Aurelia photo - quizz

[Sebastien]

A small quizz:
What type, where and when?

[Sliding Pillar]

3rd series B20 by the Fountain of the twelve months, in the Valentino park, Torino. As to when..... well I think possibly quite recently.

[Sebastien]

Ade,
Complimenti!
Fast and correct!

As to the date, it was last friday, a beautiful spring day in Torino, where I visited Cavalitto.
The Parco del Valentino was very quiet, and I enjoyed the rest there.
Much less enjoyable was the end of the day, when I spent one hour and a half in traffic jams around the northern part of Milano: the B20 coped with the conditions, but was not happy!

Here is another quizz:
3 different Nardi aircleaners, they fit which Aurelias? carburetors used?

[chriswgawne]

Hi Sebastien,
I think....that the one on the left is for twin Solex carbs for 1st or 2nd series B20 (or for saloons) and the one in the middle is for twin Weber 40DCL/Z type carbs for 3rd Series B20 onwards.
As to the one on the right, this is also for twin Weber 40DCL/Z type carbs I think. The fact that it is deeper makes me think it will only fit cars with an airscoop on the bonnet?
A small query - are they all original?
I have originals of the centre and the right hand one and I think I have seen reproductions of the left hand one and the centre one for sale at Cavalitto. When new, was the grille and surround chromium plated?
Chris

[Sebastien]

Chris,

The photos were taken at Gilberto Clerici's workshop.
I have myself no practical knowledge of mounting those parts on cars.

This is what Gilberto told me:

The aircleaner to the left, of sheetmetal, is for B20 (he did not specify if 2l or 2.5 l). It should mount directly on the round carburetor adapter plate (where normally the standard round B20 aircleaner fits ).

In the middle, the lowest one in cast aluminum, is for the B24 spider, with Weber DCL/DCZ carbs

On the right, the fatter one in cast aluminum, is for the B24 convertible, also with Weber DCL/DCZ carbs

They both mount directly to the carbs, like the single carb B24 aircleaner.

I have heard other opinions, but what do you think?

I find it strange that Nardi made a convertible version, when the previous spider version (which is lower) already exists! 

[ColinMarr]

It's a lovely photo of a lovely car and well done Ade for leaping to the correct answer! More ordinary mortals might have arrived at the same answer by a more laborious route. Like:
•   It’s clearly not a Series 1 or Series 2 car because it has a fully rounded rear end without vestigial fins
•   It’s not a Series 6 car because it has no quarter lights.
•   It might be a Series 5 car, but the rear window doesn’t wrap enough around the side and the wheel trims don’t look right.
•   It might be a Series 4 car because even in black & white the photo looks as if there might be tinted glass, but the door handles look wrong for Series 4
•   So, it’s probably Series 3, which would be the latest series to have lever type door handles and not the push button ones fitted to later cars. Phew!

As to the Nardi marked inlets. I don’t know what cars they might fit, but beware - it is quite possible that an aluminium foundry located in the UK somewhere between Lymington and Liverpool might have fabricated some of them in recent years and the firm’s name would not have been Nardi!

Colin

[Kevin MacBride]

Here's another....what is unusual about the picture, plus when you've figured it out, why was it done ? The tool may be a clue !  Now this is one for real Aurelia anoracks. From a gearbox I worked on some years ago.

[Sliding Pillar]

Colin, you are more or less correct on my thought process as to the correct series of B20.
As for the date of the photo, two things lead me to think it was not a period photo, even though it was black and white,
first there was a wing mirror on the door and although it was the correct type for a B20 very few cars actually had them on at the time and secondly the exhaust looked a bit shiney, as if it was stainless steel rather than mild steel. It was than that I realised that it was Sebastien's car!

[ColinMarr]

Kevin,

OK, I have tried the old anorak on for size and it’s a bit small for me these days, but I’ll have a go!

This is half familiar stuff. It looks like the left output shaft from an Aurelia transaxle. It doesn’t look the same as my 6th series one so I guess it is from the earlier and smaller unit. I had to extract the output shaft from my car and I remember having to undo something that held the bearing and the shaft in situ, but it didn’t look like the shiny new thing in your photo!

My guess is that someone had to make a new retaining ‘cap’ which needs the special tool in the photo to do it up and undo it.

In my case I had to extract that shaft, which came out very easily complete with the bearing, because a sneaky little oil leak had found it’s way down the shaft so as to drip tiny amounts of oil inside the rear brake drum, which caused violent brake judder and jamming on. Such were the pleasures of getting a B20 back on the road.

I’ll put the anorak away now.

Colin

[Kevin MacBride]

Close...The transaxle is from a 4th series. I made the tool myself for my own car. Oil had leaked into the brake drums, which whilst not that bad, sometimes caused the brakes to lock. So I removed the unit and replaced the outer bearings with sealed units, and also new seals. As you may know, the large ring nut is LH thread on the left hand side and RH thread on the right.
I loaned the tool to the workshop in Mondello Park, where they were working on a similar transaxle from a B20 they had. I got a call to say that they could not get the nut undone and would I have a look. I probably should have mentioned the thread differance, but in any case, the mechanic had tightened the nut and cracked the casting. I had a ring made, slightly smaller in diameter, and fitted it like a cartwheel band (heated and then shrunk).It did the job , and thats what the shiny bit is !

[chriswgawne]

As I don the anorak.......another very small clue that Sebastien's photo is not from the 50's is that the door handle is drooping slightly (I am not criticizing your car  Sebastien!).
This would almost certainly not have been the case if the photo had been taken in period.

[Sebastien]

Coming back to the Nardi air cleaners:

I have now following version (from another source) to submit:

The 2 different cast aluminum types are:
- for the spider (which has a small but rather high air scoop on the bonnet) the deep but narrow version
- for the convertible (where the scoop is less high, but wider) the larger but shallow version
This makes more sense, as the spider type would not fit under the convertible, and thus require a new model.

Can anyone confirm with photos of convertible, and spider twin carb installations?

Colin: the unfinished air cleaner on the photo attached seems to be from this english foundry. Casting quality on the piece I photographed is not good, there is almost no aluminum to be machined on the lower surface.

[chriswgawne]

That all makes sense Sebastien.
But bearing in mind the small quantities of Spiders (239 I recall?) and Convertibles (521?) manufactured as compared to Saloons and Coupes, which air cleaner was usually used on Saloons and Coupes?
Also I am curious - are the polished ones in your photos original or reproduction?
I also have a raw unpolished 'English' casting which actually looks OK and certainly looks as if it can be finished off to closely resemble my original Nardi airbox casting.
Chris

[ColinMarr]

Sebastien,

Far be it for me to leap to the defence of the English metal foundry industry, but just because the quality of that casting is poor standard it doesn’t mean that it came from the UK! I have heard that the Mercedes F1 cars are designed and manufactured near Oxford and the engines are designed and made in the English midlands. I also hear that they are rather good and perhaps superior to anything that could be sourced in Germany!

Colin

[Sebastien]

Colin,
I wrote too quickly!

That unmachined casting is bad quality. Everything else is conjecture.

I think it is from a replica batch, which could have been cast anywhere, even in Italy!
The mention of England came to my mind because of a previous posting.
Sorry for the confusion!