Sunday, 17 August 2025

New airfilter and a little cleaning and spraying

 in order to have the airfilter replaced I bought this special tool: click-r plier. In factr I bought a small set of pliers for hose clamps via Temu. The whole set costs just as much if I had purchse one plier locally:


In the past I had damaged these clamps so often and ended up buying normal screw hose clamps. So time to invest in this tool:


Removing the hose clamps now went easy and I could remove the first "airbox":


The screws of the actual airfilter housing was a different story, they were stuck and I didn't want to molest the rusty screws


So I had to take out the whole housing. The airfilterhouse was mounted with two rusty bars:


With much patience and fiddling I managed to get the airfilterhouse out


All the wiring harness was toast, rubbers broken off and the hard plastic covers crumbled:



In any case, I'm glad I took it out as I could now correctly apply force to the screws


Two screws came out normally. Two others required firm force using a grip plyer:

Both came out but they took the inner thread out as well, sigh:


And this is what came out of it:





Time for cleaning and replacement and putting it all together again


And wanted to sand and spray the rusty bar on the airfilter house. One screw came off, but the other one snapped off and I didn't want to take the risk to snap the 3rd scew as well, so I left it.


I had the other two mounting bars sanded and sprayed though. This looks so much nicer now


I also made a little cleaning effort on the airhoses and airbox as the entire engine bay is very dirty. So I also removed some decals and cleaned the front top bar. To bad these rusty screws are so visible. On this photo you will see I also made an attempt on the valve cover. More on that next time. 

Saturday, 9 August 2025

Oil change + oil filter + spark plugs + cabin filter

Time to get the car finally a small service. So I ordered a package at Autodoc with the following items:

UFI oil filter
UFI air filter 
Magneti Marelli spark plugs
Valeo cabin filter

And via a local shop I bought this 5 liter oil can 10W40 brand Kroon


So up the ramp


And removing the protection cover. This was another small challenge as it was fiddled together, pieces broken off, pop rivets, stuck screws. So I needed the drill, grinder and dremel to had it removed.


I even found a battery bracket mounting holder in it. And a lot of dirt of course. On this photo you can see it does have the apparently originial protection cushions on it. Afterwards I cleaned the whole cover with the high pressure cleaner and the material came off. I'm intending to repair this cover so it can mounted normally again and provide the protection.


And then drain the oil, which went easy. 

And removing the oil filter, which went easy as well. Judging by the protection cover and the rust on the oil filter this hasn't been done for ages:


And the new UFI filter. Was pleasantly surprise to see it had a Magneti Marelli oil filter. 


And of course filling up with new oil. When removing the oil cap I spotted this "rubber" dot in the opening. Not sure what it is but I left it. Perhaps some sealant or gasket. I felt pretty firm. Not sure what happened there. I will definatley remember this and have it double checked another time.   



Turned out the 5 liter was just not enough. So I had to go back and bought another liter, but I required only 0,5 liter more. So now I have some spare in the boot.

 All good, so replacing the spark plugs. Judging by the cover screws this hasn't been touched either for ages



Removing the bobines went easy. But then, shocker! the first spark plug was drenched in oil!

Not sure what happened there but I feared the most. Then unscrewing the spark plug which went very easy as it was not tightened at all. Perhaps that was the reason for the oil to manifest ???


The other spark plugs were fine but each of them didn't require much force to unscrew. Also the spark plugs that came out were original Lancia plugs by Champion. Very cool. I had them replaced by Magneti Marelli


All done and all good so far. I will definately check the 1st spak plug for oil next week or so. 

So time to replace the cabin / interior filter. Easy job, removing the two covers:



And here you go, a very dirty cabin filter. One small section on the bottom felt a little sticky wet though. I hope not thats caused by a leaky heater radiator. I noticed the coolant required a little refill. So I will keep an eye on this as well. So far there is no "coolant smell" in the car. 


And replaced with a new one:


Very happy with this, glad I have done this now. I hope the oil at the 1st spark plug was caused by not fitted tight. The thread itself felt good, so I can't think off anything else for now, or perhaps some hairline crack in the valve cover? As said, I will have this checked again next week.

The air filter needs to wait for next week as well. But on my return today the car drove fantastic again.

For the records:

6 liter oil = € 43,76
1 air filter + 1 cabin filter + 1 oil filter + 5 spark plugs + shipping = € 60,69

So total costs for this service round = € 104,45

milleage: 212.000 km

Sunday, 3 August 2025

New gear knob and gear stick gaiter

 As mentioned earlier, when I wanted to change the console display last year or so the gear stick gaiter snapped and as such wasn't clipped firm anymore. Not a big deal but I wanted to have this fixed. So I sourced it from my Kappa coupe. 

Another item was the ugly gear knob. I had a original spare gear knob available as at the time I bought two. One went into the Kappa coupe and now is the right moment to have this upgraded as well.




Removed the broken stick gaiter first, easy:


Added the new stick gaiter. Easy. And removing the gear knob, that went pretty easy well, didn't expect that:


Still had to remove the inner plastic holder cap but with a bit of fiddling and patience it became loose and came off  as well:



And here we have the new ricambi originali gear knob 0113361960  (maybe that should be nr: 150628060)



And mounted with a soft hammer:


This is another nice improvement. A easy and rewarding job. It looks good and it holds good and it shifts good. 

Thursday, 31 July 2025

And there was light

I had spotted this before, some indication lights on some parts of the dashboard were of, mainly the lighting at both vent controls and the on the dashboard. So I ordered 10 T5 12V 1.2 W lightbulbs.


Both sides replaced:



And the ones in front console as well






And this is how it looks like in the evening, ain't that lovely. These small jobs are so easy and so rewarding :-) 

New airfilter and a little cleaning and spraying

 in order to have the airfilter replaced I bought this special tool: click-r plier. In factr I bought a small set of pliers for hose clamps ...