Lancia Beta technical questions

These comments are from my experience and those of others and are provided for information only. No guarantee or warranty for accuracy or responsibility is given or implied.

'Oh, a Lancia... They rust, don't they ?'

A few models in the Beta range have a design flaw leading to accelerated corrosion

'Come on, admit it...'

Well, there seem to have been two separate rust problems with early Betas. The first problem was a design fault; the mounting points at the rear of the front subframes would collect mud and water as the car was driven, and after a few years the points would often rust out, leaving the subframe unattached at the rear. This was a problem almost exclusively for the series one Berlinas, and should have been fixed on any surviving cars. The second problem appears to have been due to bad paint formulation on some early Berlinas, which resulted in rapid body rust.

Overall, Betas don't seem to be much worse than other cars of their era, and due to bad reputation there is one advantage -- in the UK at least, Beta owners often had their cars rust proofed by a third-party company after purchase, as a result of which there are many still available in essentially rust-free condition.

'I just overtook a slow moving Volvo in my Volumex, and when checking behind prior to pulling in, I couldn't see anything in the rear view mirror due to the smokescreen I'd left behind me. Is this bad ?'

Well, this happened to me once, and it means one of two things. Either a) your supercharger oil seals just blew and the oil that should be lubricating the gears just escaped thru the exhaust pipe, or more likely b) the engine has been overfilled with oil and at high revs it has been forced up the breather pipe into the carb and burnt. In the former case, you're looking at a $1000 bill for repairs, in the latter keep the revs down till you get to your destination, then drain out the excess oil. In either case, low revs will be a good idea.

'Something electrical doesn't work'

Bad Earth. Ok, not always, but probably 90% of electrical problems on Betas are due to bad connections; many components are earthed to bits of metal that are bolted to the bodywork, typically low down and exposed, just waiting to collect dirt, water and rust. So, the first thing you should do is to hunt down the earth, clean it up, and reattach, then if that fails you can move on to more sophisticated investigations.

Another potential problem on early cars is the fusebox; essentially the fuse is held between two copper plates which are rivetted to the connector on the other side of the plastic back. Needless to say, after a decade or two of water, oxidation and vibration these rivetted connections tend to fail, resulting in some electrical systems failing. Also the aging copper plates can lose their 'spring' and that will also give a bad connection; you may need to gently push them together so that the fuse is held securely in place.

'I was driving along perfectly happily at 2 am in my late series two Beta, when all of a sudden most electrical components (including engine and headlights, but excluding hazard and interior lights) cut out. What happened ?'

You may well have discovered another example of bodged electrics, in this case the problem may be in the connector blocks that plug into the base of the fuse box. If these are forced, it is quite easy to bend the connectors such that they will arc together and after a period of time the plastic block will melt and electrical systems will start to fail. As the electrics layout in the Beta seems to power almost all components off of a single lead running into the fuse box, in extreme cases you can lose almost all of them (again, this happened to me!).

'The engine won't idle when cold.. what's wrong ?'

Most Betas are fitted with automatic chokes in the carburettor, which need to be activated with two presses of the pedal before you start the (cold) engine. Now, I know this sounds like a stupid answer, but I thought there was something wrong with my first HPE until I discovered this advice in the owners manual, and I know of at least one person who's bought a Beta sold cheap due to non-existent 'cold-starting problems' because the previous owner didn't know this. If you're already doing this before starting the car, you'll have to try another approach.....

'The engine still won't idle, what next ?' OR
'I'm getting appalling fuel consumption and no power until I press the accelerator pedal to the floor...' OR
'With the accelerator pressed down all the way, I'm not getting all the power that I used to...'

On a carburettor car, you may find that one or more of the jets are blocked -- the fuel filter hardly ever gets changed, and quite often a bit of grunge will end up being fed into the carb. If you remove the top of the air-cleaner (or remove the metal tube connecting the air-cleaner to the carb in the case of Volumex models) you can remove the jets and clean them out.

'Oops, my engine just overheated in a traffic queue and threw out a big cloud of steam !'

This probably means that you've either suffered from a burst water hose (fairly common on older cars) or that the electric radiator fan isn't working (very common on older cars). This may be due to a malfunctioning thermostat (fitted in one corner of the radiator), or more likely due to dirty or corroded connections (as the fan thermostat is fitted low down on the radiator the connections easily get wet and dirty). On some cars there are a second set of connectors in each of the cables running from the thermostat to the fan -- it's also possible that one of these connectors may have come detached or may need cleaning, or that the fuse has blown.

If that fails, you may have a stuck engine thermostat which isn't allowing water to run through the radiator when warm, or the radiator may be blocked (flush it out and see what happens).

Fortunately, although Betas have aluminium cylinder heads they almost never crack when overheated, provided that you switch the engine off as soon as possible after the warning light illuminates. In almost all cases you can simply let it cool down and top up with water and the car will run happily.

'How do I remove and refit my supercharger to get it overhauled ?'

Well, assuming you're mad enough to try it rather than pay another four to six hours labor charges, here's what worked for me (quoted from memory, so it may not be exactly correct). All directions are as seen from the driver's seat, so forwards/front is towards the front of the car, right is to the cambelt end of the engine, left to the gearbox end of the engine, and rear to the taillights. For example, the supercharger would be on the front right of the engine.

Firstly, disconnect the battery, and remove the struts that run diagonally from the front suspension mountings to the front of the car, then disconnect the radiator fan, unbolt it from the radiator, and put it to one side. Detach the four nuts holding the metal tube that takes air from the air cleaner to the carburettor, slide the rubber cover off, and put it to one side. Undo the six nuts holding the carb to supercharger manifold onto the supercharger, and the four holding the carb onto the manifold. Slide the throttle linkage off the long studs, disconnect the small vacuum hoses from the carb (if you forget to do this you will snap the small plastic connector connecting three hoses together -- if you do that, you should find that a fuel-line T-piece from a radio-controlled model shop will do the job instead), lift the carb off the manifold and put it somewhere safe, then detach the water pipes from the carb end of the manifold before detaching the manifold from the supercharger.

This manifold should come off without much effort, as the temperature at this end is much lower than the supercharger to engine manifold. You can now peek inside the supercharger and marvel at the thought of those hulking great bits of metal spinning round a hundred and sixty times a second... Next loosen the nut holding the supercharger drivebelt tensioner, and remove the belt. Undo the large nuts and bolts that hold the supercharger in place and attach the vapor extraction pump to the supercharger and engine, and undo the nuts on the supercharger that support sundry hoses and electrical cables in order to move those hoses and cables out of the way. Detach the nut and bolt holding the alternator to the supercharger.

That was the easy bit... now turn the steering wheel fully to the right before jacking the car up and supporting it on stands. Remove the plastic wheelarch linings so that you can remove the fanbelt (which will probably involve detaching the engine shock absorber). Next unbolt the cambelt cover and lift it away. This will give you access to the top three of the six remaining nuts that attach the supercharger to the supercharger to engine manifold, and these nuts should be easy to undo (though try not to drop the washers into anything important).

Detach the breather pipe that runs from the engine block near the bottom left (i.e. gearbox end) of the supercharger (roughly midway along the block) to the air cleaner, and cover the opening with something to protect it from falling nuts and washers. You can now undo and remove the nut and washers below and behind that end of the supercharger (you may have to move the dipstick tube out of the way to get access to it).

Now sit under the right-hand wheelarch, and you will see the fifth nut at the lower rear of the supercharger behind the cambelt. This should also be easy to remove, leaving only the nut in the centre. The only approach that worked here was simply to reach blindly between the cambelt and engine block with a spanner and turn the nut whenever the spanner happened to slide onto it, requiring many attempts before it was finally loose enough to remove by hand.

Now, at last you have the supercharger detached, but it will be held in place by the gasket, requiring application of force F (probably in the form of a hammer and a large piece of wood to spread the impact over the aluminium casing of the supercharger).

It's off! Yay! Go out and celebrate... and try not to carry it across London on foot, because it gets very, very heavy after a while... (I can vouch for this from personal experience)

A typical Haynes manual would now say something like 'Reassembly is the reverse of removal', and it is, pretty much. The main problem is getting that nut at the lower center onto the stud without dropping the two washers, which will take several attempts. You may be able to attach the washers to the nut with grease or glue before assembly. See later for information on replacing the supercharger drivebelt.

'How do I replace the supercharger drivebelt ?'

Ok, first of all you need to remove the old belt (unless it snapped, which won't harm the engine unless the belt gets caught up in the timing gear). To start with, slacken the nut holding the belt tensioner in place, and turn the tensioner to release the belt tension. You should now simply be able to slide the belt off of the pulleys.

Next, turn the steering wheel all the way to the right, jack up the front of the car and put it on stands. Remove the plastic wheelarch liners from the right-hand wheelarch, to give you access to the crankshaft and power-steering pulleys. From inside the wheelarch you should be able to fit the belt approximately over those pulleys, then from above slide it onto the supercharger pulley. With the teeth on the belt correctly positioned in the notches on the supercharger pulley, you can then adjust it on the lower two pulleys (the exact alignment between them is not important).

You can now adjust the tensioner to set the belt tension, and tighten the nut to hold it in place. I've been told that it's not important to get it exactly right, however in the owner's manual Lancia emphasise that it should be done by an authorised dealer (though with the cars out of production for a decade, they probably have no better idea of how to replace it than you do...)

The Lancia service information states that when correctly tensioned, at 25 +/- 10 degrees C, you should get a deflection of 14 +/- 0.5 mm at the centre of the section of belt running from the supercharger pulley to the power steering pulley when a force of 5.35 kg is exerted at that point. There is a special Lancia tool to test this, part 189543100/L -- the Lancia Motor Club in the UK have one available for hire to members.

After you've set the tension, simply replace the wheelarch liners and remove the stands and jack....

'What sort of oil should go in the supercharger ?'

Lancia specify that you should only use 'Tutela ZC 90' gear oil, which should be readily available from Lancia or FIAT dealers. The early Volumex cars have no markings on the oil reservoir to indicate maximum or minimum oil levels, making life rather more exciting, but there is a ring around the centre of the reservoir which can be used as a guide. Lancia recommed that the oil level is checked every day or every 350 miles, after the engine has been switched off for at least five minutes.

Another Lancia service bulletin states that if oil consumption is excessive on early Volumex cars, the pipe bringing oil back from the supercharger to the reservoir should be cut off so that it does not protrude through the cap into the reservoir by more than 10-15 mm. This modification was apparently made as standard on later cars. The oil should be changed every 18,000 miles.

'How do I change the supercharger oil ?'

I have found the following system to be a quick and effective way to change the supercharger oil. Puchase/steal/expropriate a hanging plant watering bottle (the squeeze type with the `J' shaped tube). These are available at most hardware & gardening stores. Cut the cut off the curved end section and fix a flexible hose over the remaining straight end. The hose should have the same internal diameter as the supercharger oil feed hoses. Remove the top oil hose from the supercharger and fix the (empty) squeeze bottle hose over the nipple. Remove the bottom hose (below the reservoir) and drain the reservoir contents into a suitable container. You can then use the squeeze bottle to blow any remaining oil from the supercharger into your drain container. At this point usually I fill the squeeze bottle and flush the system with some clean oil (gear oil is cheap, superchargers are not!). Reconnect the bottom reservoir hose. Using the squeeze bottle fill the supercharger from the *top* nipple. This allows you to ensure that the correct amount of oil is contained in the supercharger housing. Continue to squeeze until the correct oil level is attained in the reservoir (at the moulded ring).

This squeeze bottle device is also extremely useful for topping up/filling gearbox oil which according to the car manual should be done at the transaxle dipstick.

Notes on Supercharger hoses:

The OEM hoses are fairly thin and can easily become inadvertantly twisted when the reservoir cap is replaced after oil checks (the reservoir will rotate in its mounting bracket fairly easily). A twist in the bottom hose (which may not be noticed) will obviously cut off oil supply to the supercharger. This is not good ... things are whirring around in there pretty rapidly! I took the precaution of replacing the OEM hoses with clear braided fuel line. Using this type of hose it is still possible to see oil flow through the line but the braid resists twisting. From memory, the internal diameter of the line is 5mm.

'What does that funny little electric pump on top of the supercharger do, and should it run on when the engine has stopped ?'

That's the fuel vapor extraction pump, and it should only be running with the engine off (it's activated by the coolant temperature being above 70°C, and the oil pressure being zero). Because the inlet manifold is quite long, and the supercharger internal volume quite large, this pump is used to extract any fuel vapor that may have collected in there when the engine is switched off and feeds it back into the air cleaner.

A non-working pump is not fatal, but may cause starting problems.

'How do I fix the vapor extraction pump if it does break?'

It is possible to get the pump working again but you have to be careful: What happens is fuel vapours get into the motor case and eventually the motor burn out. The pump case can be prised open with some effort. The motor inside can be replaced by an identical high speed 12V DC motor available from Tandy or Radio Shack. The impellor is simply glued onto the shaft! When putting it all back, it is essential to make sure the pump case is airtight otherwise you will end up running lean - not recommended! I have carried this out successfully on my Volumex Coupe so I know it can be done! (Mike Reddick -- mike@ams-neve.com)

'What do the extra relays and fuses fitted on the inner wings of the Volumex cars do ?'

There are three fuses and three relays fitted to the Volumex cars which don't appear to be fitted to the normal models (certainly not on pre-1982 cars anyway). On the left side are two relays, the leftmost one controlling the radiator fan through a 25 A fuse, and the rightmost one controlling the fuel pump through an 8 A fuse. On the right side is the third relay with an 8 A fuse controlling an electrovalve that reduces fuel flow when starting the engine when warm to improve warm starting.

'Do I really need to jack the car up, remove the wheelarch linings and detach the engine shock-absorber in order to change the fanbelt ?'

It appears so, I've never found an easier way of getting it out of there. There just doesn't seem to be enough space otherwise.

This is a real pain, and can put owners off changing the belt unless they have to, but you should note that I know of at least one case where a broken fanbelt got caught up in the cambelt and resulted in a dead engine with seven bent valves (out of eight). It could well be cheaper to replace it before it gets to that stage.

'What about my Scorpion ?'

See Ray McNairy's (mugwump2@pacbell.net) Scorpion Notes.

'How do I get some more power for my Scorpion ?'

See Ray McNairy's (mugwump2@pacbell.net) notes on Fitting A 2-liter Engine.

'I just started my Volumex, then there was a thump and a fast whirring as the cambelt skipped and the pistons bent the valves. What went wrong ?'

This may well happen if you don't change the cambelt on a regular basis (I recommend every 25,000 miles, Lancia have claimed up to 37,000 miles). However, there is another problem specific to the Volumex cars. They have an overboost valve in the inlet manifold which opens at around 2 bar to dump the excess boost back into the air filter housing. If this fails to open, as it can do if the car is stored for a while and it rusts up, then your next cold-start will probably destroy the engine.

Other suggestions from Andrew Beaumont-Smith (abeaumon@eleceng.adelaide.edu.au) :

Obviously the belt should be new and in good condition, no oil contamination etc. and the tensioner should be ok.

When I install a new belt, I pull it up tight around each pulley towards the tensioner bearing, run the car and do it again. After 10000km I check the tension again also, although it's probably not necessary.... Also check you don't have the platic cam wheels, if you do then they are probably badly worn and should be replaced with new steel ones. Also the steel ones wear on the edge of the teeth to make them more rounded and should be replaced also. The drive pulley on the crank actually wears worse since it's smaller and I'd replace it if the engine is being rebuilt.

Using old pulleys on a high performance engine is a no-no. I friend of mine and I discovered this 2 years ago when his new 2 litre race motor experienced the same problem at 7000rpm. The result was devastating. He was very upset, it cost him dearly. The only reason we could put it down to was the old pulleys had slipped a tooth, he had 46mm inlet valves and not alot of piston-valve clearance with the cams he was using...bang. Hasn't had a problem since replacing them.

'How do I change the cambelt ?'

Ray McNairy (mugwump2@pacbell.net) has provided details on how to change the cambelt on a Scorpion. This should be applicable to all Betas.

'How do I remove the sunroof?'

It is not obvious how to remove the sunroof. I figured it out on my 75 Sedan (without breaking anything!) with careful work. Here are your clues:

You should not have to disturb the headliner.

You need to carefully remove the handle surround and unbolt the handle assembly (so you can retract the lock-bar an extra distance).

The front of the headliner in the sunroof panel is clipped in place. By pulling/gently prying, it will come loose and you can get to the interior of the sunroof to unbolt retaining tabs at the front corners of the sunroof panel. Am trying to remember the details away from the car. I know I did extra work trying to figure it out. The key it to be cautious and work the headliner panel in the sunroof. I also took the "sunvisor panel" off, but I recall it didn't help with that part of the problem. I also have rust in the A-pillars to work on. (Hugh W Poling - hwp2093@mu.ca.boeing.com).

'Where do I get key blanks?'

Fiat can supply blanks if you have style number and a dealer willing to do the paperwork for a low cost item, about $6 ea. But, the last time I tried for my Scorpion, the one Fiat provided was really out of bed. Seems there are several styles of key for each lock and for all years. I've seen three different door lock for scorps so far. Ignition key blanks are listed at most lock smith shops, at least in Calif. (Ray M. McNairy - mugwump2@pacbell.net)

'How do I replace the front brake pipes?'

The ones with the banjo fittings are not so hard to disconnect from the master cylinder. There really isn't enough room for the aft-brake going line that sticks straight out from the cylinder. I'm not sure how I finally got it away from the master cylinder after pushing it this way and that. Since the nut got bunged up from being stuck fast, I am reworking it to another banjo fitting.

But I suspect the real question is how to get the master cylinder to brake differential pressure switch out. After unfastening the ends and unclipping the line from the body by the subframe, you should be able to wiggle the master-cylinder end out the tie-rod access hole (with rubber boot removed, of course) and pull the pipe out. But you will find it hung on the shifter bellcranks. For this, I just rotated the pipe to encourage the end to work around the shifter bits. I had a little more clearance than you because the rear transmission mount is removed for replacment, but I can't recall if the extra clearance was important. In the end, the pipe had to be tweaked just a bit to clear, but nothing that didn't just pop back into place ( that is, it was bent a tad, but a very gentle curve from original). (Hugh W Poling -- hwp2093@mu.ca.boeing.com).

Maintainer: Andrew Cliffe
Last update: 1st April 2001