For Sale Lancia Beta Coupe 1300 Twincam - FOUR SAIL on teh internetz

[explosive-cabbage]

As you may have seen in the ARSE thread there has been a new arrival at chez KruJoe/chez cabbage.

 

At Shitefest I drove a new and exciting car that I previously had no knowledge of - a Lancia Beta Coupe. Oh gosh, the sound it made was just something else, its little carbed 1.3 Lampredi Twincam loved being thrashed - it seemed like a match made in heaven. This rorty little thing sparked my imagination, but alas I was told that they were so rare and oxidised that I resigned myself to the fact that it would be the last I saw of such a beautiful car.

 

 

Well fast forward 6 months and out of the blue one evening I noticed that Breadvan72 (Gerard) had put this car up for sale. I leapt at the chance without thinking about it. The deal was made and within a couple days I had paid a large deposit to hold the car until the Samara was moved on.

 

 

 

As seen at Shitefest 14 â„¢, hilarious 1978 Lancia 1300 Coupe.    Front end not too bad, with inner wings done, but back end well rotten and needs big weldage and full paintage.   Mechanically pretty good, with peppy 1300 Lampredi twin cam and recently redone cooling pipes and rear brakes. Almost new Pirelli tyres, on rare steelie wheels.  New steering rack included as present one dodgy, along with two new doors.

 

Uber rare car as pre facelift interior.  Seats designed by certified Sex Maniac.  Very few 1300 Coupes left, and maybe only two or three pre facelift.  All electrics work, five speed gearbox fine.  Rorty little thing that is great fun to drive.  Comedy exhaust system for noisy hoots.  Costs approx 2p to insure unless you are Jim the Crim. 

 

Original owner's handbook, official Lancia workshop manual, and HBOL included.

 

No MoT, so trailer or drive to pre booked MoT (it will fail).

 

£500, located in South Oxfordshire next to junction 5 M40.

 

NB NB NB big but do-able project, so only take on if you have SKILLZ or CASH.

 

NB -some paint removed by bodyshop since photos taken.  

 

WCPGW?

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The work on the Samara commenced, and I made good progress over the winter. Admittedly, the last couple months or so the work has tailed off, but I need to get back on it now!

 

Gerard recently got in touch and told me that the car had to be moved on from its current location in Oxfordshire. Emails were exchanged and deals made and one morning me and brother Joe set off to Oxfordshire in the Pleasure Wagon, brimfull of veg oil.

 

 

Alas, a few hours later and this is what we found.

 

 

That is just a pic of me hailing a taxi with my eyes closed.

And a shonky Lancia in the background.

 

It was bad news, I was ready to walk away. The car was completely dead, and missing paint all down one side, over parts of the roof and over the boot. The doors where falling off, the window had dropped down inside the drivers door and there was a boot full of trim that had been pulled off from various places.

 

The guy who was storing it had started working on it for Gerard, and understandably the costs involved in restoring a rusty Lancia were prohibitively expensive, especially when paying someone workshop rates.

 

No blame on Gerard for moving it on, I can't imagine what the quote for the work would have been like.

 

I was gutted; but I was in balls deep.

 

 

There were holes in places you don't holes - I don't mean just in the sills, I mean round the windscreen and on curved metal valances  - places were it is an absolute pain of a job and difficult to fabricate. Someone had started a little welding on the sills and to be honest, the quality of the welding was shocking.

 

 

We loaded her up and set off home via Shirley (there it is again!) to pick up some doors from a Spider (convertible) Beta that can be used to fabricate some new doors if need be.

 

Back at home, I shifted it around on the trailer with my 205

 

 

 

Admitadly I needed the help of a tug from Joe's Rover to get it up into the feild!

 

 

 

Now the thinking began.

 

 

What should I do? Should I send it back? Should I move it on straight away and take a little loss? Should I store it for a couple years and decide what to do with it then?

 

The decision I came to was to get it running. I had put a lot of time and money into it and it would be a waste to throw the chance away to drive this wonderful car again. It cranked over fine and fuel was getting through but I diagnosed a fault with the ignition system and decided to do some reading and come back to it a week later.

 

So today I armed myself with HBOL and set off up the feild to the Lancia where it had been sat on a trailer since its trip back to Yorkshire.

 

First off, I checked where the fault was. It seemed that sparks were getting to the distributor but no further. Therefore that was where the fault was.

 

I stripped it down and I cleaned the rotor contacts.

 

 

I found a hole in the dizzy cap - this it tight up against the block and I think someone had used a screwdriver that had a blade that was too large for the gap and as they turned it, it cracked a hole out of the cap.

 

 

Annoying.

 

Also there were two unusual holes drilled or melted into the dizzy cap - i wasn't sure if they were original or not, never mind, it is scrap anyway.

 

The timing advance mechanism also looked a bit grim - possibly over-lubricated with oil then mixed with road dust coming in the hole in the dizzy cap.

 

 

I cleaned the whole lot up and put it back together - with some new HT leads borrowed from a Niva, but it still wouldn't spark any further than the distributor.

 

 

Time for some new service parts. I have ordered new dizzy cap, a new contact breaker, a new condenser and a new rotor arm from eBay, just waiting on arrival and then we can get her fired up and take her for a drive so I can realise what the end result of a whole lot of welding will be!

 

Dizzy removed for reference -

 

 

We moved her into another shed out of the weather and took some pics in the mean time...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More to follow as it develops.

 

All the best, Will

[KruJoe]

Yay! Lancia thread.

 

He very nearly left it where we found it coz it wouldn't start and move onto the trailer. I told him it'd only be something minor stopping the spark, and showed him how to drive it up on the starter.

 

 

 

I reckon that once he has that dizzy rebuilt and takes it for a spin, he's gonna fall in love all over again and there's no way he'll be able to let it go. He'll have to fix it.

 

Our mother says I shouldn't encourage him. Would I?

 

Go Will!

[Vin]

Love it!! Do it proud Will, you know you can... :-D 8)

 

Not far from where it started out now either. AJ is a Northallerton (later Middlesbrough) reg number....

[Bucketeer]

Brilliant as always Will.

I can't think of a better place for this little beauty to get the love and attention it deserves. I hope the two of you will be very happy together.

[dieselassist]

I admire your bravery - pretty much the 'last chance saloon' for that car n your the 'saloon keeper - no doubt its structural rigidity will be reinstated in yor ownership - what other chance does it have, really??

 

", I mean round the windscreen and on curved metal valances  - places were it is an absolute pain of a job and difficult to fabricate."

 

You can cheat at panels like this - with the curved corners - I once used the top edge corners of a mk3 escort rear hatch to repair the two lower rear window frame  corner areas of a mk1 caddy - a full rear window section was f/s on the caddy forum but was mental money for a cut - I made a cardboard template of the corners n lip area n searched out a useable profile of window areas in a field full of dead n decaying cars, till the mk3 escort top of the hatch was found to match  - it was cut down, weld to the inner frame unpicked n was duly welded in - like its was made for it- the mk1 caddy owner was 'velhy happy'  he didn't get shafted for an overpriced cut  plus shipping etc-its all doable with a bit of lateral thinking - anyhow best of luck with it n 'well saved' !!

[skattrd]

That looks like a hell of a lot of work, but with the number of these left I do think it is something that is worth spending time/money on. Also, unlike Samaratat, one day this may be worth more than the mig wire holding it together

[cort16]

I recon if you're not in any great hurry the best way to attack this is to take everything off , engine and screens out then get it on stands or a rotisserie . It should make it much easier to attack if stuff isn't in your way and you can fix it up at your leisure. It'll be great when it's done.

[Jim Bell]

[eddyramrod]

Did anyone else look at those snaps of the Beta being hauled around the field by various old shite and think "Calendar!"?

[chaseracer]

The WHOLE calendar!

[skattrd]

Did anyone else look at those snaps of the Beta being hauled around the field by various old shite and think "Calendar!"?

 

All of them are calendar worthy imo.

[holbeck]

Fair play Will, that's gonna be sweet when you get it done.

[Guest Breadvan72]

Will, I feel really bad as I had not seen the car since last year and had no idea it was in such a bad state.   It was running fine , and I didn't know they had gone so far with stripping it.  I will email you.

[Lacquer Peel]

Will an XUD fit in it?

[dollywobbler]

Crikey, this really will be a tricky one. Is it worth doing? Not really, but that's true of most things, so do it anyway! Or just strip out the interior, put it in your house and enjoy being the king of style.

[John F]

Any progress, Will?

[KruJoe]

He's been busy with work and re-building a 205 rear beam, but all the ignition bits he ordered have now come, so hopefully he'll have it running soon.

[KruJoe]

 

RUNNING! Much grinning induced

[hairnet]

excellent

 

fix it - if it was R8 then no but old rare lancia - WIN

 

poke it now and again with the sparky stick and itll be fine

[explosive-cabbage]

Yes, after a couple weeks ordering and then re-ordering parts I figured the real cause of the starting problem was a the condenser in the distributer. 

After ordering a correct condenser I had a morning of tinkering this morning which included the re-timing the ignition from scratch and re-building the distributer.

 

 

Isn't this the most beautiful cam cover you have ever seen?

 

 

 

Joe and I went our for a hoon down the road and back to check it ran okay - it seemed to go okay but lacked low down grunt and lacked pull under high revs, maybe a good run out or cleaning the jets would help?

 

 

 

What now? Sell or keep?

[KruJoe]

The bastard tried to kill me. Again. That's twice I've been out in it, and both times it spontaneously opened the nearest door and attempted to hurl me out.

[skattrd]

The bastard tried to kill me. Again. That's twice I've been out in it, and both times it spontaneously opened the nearest door and attempted to hurl me out.

 

I don't want to be the voice of doom or anything, but are the sills ok?

This was a problem with the original beta spyders, as the roof was removed above the door the sills were the only thing keeping the front and the back connected. When the sills weakened (rusted) the doors had a habit of flying open when going around corners.

[explosive-cabbage]

Well there isn't really any sills at all, they have been cut out and not welded back in.

 

I jacked it up under the front of the A pillar this morning, only to find that my jack was sinking.

 

On inspection, it wasn't the jack that was sinking but the A pillar that was folding up into itself with a gentle crunching noise....

[skattrd]

Ooops, that explains the doors opening themselves then.

I know you're more in to making things yourself, but betaboyz sell complete sills to weld in for about £50 a side. I shall ignore the comment about crumbling pillar for now.

 

The site is down for maintenance atm, http://www.lanciabetaparts.co.uk/

[KruJoe]

are the sills ok?

LOLZ

[purplebargeken]

Well you have carted it all the way home, gotten it running. Sills are cheap enough.

 

Why not start stripping it down and making an accurate list of the work needed. 

 

I have much faith that you will gird your loins and crack on with it. This is my hope anyway as it is such a lovely looking car. 

[lisbon_road]

Fantastic car, very rare and worthwhile.  Easy to sit here behind the computer screen and tell others what to do, but it would be worth it.  And now you have it running, it is probably saleable.  So it won't get weighed in anyway.

[vulgalour]

Keep, persist, enjoy later.  You know it makes sense.

[Guest Breadvan72]

There was one new sill plate with the car, IIRC.  Maybe the bloke to whom I gave the car to work on took out sills and overlooked returning the plate to the boot.    If no plate with car, let me know, as I may have words with the bloke.  There should have been a workshop book and stuff in the boot.

[explosive-cabbage]

The Lancia is now for sale on the internet, as it is far too much work for me to attempt to start.

 

http://www.classiccarsforsale.co.uk/detail/motors/classic-cars/lancia/beta/157346