Lancia Motor Club

Something which has puzzled me since acquiring my series 3 car.
The inner headlights are activated by a push pull switch located close to the heater controls. This has always struck me as counter-intuitive because  selecting main beam on the outer headlamps whilst simultaneously deploying the inner headlamps is a two-handed operation.
I presume the reason Lancia wired the two sets of headlamps in this strange way was because the inner units didn't comply with UK minimum height legislation for headlamps and by wiring them on a separate switch they become auxiliary lights and therefore not subject to same legislation? This is the only logical explanation I can come up with.
If anyone can throw some light on this I'd be interested to hear it.

I may not be to do with UK regulations, rather to Italian electrics. On my Flaminia the main lighting knob is towards the middle of the dash. One pull puts on the side lights then you have to turn it to put on headlights but main beam is then selected by a button on the end of the indicator stalk. However if you want to flash someone as a signal you press the badge in the centre of the steering wheel where you would expect the horn to be (the horn being on an inner ring in the bottom half of the steering wheel). The wiper switch is a whole other bundle of complicated joy.

Frank T

I think it may have been down regulations of the day. Continental wiring diagrams are different. I re jigged mine by using the main beam trigger to activate the driving lamps (inner) relay thereby having all 4 "main beams" on, and releasing that switch for use for fog lights etc.

And that Tim, is exactly what I'm planning to do.... ;D

And you have to ask is this a mod or a reversion given various different build standards dictated by national requirements??

Same for series 1 Fulvia.

Brian
8227 8)

Hi Rob

On my S2 Fulvia the right hand stalk controls all the light functions:
1) Slide the little switch on the stalk - side lights
2) Pull the stalk down - main (outer) lights
3) Pull the stalk towards driver - full beam (inner lights)

There's also a push switch on the end of the stalk to flash the lights.

I'd be interested if the stalk in your S3 allows you to move it to position 3) above. If it does then it would seem that a previous owner has rewired your lights!
I also say this because I thought the push-pull by the heater controls you mention was an optional auxiliary control to be wired up at an owner's discretion. On mine for instance it switches on the engine fan.

Hi Scott,
My car is wired as Lancia intended and in accordance with the Series 2 handbook.
The handbook states "For the cars intended for countries with 24" height of headlamps the above instructions for the low and main beams apply to the outer headlamps only.To turn on the inner headlamps, operate the control switch, provided with the warning lamp, fitted at centre below the instrument panel at the right of the adjustable fin air outlet." [grammatical and punctuation errors are responsibility of Lancia... ;D]

From what you describe you are unable to select high beam on your outer lights. Pulling the headlamp stalk towards the driver on my car activates high beam on the outer lights, which is how it should be according to my handbook.

Rob, I thought yours had been modified too until you said that. My switch worked exactly the same as Scott's. I say worked because it became so unreliable even after an expensive rebuild that I left it in position but had a discreet rotary knob fitted to the lower dash. The bloke who fitted it does a lot of work on classics, in fact there was another Fulvia in there at the time. After rewiring he raved about the high quality of the original relays.

Hey Stanley, Are yours and Scott's cars both LHD by any chance?

Hi Rob

My car is RHD and registered since new in the UK.

If once on main lights (stalk pulled down) you cannot pull stalk up (full beam on mind and Stanley's) then it would see that somewhere along the line a change was indeed made by Lancia.

I did have a wry smirk at Stanley's comments as I need to look at some lighting issues myself! With main lights on I can sometimes hear a click-clack from the lights if I hit a bump and they intermittently switch out. In a convoy recently with a friend he pulled over thinking I was flashing him over a particularly bumpy stretch of road. Definitely one to sort out as it did seem a bit like Russian roulette knowing if the lights would stay on or not.  :o

The dreaded click clack from the relay behind the speaker panel used to herald the headlights on my car dropping in and out out intermittently. After one particularly scary moment on a drive home in the dark I had a good look at all the relays and wiring junctions. The only thing I discovered was some dodgy looking earths [which don't necessarily show up on a multi meter test] I gave all the earths a proper clean up and have had no further issues. Recently I've done a lot of miles, many at night in foul weather conditions and the electrics have behaved faultlessly.

I believe additional legislation came in after 1972 which meant later cars were different to earlier S2's. Certainly I had an unmodifies 1.5 (raised outer headlights) and am fairly certain they were like scott's until I modified as describes before. I now have later car which is as Rob's (until I modified it...). I have had Flavias that only had H1 (or single filament bulbs) innner and outer (until I modified it). As you can see I like a lot of light from the standard set up on full beam. It is a fag not to say dangerous to manually keep switching on "the inner driving lights" in the dark....

Mine is LHD but your set up (which I'd never been aware of before) seems to relate to build date as mentioned above.