Category Archives: Lambda

A Thoroughly Enjoyable Breakdown-New-

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The Lancia Lambda Australian Alpine Tour 2019 started off well with a lovely drive from Healesville, however some 70Km later when taking off from a stop sign in Alexandra a very loud clicking noise erupted from the engine and as luck would have it on the left was a nice shady spot next to a park (toilets) over the road from the local paper (publicity) and diagonally opposite a very good café (food, coffee) so after nearly 5 years and 30,000 Km, Lambda decided to let me down gently.
As usual when these sort things happen, there quickly gathered a large crowd of Lancia and local people all of which one way or another would contribute to the repair. The bonnet came off to rest on the conveniently lush grass, next the rocker cover and it was quickly diagnosed that a split pin had failed causing the axle of the rocker roller bearing to fall out, spilling the 8 rollers, 7 of which were fished out with Peter Renou’s magnetic probe, the 8th roller hopefully is resting peacefully in the sump.

Of course, I thought I had put a spare set under a seat somewhere and everyone else thought they had a set but to no avail. I am not sure who suggested it but as the rollers are 4mm in diameter a 4mm drill bit was purchased and one of the local onlookers a retired mechanic volunteered his workshop but more notably his angle grinder, we added Marc Bondini to the mix and a facsimile roller popped out the other end. The theory being the part of the drill bit close to the flutes would be hard and was slightly less than 4mm so it would really just be a packer and not take much load.
Lastly the local mechanic gave us some petroleum jelly to keep the rollers in place while we refitted it all. The engine started with no noise and bonnet was reunited after its rest on the grass. The local press was duly impressed, so hopefully by now if it’s been a slow news week, we have achieved our 5 minutes of fame. This had all taken some time, so we moved our lunch location from Myrtleford to the excellent café over the road. 1000Km later thanks to Simmo and Rob Bienvenu a “real” roller appeared, the drill bit roller was swapped out and showed no signs of wear.
Thanks everyone for your enthusiastic help. May all your breakdowns be as enjoyable as mine

Rust, Now in a Bucket

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A bucket of rust, not to be confused with the next picture.

Plenty happening at the moment although as usual work is carried out serially not in parallel so it takes longer than it should or to put it more bluntly, I’m a bloke.  First off after the debacle of the Austin 7 Special that I purchased on Ebay sight unseen, I thought the best way to make amends was to buy another Austin 7 on Ebay but this time bidding only after an inspection.  It’s a 1929 Chummy and was a stalled project with the last work done about 15 years ago.

The restoration up to my ownership had involved mostly chassis work, body work with some rust removal and the two doors had been remade.  English Chummy’s have an aluminium body with a wood frame however most of those that came out to Australia came without the rear bodywork to give the locals something to do.  My car probably has a Holdens steel body which will be heavier but I can attempt to weld steel so more involving (cheaper) for me.

Patches tacked, more practice before final weld.

Here is a picture of the rear wheel well, it was only about 20% rust by area, the rest of the body is better so I thought I would do the worst bit first.  I have ruined a lot of perfectly good steel in the name of my welding education, Mr Youtube has also had a bashing but only to save even more steel, welding wire and gas.  By the time I finish this I should be pretty good at this welding thing so I suggest if you ever have the opportunity to see this car just look at the side I’m doing last …the right hand side.

After two and a half years and 12000 miles of Lambda ownership I have passed the initiation all Lambda owners must pass, that is replacing the head gasket which is something that I now accept will not be my last.  If you look at the accompanying photo of the block you will notice a few things:

  1. Cracks
  2. Corrosion
  3. Only six studs holding the head on.

The corrosion and cracks can be put down to an aluminium block that probably did not have anything but water in it for most of its 92 years of life. But the six studs are more a real estate issue where the inlet and exhaust tracts traverse the head with not enough space left for a decent number of studs so no supercharging this one.

The other car that received some attention is the Bebe Peugeot that now has a nice new  leather  cone clutch, this was a little bit harder than expected as it required some solid geometry or should I say it required me to Google someone else’s solid geometry.  The radii calculated were scribed onto a bit of 6mm chrome tanned leather cut and riveted with some lovely copper rivets found on …you guessed it Ebay.  The Bebe now drives well but the performance is a little underwhelming which I think has to do with the carburettor jetting, I would like to use my gas analyser but I fear the high oil consumption as oil drips out of the exhaust pipe may taint the sensor so will resort to trial and error and will only attempt test drives when the neighbours are out.

 

 

The Joy of the Weld

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pano_20160903_091745Our abbreviated Grand Tour of Europe is now complete so the Lambda is patiently waiting at Cars UK for an available berth back to Australia, she will not be required to work her passage having hauled us over Swiss alpine passes, through scorching southern French valleys and at least 1000 crap gear changes by yours truly.  Repetition of a roundabout every 5 Km has improved my down changes although the Lambda gearbox is a testament to the Lancia engineers who must have had me in mind when they designed it.

colour-sectionMeanwhile I have been filling my time getting the Bebe running with it’s new carburetor and after drilling the idle jet to .050 mm  it now runs and idles, it also smokes a lot but how do you tell a 103 year old to give up?  The next thing is to stop  the clutch dragging as it’s nearly impossible to get into gear while stationary not helped by the gear linkage having lovely little leaf springs between the lever and the gearbox preventing the ham fisted from jamming it into gear when it’s not ready.

img_20161017_183138Which brings me to the Austin 7.  I suppose the lesson here is never buy a car sight unseen although making sensible and measured decisions has never come easily when it comes to cars.  That said this Austin is a real stinker giving me the opportunity to be conversant with every aspect of the car, quite an opportunity.  As you can see I am down to the chassis, the new MIG welder at last has seen some duty stitching a plate to “box” the top hat section with a mild swiss cheese effect via the hole saw… more holes to come.  Remember Colin Chapman started with one of these although his hole to metal ratio was somewhat different.

Just in from David R. something I should aspire to?

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