Lancia Motor Club

For those who like to plan ahead I can confirm that the dates for the 2014 Sliding Pillar Rally are Friday 13th (!) to Monday 16th June 2014.
The location is Eastbourne in East Sussex, our hotel will be the Langham Hotel, which is right on the seafront.
I have some interesting visits planned.  Watch this space for more details nearer the time.

Ade,

Am debating with myself if thats an achieveable date for my restoration...... ;D

Short of being in John O'Groats...it couldn't be further away from me though!!!!


P

This is the latest information regarding the 2014 Sliding Pillar Rally.

Friday 13th June 2014. Meet at the Langham Hotel, Royal Parade, Eastbourne. Parking has been arranged at the Territorial Army base about 100m from the hotel. (It has razor wire fences around it and a security guard on the gate, so our cars should be safe!!)
Evening meal with an Italian flavour.
Saturday 14th June. Drive to the town of Battle, visit the Abbey and battle field of 1066 where King Harold was defeated by William the Conqueror and the course of British history was changed! Lunch at the Powder Mill Hotel. Afternoon drive back to the hotel with plenty of time to chat to friends in the bar, or go for a walk on the beach. Evening Gala dinner at the hotel.
Sunday 15th June. Drive along the coast via Beachy Head to Birling Gap. Lunch at Deans Place Hotel, Alfriston. Afternoon visit to Firle Place house and garden. Drive back to the hotel. Evening meal with an English flavour sampling differnt English wines to match each course with a description of the wine and food by our host.
Monday 16th June. Breakfast and goodbyes.

The Langham hotel is a family run business who are used to having groups staying. It is right on the beach front with some rooms having sea views. It has a traditional feel rather than the anonymous atmosphere of most medern hotels, so I am sure everyone will feel at home.

Booking forms will be sent to everyone on my mailing list early next year.

Ade Rudler

I am still working on the brochure and booking form for this event, so for those who can't wait, these are the prices for the various different rooms. Friday afternoon through to Monday morning Dinner bed breakfast and lunches included. Rally plaque and gift.

Twin/double room   £300 per person (based on 2 sharing)
Single room            £330
Twin/double sea view room £375 per person (based on 2 sharing)  **Limited availability**
Single sea view room £375

Five of the Double/twin sea view rooms have already been booked!!!

12 of the sea view rooms have now been booked.  If you were thinking of booking one please let me know asap to avoid dissapointment!!

.

A lovely bit of artwork!!!!!

Congratulations,

                   Andy

Yes, Eduard is brilliant!
 Regards, John

Thanks for your comment Andy, whilst I will take a little credit for which car to use and the Seven Sisters in the poster, the design is indeed as John says by Eduard de Landtsheer of Lancia Club Belgio. http://www.busybee.be/
If anyone would like a larger file size so that they can print their own copy of the poster (for personal use only) please P.M. me.

Booking form for the rally.

All of the sea view rooms have now been booked!
That's one third of all rooms booked and I only sent the booking forms out this morning.

Congratulations...

Will there be a "spectators guide"?   

David

Thanks David, yes there will be several chances for spectators, give me a couple of days and I will come up with a list!

For those without Sliding Pillar cars who would like to come to see the rally, these are a few of the places to come to.

The rally H.Q. is the Langham hotel on Eastbourne seafront, BUT as the cars will be parked in the secure compound of the Territorial Army base close by please do not come to the hotel hoping to see the cars, you are of course welcome to come to the hotel to meet up with other members and the bar is open to the public. Best time to visit, Friday to Sunday early evenings to 8pm when we have dinner.

Saturday 14th June, we will be at Battle Abbey, Battle from about 10am until 12 noon. The cars will be parked in the triangle just outside the Abbey.  Park in the main car park or the one at the Abbey (Charges apply)

Sunday 15th June, we will be at Burling Gap to the west of Beachy Head at approximately 11am, but only for about one hour.
In the afternoon we visit Firle House, from about 3pm. The Sliding Pillar cars will be parked in a special area, so please park in the main car park. There is a charge to visit the house, but probably not if you just come to the car park.

Hup - Pics ? - The weather must've been great !

These are a few pics from the weekend, which started with a Lancaster flyby low along the beachfront (That took some organising!!), a visit to the 1066 Abbey in Battle, two long lunches, visits to Birling Gap and Firle Place. But the highlight was the Langham Hotel, who were fantastic, making the organisers job very easy. Three excellent evening meals, one with a guest speaker, introducing us to many different English wines and the owner Neil Kirby always on hand to look after the guests.

More pics...

Also seen in Eastbourne........ TWO Aurelia B50 Pinin Farina Cabriolets parked in a lock-up garage......
What a barn find!!!!!

Lovely turn out...........thanks for those


P

I have 2 single and 2 pairs of Sliding Pillar cut glass Whisky tumblers left after the event. They are available for £25 each for the single ones or £45 for the twin pack, (not shown in the photos) including UK P&P. Please contact me if you would like to purchase them. Photo below.

Arrived back home last night after a great time on SPR - one of the best ever! Well done Family Rudler for the organisation which was as impeccable as always. The weather was also mostly good but the food and wine was unbelievably good - and almost too plentiful. It is always an enjoyable meeting of old old friends and this time we did not need to spend much time driving.
We did manage to complete the rally with all 4 Lancias without major incident but on the way back had a disaster. Peter was driving the Aprilia and on the A3 either something fell off a lorry in front with a hit under the car or there was a major giving way of the front fabric drive disc but the car ended up with a fairly neat channel cut in the tunnel by the spider on the end of the propshaft(http://), severed brake pipes and some electric cables. See photo.
AA took car on to Richard Thorne to await repair in the fullness of time. Whilst I was there we also discussed retrim so I may well see if it can be done wholst there. Other cars did behave reasonably well. I might well start a thread on the Flavia section about inability to start when hot!

Brian, that is horrendous and you were extremely lucky that the damage was not more severe and, more importantly, no-one was hurt. In any car where the propshaft is not restrained there is a real danger of the shaft digging into the ground, stopping the car almost dead and pivoting the rear end into the air. If you are lucky the car ends up with the nose on the ground and the rear end some few feet up in the air. If you are unlucky the rear axle is twisted and possibly even ripped off!!!!

Good luck with it,

                           Andy

It is good to know that RTC will be putting things to rights

Unbelievably freakish, as Andy says, very lucky to escape with only relatively minor damage occurred when it could have been a catastrophe!


P

I had a similar occurrence with an Aprilia in the early 1960s when the prop shaft escaped. There was a loud noise, a lack of drive and brakes as it tore through the hydraulic line to the rear, then it all ended rather abruptly as it wrapped round the hand brake cable and brought the car to an immediate stop with the rear wheels locked. It caused havoc on Feltham bridge in the rush hour!
We enjoyed the SPR very much, but we were taken home by the RAC on Monday, as the water pump had failed, cracking the cylinder head (slightly). That's the third recovery this year! What else can possibly go wrong?
Regards, John

Blimey Brian,
That's one of those incidents when after the event one doesn't want to consider what the repercussions might have been.
Funnily enough, when I was lying under my 3rd Series B20 fitting a replacement propshaft  after the one in the car cracked flat out down Hangar Straight at Silverstone  last month, I did take some comfort from the fact that the brake and fuel lines run under the floor well away from the propshaft.  What was unsettling of course was the potential for the broken shaft to drop and 'dig in' although I suppose the unsecured shaft might simply fall out because of the early rubber spiders.
Very glad the car isn't damaged too much and will be back on the road soon.
Chris

I would just like to reassure all Aprilia drivers that Andy is being a bit alarmist.Whilst the prop-shafts of lesser cars might drop onto the road and dig in the Aprilia's shafts are contained in the tunnel.However they can flail around and do quite a bit of damage as Brian and John have testified.
Hopefully my replacement aluminium/rubber bushings couplings (see my ad in Spares for Sale) would ultimately fail in a more contained manner.
Ben Courage

This was one of the (many) theories of Ascari's final accident. On that cheerful note I shall take my leave.

People go to the Club events for many different reasons. I popped down to Eastbourne for the afternoon on the Saturday to see the Sliding Pillar cars and two other specific reasons.

One was to meet Peter Renou who had been so helpful and had introduced me to and sold me a copy of Clive Beattie's book 'Fifty Five Years of Dirty Hands'. This book is pretty much essential reading for anyone working on an Aurelia and I am indebted to Peter for introducing me to it. The second reason was to have a look under the front wings of a B20 to see how the wiring loom fed the lights. Tony Stephens was kind enough to come to my assistance on this one.

Attached are my photographs of the day, not everyone's taste I am sure, but they are exactly what I hoped to get.

                                        Andy

Sorry people, it has happened again!! Of course the first photograph needs to be rotated clockwise through 90 degrees!!

                                 Andy

For the originality geeks among you, I should point out that the tube shown in PIC.2, welded into the air collector area is NOT original. The caris a 4th series, but has a 6th series front axle with promising-looking air scoops,and this is a mod., intended to supply them with some airflow on the 4th series body layout. I think a 6th series should have bifurcated vents to do this air supply job.

Update on Aprilia propshaft incident.
The front fabric disc had not given way at all. The bolts had come out.
Some of the bolts on other joints were quite loose too.
A couple of interesting points.
Why had I not checked these? I just did not think of them. I have never had this happen with Augusta.
There was no vibration or knocking at all.
Retrospect being a wonderful thing, when I get the car back from Richard Thorne I shall lift it up and check any other bolts I can see.
It is interesting fact of life that nuts you want off are so tight they have to be cut off and those you wish to be immovable, aren't.

Sorry to hear about your problem. Out of interest, do you use nylocks or castle-ated with split pins ?

This story should be taken as a note of caution to all of us, especially when read in conjunction with the tale of Chugga's front axle on his 'rat or restore' Appia !!!!

This is why I consider an MOT or similar independent annual check should be regarded as an essential for any car irrespective of its age or usage.

                                      Andy

if i'm honest I feel physically sick , diff, prop and gearbox were about the only things I didn't touch on that car , totally amazed that that's happened to you , certainly worth checking over everything else after that's happened though , people who cant tighten nuts and bolts shouldn't work on cars !!!!

On the Augusta I have tended to use castellated nuts +pins where "in your eye" and nylock on propshaft where only a concourse examination at an AGM would notice. The Aprilia is relatively new and I have really done very little to it as a) it goes/went well and b) James had it for a while!!
Mind you, I have a confession to make in the light of James's last comment! On the way to SPR I stopped for petrol with the Augusta and on restarting the starter just whirred. The bolts had fallen out and the motor was held in the engine bay by the cable. 2x17mm bolts and a 3rd degree burn later I was mobile. I cannot blame anybody as I have done all the work on the car except the propshaft which was done by Vibration Free (and is). Shall I become Hands Off?

Brian that's a little different to a propshaft falling off !!! as standard on all the early Lancia's inc appia augusta aprilia the bolts on the propshaft are split pinned ........for a reason! starter bolts aren't , if your bolts had been pinned correctly then it wouldn't have fell off , if ever I have not used split pins I have always used split nuts or self locking nuts which to me just makes common sense on something that vibrates as much as a propshaft , what I've said now and previously was not meant as a dig at you  :)

We all live and learn...

...with the forum (and the wonderful honesty many show) all the faster.