New fuel pump!

 And another year gone by without doing much due to some much other things going on. 

My daily driver a Kappa Coupe was suffering from a failing airco. Meaning the past two years I had to refill it at the start of the season when it became warmer. So it was leaking, despite a pressure test the leak could not be identified. But changes are 90% it's the airco evaporator. Unfortunately these are no longer available and I sourced a similar one which required only a small modification to fit. I figured to hand this job out to the garage. They mentioned the radiator was also slightly leaking so that needed replacement too. Again, these are no longer available either. But some years ago I had spotted one a bought as a spare. So I happily provided them this one. Turned out it was the correct one, it was one for a V6 24 valve. At the time I only recalled it was advertised as a 2.4 version, which matched my engine. So it was advertised incorrectly. Sigh!  Thus I ended up using the one from the Kappa SW. The evaporator that came out of this one was toast so that still requires a new or a good used one. 

Obviously the car has not been used or running since. But my daily driver was running cool again. Until the MOT popped up. And it failed due to rust on the car sills, mostly the drivers side. I had looked it up and the other side of the sill was done in 2016. So it was envitable this one was going to happen at some stage. But the timing was bad. It's so hard to find resources who has time to have this fixed. So I decided to get my spare Kappa Coupe on the road. It has been sitting idle for the past 2 years and still had to be road registered as it was imported from Swiss. It's a car that had not be used since 2007 and was not running when I bought it. There were no keys either. So that's something I had it fixed back then already. It also required a new fuel pump to get it running. Again something I had fxied. I simply reused the fuel pump from my current daily driver. So to fix my daily driver I had to source a new fuel pump. Again another item that's no longer available. But there was a nice work around by my garage. He had a fuel pump kit that could be used instead and it worked great. I thought to swap the new one to my spare Kappa Coupe but that never happened. So basicly the spare Kappa Coupec was driveable but still required some more work, basicly a good service overhaul after all these years. But now was the time since I required a new daily driver. Clearly the Kappa SW good not be used either due to the missing radiator and evaporator. So I made an appointment with the garage to get a service overhaul and the car MOT ready for the road registration. Then the unexpected happend. The car would not start up. After a few attempts I figured it might be the old fuel pump I used. So I simple had it swapped from my Kappa SW. And presto it worked. So the spare Kappa Coupe was brought to the garage and afterwards was road registered. All good. I had a working daily driver again. Of course I also had arranged anoter new fuel pump alternative solution. So today I finally had some time to have this fixed and put it in the Kappa SW.

Find below the details of the alternative fuel pump, apparently its the same one as used in a Fiat Croma and Lancia Thema:

To dismantle the fuel pump is quite easy:

The pump and the new parts:

When removing the old pump it became apparent what happened. The mounting rubber was toast, broken, soft and it pieces. So thats likely why the pump failed:

For comparison the new and the old rubber pumpholder unit:

It's easy to make the new unit. It does come with a seperate filter but I'm reusing the old one. Just unscrew the bottom and put the rubber holder in it

Put everything back together. I also mounted the new rubber hose which comes with the package, the old one is still good though. The old single plastic connector can not be reused and you need to tear this open so the wires and the two seperate connectors are free. You then can simply hook these up on the new pump. The kit comes with two new connectors but you wont be needing these if you do it like this. The green wire needs to go on the large pole (plus) and the black wire on the other one (duh!). And presto. 

Put it back in again and the battery had just enough power to start up the engine again. So it's working!

Effectively this means my old Kappa Coupe and the Kappa SW has got both new fuel pumps and my new Kappa Coupe is running again on a old fuel pump .... oh well. 

And for the sake of it as I'm sure it will come in handy at some point I will now include the alternative pump solution for the Lancia Thema 8.32

The original pump is a Bosch  OEM: 0580254018 / 5985559

But is no longer available, or when you are lucky to find one it will be very expensive.
The alternative solution is to use Bosch 058 0254 044 and cut off the bottom as per below photo's:

Information centre panel replacement

Ha! Last week I had some buttons replaced on my daily driver (kappa coupe). They had become soft and sticky. I received a spare control panel from Jos - his neighbour had a few kappa parts in his garage and were given to him/me about year ago or so.

I was unsure if these buttons easily could be removed but with a screwdriver they easily could be popped out. So I simply could add them to my daily driver. I was really pleased with that.

So today I figured I should use that panel to replace the one in the Kappa SW since that one had a poor display unit:

Turned out to become a bit of a hassle to get everything out. Not rocket science but a lot of fidling. Especially since the radio would not come out. Well, eventually it did came out but it was a struggle. Luckily I had the radio key-tools in my daily driver. But one side gave a little trouble to unlock the spring lever.

the anti-climax was replacing the unit and turned out to be completely dead, sigh! So I had to put everything back again. Resulting in some plastic snapping off (ash-tray) - so that one does no longer stays locked (I think or hope I can glue it next time - I found some plastic piece when removing the unit, so I figured that must be the culprit). 

Next, also the gearlever leather coverholder snapped. It was an aftermarket item and the plastic rim simply broke into pieces. Sigh!

So I ended up with more work to be fixed on the next round. 

In any case. I had all the tyres pumped. Hooked up the battery and it started fairly quick. I drove a few kilometers. And I have to say it runs so well, very pleased with that. It's just all these tiny bits I still need to sort out and a lot of cosmetic items. Oh well. 

Lancia Kappa carpets

HA! It has been a while but I will not bother you with any excuses. Just a quick update, I started the kappa after a long stand still and it ran immediately. Not bad. The car has still many minor things to tackle but I'm not in a hurry. Last week or so I scored these genuine Lancia Kappa carpets. So this was a quick win to make the car a little more complete and better looking. Don't hold your breath for the next update.

More audio, Power window check, interior light and seat belt adjuster

 It has been a while. On the few drives I made lately I noticed the right front speak developed a nasty rattle. It sounds like the cone might have been torn somehow. Luckily I did obtain a pair of front speakers so a nice opportunity to have this fixed. And furthermore this will give me the possibility to have the power window motor checked as that's still failing. 

At the time I suspected the right door was untouched but I guess was wrong (and naive). This side had been opened up before as well. Luckily it was not a big mess:

And apparently they had been messing around on this speaker as well. Using again some of glue/kit. And also the speaker wiring had been modified. I have no idea what they have been up to

So I had the speaker replaced using the original plug and cabling. And now it sounds even better. Very happy with this improvement. 

On to the next job, the power window. With the door panel off this was now "accessible". So first I did a visual mechanical inspection. All looked good as far as I could see. I tried to move/push the mechanics and the wheel but nothing happened. When trying to push the button you can hear the "motor" click. So I used a soft hammer and hit the motor slightly hoping this would do some magic, ie losing up a stuck spring/solenoid. But  nothing happened. I think I have no other option then to removed it entirely which is likely a challenging and fiddly job for which I had no time left yesterday afternoon. 

When putting everything back together the courtesy light bulb at the bottom of the door panel dropped off. So when fixing this and putting the bulb back in it lighted up straight away (I actually don't recall if if it was working beforehand. I also noticed the interior light at the passenger side (feet) worked. But more importantly the interior light in the ceiling worked and that was not the case before. So I was very pleased to see all of this is working now. When checking again by closing/opening the door it failed, none of them are working anymore. Sigh! I suspect the door locking mechanism is the cause for it as it has a small micro switch that is controlling this - maybe I temporarily fixed it when doing my physical checks and hammering, not sure. 

I did happen to have been working on the interior lights for the passengers in the back as these werer partly working. One side is now fully working and the other one isn't working at all anymore. Very strange as I can't figure it out. More troubleshooting to do. 

Whilst I was on the back seat I noticed the seat belt adjuster looked strange and out of place. When checking it wasn't functioning, meaning it would not stay fixed in place. When I gave it a hit it was pushed back in and fixed the issue. Again, not sure what happened there.

Oh well, so for today only 2 small items fixed: 1 speaker and 1 seat belt adjuster. Still a lot to do on the interior lights ...

Lancia logo badge replacement

 Yesterday I spend a little time to replace the Lancia logo badge on the tailgate. Here is why:

Clearly this is unacceptable so I had to get a new one on it. I figured it would be clipped on the backside with some kind of toothed washer. As such I had the cover removed on the inside to have a look.

As can been seen this is not the case, apparently it does have some plastic push holders. Click the photo to enlarge:

So with a screwdriver, a little force and patience I tilted the badge out. Unfortunately one pin broke off.

At home I found by surprise two new logo badges with exactly the same size, but with both pins cut off. Not sure why and how I obtained these.

They had a different part number stamped on it though (46777346). Although the size was the same it did not fit since the original badge is curved at the edges so it fits in the recessed area.

So I had to source a new one. This appeared more difficult as anticipated, online practically nothing could be found with the part numbers (606828230 / 46425475).

I dropped a few email requests to the known Lancia specialists in the Netherlands. And Leo Arendse responded the first. So I quickly purchased one. Not much later Martin Willems responded. He just received a new batch of 10. Good to know, as said; you can't find these online available on the internet. Strange though as they also are used on the Thesis, so you would expect better availability.

And it arrived earlier this week. The following photo's for the records and part nr details.

Thus time to mount it. I drilled out the broken off pin and then glued the new badge (the original stickertape was not strong enough. Happy with this cosmetic upgrade, looks so much better now. This exercise costed € 25,-