New rims - Speedline SL-1188 - 7JX16H2

Well, new used rims. A few years ago I spotted a Lancia Thema for sale which had these rims in the boot. So I contacted the seller if these were separately for sale. I thought they would come in handy to use these rims for my Kappa Coupe so I could refurbish the original ones. Besides I simply liked the looks of these rims. So I purchased them for € 100,-  They were not in a good state but good enough for temporary spares. Unfortunately they are 16 inch. The 17 inch are quite rare and likely much more expensive if for sale. 

In any case they now can be used for my SW as the current rims are a bit dull and in a poor state as well. The current rims are having fairly new winter tyres - I guess the previous owner had these renewed when going on wintersport.

With the soft winters over the last years I doubt if they are needed now. And if so, I still can mount these wheels back for the time required. So a nice original spare winter tyre set ready. 

I was lucky to have another set of a spare steel wheels with fairly new summer tyres - only used about 6 months or so. So the plan was to get these summer tyres off and put them on the new Speedline rims (as these had very old and hard winter tyres):

Once done they were balanced (and the required weights placed on the inside). The total cost for doing this work was € 35,- 

Just adding these detail photo's for the records:

And here you can see the result with these new rims mounted. Very pleased with the end result, looks so much better now. Note these rims were optional available only for the SW, so this works out so nicely.

Windscreen wipers

Another annoying item I tackled today were the windscreen wipers. Well, one of them. The one on the right was mounted incorrectly and pointing upwards. Furthermore the black paint was partly gone and some bits were a bit rusty. 

So time to dismantle them. Unfortunately the screw caps were missing and by surprise I could unscrew both bolts by hand as they apparently were not tightened, pfff.  

I sanded them slightly and provided a new black paint. 

And afterwards mounted them correctly. Later that day I sourced a set of original screw/bolt caps, so all is good again. Looks so much better now. 

No costs were involved for this exercise :-)

MOT + Maintenance bill

I have received the bill yesterday and I was not exactly happy. Partly my own fault as I brought the car only for APK without further mentioning. I was hoping the car would be good given it's history, perhaps a minor thing(s) only. The repair is something I could have done myself and as such could have saved a bit of money. I was only told the rear brakes needed repair so thought it was not a big deal. Turned out the whole breaking mechanism was seized and required replacement. Clearly the replacement parts (calipers) were not cheap, so that's something that could not have been avoided. The brake pads were very expensive. In any case, this has eaten up more money as anticipated leaving not much budget to tackle the other items I had on my list ...

turning indicator lights / blinking lights

With the dark evenings I noticed the orange blinking lights were slightly faded, see video

 Mostly the right front was very poor:

The rear was pretty much OK though:

So time to get them all replaced, this is what came out:

Only 1 was still nicely dark orange, 2 slightly faded and 1 without hardly any orange coating left. 

So I purchased a complete new set which costed € 8,62

Looks much nicer now

Interior cleaning

Today I decided to free up some time for cleaning the interior. It's a bit smelly and musty, the carpet had some dirt, some doghair in the back (luckily very little), small cobwebs and dirty spots on some handles and the sun visors (yuck). 

First a good vacuum cleaning was a very rewarding exercise. 

Then wiping off all plastics. For this I had bought a spray bottle by Turtle wax which also could be used for the windows. And I bught a new micro fibre cloth (costs € 12,99 and € 2,49) I used up the whole bottle! 

During the cleaning I noticed some door rubbers and strips not properly mounted, so some easy fixes. But I also noticed one doorstrip missing:-(  In the glove box was a small round cap and now I localized where it belonged.

I also took the effort to clean the door entries.

And last but not least I sprayed all the hinges with WD40 as some were a bit sqeeky. Next time I need to properly grease them but for now this will do nicely. 

Very pleased with the end result. So much nicer to step into a clean car with a proper smell. The car is now getting back some dignity. 

New license plates

Today I treated the Kappa with new license plates. I did not fancy the chrome plate holders and moreover the screws were horrendous. The used plates were however the luxury ones (met opgelegde letters.

The frontplate was mounted with 8 screws!! The back only with 4.

I bought new luxury ones with a click frame. The plates costed € 44,77 and the two frameholders were € 6,05. So together € 50,82  

A bit pricey but it looks so much better now. For me it gives the car a newer and fresher look.

New MOT / APK

Yes, today it received a fresh MOT / APK which will last till next year 30 November 2021. But it did require some repair first. On the MOT paper I read the foglight was not correctly mounted. Hmm, interesting. The real fix were the rear brakes. Apparently the brake pads were completely used up. Not a big deal, effectively something I could have sorted myself. But the real problem were the calipers which were seized and required replacement. I was told it turned out to be quite a hassle and the brake hose was also completely stuck. I wonder how it could have passed last years MOT. I fear it's going to be an expensive bill. Other than that all was good though, so maybe I should not complain. ... let's await the bill first. 

Classic driver : In this Lancia love story, the Delta is not the star

A nice article showed up today on my radar:

 https://www.classicdriver.com/en/article/cars/lancia-love-story-delta-not-star

Car wash + roofbar covers

Now the roofbar locks are fixed I finally had the opportunity to get the car washed. This does require however to have the roofbarholder holes to be covered: And you guessed it right, theser are also missing. So now I am on the hunt for a complete set.

I did find a NOS set on Ebay but I considered € 150,- a bit to pricey. A used set would do for me as well. At least I now know the part nr: 4630926. With this I was unable to source another set. So again I posted a request on Facebook. Let's see.

So for now I used a duct tape solutio which do the trick nicely.

so onto the car wash. As mentioned earlier, from a distance the car looks pretty much OK but on closer inspection it's very dirty and having lots of cosmetic items. I gave it the most expensive carwash programm (Best - € 13,50). 

On this photo you can now see the dent in the back corner:

Afterwards the car looked again much nicer. But since the car must have been parked outside for so long without any proper cleaning there are still lots of greasy spots and some kind of small varnish drops (I guess it must have been parked under a tree). So to get is properly done I need to polish it using a machine. Also the seal surrounding on the side windows of the boot and the back window had a green layer underneath on the inside. So it looks like these are leaky. Yesterday I was fiddling around in the boot and by accident I noticed I could push the backside windows slighty out without much pressure, confirming they are loose indeed and explaining how that part got a dirty green layer on the inside. A potential future job I need to tackle.

In any case, with the rainy wheather and the fresh wax coating it does look nice and shiny with all fresh raindrops on the outside. Should have made a photo, oh well.

Roof bars / rails lock fix

Now with the ski box removed it was time to get the car a proper clean thru a car wash. For this it would be best to have the roof bars removed. One problem though, the keys were missing (again!). Sigh!

I was hoping some kind of nr would be printed on the lock but this was not the case. Nor could I reveal the lock brand. The roof bars are an original Lancia accessoire for the Kappa SW. I posted a request in a Kappa group on Facebook, hoping I could obtain somehow a kind of master key. Or any other advice to open up the covers without causing any damage. But the only advice I got was to drill the lock open. Apparently these are universal locks easily obtainable. 

So that's what I did. By luck I used the right size drill and presto the lock was open in one go:

Underneath the cover the screws mounted to the roof rail:

In more detail the drilled lock:

The other side with the drilled out lock:

The new locks I ordered. 

And fixed!:

Really pleased with this. The original roof bars have been saved and mounted back on. Thought this working class hero does look good with this option. 

The costs for these locks including shipping were € 16,60  And I consider it money well spent.