Aprilia Cabrio - here we go again

[simonandjuliet]

That's the one ..... as found in Ian Emery's house late 80's - as you can see he also had a Flavia Sport (ex Paul Bishop, I think) . As you may know, I bought the car but was far too poor to do anything with it and ended up selling her to Mike Powell who did a lovely job of rebuilding her (Omicron ?) - an early car if I recall - I have a few photos , but lost in my muddle !

Less of a muddle - I have begun to find the bits for the bulkhead and can slowly identify which holes to keep and which to fill in.

Inside floors have been cleaned up and painted - photo later and The steering box has been stripped and cleaned. I think they used treacle as a lubricant ! A litre of 95 octane cleaned it up nicely so tomorrow I should be able to put it back together with new , modern seals. The top seal is straight forward , and I think that I have found a seal to replace the original felt seal on the lower , output shaft - let's see if it works !

[simonandjuliet]

Painted and back together with new oil seals (sizes and refs can be seen in the photo)

For the lower seal I used a modern oil seal, but I kept the original (leaking) felt seal as a spacer and removed the spring which I think was originally needed to retain the pressure of the felt seal on the output shaft

Newly filled with 140 oil - no leaks after 24 hrs , so lets see over time

Lastly picture of the freshly cleaned and painted inside ....

[DavidLaver]

I expect the steering box is painted with your usual rattle can (that I can't remember off hand....) but what did you use for the interior? 

[simonandjuliet]

David - I use Upol acid 8 etch primer then Autoglym satin black for the bits and bobs

For the inside I have found and started using, a waterbased satin black anti-rust paint, using a small short haired roller where possible, it is a French make and takes 2 or 3 coats to give a good deep finish. It is quick, nice to use and easy to clean up

Hopefully it will last well - we will see !

[stanley sweet]

Who makes the satin black Simon? Also, where do you find Acid 8 in France or do you bring it back from your UK trips?

[lancialulu]

Tried to get Blue antifreeze at local motor factors to be told it discontinued throughout France..... Also failed to get an (any) Octane booster which are freely avaiable in UK. My thoughts are the classic car market in France is not a "sophisticated" as in the UK!

[simonandjuliet]

Tim - what are the differences between the different coloured anti-freezes ?

As Tim mentions, finding routine things like petrol additive , specialist paints etc can be difficult here. I often find that companies don't like working with private customers so we end up paying high prices for things when we can get them. Consequently I buy a lot in the UK where it is much more readily available and at more reasonable prices.

I wish I didn't have to !

So when friends and family come out to stay their cars are usually filled with tins of paint, waxoyl, pickled onions etc

Stan the black paint is made by Autoglym

Back to Aprilias, with a friendly blacksmith we have designed (and he has made ) a front spring compression tool that can be used with the axle on or off the car.

This morning I tried it out with a spare axle on the floor of the garage. It took a bit of heating with the induction heater (it wouldn't budge without heat) and a 5' long lever, but it went - with a crack !

Basic design is a stirrup brace with built in bottle jack holding the modified 48mm 3/4" socket in place. Once the nut was "cracked" it was very easy to release the spring, in complete safety. With a couple of further mods it will be usable on Appia axles as well

[lancialulu]

Antifreeze was discussed here:

http://www.lancisti.net/forum/showthread.php?447-ANTI-FREEZE&highlight=blue+antifreeze.

Nice bit of home invention re SP tooling!

[stanley sweet]

Tim, funny you should mention additives and antifreeze. I've become a temporary expert on antifreeze reading up lots of different sites. To save you time, what you want is Motul Inugel Classic - it's ready mixed and has none of the additives that will eat away at gaskets etc. I've found it on French ebay. You may find it in a shop in your area. I also discovered that colours mean nothing at all. Don't think all 'blues' are the same. The wrong one will still contain the damaging additives.

For fuel additives you can buy Millers VSP here in France: https://www.millersoils.fr/en/

I used to use Castrol Valvemaster Plus but now use MIllers VSP. I asked and they are compatible - just run your Castrol tank down and then swap. I seem to remember you use Valvemaster too.

[simonandjuliet]

In between harvesting and wine-making I have had the odd hour here and there for playing

As part of the ongoing engine bay prep I have been working on the engine mounts:

Lots of bits have been cleaned, prepped and painted. As Ben showed in another thread, there are a myriad of bits for each mounting - more than 20 parts per mount and 4 mountings ! So lots to do

I have painted the brackets, varnished the leaf springs and greased (copaslip, I paint it on with a brush) all the inter-leaves before re-assembly. I am sure this will help reduce any potential vibration if it can all move slightly. A couple of the brackets had been over-tightened and broken (again as pointed out by Ben), so they needed to be repaired first. The inter leaves are made of something that looks just like clutch lining material.

3 of the mountings had parallel sided leaves but the other was scalloped - why ??

Once the mounts had  been loosely fitted I dropped in a spare crankcase to check alignment and also to see if the bits were correct - one of the problems with buying a car in boxes

Next job is to sort out the brakes - I don't have a complete master cylindre, so the hunt is on for all the necessary bits. I've lots of wheel cylindres and shoes (need relining) so it's a case of putting it all together

Still looking for accelerator linkage parts .....

 

[simonandjuliet]

Might have found the accelerator parts (and a Zenith carb .....)

A couple of hours fun today dismantling a spare trailing arm. Everything was very, very tight and needed special tools or hook spanners. I still have to remove the trailing arm bearing, but I will need to make something to dismantle this. Both the press and induction heater had a lot of use. It was amusing to see the liquefied grease bubbling out as it all got hot !

Why , you may ask, did I do all this ? - Primarily to see how to and also to see what tools are needed in case the need arises. My trailing arms seem OK , but they are old and I have never replaced a rear wheel bearing on an Aprilia, so it seemed a good time to learn. In theory the hub should push out leaving the bearings in situ, but it was incredibly tight on the shaft so I eventually slackened off the retaining cover-nut behind the wheel-plate so the bearing could be pushed out of the housing, then I removed the bearings from the shaft afterwards

I couldn't take photos during the process - I didn't have enough hands. Some of the detail photos show the cork oil seals in place

Also, started looking at brakes. I have LOTS of shoes and will be getting 4 relined for me (riveted) - let me know if anyone else wants a set doing.

[davidwheeler]

J'aime beaucoup le Mehari!

[simonandjuliet]

Mais ce n'est pas un Mehari, c'est un Rodeo , encore plus rare ! ie they rusted more, are less pretty so there are far fewer but they are a lot cheaper !

The Ercole got a lot of use and was ideal for the difficult tracks, being very stable - our compost heap has a regular visitor - mante religieuse in French ....

In between I am stripping , cleaning and painting bits,I continue to work out which holes can be welded - red X is to fill, black O to keep.

As well as this I have been going through my boxes of bits to see what is missing, especially since I am going back to a 1350 setup. I have lots of spares, but there are always bits to find.

This car had been running with an Appia 32 PBIC carb for example. A correct Zenith has been sourced along with the linkage

[DavidLaver]

The under bonnet shot has a CSI look to it.

Good effort on the trailing arm!!!   Worthy of a Viva write up, perhaps it being "an induction heater article" with that just as an example?

[the.cern]

That's a lot of red crosses ..... !!

                       Andy