How much shite is too much shite? Overdue Update, A Show, One Out One In and a Stupid Road Trip.

[Saabnut]

I was planning on having a new timing belt fitted before use. I have found the BetaBoyz website for spares, can you recommend any others @tul66 ? Also I am really stuggling with a workshop manual. All I can find is a HBOL but that does not cover the fuel injection engines. I may be forced to buy one, but is there anything better available anywhere?

[Barry Cade]

32 minutes ago, Saabnut said:

I was planning on having a new timing belt fitted before use. I have found the BetaBoyz website for spares, can you recommend any others @tul66 ? Also I am really stuggling with a workshop manual. All I can find is a HBOL but that does not cover the fuel injection engines. I may be forced to buy one, but is there anything better available anywhere?

You can read French?  Quite a few of the European clubs and forums tend to make the manuals downloadable 

https://en.lanciaclub.net/manual_download.php?id=739

 

Quite a few genuine Lancia manuals seem to be still around, well worth seeking out. 

[Saabnut]

After a fraught journey and an afternoon of interesting* meetings I have made it to the hotel for the night. Of course, switching on the computer has brought news from my friend who is working on my Lancia. It appears our upbeat assessment of the petrol tank was wrong as it appears to be leaking in several places.

Like most parts for this car, it appears to be made of finest unobtanium, A google shows one possible source of a custom made alloy tank with 7 litres less capacity than the original (45 litres as opposed to 52 litres) and with a 2 year old price tag of £642 . Eeek.

A bit more goog;ing has brought up several specialists who say they will repair and guarantee yhe result, so that is probably the route I will take. Of course the closest specialist in in England and the tank will almost certainly have to be personally delivered, but hey ho. If any one has any experience of any of these specialists, please do shout out.

[wuvvum]

Just weld the fecker.

[SiC]

Radiator repair places should be able to fix it up.

Just weld the fecker.

Braising is better for holed tanks. Far less likely to blow a hole through and the flowing nature is more likely to make a seal.

[wuvvum]

Braising works very well with a nice joint of beef.

[hairnet]

says the very skinny man

 

[wuvvum]

I am blessed with a fast metabolism.

[grogee]

3 hours ago, Saabnut said:

After a fraught journey and an afternoon of interesting* meetings I have made it to the hotel for the night. Of course, switching on the computer has brought news from my friend who is working on my Lancia. It appears our upbeat assessment of the petrol tank was wrong as it appears to be leaking in several places.

Like most parts for this car, it appears to be made of finest unobtanium, A google shows one possible source of a custom made alloy tank with 7 litres less capacity than the original (45 litres as opposed to 52 litres) and with a 2 year old price tag of £642 . Eeek.

A bit more goog;ing has brought up several specialists who say they will repair and guarantee yhe result, so that is probably the route I will take. Of course the closest specialist in in England and the tank will almost certainly have to be personally delivered, but hey ho. If any one has any experience of any of these specialists, please do shout out.

See my spannering thread for how I treated my Maestro tank. 

However that wasn't holed but I would think brazing/soldering or even the epoxy putty then POR-15 treatment would get you a working tank again. 

[big_al_granvia]

Get ginger to have a word with star radiators in ibrox, 

[Saabnut]

I think that this is going to need more than a can of snake oil.....

It would appear that all four injectors have seized and are full of gunk. This could explain the non running.....

[beko1987]

Not normally a betting person but yea those odds look good there. 

You got a nice set of tiny brass wire brushes? Or is it too delicate for that and an ultrasonic and a tiny drill bit by hand? 

[kevins]

I've rescued several of these injectors so far out of 16 only 2 have failed to be revived and some looked like those (same type used on early EFI rover V8), I've built a rig to run them up with cleaning fluid a frequency generator and resistor to mimic the original load resistor.

Cut the hoses off being carefull not to damage the injector, and pull the gauze  filter out of the end with a large self tapping screw then running  them both directions with the fluid while cycling the injector seems to work.

There should be  a Bosch Part number on them,  google it and they might be the same as something more common.

If you are happy to send them I'll have a go at reviving them  for you.

 

 

[Matty]

3 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Not normally a betting person but yea those odds look good there. 

You got a nice set of tiny brass wire brushes? Or is it too delicate for that and an ultrasonic and a tiny drill bit by hand? 

Wooden skewers then shit loads of carb cleaner and compressed air? Never had to do a job like that before, but golden rule when doing anything percussive on something delicate is make the thing you're doing the hitting with sacrificial. I get through a lot of brass drifts at work 😄

[hairnet]

@Skizzer extract digit

[cort1977]

I've fixed holes in tanks with chemical metal in the past, worth a try?

[Saabnut]

Interesting times. Apparently the injectors are all now unseized and have been in the ultrasonic bath. New basket filters are ordered and all hose will be replaced with ethanol proof hose. One small step.

It has been confirmed new fuel tanks are not available. I have found a source of custom alloy tanks as mentioned at close to or above 700 quid, and the specialist I thought would be the best bet was Kempstone Radiators in Bedford. A quick response from them and they confirmed they could do it and it would come with a 12 month warranty. How much? Four hundred fecking quid, plus VAT plus the carriage both ways. That is not going to happen. I am going to see if @GingerNuttz knows of someone as said above. There are reports of the injected cars having problems with plastic steel repairs, but as a last resort I will try it.

For a temporary fix my friend Simon was purloined my 900 Carlsson Saab tank and has put it in the boot so we can try to get it running when the injector spares arrive, hopefully tomorrow and I have ordered a new posh battery for it, also due tomorrow.

[Momentary Lapse Of Reason]

Star Radiators, Glasgow.

 

[Saabnut]

A small update on the Lancia. Good news is it is now running. We fitted an external oil pressure gauge, and when cold it starts, sounds great and has good oil pressure. Bad news is as it warms, the oil pressure drops and it develops a knock. A new timing belt and water pump was fitted prior to start up so one less thing to worry about. Leading theory at the moment is the initial seize was not on the rings but on a journal. A new set of main and big end shells have been ordered and the sump will be coming off.

In better news I have found someone to weld the fuel tank so it has been removed from the car and tomorrow is going for blasting to see how bad it actually is.

[stuboy]

8 minutes ago, Saabnut said:

In better news I have found someone to weld the fuel tank so it has been removed from the car and tomorrow is going for blasting to see how bad it actually is.

hopefully blasting will be good news

[Saabnut]

One step forward, two back and of course the costs go up! The joy* of old cars!

This is what the fuel tank looks like - not bad methought.

The tank itself did not look too bad, but the paint/coating has a lot of little mountains which I feared most of which would become pin holes after blasting. Next job was to see if the pipes were free, three were but one brather pipe and more worryingly the fuel outlet pipe is completely blocked. Thought I would remove the sender so we could see how convaluted the fuel outlet pipe run id (answer - very) and the sender came out nicely, but looked like this

Oh dear, a bit of rust there, so had a look inside the tank

Not sure you can make it out, but I have never seen so much rust in a tank. It is literally everywhere and thick as well. This spells the death knell for this tank as whilst I could cut the tank open, the chances of getting at all the rust are slim and the best case scenario is I would end up with a paper thin tank. Interstingly my fears of welding a petrol tank ended as this has been empty for so long there is not even a hint of a petrol smell. I have now made contact with the alloy repro tank manufacturer and I am awaiting a price and lead time.

Finally for today, I checked the tyres and 4 Goodyear Eagle ECT (I think) are fitted, all with good tread and no signs of cracking or any other deterioration. Checked the dates. The front ones are 2002. Oh. The rears? 1986. Guess 4 new tyres are on the list now as well.

[hairnet]

martin.......cough

[grogee]

On 24/01/2024 at 22:05, Saabnut said:

One step forward, two back and of course the costs go up! The joy* of old cars!

This is what the fuel tank looks like - not bad methought.

The tank itself did not look too bad, but the paint/coating has a lot of little mountains which I feared most of which would become pin holes after blasting. Next job was to see if the pipes were free, three were but one brather pipe and more worryingly the fuel outlet pipe is completely blocked. Thought I would remove the sender so we could see how convaluted the fuel outlet pipe run id (answer - very) and the sender came out nicely, but looked like this

Oh dear, a bit of rust there, so had a look inside the tank

Not sure you can make it out, but I have never seen so much rust in a tank. It is literally everywhere and thick as well. This spells the death knell for this tank as whilst I could cut the tank open, the chances of getting at all the rust are slim and the best case scenario is I would end up with a paper thin tank. Interstingly my fears of welding a petrol tank ended as this has been empty for so long there is not even a hint of a petrol smell. I have now made contact with the alloy repro tank manufacturer and I am awaiting a price and lead time.

Finally for today, I checked the tyres and 4 Goodyear Eagle ECT (I think) are fitted, all with good tread and no signs of cracking or any other deterioration. Checked the dates. The front ones are 2002. Oh. The rears? 1986. Guess 4 new tyres are on the list now as well.

Can a similar shaped (and more readily available) tank be adapted? It's something I did consider for my Maestro but did the POR-15 method in the end. 

I wonder if a smaller plastic tank off something modern could be adapted to the existing mounting points via slotted steel brackets... 

That said I don't know whether it would be all fussy and Italian about a different pump and sender. 

[Back_For_More]

How much would a race type cell cost for under or in the boot perhaps? 

[Saabnut]

Another update is due on the fleet. The AX diseasal is back to its best* and starting easily after the Glow plug relay was stripped, contacts cleaned and a short length of wire replaced. Glad to have it back. The Shitroen  of many shiters is back with the new clutch cable fitted. All is not well with it as it has a few mostly minor faults, some I knew about, some I did not. The rear spheres are shot so it is a bit bouncy, this I knew about and the original plan was to replace them, but that is now on hold. Other faults, one rear light bulb blown (very minor and easy fix) one headlight bulb blown (minor but a twat to get to and may need some serious dismantling to get to the bulb). Neither front electric windows work. The radio will not accept any code (I have the right code) so that does not work. Front fog lights dont work (minor). Then there is the big one. There is a massive current drain when switched off, so bad overnight will see no ignition lights the next morning, so everytime it is left the battery has to be disconnected.  None of these faults are serious, and when the wind drops below storm force and it dries up I can start working through them. None of these things are a complaint, it was a cheap car with known problems. The big problem is I don't like it! My last Xantia was an HDi and I loved it. This is a petrol 2 litre, and is high reving, 60mph is over 3k revs in 5th. Saabs are low reving and I do not like revvy cars. I will give it a couple of weeks, but I can see it getting moved on cheaply unless I grow to like it.

A bit of progress on the Lancia. Got a price for the fuel tank of around £700 as expected, but only a 4 week lead time. I will be ordering it tomorrow. Here is one they did earlier:

Next job was to remove the sump to see what was going on. This car has done 49k miles (fully documented) but has sat for the last 12 years. This is what the sump looked like on removal

After some serious cleaning (apart from the oil pick up strainer that we had not got to yet) it looked like this

The first of the bearing shells was removed, only one until the new shells arrived (they arrived late this afternoon).

These are strange. They are not the usual steel shell/copper/white metal but seem to be some sort of alloy. It has some very shiny patches which could indicate wear. They are an odd make (I cannot remember - I would need to check) but we feel these may not be the original shells, but replacements. These engines are notorious for oil strvation due to surge in the sump when driven enthusiastically, and baffle kits are available.

[DSdriver]

following with interest! You should be used to sumps like that with the number of Saabs that have passed through your hands.

[grogee]

20 hours ago, Saabnut said:

Another update is due on the fleet. The AX diseasal is back to its best* and starting easily after the Glow plug relay was stripped, contacts cleaned and a short length of wire replaced. Glad to have it back. The Shitroen  of many shiters is back with the new clutch cable fitted. All is not well with it as it has a few mostly minor faults, some I knew about, some I did not. The rear spheres are shot so it is a bit bouncy, this I knew about and the original plan was to replace them, but that is now on hold. Other faults, one rear light bulb blown (very minor and easy fix) one headlight bulb blown (minor but a twat to get to and may need some serious dismantling to get to the bulb). Neither front electric windows work. The radio will not accept any code (I have the right code) so that does not work. Front fog lights dont work (minor). Then there is the big one. There is a massive current drain when switched off, so bad overnight will see no ignition lights the next morning, so everytime it is left the battery has to be disconnected.  None of these faults are serious, and when the wind drops below storm force and it dries up I can start working through them. None of these things are a complaint, it was a cheap car with known problems. The big problem is I don't like it! My last Xantia was an HDi and I loved it. This is a petrol 2 litre, and is high reving, 60mph is over 3k revs in 5th. Saabs are low reving and I do not like revvy cars. I will give it a couple of weeks, but I can see it getting moved on cheaply unless I grow to like it.

A bit of progress on the Lancia. Got a price for the fuel tank of around £700 as expected, but only a 4 week lead time. I will be ordering it tomorrow. Here is one they did earlier:

Next job was to remove the sump to see what was going on. This car has done 49k miles (fully documented) but has sat for the last 12 years. This is what the sump looked like on removal

After some serious cleaning (apart from the oil pick up strainer that we had not got to yet) it looked like this

The first of the bearing shells was removed, only one until the new shells arrived (they arrived late this afternoon).

These are strange. They are not the usual steel shell/copper/white metal but seem to be some sort of alloy. It has some very shiny patches which could indicate wear. They are an odd make (I cannot remember - I would need to check) but we feel these may not be the original shells, but replacements. These engines are notorious for oil strvation due to surge in the sump when driven enthusiastically, and baffle kits are available.

How are the journals? I managed to clean up some on a Toyota using fine wet and dry and a shoelace... Greybeard trick. 

[Saabnut]

Had a day of running errands, so on the way back called in at my friends to check on Lancia progress. It was well timed, as the last few bits were being fitted before more new oil an another new filter. A full set of shells has been fitted. There was minor signs of wear on the big ends

But much more significant wear on the mains, although nothing I considered worrying

What was intersting was the main bearings appeared to be the originals with Fiat and Lancia markings

But the big ends appear to be replacements

This car has a documented 49k miles and is now on its third set of big end bearings! They do have a reputation for oil starvation if cornering enthusiastically......

The good news is the new shells has stabilised the oil pressure when it gets warm and the knock has gone.

Tomorrow I will be fetching it home to free up my friends ramp until the new fuel tank arrives.

[Saabnut]

Back home and put away in the barn until the new fuel tank arrives....

But this time it drove on and off the trailer under its own power!

[Saabnut]

Well a day of mixed emotions as I am heading to port (Schiedam) to demobilise for the last time. Sad to realise it will be the last time I will look closely at rigs from the sea after 35 years - glad it is all over! Tomorrow I fly home and Saturday morning I start my retirement! It should mean more pictures of cars and less of the sea on here.....

The sun setting on my career;