the lubrication nipple on top of the damper rod. (M6 tread)

The P/N 34-5595 is soft soldered to P/N 34-5578 (lower sliding cylinder), the oil tube or standpipe is brazed to the cap as you did. The lower dust cover is also soft soldered to 34-5578. The solder can become cracked with time and will leak oil. If so, the only solution is the disassembly the lot by heat gun, de-grease carefully and re-solder.

To fill the shock absorber, I use a different method as described in the owners manual. I remove 34-5625 and fill oil directly into the damper rod. At the same time I move the rod up and down and can feel any air pockets left. It is essential that on changing the sense of moving the rod, resistance must be noted, especially when the rod is at the bottom. It's a lengthy process. Excuse my English.

Regards Karl

Good evening.
I agree with Kari, 34-5583/6 is the top spring and the middle, shorter one is 34-5583/10.
I had a batch of these made and still have some. Picture attached. £5 each
I am curious about the dust cap arrangement. On my car, and some others I have seen, the top of the damper rod is more or less flush with the top of the top cap which means that on bump it would be the aluminium dust cap that is trying to lift the damper rod and not the spring 34-5583/10. My expectation is that the dust cap would shear and is maybe why they are frequently missing.
I have made a push-on cap from light gauge tube about 60 long which fits snugly over top cap and is not attached to the damper rod.
Best wishes to everyone for 2022.
Mike

My appologies, I specified the correct spring, but located it incorrectly. The spring that is broken on mine is the top spring. As a stop gap solution, I have leveled of the broken part of the spring and made a spacer to fill the gap. I know that it will be a harder spring, but, better than no spring at all. (I have found some available on Ebay from Italy). Thanks for the replies, by the way. Very helpful and re-assuring. I have finished and re-fitted the 34-5595 cup at the bottom, with soft solder. I have also built up and finished shaped the worn 34-5587 (main "king pin") as described by Morris Parry. I was rather worried about the brazing rod I used, so I have made it .01 undersize and have nickel plated it to bring it up to 35mm in diameter (which I calculated to be the original specification). I made two test plating's using similar size and type material, to get the voltage and current correct. Then tested the resulting finish. I hit the plating with a ball pein and it dented and conformed, without delaminating, I then tried to file it and the file skated over the surface. So I went ahead and plated the original. All looks very promising. I have just moved on to the re-assembly and have been researching the oil to use. I have posted my thoughts on the subject in the "suspension oil" thread on this formum. In summary, I will be using a 32 weight hydraulic oil. (as used in motorbike front suspension)
 I will be making new dust caps as suggested. The tools lent to me by Mike have been fabulous and help from the forum equally re-assuring.

Great progress and some tricky work Daniel!
Mike Clark

As Mike says, good work.
I have just refurbished the same components our Aprilia suspension but I farmed it out, (generally similar but a bit bigger) it rattled away even on a smooth road and when dismantled there was about 006" wear in both the bore and the component you have just done, total 012".
I had the bore ground till it cleaned up and the male part hard chromed to give 002" clearance
The male part is barrel shaped on the Aprilia with a radius of about 175mm but the bits on our Augusta, which I did not have to rebuild, are parallel. What profile is yours? I cannot tell from the photos.
The 002"clearance proved to be too tight and I have had to increase it.
You are welcome to one of the short springs instead of your packing piece if you wish.
Mike

The "king pin" on the Augusta suspension is barrel shaped as well. On a recent overhaul of a friends front suspension, I had them ground to the basic shape, chromed up and ground to size. The cylinders were worn oval inside and have been ground to be cylindrical again. I did aim for a clearance of 0,04 mm.

Karl

Thanks for the advice. I have made the king pins dome shaped. I did it carefully by eye using the max diameter of 34.95mm in the middle and the original metal as the outer diameters. I made the decision that the exact shape was not critical, since they still worked when worn 0.4mm out of shape, (one side was almost flat). I decided not to do anything about the outer sleave, it measured to within 0.04mm of round.
It is now all back together again, the most frustrating bit being getting the bottom spring cap square and true, so the thread did not cross. In the end I assembled the caps without the springs, marked where thethreads started (ie the point at which the cap dropped off into my hand) Then made sure the marks lined up when screwing together with the springs in place. I will use a bottle jack next time as well. Flushed with success, I tackled the off side spring. The bottom cap came off  very smoothly and the components inside looked as new, someone has worked on this side! I stopped at that point and re-oiled and assembled.
The final assembly should be possible tomorrow morning ready for the new years day rally in Barrington.

Wow - Happy New Year!

Mike Clark

A good idea, to mark where the tread starts. Even with the compression tool I was using on my friends front axle, there is the fear to bugger up the tread. Decades ago, I have inherited the compression tool from a Lancia garage near Zurich. The tool is very useful as it allows working on the suspension while off the car. In the case of my friends axle, the L/H side female tread at the bottom was distorted, probably by striking something while driving and it needed an enormous amount of leverage to undo it.

Best wishes for the New Year and happy Augusta driving.

Karl

Thanks for sharing that photo, Is the removal of the whole front axle simply a case of undoing the four bolts, stearing linkage and brake hoses, or is there more to it? Maybe in realignemnt or something.
Seeing the alternative tooling us useful. In my opinion, the use of a taper roller bearing under the cap tool, as Mike Clarke has used, is a genius idea.

Did you make it to Barrington yesterday?

Mike Clark

I agree, a taper roller bearing would be much better than the plain stub I have on my tool, but plenty of grease helps. I think more important is a very fine tread to compress the spring. On my tool it's a 32 X 1,5 mm tread. The spring on the Augusta is preloaded close to 200 kg. Normally, a lever of 2 ft is sufficient to undo the lower cap.
The axle is bolted to the frame by 6 ea.  M10 X 1,25 bolts.

If one doesn't want to bleed the brakes, the procedure is as follows: remove brake drums, remove whole brake assemblies by undoing the 6 ea. screws (58556 - 58557) at the back plates and hang the assemblies by a wire/string out of way. Disconnect steering rod at the front. Undo 6 M10 bolts and lower the axle, preferably using a garage jack. A word of caution here, the M 10 bolts can be corroded and difficult to remove, as the treads are protruding inside the frame and water can collect there. Very early Augusta have a different attachment of the front axle, the bolts horizontal.

Karl

Thanks for the information about removing the front axle. Something for the future. I am not sure what the photo is showing?
After wrangling the front bumper back into position, I was able to lower the car down and take it for a test drive. All behaving very nicley indeed. The slight steering wobble, that I got around 40 mph has gone completely. Happy days ahead, time to start preparing to take it to the Pyrenees.
Back over to Mike and his epic Augusta Progress thread. Thanks for all your help.

FYI, there are quite a few Augusta spare parts for sale on the Itallian www.ebay.it . I have got two different front suspension springs from the guy called Alberto Giuffrida, in Siracusa, sicily. email:alberto.giuffrida@hotmail.it.

No Augusta fettling to report - just using and enjoying the car!

I am organising a Touring event around the Yorkshire Dales for VSCC members using Pre 1941 cars on June 3rd to coincide with the exact 95th anniversary of the MCC 1927 London Edinburgh Run which went over numerous hilly observed sections throughout North Yorkshire. I believe there is another Anniversary as well!
 
Yesterday I took the Augusta around the 115 mile route to do a final check on the instructions. A brilliant sunny day and a big smile on my face, the Augusta is just so nice to drive and it behaved perfectly of course and drew a lot of interest. It seems to average 29mpg which I believe is normal for an Augusta.

My only complaint is that the front seats are not very comfortable, feeling a bit humped in the middle of the cushion and lacking the side support needed round all those wriggly bits in the Dales. The seats have been recovered but otherwise seem unmodified. Has anyone else found this? Perhaps a change to the interior padding would work, hopefully without to much change to the appearance of the seats.

Mike Clark

Hi Mike, Je suis desole, we are fully booked (working) all summer. Sounds a lovely event. Have a great time. My Belna is almost ready to go on tour this June, just waiting to fit a broken brake adjuster. One major breakthrough was discovering that there was a fuel filter built into the carburettor banjo connector.! It was clogged. I think it might be deposits from the fuel tank that are being dislodged by the ethonol in the fuel.

12 months since my last progress report and nothing new to say - the Augusta just works and very well too. We've done 4500 miles since 2019.

Last weekend we went on the Beamish Trial, a non competitive tour around Co Durham,  Cumberland and North Yorkshire for vehicles built before 1955, starting and finishing at the Beamish Museum in  Chester le Street. Run as a road safety event, it goes through superb scenery in the Dales climbing  many hills which were sections in the MCC London Edinburgh Trial of 1927 such as Tan Hill, Buttertubs and Askrigg Bank, with a picnic lunch stop at Bainbridge There were about 150 entrants and judging by the number of spectators everywhere on the route, the run creates a huge amount of interest for the public which has to be good publicity for the cause of classic motoring. Run on Fathers Day, 18th of June this year, it's a brilliant event.

The whole route is nearly 150 miles which with a 70 - 80 mile run from home to the start and the same to return meant a 306 mile day, fortunately my son Tim is equally keen so shared the driving. The Augusta ran perfectly of course and I suspect surprised other drivers with its ability, particularly around corners and downhill!

I have a self imposed maximum of about 3400rpm so cruise at 50-55 mph at which it seems very happy and runs at about 75C. Up the longest and stiffest hill the maximum temperature on a pretty warm day was just over 90C. The gear ratios and torque are such that it pulls well down to 2200 rpm at which point the next gear down is still within my rev limit. I would like to have a 5th gear of 19-20 mph per 1000rpm which would probably allow a 60 mph crusing speed but on winding roads you rarely hold up the traffic.

The vibration problems which I battled with for the first 12months are now negligable, except for the windscreen frame which clatters at tickover at 650rpm. I need to change the seals as they are a bit hard so perhaps that wilĺ resolve that one, which I suspect is provoked by the V4 pulses of the engine.

Alltogether a very pleasing car.

No new mechanical adventures to report on the Augusta but last week we reached 5000 miles on the road in my ownership. Still brilliant, reliable and fun - thanks Vincenzo.

Mike Clark

Hard work paying off.  Well done!

Augusta cranks.
I was about to post this note at the beginning of September but Mike got in first reporting his 5000, enjoyable, trouble-free miles so I decided to delay this less positive tale.

Following my earlier crank breakage I had a full overhaul with new white metal, a rebore and new pistons. The pistons are heavier than the originals but lighter than others have used.
I decided to have it balanced by Vibration Free which involved a small weighted disc attached to the front of the crank and drillings in the flywheel.
The engine went together very well and I was pleased with the work.
In use it was extremely smooth and I was delighted, cruising very happily at 50 to 55 mph.
After 1500 miles a vibration developed which I initially thought was prop-shaft but I quickly realised it was engine and by the time I got home, 40 odd miles, it was quite severe.
Upon inspection the crank is 0.002” bent at the centre main therefore 0.004” run-out.
It is not cracked.
I have chewed over the possible cause and discussed it with others and with Vibration Free but have arrived at no decisive views.
A hazy theory going round in my head is that the energy in the out of balance forces in the standard Augusta engine are dissipated by shaking the engine about and these vibrations are dealt with by clever engine mounts so that they are not felt by the passengers.
In balancing the engine in the manner that I have, all the out of balance forces have been resolved inside the engine between the two ends of the crank which may have imposed loads that it was never designed or tested for.
I am still trying to settle in my head whether there is actually any difference between the two scenarios.
Another possibility is that I have a crank with a flaw in it and that the balancing has played no part.
Either way my plan is get a new crank made to a design based on the later Lancia V4’s such as the Fulvia.
I have been given ‘an order of magnitude” price of £3000 with a 10% reduction for every extra crank up to a maximum of 6 (2 would be £2700 ea. 3 would be £2400 ea. etc.)
The design of this would take into account the weights of the pistons and both ends of the rods and for this pricing structure all the cranks would have to be identical. It follows therefore that if anyone else wished to join the project, all would have to agree on a common piston and rod weights to achieve an ideal outcome.
My rebore was 72mm and used an Opel piston, I see that there is a 72mm Fulvia piston but I have not yet established if that can be a workable option.
Any thoughts or comments most welcome.
I will be trying to put a budget cooking engine together in the meantime, I really miss not having an Augusta to use.
Hope to see many of you at the lunch.
Best wishes.
Mike

Quite a story your are telling here. My first thought was, as you write about increasing vibrations, that something must have shifted/moved. Can you run the engine without gearbox and clutch assembly, or is it disassembled already? What about the fan, the dynamo pulley? They can be out of balance too.

It seems strange to me that the crank can get bent while in operation? Would there be a crack developing?

Your "hazy theory" might not be far off. IMHO, the method of balancing an engine like Vibration Free is like fighting symptoms. Its not known what is causing the imbalance inside the engine. A con rod big end might be heavier than the opposite one and will cause excessive vibrations and centrifugal forces. Also, it's important to have all the masses of the big ends and the small ends within 1 gram. That includes the piston assemblies.
Before the engine was assembled in the factory, it was balanced using bob weights for the big end mass only. There is no information that the reciprocating mass was considered. That started later on with the Aprilia.

Last year I had the crank of my spare engine balanced. I made all the con rods and piston assemblies equal first. I then made bob weights for the crankshaft the same mass as the big ends. The crank with the installed bob weights was run on a modern Schenck balancing machine. It should be dynamic balancing. It turned out that weight had to be removed on the sides of the cranks (90° to the cranks) and a little at the cranks themselves. When the crank was within the limits, the flywheel was attached and balanced together with the crank. Finally, the clutch assembly was installed and it did need balancing too. I was rewarded with a smooth running engine.

I remember that the late John Millham had a balanced crank made, but I don't know if it was ever run in an engine.

Those of you who want to go into depth of the subject, I recommend the very interesting booklet by Geoffrey Goldberg: "Balancing the Lancia V4"

I plan to be at the lunch.
Karl

The idea of a broken Augusta crankshaft reminds me of Andrew Maclagan's clever poem, based on Wordsworth's "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" – see photo. As printed in the LMC Journal of Spring 1967.

Kari, thank you for your considered response.
To answer you in order.
The engine was dismantled immediately and the crank measured, hence I know the run-out.
I also find it strange that it should bend in use, I have checked very carefully with a Magnaflux and it seems not to be cracked. As you remark, there could indeed be a crack developing
It is not twisted (as measured by the flat sides of the crank) and the bend is such that with the crank on V blocks the centre main is low with 1 & 4 at BDC and 2 & 3 at TDC (conventional cylinder numbering)
Before removal, the crank was free at TDC but a little tight when the pistons would have been halfway down the bores. The white metal looks OK but it must it must be slightly damaged as otherwise it would be equally tight everywhere.
The oil pressure remained good but the oil pressure relief valve may have been spilling less.  
I did very carefully balance all the components before taking it to VF but only to about 1.5 to 2 grams. and the clutch parts were marked and reinstalled in the same position after the balancing.
When balancing last year did you consider dealing with a proportion of the reciprocating weight?
John fitted his balanced crank which was satisfactory though he was rather distracted and very concerned by the very low oil pressure. He took it back to the company who did the engine work before he was ill and they are dealing with it. When John had the new crank and the engine work done he changed from white metal to shells and it seems that the thrust pieces in the centre main allowed oil to escape.
I concur, the Goldberg book is excellent on the subject.
I look forward to meeting you.

  

Regarding the bent crank: There are companies out there who will straighten a bent crank with a high degree of success for about £150. Surely this is worth a try. I do not know the metal properties of an Augusta crank as to whether it is suitable for straightening. More modern cranks certainly are. One company I read about recently was South Cerney Engineering. Maybe worth a chat with?

Mike,
Another thought: When you had the main bearings line bored, was the crankcase firmly bolted to the block? As other Augusta owners and myself have experienced when the mains are bored in the crankcase alone, it wont work. The crankcase isn't just rigid enough. In my case, when I had to remove the block from the crankcase with the crank shaft in situ, it would not turn anymore.

When I had my crankshaft balanced, I used bob weights for the big end mass alone, although in Geoff's booklet there is a calculation published which gives a value of 32,2% to be added for the reciprocating masses. (Page 90)

Regards  Karl

Thank you Kari and Spider.
Thank you for the suggestion,I had thought of, but dismissed, the idea of straightening the crank.  Unless I change something it would surely happen again and if I put it back to standard I would still be running with a possibly weakened crank and the attendant worry about its reliability. 
I had assumed that the engine would be line-bored with the block in place but in the event it wasn't as they said they couldn't get it on the machine. In practice that didn't cause a problem as everything turned beautifully on assembly. It really was a delight in use and the problem arose in quite a short mileage. I don't think I 'over-reved' it but maybe 55mph, although well under Lancia's suggested max, was too much for the loads I may have imposed on the crank - back to my hazy theory.