Lancia CODE system LED fix

 I had noticed this already for a while, the centre LED never blinked - it's the security Lancia CODE-system related to the keys. Still the car could be started, so I figured the LED might be bad. So now finally time to have this checked.

One side, brown cable, was soldered directly with a resistor to the connector.

The purple wire turned out to be loose. Which very likely was the culprit. I managed to fiddle it back in, which indeed did the trick. But still it was not very firm fitted.

The LED was a special one with two long thin connection feet. So I put everything back and swapped this unit around from my other car. But both are working OK now.

Yes, so now it's working OK in my Kappa SW. Another items off the list:

Toolkit

When I purchased the car it did came with a toolkit (a jack and a sparewheel as well). I was just triggered by this auction on Catawiki. Curios to see for how much it goes:

https://www.catawiki.com/nl/l/97688118-auto-onderdeel-1-lancia-lancia-tool-kit-1980-1990

As such I had mine checked and it was a bit dirty but complete! Two tools are missing though but these are apparently optional tools

So time to clean it a little with soapwater and this did worked out quite well

I was curious though where this toolkit should be fitted. So I looked it up in the manual. Apparently it's put in the sparewheel.

And it also provided more insight about each of the available tools:

Apparently the optionial tool nr 1 is a centrepin for light metal rimms.  And nr. 5 is a special key to manually open/close the optional roof window. 

Indicator stalk rubbers replacement

A common issue, worn out stalk rubbers: 

but my donor car had very good ones. Somehow I once managed to obtain these, so time to have these swapped around as well. Details details 

Lancia Kappa Workshop manuals part 1 - 5

Yes, I got my hands on the complete set of the Dutch workshop manuals for the Kappa.  So this includes a separate one (part 3) for the Coupe and the SW version. So I now have some good reference and learning material available.

And I also obtained this specific Lancia Code book which is applicable for the Dedra and the Kappa

More lightbulb changing - dashboard

It's hardly visible on this photo but I noticed the right half the speedometer is a bit dim cpmpared with the rest, so I suspect a lightbulb passed away.

Since I still had a few left I figured to have this tackled today. It's very easy to dismantle the dashboard:

It has many lightbulbs as you can see. But I had only 4 left. So I replaced the 4 in the middle

Despite the light is green, each of them had a blue condom:

And checked it out this evening: Paradise by the dashboard light:

Earlier this week I also had the cigarette lighter in the back inspected. It's the same lighter as in the front. It is however not equipped with a lightbulbholder nor has a separate powercable / connector. So I guess it's suppose to be like this.

Firewall cover resprayed in black

The insulation cover on the firewall had some typical nasty brown spots. So time to tackle this with some black spray. You can see here, especially in the right hand corner, a lot of these ugly brown spots. So I taped off most surroundings and evenly sprayed it in proper black

And now having this as end result

Whilst I have been doing this I also replaced the top rubber strip since one half had a nasty tear.
I should have cleaned it first but I will take care of that next time.

S.H.I.T. and tidying up cabling and glovebox swap

During my drive the next day the light of the other halve of the centre display became bright again. It's the so called SHIT fix! Self Healing Italian Technology.  I was already fearing I had to dismantle the whole lot again but this is no longer required.  

Next I tidied up all the cabling. On the right side, I had two separate antenna cables, I noticed they had clamped a black antenna cable to the original grey cable. So now I suspect this is the correct radio antenna cable to use. Also there was separate antenna cable for the telephone. And some ohter unknown black cable, used for the telephone carkit. In any case I had all of this tidied using tiewraps and properly put underneath the cover. Next I noticed on the passenger side these 2 unused connectors? Curious to know if they should be used?

On the left side I had these cables:

Turned out the yellow cable is going straight to the plus pole on the battery. Not sure what purpose it had but I left it, just in case I might need it in the future.

The other two cables ended up in the back. Clearly these has been used for the radio/music device which is no longer present. I suspect it must have been hooked up to a CD changer unit. Again, I left this all in tact. I don't anticipate I will ever use it. But I was not bothered to tear everything open to remove it. So again, I wrapped it al nicely up using tiewraps and put all the covers correctly back. For now it's good to know about these cables.

I also took the effort to swap around the passengers glovebox. Turns out they even had these available in 2 colors pending on your car interior.

Since the existing one is a bit scruffy I decided to swap it around. And I also used the required screws which were initially all missing. So all is now look good and firmly attached.

Whilst I had it removed I saw again this red cable with the specific mounting holder but I still could not see a logical spot where it should have been fitted. And in my coupe it's not present? Typical.