duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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1976 Lancia Beta Spiderduncanmartin
@duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member 70
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I'm sure I created a thread for this way back when I got it in 2006, but I can't find it! Anyway, here is a proper introduction to it. The first picture I have is this one, not long after I bought it as a badly running project.  Lancia Beta Spyder by duncancmartin, on Flickr It just about ran, but didn't sound great, and it obviously needed lots of welding. I didn't have any time, so it sat in the garage for a year until I moved house. Then it sat under a cover on the driveway. I got all the electrics working (took a while - the previous owner had done fun things like removed the indicator repeaters and connected their wires to earth), but didn't have the skills to do anything about the rust. It looked quite cool I thought.  Beta roof off. by duncancmartin, on Flickr  Beta interior by duncancmartin, on Flickr Then, while trying to make it waterproof I discovered this hole in the roll hoop, and gave up for a bit.  Rust hole in roll bar/roof by duncancmartin, on Flickr Another house move, another driveway, and it was looking even more sorry for itself as I just stored loads of random car stuff inside it! Thankfully I don't have any pictures of it in that state! Finally, I got a house with a garage, and it moved in (to get it into the garage, which is down a steep slope I had to push it with my other car - the back brake is seized on pretty badly!).  Beta in garage by duncancmartin, on Flickr The garage is quite small (I'll post some more photos of quite how small in a bit) - fortunately the car fits (honestly - I measured the length of the car and the length of the garage before I agreed to buy the house!  ). It will restrict future projects though - I don't think I could get anything much longer than 4m in there! This brings us up to late 2010. More to come (though no more moves!). |
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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1976 Lancia Beta Spiderduncanmartin
@duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member 70
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One of the first things I did was jack it up to have a look underneath. Not a good move - there was a large creak and a crack appeared in the front of the rear arch. I guess the chassis rails are pretty buggered.  beta arch crack by duncancmartin, on Flickr So I jacked it up using the rear jacking point, which caused a miniscule amount of movement enough to split the rubber hose from the fuel tank to the filler pipe. Cue petrol smells in the garage (and the house as it's attached), and an emergency drain and subsequent removal of the fuel tank. That took a while, as it's held in by captive bolts and incredibly rusty nuts - I ended up cutting 2 of them with the dremel! Then I stripped the interior, and it wasn't a pleasant sight. Someone has obviously done lots of welding already on this car - it isn't pretty, but it looks strong enough where there is actually metal:  Beta Rear inner arch by duncancmartin, on Flickr but in too many places there isn't:  Inside drivers side by duncancmartin, on Flickr  Beta floor by duncancmartin, on Flickr And we've already seen the hole in the roof. So last year, I bought a welder, stuffed it into the garage (I told you there wasn't much space - there's about 6 inches between the car and the wall the other side) and started practising welding.  Welder in garage by duncancmartin, on Flickr My welds got ok, and then I got sidetracked by other things, but now I'm back on the case. My welding skills are back to where they were, I've got a swager, a metal shear, and some steel, and I'm ready to get on with making new floors. |
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Clement
Europe
ambitious but rubbish
Posts: 2,095
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What a lovely, lovely little car. I believe a (sadly passed away) member of RetroRides had a pretty good thread here, in my eyes his car is perfection. Good luck on the rebuild |
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good stuff !
p.s if you tick the bookmark box at the bottom of your original post (you can even go back and edit it and tick it afterwards) you can access your old threads in profile > bookmarks
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Nice and rare car. Good luck!
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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1976 Lancia Beta Spiderduncanmartin
@duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member 70
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Hongkongphoeys thread is brilliant, when I feel like selling it on and getting something that works I read it for inspiration!
I realise I neglected to give much info about the car. It's a 2 litre spider with the lampredi twin cam, and I think it's a series 2 pre facelift version which is why the lights are faired in. The interior is tan vinyl, and I think it looks really cool, but the drivers seat is falling apart, and neither front seat folds down properly. And the door cards are knackered.
My plans are to get it running and MOTed before doing any mods. Coilovers would be nice, but there aren't any off the shelf ones available, so they will be pricey. The steering isn't power assisted, so I don't really want wider tyres, but would love to change them for something a bit cooler. The engine is currently on a single carb, it would be great to go to twin 45s but that would need other engine work to really see the benefit, and that means real money. It might be cheaper to get a Thema turbo engine or something, but the latter engines have the inlet and outlet ports switched around, so conversion would be pretty involved. We'll see how I feel when it's going. That won't be soon, so I've plenty of time to consider mods... :-)
Cheers Duncan
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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1976 Lancia Beta Spiderduncanmartin
@duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member 70
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Made some progress today, though irritatingly not as much as hoped for. Good bit: I put some swages into my floor panel. :-) Bad bit: I messed up when transferring the pattern from paper to metal and put them in the wrong way around. :-( Good bit: it will be fine for the passenger side, and that will probably need doing too. I didn't finish the end of the swages as I ran out of time, and I can't bash stuff in the evening. Looks ok - it should look a lot better when it's finished.  floor panel with swages by duncancmartin, on Flickr  floor swages by duncancmartin, on Flickr |
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79cord
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,607
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Floor panel looks beautiful so far! Hope it eliminates some of the older patches too. Certainly an unusual floor panel wrapping up the sides like old Ford Escorts with the sills & other plates going on underneath & sides for multiple layers, they weren't lightly built so I'm almost surprised they don't weigh more @ around 1000kg +-30 for Coupé 's. Don't remember seeing a thread for it before so great to see it now. Makes me sad it has been so long since I even looked at mine:  (with link). Sounds like I've had these about as long as you. Sadly I haven't given it/them a thread on here yet either since it has been so long since I worked upon it. Too many other distractions, but at least they are stored away & not deteriorating like most of my other toys. |
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Last Edit: May 10, 2013 10:14:41 GMT by 79cord
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May 10, 2013 12:30:00 GMT
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beater into beta !
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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1976 Lancia Beta Spiderduncanmartin
@duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member 70
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May 10, 2013 18:00:41 GMT
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79cord
Love those coupes. You've done some pretty neat work on them too. The area you describe in front of the back wheel arch is terrible on mine. You can see a hole in the top of the sill through the inner wing panel if you look carefully. It's going to be quite awkward to get to that bit I think! Still, one thing at a time - I need to sort the floor pieces before I do anything else...
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May 10, 2013 21:26:23 GMT
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Nice. Got a real soft spot for these...my first car was a black Beta Coupe |
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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1976 Lancia Beta Spiderduncanmartin
@duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member 70
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May 11, 2013 11:05:09 GMT
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It's so much faster to do things the second time. :-) Almost finished - just need to manually hammer the corners of the swages, and bend the end on the panels.  2 floor panels by duncancmartin, on Flickr Need to find a home for the swager now - it's s getting in the way on the bench. |
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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1976 Lancia Beta Spiderduncanmartin
@duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member 70
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Aug 17, 2013 21:22:10 GMT
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The new sills I ordered arrived yesterday.  lancia sill by duncancmartin, on Flickr I couldn't have made this profile myself...  sill profile by duncancmartin, on Flickr Now all I need to do is clear the junk off the car, weld some door braces in, tow it out of the garage, remove the doors, put it back, and then get on with the actual work!   garage mess! by duncancmartin, on Flickr At least I cleared allmost all the junk off my bench. Except for the enormous vice I bought (without jaws - ooops), as a reaction to the tiny modeling one being a bit too small...  bench plus vices by duncancmartin, on Flickr |
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Last Edit: Aug 18, 2013 8:32:43 GMT by duncanmartin: Fix pictures
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Nice work, and great car. It's reassuring to see another guy with modest skills taking on such a project. Though I've never seen one of these on the road, I know that there are a fair amount of these languishing in the States. I see them somewhat regularly for sale in the US online classifieds. You might hit up the US Craigslist.com as a source for parts. Lots of Fiat Twin Cam parts over here too (looks over into garage...).
I just got a house in the burbs with a proper garage, and got my '72 Fiat 124 Sport Coupe out of long term storage. It's not rusty, but it needs everything. Dueling Fiat/Lancia threads from novice builders would be cool! Best wishes to you and your car, post often!
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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1976 Lancia Beta Spiderduncanmartin
@duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member 70
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Since I last posted, I've cleared some of the junk off the front of the car, bought some angle, and spent about an hour practising welding. At this rate it's going to have decomposed completely before I actually get anything done on it. I just don't have time and energy at the same time! The weather has been good, so I've been in the park with my little one, and driving her and my wife about the place. It would be so much nicer driving something that's fun to drive rather than my (extremely functional) Multipla. |
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,872
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Well winters on it's way now, so should be plenty of dark grey days to get stuck in to the metal work. You gotta take that Multipla discontentment and focus it at the welder  |
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bstardchild
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,882
Club RR Member Number: 71
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1976 Lancia Beta Spiderbstardchild
@bstardchild
Club Retro Rides Member 71
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Always had a soft spot for these but never had enough brave pills to take one on
I thought I'd found a perfect one of these back 23 years ago that was local too me - had been fully resprayed and claimed a heck of a lot of bodywork, new panels etc - it looked brilliant but I couldn't get a magnet to stick to the windscreen pillars or the sills or most of the corners at the front and the rear - It looked too good to miss but with an epic qty of wag everywhere it was time to walk away
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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1976 Lancia Beta Spiderduncanmartin
@duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member 70
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Dec 19, 2013 19:42:45 GMT
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Nothing happening on this except that it's getting buried in junk again. :-( Being honest with myself, I'm not going to have much time next year either, certainly not a much time as this would take. If I could find a good home for it, I'd let it go, but I suspect anyone else would break it and that would make me  |
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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1976 Lancia Beta Spiderduncanmartin
@duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member 70
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Dec 22, 2013 20:32:10 GMT
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I have something of a dilemma with this car. I really don't have the time (in the next year or 2) to fix it. I was thinking about just getting it sorted and accepting that it would cost more than it's worth, but then my wife casually mentioned that she hates being invaders with the roof off. Which makes a spyder, with attendant leak possibilities and extra noise and weight kinda pointless.
I'm assuming it's basically worthless (saw a similar car go for £276 on eBay recently). My ideal circumstance would be for someone to restore it, rather than scrap it and strip the few valuable bits, but I've no idea how to find such a person if they exist.
Any ideas?
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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1976 Lancia Beta Spiderduncanmartin
@duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member 70
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Someone on the BetaBoyz site messaged me to say that they want to buy and restore it. So it's probably going to a better home in a few weeks. Hopefully that will mean it will be back on the road by next year.
It will also mean that I can get a car that works and I can drive.
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). It will restrict future projects though - I don't think I could get anything much longer than 4m in there!
