Everyday Appia

[lancialulu]

Am interested why clutch cover cannot be pre assembled before gear box is attached. What am I missing?

Tim

[the.cern]

Am interested why clutch cover cannot be pre assembled before gear box is attached. What am I missing?

Tim

Hi Tim, I think this is the alignment thing!!! Put the clutch on the gearbox shaft, offer it up to the bellhousing and job done (especially if you align, fit and tighten the clutch/flywheel fixing bolts before you fully tighten the bellhousing nuts and fit the propshaft!!!) I won't do that again!!!!

Hope you are enjoying la belle France,

                                           Andy

[lancialulu]

Hope you are enjoying la belle France,

                                           Andy

Still not sure I understand why you cannot align and bolt up before offering up the gear box. Doing it by this method you can check the pressure plate fingers and tweak out judder non?

Am enjoying France but also the French weather we are having here in the UK. See you at the AGM??

Tim

[simonandjuliet]

I have always done Aprilias this way as well - just the way I was taught the first time

You know that the plate is correctly lined up (I have never had a clutch aligning tool !!) but I also find it easier to manipulate the box onto the engine without having to rotate the gears to slide the splines home. Another thing is that I find it easier to slide the forks onto the release bearing and line up the hole for the fork when the box is separate.

I am sure neither method is better/worse . Horses for courses

[lancialulu]

Its just I am anticipating taking my Flavia gear box out to resolve the clutch judder, and a dutch Flavia expert said you need to adjust the fingers when the pressure plate is  bolted to the flywheel to ensure even pressure on release. I know (or think I know) it is not an oil contamination problem, and that a new friction plate was fitted by the previous owner. Lancia had an exotic becnh tool to set the pressure plate but this method above is doing without it....

I made an alignment tool out of an old piece of wood. Upgraded since then to a rod with various diameter plastic bobbins and I have not really had any difficulty getting the gearboxes back in - may be luck I don't know...

[simonandjuliet]

The Appia clutch cover has coil springs which are not easily adjustable , I will take a photo of a spare cover next time I'm in the garage.

I can't show the one on this engine because it is in the car ! Yesterday morning's job. Took about 1.5 hours to get it comfortably in place, but without any of the connecting up. Would have been quicker with 2 people

I have posted quite a few pics just to show how steeply it goes in, and there was no possibility of it going in with the downpipe in place. I also had to remove the propshaft. I suspect that it could be possible to leave that in place if you had a second pair of hands

The unit starts off flat and then is angled down into the bay with a ratchet strap on the front of the engine and then it was a case of slackening off the front as you push the engine back and rotate the unit into place. It is very tight, especially over the front axle and for clearing the gear linkage on the driver's side. But by doing it very slowly it does just go in. For ease, Don said that he usually puts them in separately, but the workshop pictures show them as a single unit.

The blue hand does not belong to some squashed helper, but used as packing against the bulkhead !

Finally, the back of the box was jacked up and the rear mounting bolt fitted. Dog was happy because I didn't damage anything that he would be required to repair !

With the selector fork refitted, the gears all select so hopefully it will be nice to use ......

ps some of the pictures are a bit hit or miss due to the broken screen on my camera, but the new LCD arrived today (15 euros from Amazon and 20 mins to fit) so a normal picture service will be resumed soon

[lancialulu]

Well done scary steep angle of attack

[lancianut666]

Nice one! I have had to take the propshaft off as well to get the gearbox bolted in

[Dikappa]

With regard to the 'clutch mounting method': I used the same approach on the 2000 coupé to get the engine out (and back in) easily.
Now I wonder if one dismounts the clutch this way on the appia, would it then not be possible to dismount engine alone?
It seems so difficult to get the engine and gearbox out and in together, (without touching and scratching the engine bay)  I would rather have them separated?

Or am I talking nonsense now (that has happened before...)

[simonandjuliet]

I hate crawling around under a car that is only 2 feet off the ground , so I prefer to do as much as I can on the bench ..... one day when I have a nice car lift maybe I will change my mind !

Fulvias and Flavias can't be done this way anyway because there isn't the convenient little window. Also they have separate release bearings - the bearing is attached to the fork and not the backplate as on Appia/Aprilia

When I was a "youth" , I always got the job of lying on the garage floor lifting the gearbox onto the back of the Fulvia/Flavia engine whilst Paul yelled instructions from above. That is why I hate fitting them separately ! Still having counseling for that one .....

[simonandjuliet]

Bit of a boo-boo on the paint front, we don't have enough of one tint to do the whole car ...... so will have to wait for new supplies from the UK.

However, there was enough to do the shuts which look very good. My neighbour has a pit so we swapped the Appia with his HY van and welded a couple of small plates around the front bumper mounting. Then lots of scraping and a good coat of the underseal, back here now ready for more fettling

[simonandjuliet]

Propshaft fitted today. I found the easiest way to do it was to fit the spiders and rubber joints to both the gearbox and diff - with bolts all in place but flush with the rubber. Then the prop will just slot in. Push the bolts through and then the tedious job of bolting it all up with the castle-ated nuts and split pins.

This job is much easier if everything is clean, the split pin holes clear and the gaps in the nuts clean. Then you need good light and patience .....

I did not repaint the prop because it was very clean after degreasing and still had the red and yellow verification marks which are nice to have

Dog's ears were burning because I was cursing him for having sprayed underseal on my nice clean gearbox !!

Engine mounting and petrol line connected up this side so move onto the driver's side next

[simonandjuliet]

Started on the driver's side this week and fitted the engine mount, clutch release arm and exhaust system and a few other bits along with cleaning the side of the gearbox -again !

I have shown a few pictures of the exhaust because it has quite a lot of subtle bends and flicks, especially where it drops down the back of the engine and around the pedal shaft.

Overall the fit was very good - I'll give it 9/10, the only problem was the rear section - it was slightly too long where it joined the middle section , so fouled the boot floor. It just needed a good half inch cutting off the pipe and the compression slots recutting. Better too long than too short

I replaced the spring hangers whilst at it. They come in 3 pieces and fitting the rubber is a real faff ....couple of 48mm (1&7/8") clamps and ready to go !

[lancialulu]

Firing up today??

[simonandjuliet]

Tim - not quite !

Whilst the car is up in the air, I thought I'd have a look at the brakes. Re-reading Chugga's comments from a few weeks back, I was keen to see how bad they were !

Some pleasant and less-pleasant surprises ....

I am sure this car must have been owned by the Pesenti family, the grime was cemented on ! The backplate took hours of scraping, soaking, scraping, soaking and eventual degreasing before painting. Fortunately the rest was in very good condition. Perfect shoes and uncorroded wheel cylinders that have cleaned up nicely.

I was worried about getting the pistons out of the cylinders because they are blind and you can't push the pistons out, but once the visible bore under the dust seal was cleaned, I replaced the bleed nipple and then stuck compressed air down the other inlet and POP out they shot !

If you do the same, take care . One came out with such force it brought tears to my eyes when It caught me somewhere I'd rather it hadn't !

I use a high temp black paint on the drums, not sure it is really necessary but hopefully it won't bubble if I get the brakes hot (brakes not re-assembled yet, drum on its bearing to aid painting)