goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,886
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 I have been lusting after a proper Italian, 60's designed, 2 door coupe for a long time, and today was the day I finally got to call one my own ;D   She's a 1972 Lancia Fulvia Coupe  She's LHD and an Italian import. She was imported in '82, hence the Y plate, but she's already registered for free road tax and I'm hoping to get an age related black and silver plate sorted out soon. Body wise, as a LHD model its got all the front lights on the same level. UK cars had the outer pair raised to meet regulations and it's not quite as elegant. The body is generally in good condition, it has been re-sparyed at some stage and there's quite a bit of patchwork metal underneath but it all seemed solid to me. Theres a couple of small blisters in the paint on the rear arches but my magnet suggests no filler so thats ok. The one main body problem is the front arches. The Fulvia has a front subframe not that dissimilar to a Mini, and the subframes have a habit of rotting un noticed till the flexing cracks the top of the front wheel arches. The subframe has been repaired on this car properly and looks solid, but the arches appear to have just been filled and this is cracking again. Inside it's a bit weathered but it's pretty original, being a series 2 car I get a nice two spoke wooden steering wheel as standard, but its desperately needs refinishing. The series 2 also came with rubber matting not carpets and they are in a fairly bad way. Seats are good though and some fixed seat belts have been fitted to the front. Engine is the lovely little narrow angle v4. Twin cam, 8v, 1300cc (77mm bore x 69mm stroke), twin 35mm sole carbs and tubular manifold as standard putting down ~90 wild horses! The engine has had various bits of work done to it over the years but the important thing for Fulvia engines is oil pressure which is good in this one. It makes a great noise and revs great. It's hooked up to a 5 speed dogleg gearbox, which requires a little coaxing from cold and wont be rushed but is sweet enough. The braking system is mildly exacentric on these. Up front are a big pair of 4 pot Girling callipers, each calliper containing 2 separate circuits of 2 pistons. The larger pistons on each calliper have their own circuit in the master cylinder, the smaller pistons share their circuit with the rear brakes. The rears are single piston Girlings and there's an inbuilt brake bias adjuster that follows the rear suspensions travel and stops the rear wheels locking when unloaded. One down point of this particular car is that the servo is shot, but it still stopped relatively well without it! I'm not gonna do anything wild, just give it the TLC it needs to bring it back to tip top condition and then make subtle improvements along the way. She's already got braided brake hoses and the Cromadora alloys as fitted to the racy HF Fulvias. Maybe some minor engine tweaks to bring out a little more power, nothing wild on the cards though. Might go a bit lower and a bit stiffer on suspension but nothing as drastic as my rx7 was. Mostly I just want to enjoy having a car thats fun to go for a chilled afternoon drive, and exciting enough to drive hard, and something I can spend plenty of hours tinkering with. I've got a good feeling about 2013. |
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Last Edit: Jul 28, 2014 7:52:03 GMT by goldnrust
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,886
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Starting as we mean to go on..... The first 'problem' I encountered was that when I filled up with petrol, I couldn't get the drivers door to lock. The previous owner had mentioned that the locks required a bit of a knack as they are a bit worn, but I just couldn't get it to work. So that went on the list to be sorted ASAP! But with a full tank of fuel I hit the road for todays 160mile trip from the south coast back up to my home. Here she is stopped at a services of the m4, mmmm cold wet salty, just how classic Italian cars like to be treated.    As darkness descended it looked like the next problem would be dashboard lights. With another stop for coffee and a fiddle with fuses I realised the lights were working, just very dimly. Very dimly. This is about what I can see of them...  Looking it up on the net it seems it's a fairly common problem and the dimmer control is likely to be the problem. One more issue for the pile I guess! I made it home safe, the old girl did a good job and took the 3 hour trip in her stride with ease. First things first, drivers door lock! The previous owner said as the locks were tricky he didn't bother locking it, but I guess he didn't have to park it on a drive near a fairly busy road.... In the end a little bit of adjustment to the catch position and plenty of WD40 got the lock working again. There's definitely an art to locking it but at least the cars secure now  While I was at it the throttle linkage and clutch cable got oiled, which makes the control just that bit nicer. It's the little differences that all add up to a nice to drive car sometimes I think So the next big things on the list are to sort the dash lights and to give it a general tune up, check the timing, balance the carbs etc. But that's not a job for tonight! Finally here's one more pretty night time shot  |
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
Posts: 3,839
Club RR Member Number: 45
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I believe I already mentioned it, but you made the right choice, Steve  If you can't keep on with the esotericness of a rotard then a Lancia has to be the next most eccentric best thing ;D looking goooood  |
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I love the charm that Italian cars have. No other nation has been able to match it. Any day light pictures yet? |
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bazzateer
Posted a lot
Imping along sans Vogue
Posts: 3,653
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Preeety car!
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1968 Singer Chamois Sport
1972 Sunbeam Imp Sport
1976 Datsun 260Z 2+2
1998 Peugeot Boxer Pilote motorhome
2003 Rover 75 1.8 Club SE (daily)
2006 MG ZT 190+ (another daily)
2007 BMW 530d Touring M Sport (tow car)
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Siert
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,105
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Nice!
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eurogranada
Europe
To tinker or not to tinker, that is the question...
Posts: 2,555
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Stunning little cars these! Can't wait to see daylight pictures!
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,886
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Cheers guys I'm very pleased with it so far, despite the teething problems. I can offer daylight pictures today, but they aren't glamorous! haha. This is it at the previous owners place after the test drive.   And this was today.... I've not been working today, so I've been getting stuck in to doing the basic quick fixes needed to get the Fulvia ready for active duty as my daily driver, it's going to need to handle a couple of 100 mile round trips next week for work!  I couldn't decide if it was detonating a little at times last night, so one of the first things to do on my list was to check the ignition timing. I found it was advanced about 7° above stock! A bit of reading on the net suggests if you use fancy high octane petrol that people do set the advance this high for the sake of an extra 1/2 hp or whatever. For now I've backed it down to 2° above stock, and will see if I notice the same noise again. I think the carbs could do with idle adjustment and balancing but that's gonna have to wait a few days, bigger fish to fry!  So next on the list was a slightly depressing job. There's some filler in the front wings thats beginning to crack and while the long term plan is to grind it all off and weld some fresh metal in there, for the short term I need to just stop any more moisture and curse word getting inside the wings. So I thought to stick some RTV over the cracks, it should flex while remaining water tight.  While I had daylight the next thing to investigate were the brakes. The previous owner had mentioned problems with them sticking on when the servo was connected, which is why I'm currently running with no servo. He said after disconnecting the servo he had no more brake issues, but last night just as I got into Malvern I could feel an intermittent sticking brake sort of feel. So first thing to tick off the list was to bleed them, I got a few small air bubbles out but not much really.  I was surprised to find tubular lower wishbones! And I was also shocked at just how big the 4 pot callipers and disks were, plenty of stopping power there when servo'd I'd think! I've not been for a test run yet, but as you can see the disks could do with a skim, and I think the front right disk might be a bit warped, so I'm not overly hopeful at this stage. Next on the list was the dashboard lights. Having done some reading on the Lancia forums I suspected the dimmer control to be at fault for my overly dim dashboard. This is a fair representation of what I could see last night. Back into the daylight and we can see this is confounded by sun damaged dial faces that have gone cloudy.  I got the gauges out of the car and tried to use plastic polish to de-cloud the gauge faces, but I wasn't getting anywhere. I think I'll just have to buy some acrylic and make a new plastic cover for the gauge to sit behind the wooden facia. I did bypass the dimmer switch though and we have progress....  :lol: There's progress on the rev counter, it would be acceptable if the gauge face was clear. I think problem number 3 is that I must have some blown bulbs in there. I already replaced a couple in the idiot lights section, but didn't have any more spare bulbs. Trip to the motor factors tomorrow at lunch I think... |
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zircon
Part of things
Posts: 327
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Wow, I love this little car!
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zircon
Part of things
Posts: 327
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Are you tempted to spray it a sumptuous Italian colour?
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Last Edit: Jan 3, 2013 20:19:36 GMT by zircon
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,886
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I have to admit I think dark red/maroon counts as sumptuous and Italian already  If I was to paint it any other colour it would be either a midnight blue or a real classic off white/cream. I don't plan to change the colour though, I'll see how enthusiastic I feel when spring comes round and I sort the welding out and need to start repainting panels. |
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zircon
Part of things
Posts: 327
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Fair play, is the respray in the original colour?
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Lovely, lovely, lovely.
Using it as a daily driver you get full bonus points.
I look forward to seeing this one progress.
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,886
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I've got receipts for a respray was done in the early 90s, and if it's lasted that long it was a good job! Lancia did a few different dark reds over the years of Fulvia production. It is at least close to one of the original colours that were available, and matches the colour stated on the log book, so that's good enough for me Cheers Alolympic I figure cars are meant to be driven, and I'd rather have to work hard to keep the rust at bay than sit in the monday morning traffic jam in something modern! I think it's gonna require more TLC than any other car I've owned though to use as a daily. This first few months is gonna be tough as it's going to be used more intensively than it has been for years and that often throws up problems. |
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Last Edit: Jan 3, 2013 22:00:45 GMT by goldnrust
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i spied something different on the drive! looks lovley mate |
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Clement
Europe
ambitious but rubbish
Posts: 2,095
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Aaaaah I missed this thread!!! Well you already know how I feel about the Fulvia coupé, and I'm really glad you went for it. Beautiful car, and weirdly enough I like the front-wheel drive thing. It must be a blast on small countryside roads! Good luck on sorting out the niggles, daily driving is one hell of an efficient way to discover all of them. I completely agree on the use-and-repair motto, a car that isn't driven isn't a car anymore. I'll be following this very closely |
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79cord
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,616
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Very nice, they're not rockets, but special enough to prove they don't need to be either.
Surprisingly solid feeling too.{Surprisingly heavy too though}
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Last Edit: Jan 4, 2013 10:57:27 GMT by 79cord
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modena
Part of things
Posts: 100
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That's a good looking example
I've owned loads of Fulvias s1-3, 1.6HF's & Zagatos over the years, all used as daily's, so great to see one on the road/being used rather than 'garaged & polished'....especially in 2013
One thing that puzzles me is the dash & dials which are s3 rather than s2
Perhaps it was just an Italian domestic market thing (?)
The UK s2 dials were always much better / racier looking
I would perhaps look at getting another set of wheels
Those HF wheels are very soft old-school magnesium alloy & don't take too kindly to kerbing
Old Skodas have the same 110mm stud pattern. I ran some Skoda 5-spoke Revolutions once....but you have to grind the centres a little for them to fit the Fulvia
You might be lucky & find something similar
Also, owering will be a mission, mainly due to the front transverse spring. Requires dropping the whole engine on the sub-frame to then re-profile it flatter
Good luck with the project
Btw
Couldn't see it mentioned. but the colour is 'Rosso York'
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Last Edit: Jan 4, 2013 22:44:58 GMT by modena
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,886
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Very nice, they're not rockets, but special enough to prove they don't need to be either. Yeah, I think that hits the nail on the head for me so far. It's enough to make good progress and make me smile on some windy back lanes, but it's not gonna generate any G force in acceleration Thanks for the proper name for the colour Modena I was aware that the wheels were genuine magnesium and I can't say it hasn't crossed my mind as to how solid they might be. I do love some of the Campagnolo alloys people fit to Fulvias, especially the Stellone.  But they are rarer and equally as soft! I suppose SSR mk2s re-drilled would also be a nice idea....  As for the clocks, I was under the impression they are the normal s1/s2 clocks? Certainly all the images on google show my style clocks as the s2 style and the white faced gauges as s3? |
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Last Edit: Jan 5, 2013 21:36:48 GMT by goldnrust
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modena
Part of things
Posts: 100
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Think you're probably correct re: the clocks
I'm probably getting them mixed up with S1 &/or Zagato ones
Alternative wheels are hard to find these days....including your HF wheels; have seen good ones go for £1000
Check on the Lancia forums or perhaps get some other type e.g. 108mm redrilled to suit
Keep up the good work
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She's LHD and an Italian import. She was imported in '82, hence the Y plate, but she's already registered for free road tax and I'm hoping to get an age related black and silver plate sorted out soon.
If you can't keep on with the esotericness of a rotard then a Lancia has to be the next 
If I was to paint it any other colour it would be either a midnight blue or a real classic off white/cream. 
