For the last few years we have had a run to the high country sometime in the Christmas – New Year period so this year was to be no exception, but it nearly didn’t happen as for some reason Christmas snuck up on us.

So in the time honored tradition of doing things at the last minute we gathered on Sunday night for a meal/meeting at Luciano’s to plan where we were to go and hopefully arrange somewhere to sleep the next night, as it happened a fair percentage of the Victorian population had the same idea but for some unfathomable reason had booked months ago so accommodation was scarce.

Next morning Des, David, Lynton and myself  set off in the Aero Hisso, DM Delage and Lancia Lambda our destination was still unknown  but with the plan that we would head in the general direction of Mt Buller, make some calls at lunch (Alexandra) and go from there preferably via the King Valley to…… Dinner Plain

The weather was just perfect with temperatures in the mid to high 20s and because of our (some would say) flawed planning process we had a scenic but long drive with some very steep grades up Mt Hotham obviously the Hisso with too many cylinders and cc’s does not seem to notice gravity, the rest of us struggled a little.  Nevertheless we rolled into Dinner Plain with plenty of time to get a very good meal at the pub.

During our protracted meal in which beer, cider and 3 bottles of red were consumed planning for the return journey was thrown on the table with Des suggesting that as this was an adventure we should try the Dargo Road, a 4WD track only open in the summer months.  Mr Google suggested this 65Km journey would take 3 hours and as it happened he/she was spot on mainly because the Lambda decided to miss the whole way with many stops to attempt a repair in the end it was just a fouled plug.  The only other mechanical problem was the Delage running out of brakes on a steep decline needing two feet on the brake pedal and the passenger using both hands on the hand brake so an unscheduled stop for the brakes and the occupants to cool  was needed, all necessary ingredients for a Vintage Adventure.

Here are a few photos, I particularly like the one of my finger…

The current freezing weather has reminded me that although I have to cover half the radiator at this moment to get the temperature up, once the weather warms 90 Kph equals 90° which is too hot for a Lambda. So I had should rectify the problem before the currently remote possibility of warm weather arises.

I have pulled the radiator out (just 3 nuts plus loosening hoses) and have sent it off to be checked out.  Like a fair few things on my car the radiator had been modified, this was done to aid removal, however in doing so it’s ended up with a right angled bottom radiator hose and it’s not reinforced with a spring so maybe it’s being sucked flat at high revs?  The Lambda water pump is renowned  for being overly efficient so the optimist in me is thinking that maybe something this simple could be the problem.

Of course taking out the radiator is just an entrée to:

• Rod or re-core radiator
• New fan bearings.
• Replace radiator brace with something more substantial (thanks Simmo).
• Straighten badge although my car may be unrecognisable afterwards.
• Replace bonnet tape.
• Contemplate once more boring a steam hole in the Lancia’s head.
• plus 10 others not related to the radiator like resetting the rear springs etc.

The Alex Bryce Rally is late September but I’m away for a few weeks so I had better get my skates on, or I might just put another log on the fire and dodge the issue for a few more days.

By the vintage period most of the stuff in cars was sorted, IFS, overhead cams, monocoque, 4 wheel brakes and the list goes on, of course most vintage cars did not have these things but they were available to any Lancia owner.  However some of the less glamorous things were not sorted, namely a method of getting fuel into the carburettor other than gravity and a way of measuring how much fuel left in the tank.

So this leads me to my Le Nivex fuel gauge and vacuum tank, the former not working the latter partially missing. The gauge, I believe is just a sensitive pressure gauge like a barometer connected via a rubber tube to a spring loaded hand pump which in turn is connected to a pipe that ends at the bottom of the fuel tank. To check the fuel level the dashboard mounted pump plunger is pulled out (my gauge needle goes backwards at this point, I think it should be checked by a one way valve in the base of the pump) The plunger returns under spring pressure, the gauge reads in the positive direction, stops momentarily and a reading is taken. The more fuel in the tank the higher the pressure so the greater the reading on the gauge.

That is what is supposed to happen, on the Lambda if the gauge reads any more than about 7 gallons it would just keep going and refuse to return, the only way to get it back was to pull the gauge out and lay it flat on it’s face, it was like the needle pointer was too heavy, so that is why in the photo the needle now has a rather inelegant knob to counterbalance the needle. It now does return although it’s accuracy is yet to be determined, I will have to fork out for a full tank of fuel to see if it reads any higher than the 5 gallons currently.

Here is a basic circuit from http://www.laluneta.com.ar/

The Vacuum Tank

I would like to get my vacuum tank working but alas it’s innards were only partly in attendance, luckily Iain Simpson put me onto a L’ Exhausteur vacuum tank for sale in NSW that looked totally different but had the same insides as mine, so I now have all the ingredients and by saying so here, I will now have to do something bring them together…stay tuned

By the way both the Le Nivex and L’ Exhausteur were both made by Charles T. Weymann of fabric body fame and according to Wikipedia had a US father, a Haitian mother and was born on a boat. He also won the Gordon Bennett Aero Race in 1911, during World War 1  was a Nieuport test pilot and managed to live for 87 years.

Lastly, an American  John Gilbert Collison invented a dash mounted cable operated fuel gauge in 1917 that he then sold onto GM.  In 1951 he went on to invent the artificial hip.