I said that I would never buy another Fulvia ....

[stanley sweet]

I seem to have missed these updates. Love that pristine wheel arch in shiny underseal. Engine bay looks great. The stripped valance and headlight panels look in very good condition. They  could pass for new panels.

[SJWhite]

Agreed and thanks for the updates and pics.  Its great to see all that you are doing because JLT is in much need of similar work
Back to Rosso York (sorry).  I have the codes for Lancia Rosso York however the colour looks exactly like a brand new Nissan in a very fetching (not the Nissan - just the colour..) wine-coloured Red (Cayenne Red)
Given that the body shop would be trying to match up a colour for the Fulvia from a code rather than, probably much easier, using a modern day colour, should I use a Nissan colour for the re-spray???

[Jaydub]

Attention to detail as always Simon, lovely workmanship, inspiring me to get my 1600HF out of storage and make a start, having purchased it in 2008! The car is increasing in value with time, but on the downside my time is decreasing with age!   

[simonandjuliet]

Paint colours - what a nightmare ! It is all very well having the codes, but if you can't get cellulose , are they valid ?

Options - spectro the colour from an original bit or choose something you like - not easy ! Dog matches from the original colour by eye, but the result can be seen differently by different people, especially when we paint using modern water based paints that give a different finish.

Anyway, what is beyond doubt is that my newly primed front is very different from the blue (or red !!). Talking to Dog about the best way to protect the newly stripped valance we decided that I should etch prime it and then lacquer it because that can easily be removed when we come to paint finally (next spring)

What is nice is that it is now in its raw state, no filler and complete with dings. I have also found the correct bonnet stops and fitted a new central stay

Not getting much time due to increased treatments and interventions caused by the uniquely wet spring - at least the grass is still green !

 

[simonandjuliet]

Been pottering today with a view to getting the car finished this weekend. The Land Rover has to go in for its belts to be changed next week and I need another car - Some people take the body off to do the belts !!

Oh for the simplicity of older cars ...

Anyway, bonnet has finally been stripped of its nasty underseal. It has taken a combination of solvents, scrapers and cloths to get it clean. A very dirty job. Not sure if it is quite good enough to keep as a final finish, but it needs to be cleaned up anyway if I decide to repaint the bonnet frame.

The bonnet front edge has been rubbed down and now needs to be preserved. There is no major rust, but it is a good job that I have caught it now. I have spent a lot of time getting the bonnet to fit better - finding and fitting the correct buffers, making spacers to get the rear edge to sit lower etc etc. There has been a lot of detail to do , but hopefully it means that when Dog gets to paint her, it will be a lot easier (and cheaper ...) when he gets to it.

The hockey-sticks have been carefully refitted along with the bumper. I had to strip and clean the indicators and mountings because one of the screws had been rounded off. Not that straight forward because you need to remove the unit. That in itself isn't that easy if any of the mounting nuts are seized and the bolt spins inside the rubber trim strip (which 2 were) then the screw was drilled out enabling the lens to be removed. Once done you can then replace the combined lens/frame mount -so long as you have a spare .....

The combined mount is like a long bolt with a tall hex that is threaded to take the lens screw - I thought that I had a photo , but apparently not, but if anyone is interested I will take another photo

The car will look a bit "harlequin" for a while, whilst I get everything to fit and work properly. The grill has been repaired and (metallic) repainted, headlight mounts cleaned and painted, new clips , screws and so on

I want to tidy up the wiring, repaint the elephants and refit the bonnet light, intake grill and front rubbers etc so she is ready to use

Plus the other wheel arch has been under-sealed ....

[davidwheeler]

On my (modern) MGTF I find it easier to lift the car off the rear subframe/engine/gearbox to do any work on it!

[simonandjuliet]

Nearly finished , well this bit anyway.

A few details, lights fitted with new clips and stainless screws and I have found a set of the rubbers that fit behind the stainless rims

The bonnet now fits much better and the front edge has been taken back to bare metal and rust treated and the I injected "Dinitrol" liquid into the flange from both the back and the front (before fitting the trim)

The bonnet light and wiring were stripped and cleaned, with new side fitting, spade connectors fitted

Just need to connect up the headlights and fit the grill and wheels and then ready to go, which is good because I need to use her tomorrow !

[simonandjuliet]

Last bits finished and then I have been using the HF this week. The bonnet-lip rubbers have been refitted once the frames were cleaned and painted
 
Tuesday saw the arrival of a friend's Sport - a bit of moral support and also needs a few bits sorting out for its CT (MOT) - new drive shaft boots, sorting out the handbrake, new headlights and a few other details

The HF goes very well, still a bit of smoke, but I can live with that for a while ..... the main thing for me is that I don't like the feel of the brakes. The car stops and has passed its CT with flying colours but having driven my brother-in-law's car and also the red Sport, I just want them to be better !

So today I dismantled the master cylinder to have a look. There is some scoring and the surfaces are not as polished as I would like. I wonder if the hone-finish is not smooth enough. Tim Heath has also suggested that I check the intermediary piston to see if it is sticking, so I will do that once the new seals arrive from Omicron

I undid the large nut at the front before taking off the car because I thought it may be easier ....

In the meantime I have discovered a NOS "Lancia" master cylinder on my shelves, so I will fit that anyway. Plus I have taken the opportunity to replace the electrical tags on the top of the reservoir. The aluminium rivets had corroded and the connectors had fallen off, so drilled out and re-fitted with a stainless set screw

Everything has been cleaned up and now awaits the new seals

Having cleaned up the carb under-tray , I noticed that there is a leak from the bottom of one carb so I will re-build these whilst they are off (removed to give a bit more room !)

[simonandjuliet]

Been too busy to write anything up for a while, but it goes on when I have a few minutes .....

Master cylindre rebuilt with NOS body and new seals. The cyl had been put back together incorrectly, one seal was incorrectly fitted. Plus the front circuit had been crossed over so that the rear chamber was feeding one large and one small piston on the front calipers - should be rear chamber feeds rear brakes and 2 small front pistons , then the front chamber feeds the 2 larger front pistons

Because I couldn't undo the unions to the flexis to change them over, I ended up replacing all the rigid lines and fitted Goodrich-type flexis as well - so ended up being a bigger job than anticipated

In order to bleed the brakes on my own I rigged up a series of stepped down rubber hoses , connected to a compressor connector , then turned the pressure right down. The pushfit hose on the reservoir could quickly and easily be slipped off to top up the brake fluid

So now I have all new caliper seals, bleed nipples, brake lines, flexis , limiter, master cyl and she brakes very well. Still a touch too much travel on the pedal, but a final bleed should sort that out. My local testing station has said that I can put it on the rolling road to test it one evening.

The carbs have also been cleaned and rebuilt. A couple of years ago I bought an ultrasonic cleaner and it has done a great job.

I still have a bit of hesitation on constant speed running which I think may be down to the idle jet being a bit too small for current petrol (much has been written about this before) so I have ordered some 60's jets.

I have set the fuel pressure to 2psi as well - the filter king was pre-set at 1 psi

I have had a bit of vapourisation as well , but it is nearly 40° C here at the moment ......and looking at other threads I have wondered about fitting a second fuel return pipe from the front carb as well - any thoughts ??

The suspension is starting to settle nicely after the rear end was rebuilt, plus she sounds great and goes like stink !

(and if you squint , doesn't look too bad either)

[DavidLaver]

Love the brake bleed system.

Carbs came up really well.  What liquid in the ultrasonic bath?

It must be reassuring to others that 40deg heat isn't a major issue, at least for the car.

[Richard Fridd]

'Carb cleaner' solvent works well in the tiny ultrasonic bath which I have for small parts. This £8 s/h bath is designed for jewellery, cds etc

[simonandjuliet]

I used a "no-nonsense" degreaser liquid from Screwfix , a fairly dilute solution

I have tried washing up liquid and dishwasher tabs as well but found this works well

PS forgot give a thank you to Lancialulu for help on the carbs and M/C !

[simonandjuliet]

Little while since I updated this one

The HF is now on French plates, taking a total of 9 months ..... used to take 9 days. Unfortunately because of the time taken and the loss of the dossier by the DOT (I even had a receipt that they had accepted it ) I had to redo my CT (MOT)

Not all bad because it gave a new test for my newly rebuilt master cyl and brake pipes

Anyway, nice new number plates .....

Secondly for a bit of "Sunday-Fun", I am just starting to build a spare HF engine to replace the original and I wanted to practice removing the crankshaft pilot bearing (correct name ??) at the back of the crank, but I don't have a removal tool, so used the following with a scrap crank:

10mm bolt
Piece of bread (mine was a French loaf, but sure it doesn't matter)
hammer

Very quick, easy and clean

I am sure that there are lots of other tricks like this, but I like this one !

[stanley sweet]

That's brilliant! Be even more brilliant if I knew what was going on. What does the bread do? I think the Fulvia repair manual recommends ciabatta. The bread you've used is for a Citroen. Also how did you get away with your nice number plate frame being bolted on? I was told all number plates here have to rivetted. I remember when we were first here and re-registering the cars a friend was quite shocked that our UK plates were just screwed on.

[simonandjuliet]

Stan - the idea is to fill the space behind the bearing with bread and then compress it using the bolt. You tap the end of the bolt with a reasonably sized hammer and it pushes the bearing out. It is necessary to repack the bread a couple of times

Re rivets, you are absolutely correct, they don't like screwed on plates, but I've never (so far) been stopped. I have previously put false rivets in the plates so it looks correct whilst retaining the original setup