Awaking the slumbersing b**tard Gamma....

[Betaboy2.0]

A Year with a Gamma.

 

Those of you who know me (and many of you who don’t) will be aware that my primary Lancia passion is Gamma, and specifically, the Gamma Berlina. I love my Beta’s and adore my Delta, but it is Gamma that ultimately holds my heart.

 

The Gamma is a frustrating car though. Where is it good, it is truly inspired. Its handing, its ride, the torque from that big flat four engine, the space and comfort of the Berlina, the neat and typically Lancia design features in places. Yes. Where it is good, it is very, very good.

 

But, where it is bad, it can be horrid, and in 2009, my first year owning my current Berlina, christened George, my patience was tested more than many would tolerate. I will start at the beginning.

 

I discovered George on ebay in late 2008 as a non runner. I went to view, and found him to be a one owner, 41k miles, very sound example. He had last been used in December 1985, which probably accounted for the very sound underside, and overall good bodywork. Mechanically, he was an unknown quantity, but I took the gamble and once the auction was finished and George remained unsold, I had a deal with the vendor. Two weeks later, George was delivered to Wiltshire.

 

Closer examination revealed no nasty surprises, and over the Winter and Spring of 2008 / 2009 with assistance from various friends I pottered on and got him running. New Cambelts, replacement stainless steel exhaust, strip and reassembly of the brakes, replacement of water pump and various water and fuel pipes, all the while making sure that I was keeping as original as possible.

 

Although bodily George was very solid, the paintwork had suffered, in typical Italian car fashion, in that every panel needed something. A scab here, a crusty bit there, plus the odd dent and scratch from years of storage. He needed remedial work on the scuttle (the usual Gamma Berlina place to corrode) and front wing mounting panels, so the decision was made to bite the bullet and go for a full repaint. By doing all the stripping down myself (assisted and encouraged by Marcus Harrison), and with the assurance from Marcus that together we could do the final finishing of the paintwork, the very limited budget I had available was able to cover everything that needed doing. So, in March 2010, George was stripped down and trailered off to Westbury, Wiltshire to Ace Refinishers.

 

John and his team at Ace cracked straight on with the mighty Gamma and within 3 weeks George was back with me.

 

Over the next 6 weeks Marcus and I worked like troupers. We put in lots of detail work on the paint, and paid even more attention to the little detailed bits of trim. We refurbished the door handles. We refurbished the badges. All the stainless trim was cleaned before refitting. Doors, sills etc were all re-waxoyled. The tail lights were stripped down, cleaned and reassembled. New headlamps were fitted. We refurbished the wheels, had new tyres fitted, and then, suddenly, a swan had matured!

 

George looked stunning. He started at the flick of the key, he sounded healthy, the signs were that the engine was “a good ‘unâ€Â. I spent many hours sat outside, glass of wine in hand just looking at him! I had waited over 30 years, since first seeing a Gamma Berlina in the dealer showroom to own one myself that looked so good! A proud Dad couldn’t have felt more chuffed!

 

So, then was time for the first drive. Remember, that by this point, I had still never driven George on the road. Excitement. That overwhelming feeling of “oh yes, this is going to be goodâ€Â.

 

Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

 

The front wheel bearings were making more noise than a traction engine. One rear strut was clanking away. I was sure I could smell fuel and he was pinking at the slightest touch of the throttle. Back to the drawing board.

 

With the assistance of Gamma guru, Charles Shelton and his son Jack, the wheel bearings were changed, at home, over the course of an evening. The petrol leak was traced to the union connection under the floor at the back, and the timing was adjusted again in an attempt to sort the pinking.

 

Second drive. Better. Still that clonking strut, but I could live with that for the short term. It wasn’t leaking, and with a bit of sweet talking to the MOT man, George was legal again, after a break of 25 years. Just in time for the 2010 Lancia Motor Club National Weekend in Oxford.

 

The journey to the Belfry was uneventful. I went in a Gamma convoy with Harvey Maycock in his Berlina, and Marcus Harrison in his Coupe. It was a hot day, but George behaved pretty faultlessly. Upon arrival at the hotel, Harvey’s Gamma decided to have a hissy fit and spat all its water out over the carpark, (remedied the next morning by refilling and rebleeding the cooling system) and Marcus’s lovely Coupe decided to have hiccups and implode its header tank and top hose. (remedied immediately by moving the overflow pipe that had got caught up) But George was as good as gold. No Gamma burps or hisses.

 

The Friday evening was a heavy night in the bar, so I didn’t manage to surface in time either for breakfast on Saturday or for the drive out. I thought a relaxed day at the Belfry was more in order, then a tootle out in the afternoon to meet up with all the others at Waddesdon Manor. However, this was not to be.

 

Around 10.30 I received a phone call from Harvey. His clutch cable had snapped and he was waiting for the AA man to arrive, but had a car full of passengers. Not a problem as he was only about 8 miles from the hotel, so accompanied by Tony Harrison, we set off in George on an errand of mercy. George started at the first turn of the key, and for the next 2 miles drove beautifully. Then, whilst travelling along the old A40, on a trailing throttle in 5th gear at 35 mph there was an alarming rattle, followed by no power and all the dashboard warning lights illuminating. I immediately flicked the ignition off and coasted to the side of the road – thankfully, into a convenient lay-by.

 

Tony and I exchanged glances. We sat in silence, both too nervous to even think about looking under the bonnet. But, we gave in to temptation and investigated. After a grand total of 168 miles, the “new†near side cambelt had decided that enough was enough and snapped.

 

I called Harvey, explained that I had “out broken down†him with a far more serious fault than merely snapping a clutch cable, and then decided on a plan of campaign.

 

What I haven’t mentioned so far, is that on the Sunday evening, after the National Day, I was scheduled to head down to the South Coast in George, to a delightful village called Keyhaven, where on the Monday morning, I had arranged a photoshoot with Classic and Sportscar Magazine, for Gamma, Rover SD1, Renault 30 and Citroen CX. The other cars were organised, owners primed and the photographer and journalist booked. George playing silly sods now was not what was needed. So, maybe, just maybe we had been lucky and caught him before any damage was done ….

 

To cut a very long story short, Marcus and Connie came to the rescue with their Gamma Coupe and through Marcus I got RAC’d back to the Belfry (I didn’t want to use my AA relay at that point, in case I needed it on the Sunday to get back to Wiltshire). Geoff Holmes was contacted as he was due at The Belfry the following day, so he would bring with him another cambelt, and we would see about popping that on, in the field, on Sunday morning. In the meantime, the AA arrived with Harvey, and managed to repair his broken clutch cable. Phew, at least one Gamma Berlina back on the road!

 

So, along comes Sunday. And to cut a very, very long story short, it isn’t good news. No compression on the N/S bank of cylinders. Must be bent valves, at the very least. Damm. At least with Harvey’s car now working it meant that I could take that down to the photoshoot. I sent Harvey back to Wiltshire in the AA recovery truck with George!

 

Two weekends later, I dragged Tony away from his family again and we set too. Off with the N/S head, and we revealed a set of rather bent valves. Quite why the cambelt broke, we couldn’t (and still can’t) quite fathom. Thoughts ranged from new oldstock perished rubber, to overtightened. My theory is just Gamma bloody-mindedness.

Anyhow, I digress. Replacement head fitted off a spare good engine I had. New headgasket fitted (from my stocks of new gasket sets I had collected over the years). All back together, fingers crossed and …….. knocking. A deep seated, rhythmic knock, knock, knock from deep within the engine. This was annoying. It definitely sounded like a big end. But why? It hadn’t been doing that before the cambelt broke. Had the jolt to the piston of hitting the valves knocked an end out?

 

We made a management decision. Take out the whole engine, and replace it with the good (rebuilt) engine that we had just taken the head off. So that is what we did, using another of my precious new headgaskets in the process.

 

The engine that we put into George had been rebuilt 20 odd years ago, and stored since. It had new ends, thrusts, & rings. It had refurbished camshafts. To this we fitted brand new cambelts. So what could go wrong?

 

We fitted it, It started, and sounded lovely. I ran it up to temperature. Oil pressure was good, temperature holding steady. No apparent leaks, squeaks clonks or bonks. Sorted.

 

With just the periperaries to refit, such as the wing liners, grille etc, Tony bid me farewell and departed home. George back on the road again.

 

Marcus came over and Richard Carr popped in for a cuppa, so we decided to give George a little gentle drive down the road to start the running in process. And golly. He sounded great (George that is, not Marcus!) For about two and half miles.

 

Then there was a big “bang†a rattle, and, after I rapidly switched off the ignition, we quietly glided to a halt at the side of the A420. Silence. I looked at Marcus. Marcus looked at me, we both looked at Richard. Three astonished looks. Surely, George can’t have broken another cambelt on the new engine after just two and a half miles. Gingerly, I got out and opened bonnet. Nothing out of place, and both cambelts intact. Very odd. Nothing for it, but to get AA relayed the 2.5 miles home.

 

Ahh, phone. I had left it on the kitchen table. No worry, Marcus and Richard would both have theirs on them wouldn’t they? No. Richard’s was in his glovebox (his car was on my drive) and Marcus’s was on my kitchen table next to mine! We walked home, rang AA and drove another car back to George. My passion for Gammas was truly waning at this point.

 

A couple of weeks later, after my temper had abated, I set about investigating the latest affliction to grind George to a halt. Off again with the front grille, the radiator and the wing and engine guards. Off with the cambelt covers and as I suspected, everything beautifully in place. So, with a big socket on the crank, I gently began to turn the engine. It wouldn’t. Very odd, so I turned it the other way. Sweet and free, until I got three quarters of a turn, and then it wouldn’t turn any more. Then same again the other way. It turned back, to where it had started from, but no more. I sought advice again from Gamma guru Charles Shelton, who came over to have a look. After much debate, we came to the conclusion that there was something amiss on the O/S head. Nothing for it but the whip the head off and have a look, which Charles managed to do without even removing the inlet manifold.

 

By this point we were in early September 2010, and the Gamma Consortium National Weekend to mid Wales was looming under a week away. It was unlikely that George would make that, but although I was despondent, Charles was up for aiming for it.

 

We removed the head, and, oh dear. In the front O/S combustion chamber, there was a lot of metallic detritis, some buried into the piston crown, some in the head itself. Upon the inspection of the head the cause was blatantly apparent. One of the valve heads had snapped clean off, resulting in the valve seat material flying around the combustion chamber (to the degee that some had even gone up the inlet manifold and back down onto the other cylinder on that head, embedding detritis into that piston crown too!!). The cause of the engine not turning was that the so said broken valve head, had wedged itself at 90degrees in its hole, preventing the piston going fully up.

 

As you can imagine, remaining calm at this point was proving difficult. I decided that no matter what, I was going to make the Gamma Consortium do, even if it meant just bodging something together. We managed to pick out the metal pieces from the pistons, decided that the damage to the piston crown wasn’t too bad, whipped the undamaged head off George’s original engine and reusing the nearly new headgasket, bolted it all together.

 

Incredibly, he started and ran. OK, so he sounded like a bag of old nails, with rattles and knocking, and clattering, but he ran.

 

The following weekend, accompanied by the intrepid Tony Harrison again, I headed off (nervously) to Wales.

 

To say that driving George was a pleasure would be just plain wrong! He was horrible. Noisy, clattering, pinking, ticking over at either nothing or 2500rpm. The handbrake decided to seize on if used, one rear strut was clonking over every bump, the exhaust was rattling on the rear crossmember, I had to watch the temperature guage all the time, and he developed an oil leak that would have put the Torry Canyon to shame.

 

But, other than that, he covered the 360mile Wales trip without incident. And deep down, from somewhere within, were the signs that there just could be a pleasant, well mannered car trying to get out.

 

With Wales behind us, my confidence with George began to grow. I now had something to base the detailed “tweaking†on. A car that could be pottered on with and made gradually into the car that I knew a Gamma could be.

 

The noise from under the bonnet was the first thing to be investigated. Clatter clatter all the time. Like 150k mile tappets an a Simca 1100. Cause – turned out to be that one lobe of the “refurbished†camshaft had started to break up after 400 miles. In the manner of bodge it and get by, with Charles’s help again, we replaced that camshaft, with head in situ, with a good one from George’s original engine.

 

The Oil leak turned out to be from the rear crank oil seal, so Tony and I removed the gearbox, replaced the seal and that cured that. The rear strut was replaced with a spare one that I had and the exhaust was persuaded away from the rear crossmember. What a transformation!

 

We sorted out the rear calipers to get a reliable handbrake, thus leaving only the bad tickover and poor running to sort. The clonks and knocks from the engine I decided I could live with!

 

Getting the carb rebuilt and then George being set up on the rolling road was the icing on the cake. And what a transformation! Incredibly, the power and torque figures showed the engine to be amazingly healthy. Torque curve spot on what the book said, and power 125bhp at the wheels (compared with a claimed 140bhp at the flywheel when new).

 

And more happily, he was beginning to quieten down. 300 miles after the setting up, the knocks and rattles had all but disappeared.

 

So, 12 months on from getting him on the road, and having covered just 700 miles, could I hope to go into the 2011 “season†with a dependable Gamma that was a pleasure to drive?

 

Happily. Yes.

 

In 2011 George and I covered over 6,500 uneventful and reliable miles. He uses a little oil, and drinks a little water. However, he is a sheer delight. He is fast, comfortable, agile, flexible, head turning and fun. He has wowed motoring journalists in the way that he drives and impressed all who have travelled in him.

 

Fingers crossed for 2012!

[Betaboy2.0]

Resto underway. Worst bit on the car. Skuttle / wing mounting panel

 

 

Ant the same the other side

 

 

 

And how it looked to start off with:

 

 

 

And with repairs underway

 

 

And just arriving home from the painting....

 

 

 

And back in the best carpeted garage in all of Christendom!!

 

[catsinthewelder]

You have showed great resolve in the face of pub bore adversity, good man

 

That is a truly worthwile project, I'll be the 2000th bloke to say that I can't remember seeing one in the metal.

 

Its a sod recommisioning old cars, theres always a few components that reject the idea of coming out of retirement, so far the brakes, oil cooler, clutch cable and gearbox of my VW have been obstructive but we'll get there one day.

[Mash]

Fabulous, I love all Lancia berlinas. Funny to see the rot on the scuttle at the base of the windscreen and that your delivery mileage car is bubbling in the same place, obviously a built-in rust point triggered to go off at a particular time regardless of use!!!

 

Keep up the good work, these are fantastic looking cars

[theorganist]

Looks lovely, well done for your perseverance!

[worldofceri]

Great write up. What dedication. I'm glad there are people like you (and others on here) that persevere with running, restoring and repairing rare and interesting cars; 'cause I sure as hell couldn't do it!

[dieselnutjob]

wow, quite a story. Classic and Sports Car did a Gamma vs 604 a few years back. Maybe we should have a re-run with mine and yours.

[dollywobbler]

Blimey. A challenge to your faith indeed! Was it George at the NEC last year? The Gamama Berlina on the Lancia stand was certainly making me drool...

[TagoraSX]

What a great story and well told.

I think most people here will identify with your tale of woe to some degree, I know I can.

 

B**tard old cars

[Guest]

wow, quite a story. Classic and Sports Car did a Gamma vs 604 a few years back. Maybe we should have a re-run with mine and yours.

 

I'll do the photos if you want.

[Skizzer]

^ Do it!

 

This is a great story - not sure whether I'm inspired or terrified though. Probably equal parts of both.

[Betaboy2.0]

Gamma vs 604.... our own little road test. What a crackingly good idea! Anyone got a Rover 2600, then we will be recreating the Car magazine test from 79.

 

So, we have the cars, we have a photographer we now just need to work out the logistics.... I'm in Wiltshire.

 

I have a cunning plan going through my mind - which I'll post as a new thread shortly. Look out for "Anyone fancy a party?"

[Shep Shepherd]

George is an absolute peach!

 

I really like Gammas, as they appeal greatly to my old car sensibilities and my sense of the ridiculous. Don't think I'd want to rely on one as regular transportation, though

[406V6]

Great story & pics and a lovely looking, if initially troublesome car. Thanks for sharing with us.

[Barry Cade]

Great story! I love old Lancia's and have had a few..Funny thing is I've had the same episode with valve heads falling off, admittedly with X1/9's but still older Italian stuff- never got to the bottom of why it happened, twice to the same engine.

 

 

[Lankytim]

I don't know anyting about Gammas but I had a nice bit of Gammon for my tea.

[ruffgeezer]

Great story! I love old Lancia's and have had a few..Funny thing is I've had the same episode with valve heads falling off, admittedly with X1/9's but still older Italian stuff- never got to the bottom of why it happened, twice to the same engine.

 

I have a niggling thought that they used to use sodium filled valves that as a result were a bit prone to that sort of behaviour.

[HMC]

Full credit to you for perseverance! Think I would have baled out of your year at some point!

[dieselnutjob]

the article

 

page1 by dieselnutjob, on Flickr

 

page2 by dieselnutjob, on Flickr

 

page3 by dieselnutjob, on Flickr

 

page4 by dieselnutjob, on Flickr

 

page5 by dieselnutjob, on Flickr

 

hope it's readable. I'm a bit new to this flickr thing