'72 Fulvia rebuild

[Keithver]

Hi. I'm new to the forum, new to Lancias and new to rebuilding - my first rebuild project. Thanks to all of you for informing me and for the inspiration, especially Norm Thomas for his detailed 'workshop-manual-like' posts. I bought it at the beginning of March. When I got it home my wife wanted to know why I wanted to rebuild it. She said it looks fine as is.
Besides the odd little bit of rust here and there  ha ha! she didn't run very well. I eventually discovered that the fuel return line inside the tank was blocked causing carb #1 to flood horribly. By the time I had sorted this I had removed the seats and so had to drive sitting on the floor boards. We live on a small holding so quiet and no traffic (also illegal I imagine) I think the engine will be okay. I'll keep you up dated
Keith

[Keithver]

Some pics would help

[fay66]

Keith,
Throw the radio away, fit a blanking panel with the lovely Fulvia script, then listen to the music of a Fulvia engine.
Good luck whichever way you decide to go.
Brian
8227 

[Keithver]

Thanks Brian. Will take 'note'

[Keithver]

during lockdown, I have stripped everything out of the car so that it is only the shell. While waiting (lock down) to be able to take it for sandblasting I did some investigation of my own.
I removed paint and plenty of body filler as the photos show.
I discovered a fair amount. The car had been resprayed and badly re-assembled. As I was taking it apart and found things missing or badly done, I would go to the spares pile I received with the car and look for things. I was amazed at what I found and how much I was able to re-instate in the car (which could easily have been done by the previous assembler). Once I had worked out where the pile of spares needed to go, I was able to label everything and take photos.
Rust - there was rust all over. A lot of it due to the lousy repairs, the overuse of filler and the respray. All the drain holes in the door bottoms etc. had been closed up. Nowhere for the water to go! The quality of the welds can be seen in the front inner wheel arch (last photo). The bonnet and boot lid skins and inner frames had been attacked. The sills (inner and outer), wheel arches, both floor pans, the battery tray, door lower skins (outer and inner), the petrol tank surround, the rear parcel shelf, The rear window surround, even the middle skin in the rear left C pillar and the rear valance.
She is back from the sand blasting, so all is revealed. I am working through as many of the repairs as I can myself and waiting for a slot at the repair and paint shop for now

[Mikenoangelo]

AAAGH!  Does the last picture show what they call spot welding!!
A lot of work needed but you seem to be on the right track.
Mike

[Keithver]

Mike, I was thinking more like bird brown stuff!
I'm taking the leaf springs in this week for checking and the brake calipers and booster in for re-furb.

[chriswgawne]

Are you going to totally strip the body of paint?
Chris

[Keithver]

Yes Chris. She has been stripped from top to bottom and been given a protective layer. The photo shows her as she is now

[Keithver]

Now that the whole car is in pieces, it is time to start checking everything. I started with the drive shafts. Although it is a Series 2 car, I seem to have Series 1 drive shafts (which is apparently normal???) TAV50 in the book.
To get them apart I placed the shaft in the vice and gave the outer joint a swift tap with a dead-blow hammer. They pop off easily enough. To get the inner(gearbox) joint off, you need to remove the cir-clip on the shaft end (photo 1) and slide the inner joint off. I cleaned off the grease with a power washer as best I could. I nicked alignment marks into the 3 pieces of each joint with the grinder (photo 2) for later re-assembly.

Remove the large cir-clips from the outer sleeve of the gearbox joint. Pull the sleeve off. That releases the 24 x 9,5mm or 3/8" balls (4 per slot). Rotate the middle ring of the joint (photo 4) so that you can remove each ball (6 x 12,8mm or 1/2" per joint). Removing the inners of the joint is a matter of tilting the middle ring (photo 3) to allow one of the 2 larger holes to line up with a nib on the outer housing and jiggling it out. The center piece needs to be turned so that 1 of its nibs line up with a large hole and can be jiggled out.

My ball races seem to be in good condition so I just replaced all the balls which were a little worn. Grease everything up with black CV grease before re-assembling using your alignment marks and insert the balls. The workings of the inner and outer joints is the same process. Make sure that you replace all 4 cir-clips on the gearbox joint. I left one out so had to remove the joint and fit it in  all of that new grease. Not easy!

Put the boots and the alu. cover onto the shaft before fitting the joints. Squeeze the outer wire shaft cir-clips so that they are the proper size and click them into their slots on either end of the shaft. The metal sleeve on the inner end of both the splines needs to be moved up the spline to cover and compress the cir-clip (photo 5). Fill the center (female) holes of the joints with CV grease and slot the joint onto the shaft splines. A bit fiddly, but you can feel when it is correct. Give the joint a good whack with a dead-blow hammer to slide all the way down the shaft.

The new outer boots come with a metal ring instead of a clamp to fix them to the joint. Push the outer joint right into the boot as far as it will go. The steel outer casing of the joint has a lip to stop the boot and clamp from coming off, You maneuver the ring over the boot from the outside of the joint and butt it up against the boot lip (photo 6). Pull the outer joint out of the boot again and the ring will clamp the whole lot nicely in place.

[nistri]

Nice work, well done. Before refitting the small clip to the outer boot, with great care insert a long screwdriver into the boot and move the CV joint around to allow air to escape or vacuum to be formed. This ensures that the CV boot will last more than 1 week. Andrea

[Keithver]

Ah! Nice to know. Thanks Andrea

[Keithver]

I took the exhaust manifold to a specialist to have it checked out. He said that he hadn't seen such a good quality manifold for years. It is brown and surface rusted but seems as if it is in good condition otherwise. He did suggest that I have it cleaned up and ceramic coated inside a out. It seems as if the ceramic stops further corrosion and runs cooler. Has anyone got any experience with ceramic coating and is it worth the price. ZAR2800 to have it done. Probably just over GBP130

[Walbarr]

I’ve seen this done several times on Wheeler Dealers
It’s supposed to reduce heat in the engine bay as well helping slightly with power so I would say worth it
I’d like to get my Appia exhaust manifold coated inside and out if I can somewhere that does it close by

[lancialulu]

Fwiiw fulvia exhaust can glow cherry red but are buried on the other side of the engine far away from the carbs. I have travelled all over Europe in my Fulvia sometimes in 30deg plus heat and not had any problems. Ceramic can protect mild steel exhausts from corrosion but my limited experience with this is that it only last c5 years before breaking down (outside gtee period!).