Yesterday the replacement distributor cap and rotor arm for the Trevi arrived.
Not often I can visually show how worn out a distributor cap is with a couple of photographs...
Those contact post surfaces should be flat.
That's the best part of a millimetre of material that has been worn away. It's no surprise the car wasn't running well.
New cap and rotor were fitted without incident (getting to this is merely awkward when the engine is cold...it rises to moderately torturous once it's hot).
Labelled the leads while I was in there as the new cap doesn't have markers for them. They're pretty easy to trace on this engine but I figure it can't hurt.
This resulted in the engine bursting into life and sounding far more healthy.
For about 1/4 of a mile into the test run. At which point I spluttered to a halt in a bus stop. Managed to get going again for about 30 seconds and ended up having to push the car out of the way off a busy road. Yeah...that went well.
Initially I thought we might have got a fuelling problem as we still had a solid spark from the coil. However checking a HT lead showed zip coming out of the cap. So time to burn my knuckles and get the cap off.
Well that lasted well.
No idea if it's a case of the part being wrong or just poor plastic that started breaking down in ten seconds flat. Either way, it's scrap now.
Stuffed the old rotor arm back on and the engine immediately burst back into life and I was able to get back to my driveway to do a bit more fine tuning. While the old distributor cap was obviously wrecked the rotor arm didn't look anywhere near as worn. No idea if it's been changed at some point, or if it's just the cap that tends to wear more.
With a reasonably solid spark at least I coukd start to see where we were at. It was obvious how much better the engine was running as the idle had raised from a stumbling barely 500rpm mess to about 2000rpm.
This was the starting point.
It turns out that when you've been trying to get a carb set up while the ignition system is barely working that you end up miles off the mark.
I'm not 100% sure that this carb is in fact properly jetted for this engine (on the idle circuit at least) as this is absolutely the highest CO% reading I can get on the exhaust gas analyser, about 1.8%.
For an engine of this sort of age (especially given that Lancia would have set this up with a lean towards performance rather than economy I'd expect) I'd really be looking for 4-6%. While I'm sure about the absolute accuracy of the numbers on my meter it shows the right ballpark when hooked up to TPA, so it definitely gives a good ballpark indication at least. A proper modern exhaust gas analyser is something I really should pick up at some point*.
*The Sun 1215 has a good optical CO and HC meter if I can ever get it going properly.
I reckon based on what I've felt when driving the car that the main is probably okay, but the idle jet could do with being bigger (or smaller if it's metering air rather than fuel - I don't know the method of operation of this carb well enough to say). I decided to ignore the numbers for now and just go for where we had the smoothest idle. The engine responce when you crack the throttle open is nice and snappy, just feels on a light throttle that she's starving for fuel a little.
Nevertheless we got to a point where the car was driving reasonably well and we *successfully* completed a couple of mile test drive.
Given the history it has of stalling at inopportune moments and the low reported oil pressure at idle I've opted to keep the idle a little on the high side anyway.
Fast forwarding to today we picked up where we left off.
Something I wanted to check before running it too much further was see what state the oil was in, given I know this car has had ignition issues for the last two years there was every likelihood of it being badly fuel contaminated. Didn't really seem too bad on that count but was definitely dirty and due a change. I've since had the go ahead from the owner to get that changed.
Then did a bit of gentle bumbling around our neighborhood for half an hour or so. All continued well, so I switched out to the dual carriageway - and then (within reason, I know what state the radiator is in) spent half an hour or so caning the snot out of it.
Couple of reasons...one being that if it was going to play up I wanted to provoke it. Secondly given that this car has had ignition issues for some time I figured there was every chance that the plugs and combustion chambers could be fouled up.
Observations. Firstly, this car is a heck of a quicker than it looks. It really can get a shift on. Secondly, when you've got your foot in it it's absolutely happy. Thirdly... something that's really not obvious from outside...this is a driver's car.
The seats are squidgy. The ride is - honestly incredibly - compliant. The cabin is nicely finished. Yet it can *handle.* On a good road this thing would be an absolute joy.
Why is it that the luxury sports saloon has become extinct? This car is a brilliant example that handling and ride comfort aren't mutually exclusive - even without needing to use Citroen's levels of sophistication as seen on the Xantia Activa.
The level of composure and refinement really can't be overstated. This thing is one of those cars that you really could jump into, do a several hundred mile drive and step out still feeling absolutely fresh.
I borrowed my other half as a cameraman to get a bit of footage from a little later on.
The camera really makes it look shaky...it absolutely isn't.
I had been asked by the owner of the car to get some slip covers fitted to the seats. The material of the seats is quite fragile, and the offside bolster on the driver's seat was basically disintegrating more every time you got in or out of the car.
They weren't *tidily* installed, but they were installed. The issue was basically that the seats in the Trevi area a really odd shape, and are about 20% too big for the covers. Nevertheless, they will protect the seats under the covers which is the reason they're there.
I did manage to get them to sit a bit better than this, but they're still not exactly tidy.
The rear ones are worse, because they are really intended to be fitted to a car where you can get to the back of the seat. However the rear seats in the Trevi are fixed, so I just had to tuck them in as best I could.
In getting the bits and pieces for this out of the boot I nearly dropped the boot lid on my head for about the fifteenth time due to the faulty gas strut. The boot lid is really rather heavy and this was getting old. There was a replacement gas strut in the boot, so figured I'd fit it. Just two split pins to remove, then pull it out.
Of course as is basically standard with the Trevi, it turned out that the new part was wrong.
New on the left, old on the right. The new struts had far smaller eyes than the old ones. I did figure out that that the eyelets on both struts unscrewed, though unhelpfully the threaded section on the new struts were significantly larger than the original one. They were plastic however, so five minutes with the drill and a tap solved that problem and the old eyelets were fitted to the new gas strut. Sorted.
Not before I wasted about half an hour looking for the second split pin...which turned out to be in my left pocket.
Had a few errands to run this afternoon and took the Trevi out for that.
She definitely feels like she's slightly lean especially when cold, but once fully up to temperature seems absolutely fine.
Tomorrow I will be doing an oil and filter change. Then give the interior a quick vacuum out as it's full of dead spiders from the winter lay up. Then we'll hopefully get the car dropped back off with its owner sometime later in the week.
It's been an absolute nuisance at times, but I still love this car.
If it weren't for the rarity, parts supply challenges and tendency for them to dissolve at such alarming rates I would seriously consider looking for one of these cars. It just suits me so well.
In news relating to my actual fleet, another package for the Cavalier has turned up.
Not sure if you noticed something very conspicuously missing from the back in previous photos or not...
The Vauxhall badging from the rear panel was missing.
This was very kindly sent my way by a member on another forum.
Perfect. The badge was a surprise, but yes I will absolutely wear that the first time I get the car to a show. I expected those letters to be plastic, but no they're metal. Quite heavy too actually. That will help tidy the back of the car up a lot.
Not often I can visually show how worn out a distributor cap is with a couple of photographs...
Those contact post surfaces should be flat.
That's the best part of a millimetre of material that has been worn away. It's no surprise the car wasn't running well.
New cap and rotor were fitted without incident (getting to this is merely awkward when the engine is cold...it rises to moderately torturous once it's hot).
Labelled the leads while I was in there as the new cap doesn't have markers for them. They're pretty easy to trace on this engine but I figure it can't hurt.
This resulted in the engine bursting into life and sounding far more healthy.
For about 1/4 of a mile into the test run. At which point I spluttered to a halt in a bus stop. Managed to get going again for about 30 seconds and ended up having to push the car out of the way off a busy road. Yeah...that went well.
Initially I thought we might have got a fuelling problem as we still had a solid spark from the coil. However checking a HT lead showed zip coming out of the cap. So time to burn my knuckles and get the cap off.
Well that lasted well.
No idea if it's a case of the part being wrong or just poor plastic that started breaking down in ten seconds flat. Either way, it's scrap now.
Stuffed the old rotor arm back on and the engine immediately burst back into life and I was able to get back to my driveway to do a bit more fine tuning. While the old distributor cap was obviously wrecked the rotor arm didn't look anywhere near as worn. No idea if it's been changed at some point, or if it's just the cap that tends to wear more.
With a reasonably solid spark at least I coukd start to see where we were at. It was obvious how much better the engine was running as the idle had raised from a stumbling barely 500rpm mess to about 2000rpm.
This was the starting point.
It turns out that when you've been trying to get a carb set up while the ignition system is barely working that you end up miles off the mark.
I'm not 100% sure that this carb is in fact properly jetted for this engine (on the idle circuit at least) as this is absolutely the highest CO% reading I can get on the exhaust gas analyser, about 1.8%.
For an engine of this sort of age (especially given that Lancia would have set this up with a lean towards performance rather than economy I'd expect) I'd really be looking for 4-6%. While I'm sure about the absolute accuracy of the numbers on my meter it shows the right ballpark when hooked up to TPA, so it definitely gives a good ballpark indication at least. A proper modern exhaust gas analyser is something I really should pick up at some point*.
*The Sun 1215 has a good optical CO and HC meter if I can ever get it going properly.
I reckon based on what I've felt when driving the car that the main is probably okay, but the idle jet could do with being bigger (or smaller if it's metering air rather than fuel - I don't know the method of operation of this carb well enough to say). I decided to ignore the numbers for now and just go for where we had the smoothest idle. The engine responce when you crack the throttle open is nice and snappy, just feels on a light throttle that she's starving for fuel a little.
Nevertheless we got to a point where the car was driving reasonably well and we *successfully* completed a couple of mile test drive.
Given the history it has of stalling at inopportune moments and the low reported oil pressure at idle I've opted to keep the idle a little on the high side anyway.
Fast forwarding to today we picked up where we left off.
Something I wanted to check before running it too much further was see what state the oil was in, given I know this car has had ignition issues for the last two years there was every likelihood of it being badly fuel contaminated. Didn't really seem too bad on that count but was definitely dirty and due a change. I've since had the go ahead from the owner to get that changed.
Then did a bit of gentle bumbling around our neighborhood for half an hour or so. All continued well, so I switched out to the dual carriageway - and then (within reason, I know what state the radiator is in) spent half an hour or so caning the snot out of it.
Couple of reasons...one being that if it was going to play up I wanted to provoke it. Secondly given that this car has had ignition issues for some time I figured there was every chance that the plugs and combustion chambers could be fouled up.
Observations. Firstly, this car is a heck of a quicker than it looks. It really can get a shift on. Secondly, when you've got your foot in it it's absolutely happy. Thirdly... something that's really not obvious from outside...this is a driver's car.
The seats are squidgy. The ride is - honestly incredibly - compliant. The cabin is nicely finished. Yet it can *handle.* On a good road this thing would be an absolute joy.
Why is it that the luxury sports saloon has become extinct? This car is a brilliant example that handling and ride comfort aren't mutually exclusive - even without needing to use Citroen's levels of sophistication as seen on the Xantia Activa.
The level of composure and refinement really can't be overstated. This thing is one of those cars that you really could jump into, do a several hundred mile drive and step out still feeling absolutely fresh.
I borrowed my other half as a cameraman to get a bit of footage from a little later on.
The camera really makes it look shaky...it absolutely isn't.
I had been asked by the owner of the car to get some slip covers fitted to the seats. The material of the seats is quite fragile, and the offside bolster on the driver's seat was basically disintegrating more every time you got in or out of the car.
They weren't *tidily* installed, but they were installed. The issue was basically that the seats in the Trevi area a really odd shape, and are about 20% too big for the covers. Nevertheless, they will protect the seats under the covers which is the reason they're there.
I did manage to get them to sit a bit better than this, but they're still not exactly tidy.
The rear ones are worse, because they are really intended to be fitted to a car where you can get to the back of the seat. However the rear seats in the Trevi are fixed, so I just had to tuck them in as best I could.
In getting the bits and pieces for this out of the boot I nearly dropped the boot lid on my head for about the fifteenth time due to the faulty gas strut. The boot lid is really rather heavy and this was getting old. There was a replacement gas strut in the boot, so figured I'd fit it. Just two split pins to remove, then pull it out.
Of course as is basically standard with the Trevi, it turned out that the new part was wrong.
New on the left, old on the right. The new struts had far smaller eyes than the old ones. I did figure out that that the eyelets on both struts unscrewed, though unhelpfully the threaded section on the new struts were significantly larger than the original one. They were plastic however, so five minutes with the drill and a tap solved that problem and the old eyelets were fitted to the new gas strut. Sorted.
Not before I wasted about half an hour looking for the second split pin...which turned out to be in my left pocket.
Had a few errands to run this afternoon and took the Trevi out for that.
She definitely feels like she's slightly lean especially when cold, but once fully up to temperature seems absolutely fine.
Tomorrow I will be doing an oil and filter change. Then give the interior a quick vacuum out as it's full of dead spiders from the winter lay up. Then we'll hopefully get the car dropped back off with its owner sometime later in the week.
It's been an absolute nuisance at times, but I still love this car.
If it weren't for the rarity, parts supply challenges and tendency for them to dissolve at such alarming rates I would seriously consider looking for one of these cars. It just suits me so well.
In news relating to my actual fleet, another package for the Cavalier has turned up.
Not sure if you noticed something very conspicuously missing from the back in previous photos or not...
The Vauxhall badging from the rear panel was missing.
This was very kindly sent my way by a member on another forum.
Perfect. The badge was a surprise, but yes I will absolutely wear that the first time I get the car to a show. I expected those letters to be plastic, but no they're metal. Quite heavy too actually. That will help tidy the back of the car up a lot.
I wonder how many (other than enthusiasts) know what it means 
I wonder how many (other than enthusiasts) know what it means 
