Aprilia Diary

[simonandjuliet]

Thanks Tim
I have painted the fan black and the tips of my fingers white so I don't trap them in the fan
S

[lancialulu]

Well you should see the red stubs then!!

[Scarpia]

I left my fan like yours (unpainted), lethal but painting the tips doesn't make much difference;you just have to keep well away when it's running, finger shredding is quickly done...

[MaciekPeda]

I was mine polished, with very good result, see pics:

[lancialulu]

That's the problem with practicality and concours tension. Nice polished but driving car in all weather (not for concours of course) will make it corrode again...

[simonandjuliet]

I have tried to keep all the bits as per factory so for the fan, I decided it needed to be "Amy Winehouse" that is back to black !

The dynamo has a black cover with the body and nose left as cleaned metal, but have used what is a French panacea - Rustol - they use it for everything ! It is a kind of rustproofing varnish and is used for metal, wood etc.
I don't recall seeing it in the UK ..... it is not shiny and retains the freshly cleaned look. The only down side is the time it takes to dry

The water pump is shown in bits, waiting for a new drain tap and gasket paper. From the photo you can see 2 disks with grooves. These connect the impeller shaft to the pulley and are nearly always worn (the upper disk) and rounded, so I welded up the damaged part of the disk and recut the groove - let's hope it works. Fiddly little thing which has LH threaded nut holding on the pulley - very Lancia

Finished running board with polished strips

Have been working on the front wings today so will post later

[simonandjuliet]

I am very fortunate to have a basically sound car where generally there have not been too many horrors when you take things to pieces. So it was with some trepidation that we embarked on the front wings, especially in the knowledge that she has had a bump at some time in her past.

On inspection, there has been quite a lot of repair work on the inner wheel arch with a fair number of spot welds where rods have been attached to assist in pulling the damaged panel out. There is still some distortion , but since there is no abnormal tyre wear or wheel shimmy, I am going to leave well alone - this damage was done at least 40 years ago so I suspect it would have reared its ugly head by now ....

We have done most of the fettling with the wings on the car. (I say "we" but my friend "Dog" is our local bodywork expert, so I do what he tells me !!) This has mainly involved making penny-disks to weld up the nasty indicator-repeater holes and there was a bit of arch-flaring due to a couple of cracks (probably minor dings) so I jacked up the leading edge to get back the original line before rewelding the flange. Dog then spent some time redressing the wings with a hammer and dolly to reduce the filler load. It looked as if someone had done a Cozy Powell tribute on the wings !

The strengthening boxes at the back of the wings are still there , but one side needed a repair before painting.

Dog did a quick skim of filler over the wings and everything is lovely again !

With the wings off everything is easy to get at so a few hours sanding (would have been quicker but my air-sander kept icing up !) , and it is ready to paint. Inner and under wheel arches have had their first coat of paint and we are hoping to get the primer on the top this Friday ...

[Parisien]

Lovely, looks as someone shot it with a shot gun! Quite liking the colour too...excellent!

P

[davidwheeler]

Coil should produce a spark which can jump a centimetre or two if you flick across the terminals.  I presume it is 6V?  You can buy spark testing strobes as well, designed to go inline with the plug leads and a goodly spark in one of them is a good sign.   Of course you can always see if it will knock you off your feet.

[simonandjuliet]

Thanks David - what do you mean by "flick across the terminals" (it is 12v - not that it makes a difference I suspect) ? I would rather try that than the "knock you off your feet" method

Re front wings, they are now in 2 pack primer with a light contrast coat and are starting to look very nice .... colour planned for next week.

Slight conundrum with the suspension units, I knew they were different;  the RHS being the later type and the LHS being the earlier one.

According to the 2nd series instruction book (thanks Tim) the later type started at chassis 438-13714 so corresponds with my car, it also has the foot pump oiler. However the bump was on the RHS so this is the one I would have expected to have been replaced with a non-standard, but it is the other side which is non standard. Further confusion is that the early unit on the LHS appears to have an adjuster on the shock absorber, which I didn't think was an option on the early units. More homework ......

[lancialulu]

like the spray booth. Now you see it now you dont

[BlueSky]

Just wondering what the hole in the wheel arch is for? And is it a 2nd series thing?
Noel

[lancialulu]

I don't know but I had a modified cam breather with a hose that I fed a big breather (to air) pipe to minimise engine bay fumes.

I suspect it was a general vent that worked at speed to clear the engine bay from fumes when the engine is working hard.

Tim

[simonandjuliet]

There is one on the other side as well. I suspect they were put there to improve the engine bay ventilation because I don't get any fumes in the car even on off-throttle descents

[davidwheeler]

Just connect across the terminals of the coil with a battery and make and break the connection quickly by flicking the positive wire across its terminal - basically what the points do.  You will need to earth the negative side to whatever you are using to test the spark - a plug would do but Halfords make a little adjustable gap device for a few quid or you can set up a couple of nails!
I fitted a couple of modern oil seals to my water pump (standard sizes) instead of the old compressed felt,  very easy, they just went straight in and so far there are no leaks..