Lancia Motor Club

Has anyone rebuilt an Appia radiator louvre thermostat? 

It’s an IPRA 65 / 70 unit, and while I’m convinced I’ll be able to find equivalent seals which will do the trick, it’s the assembly procedure which is key to get it working properly.

The consistency and quantity of the high melting point grease it is filled with are obviously important too.

I’d imagine the unit is screwed together while the grease is molten, and the shaft is held in the ‘open’ position with the spring compressed?  ???

Any suggestions please?

there is an article in an old viva lancia by someone who did this (albeit another model I think).I'll check and post the details.It was very however very laborious and I opted to create a manual operation instead on my car.I think these units are rather prone to fail unfortunately

Many thanks!  That's set me thinking about another suggestion for the Committee.. :)

Guy,
I've sent you an email with the article attached as it will not reproduce legibly on the forum I suspect. For anyone interested it was a Ken West article (should have remembered that) and appeared in may 2000.I was searching through VL's from the wrong "millenium"
rgds

Scarpia,

Many thanks for the perfectly legible .jpeg!  Now if only I could get the wax from Ken... :P 

("You can't get the wood, you know." - Miss Minnie Bannister.)

 :D

Despite his lengthy description on the efforts to find this holy grail amongst waxes , I note he used an old crayon in another unit without any problems!

As he points out,the only purpose of the unit is to open the shutters as the water starts to get warm, or rather, to allow the driver the luxury of settting off with the radiator shielded and not having to get out and remove a cover once the engine is warmed up. As the water is only warm enough to kick the plunger into life after the engine is achieving a degree of warmth  the precise behaviour of the wax is probably not so critical I feel. The special wax is "special" in so much that it contains copper to act as a lubricant. Given that these units have universally decided to sieze, the virtue of this is questionable in any case.

As I said, I left mine in situ for another day.Fortunately I had the possibility to add a hand operated cable system using an existing lever under the dashboard from a redundant hand throttle so I can open and close the shutters at will.On the Aprilia the radiator is quite a big item and sometimes the car runs cool. In very cold conditions I can opt to shut the louvres whilst driving.I simply look at the water guage to decide when to open and close them.

Good luck

Thanks for that Scarpia, now why didn't I think of that?!

The Dilambda runs very cool in the winter and although there is a seized up thermostat in the radiator there are no shutters. The previous owner assures me that they were never fitted. However, I do have a spare cable pull on the dashboard which could be utilised. So, all I need to do is fabricate some shutters! or modify some from a different vehicle. All suggestions gratefully received.

I seem to remember that in the 60s it was possible to purchase a retro fit roller blind radiator shutter. Anyone got one?

Robin Lacey.

I suspect there would have originally been shutters; anyone a parts book with exploded diagrams? orthewise its a later radiator perhaps.

The nack with a manual arrangement is arranging the cable run without too many fierce bends. Pulling the lever to open the shutters is no problem but if the resistance is too high the shutter return spring will not be strong enough to return the shutters overcoming the inner/outer cable resistance. I used gortex mountain bike cable from a rear brake which is long enough and comes usually with various metal adaptor pieces.Consists of a low resistance teflon/gortex type inner and seperate protective outer. About 20 quid i think but works a treat and is in discreet black.

The Appia Consortium is a must and most of this information is now carried on the CLS website under Lancia model help and infomation area

Hello Robin,

Here's the exploded diagram of what the Appia's one looks like.

Kindest regards,

Hi Robin,
may not be of much use due to size but if of any use you can borrow "Fays" one to play with as it's not fitted at present due to radiator repairer getting fixing s in wrong place.

Brian
8227 8)