New Flaminia owner

[Mitka]

Nice progress! I like the AC setup. Where are you based?

[DavidG]

Thanks Mitka.

I am in Bath if you want to get a closer look at it.

[Mitka]

Come spring I might come up in my Pf coupe😁

[DavidG]

Great! Would be good to see another close up.

[DavidG]

As mentioned in Clarkey's post, I have removed the majority of the studs from one head, some requiring a nut welding to them. To prevent damage from spatter I used a plumbers heat mat to surround the studs I was working on.

Two of the most stubborn studs seem to be the two central ones - wondering if this is because these are totally surrounded by the water jacket and this is causing the corrosion.

[DavidG]

Oh happy day!

I decided to have a go at making a thin wall tube saw, as mentioned by Mitka in Clarkeys thread, to drill out the corrosion around the remaining studs.

I turned down a piece of stainless tube, with a 10mm ID, so that it had a 0.3mm wall thickness, leaving a length of full thickness tube to hold in the drill chuck.

I filed teeth into the end, took a deep breath, and had a go on one of the gummed up studs. Almost immediately it gave off a little puff of powder, so I carefully continued. Progress was slow, so I re filed the teeth, making them deeper and a symmetrical profile, so that I could reverse the drill if necessary. As I proceeded there was more and more resistance caused by the loose powder - aluminium oxide is an abrasive, right? or is that a different form? I lubricated the cutter with some ATF/acetone mix, which is what was at hand, and things went more smoothly, until, slowly but surely, I drilled the entire length of the stud. I tried the drill on hammer setting but found without to be better. Regularly withdrawing and cleaning the drill stopped it gumming up too much.

The third stud I did had all it's thread remaining, so I decided to have a go at withdrawing it using the double nut method - It came out without a problem!

My only concern is that the hole of the removed stud is now a little larger at it's top, I guess where the cutter was settling into its groove, but could it also be from the corrosion?

Anybody see a problem with this? The hole is now closer to 11.2 at the top and I can insert the shank of an 11mm drill about 20mm into it. I cant insert the drill into a hole that the stud has come out of cleanly. 

[lancianut666]

Impressive...my workshop is not as well equipped as yours so I will try some brackets from the exhaust studs to the plate and give that a go.
Clarkey

[DavidG]

One down, one to go.
The first head is now off!
Managed to remove all but 2 of the studs before lifting the head. The 2 remaining ones have had the corrosion drilled out but seem to be more stuck in the block.

I managed to shear off my cutting tool on one - it is important not to let it catch, by constantly lubricating and removing to remove sludge from the tool.

The stainless tube I ordered from amazon arrived today, so I turned down a bit of that to make a second tool - easier because there is less material to remove.

The bores look in very good order so far.
 

[frankxhv773t]

The club should issue a medal for people who successfully remove a Flaminia cylinder head. I recall Martin Buckley's magazine write up many years ago about getting the heads off EJJ 87J. The engine was still in the car so he hooked up the head to an engine crane. All he managed to do was lift the whole of the front of the car off the ground and a Flaminia Berlina is a hefty piece of kit. 

[ColinMarr]

I have followed this story (and the related one) with interest. Not that I have ever had problems with stuck heads, but I know plenty that have. That photo of the tubular cutter reminded me of an occasion in 1968, when a friend with a Appia S2, who worked at AEI research labs had their model shop make up such a cutter (a trepanning tool!), with hardened steel teeth – just the job to clear away all the gunge. And at that time the car wouldn’t have been much more than ten years old.

[Mitka]

Nice! Well done! If the hole gets too large it can always be sleeved later.

[DavidG]

Second head off. This one (RH) had considerably less corrosion than the other. I only had to drill down 2 of the studs.

The question is: what to do next. It was always my intention to have this engine re- built by someone else, while I got on with other tasks, but also to remove it from my very restricted garage space. The idea was that I would have the front and rear suspension and transaxle to prepare while the shell was away being painted, and the engine would come back running and ready to install. I decided to remove the heads myself after hearing about the problems others have had, and how much this could contribute to the cost of the engine. Now that I have the heads off, and can see that the bores look OK and the engine is turning over, I am wondering if I want to go further myself.

If anyone has any recommendations for engine builders, with Flaminia experience, I would be grateful.

[DavidG]

Continuing my work on the dashboard I have restored  the pull switches and the ignition switch. The wiper switch had a snapped off spindle, so this was extended with a piece of stainless steel, threaded into the original brass. It also needed modifying to work with the new 2 speed wiper, requiring an additional brass ring with altered spacing. New knobs were needed, which were made on my resin 3D printer then sanded and polished on the lathe. The cigar lighter has been adapted to take a modern core. The switch on the right of the image is for the air conditioning fan.

I have removed the LH door from the car to do a trial build up and make sure I have all the parts.

I have also trial fitted and adjusted the bonnet catches, acquired from Dave Gee (thanks Dave!), and managed to get the bonnet to sit pretty neatly with acceptably even gaps.

[DavidG]

I have been working on a few different jobs lately.

The door internals have been assembled and parts checked. Apart from needing some new window winder cable, all seems good.  The next task will be a small welding job, where the trims fit at the top of the doors, and then I will fit the doors back on the car, but with the seals in place, to check that I can get a reasonable alignment before it goes for paint - I have received a huge parcel from Cicognani, with nearly every rubber part they sell for the PF coupe.

I have made up the missing boot hinges. I first made some 3D printed ones to check the fit, then made them in steel by welding some turned tubular parts to flat plates. The welds were shaped to make the hinges look like the few images I have been able to find.

I have made a pattern for the infill panel behind the front bumper, first in cardboard, and then plywood. I have found that the area below the grille is very thin and distorted, so I will need to address this as well. 

I have removed the rear suspension, the transaxle and the front subframe in preparation for installing the shell on the roll over jig. I  have made brackets for this, but also discovered that the front bumper mounts were barely attached to the car, the welds were so poor. This resolved I found myself with a bit of a headache: I only have a small garage and all my other storage is full, meaning the parts removed need to stay under the car. The problem is that the roll over jig has a tube, which connects the front and rear frames, under the length of the car. I have dismantled the rear suspension and am hoping I can move the other parts (all now on wheels) to one side, especially when the shell has to be wheeled out of the garage, attached to the jig, to go to the paint shop. Hope to get the jig attached in the next few days.

I have also been checking the fit of some of the stainless body trims. Does anybody know a source for the clips that hold the windscreen surround trim? Classic Lancia have them but they no longer ship to the UK.

I was surprised to find that I have a rear wheel bearing so bad that the car must have been un driveable. The other side and both the fronts are absolutely fine and all of the other running gear seems in extremely good shape, further adding to my belief that this is a low mileage car. I am wondering if the failed bearing ran dry for some reason, perhaps the seal failed. Could this be the reason the car stopped being used? Anyway, I now have a bearing to change ...

[DavidG]

The shell is now mounted on the rollover jig and is on it's side so that I can get a good look at the underside. Nothing much wrong here: A few earlier repairs to tidy up a bit but they all seem to a good standard (restoration rather than MOT). I will do as much as I can before it goes for blast cleaning to keep the cost down.

The rear suspension has been separated to make it more compact and the other big bits have been re arranged on the garage floor. I think the front subframe will have to be disassembled before the rollover jig and shell can get out of the garage.

Glancing at the gearbox I noticed what looked like a nasty crack in the casing at the clutch end. Closer inspection revealed this to be marking on the surface of the casting. I'm not an expert on casting but, if this was made using a shell mould, could a portion of the shell have been snapped off and then patched back in prior to pouring?