It seems ages can pass, & I'm too busy working on cars to get around to the website. What I'll do here is just throw up some photos of recent projects. Some of this stuff is just to neat to pass up on , even if I didn't do a full photo essay of the tasks at hand.
I'l just build it so the page scrolls down & put the newer stuff at the top.
Enjoy.
I must remember to keep a camera at the shop. Here are some of the ones that didn't get away without a photo:
I had a beautiful Citroen DS wagon in a sublime 2 tone green & creme visit last week, but the camera was at home. Oops. Maybe it will return & I'll take a photo or two..
Wow. Remember when all cars didn't look the same ?
There's also a 1959Flaminia S1 Zagato on the lift.
I 'll take a few snaps before it drives away.
It's in a color very similar to the Aston Martin Zagatos & looks great.
Here's the usual flurry of activity in the driveway today.
Here's a Touring Bodied Flaminia that came in for some tuning. Another wonderful color choice.
You don't see many of these around anymore.
Think of motoring down the French riviera in one with the top down.
Very clean original interior ( Lancia never used carpets in the front, even on their luxury models. Only for the back passengers. )
Look how well preserved those mats are............
It's always a pleasure to have Lamborghinis drop by.
This one's coming back for some suspension work but runs great.
Another recent afternoon at the shop. The Giulietta needed a little help.
Here's the windshield wiper motor seized solid.....
Coming apart: Filthy.
The armature was OK but the field coil was open.
A bit of cleaning
Back in service:
A Lancia Flavia. Wonderfull cars.
In for a water pump & a few other bits
The pump looks a bit scruffy:
While I was in there the generator mount on the pump got remachined so the pulleys would align.
Happy again:
It was transaxle season for awhile in the shop. There was a flurry of them.
Gears everywhere............
Something satisfying about a gearbox. Is it the symetry, or wondering how on earth they machined the thing ?
More ring & pinion gear shimming. Always a slow task, but rewarding when you get one dialed in & it's quiet on the road.
Pushing a dead Porsche 959 in the shop.
When the suspension sinks & the motor won't start there are similar qualities to a dead tractor.
Heavy & unyielding.
Get 'em running & they'll wake you right up though.
Rocket Ship !
Every few years the cactus will bloom. It's only for one night though. By morning it has closed the flower.
The smell is incredibly intoxicating.
How can such a benign lump as a cactus generate enough hydraulic power to open & close 2 flowers in 24 hours ?
Ah yes. A memory of the past. The paint has a nice patina on this old Triumph.
Another day in the life. Driveway activity & cars from many countries...........
Here's some Fulvia brakes apart.
A bit cleaner,
Going together,
Assembled:
Fish tacos. A hand built surprise I stumbled into & the flavor was exceptional.
Converting a fuel gauge sender from one make & model to another
Bend the arm, change the resistance, & do some soldering. How hard could it be ?
Made it to Europe recently to try to buy some old cars. Here's the kind of things they drive. Too bad I can't import those ! Wow. What fun.
Made it to an auto jumble & filled my suitcases with heavy things. The overweight tariff was a bother......
The food was great. Here's a home made fish soup with local cheeses. I think the pasteurization process we have here in the states has something to do with the flavor difference. Those goat cheeses on that platter were breath taking.
Just a local color shot here.
Here's a country garage front that got me lit. Look at the windows on the building & the sliding doors:
What a great fantasy to locate Eddins Moto in a place like this.
Ah shucks. Berkeley California is just fine, but the cheeses you can buy over there just smoke what we get. ( & look at those doors again ! )
Just for impression, here's a shot up the street from the same location. It's a differnt world over there.
Old buildings, funny looking new cars ( That get incredible mileage. I was getting 52 MPG in a fully loaded diesel.....)
& grandmothers on mopeds.
The Party's over. Here I am in front of my rent a car heading for the airport. Last European baguette clutched firmly in hand..............
Both cars I lined up to buy over there were sold to locals.
It's not easy to import the cool stuff...............
Here's the fuel injection project coming along in the electronics lab.
Looks so organized.
The reality is at 3:00 am there's more wires & meters out & I still don't have it figured out,
Darn it.
Here's a local squirrel waiting to bother the cat..........
& a really nice second series Fulvia:
In for a little tuning, & then on to a new home. Looking for a Fulvia ? This one's for sale. Click on the link below:
Another day in paradise:
A series III Appia in Morro Bay on it's way to drive to Los Angeles.
And yes that is a small furry creature sitting on that rock in the background admiring it.
Lotsa nicely made little parts in those Alfa Romeo mechanical fuel injection pumps:
A crank, four rods, pistons, & many forged & hardened parts.
They must have cost almost as much as the engines to manufacture.
A charming little car: Fiat 850 Convertible. ( & a Volvo P1800 in the background ) Notice the fishing line strung around the outside on axle stands.
If you really want a straight reference, it's hard to beat a piece of string pulled tight.
You don't really need a computerized rack to do super accurate alignments......
Nice tail. & nice in Blue.
Ah, An Aurelia convertible
What a nose.
In for a tune up, & for sale at 100 ( !) times the price I sold my last one for .
Over the years I owned two convertibles & an Aurelia Spyder with the bolt on plexiglass windows.
Delightfull cars, & when they were affordable I commuted in them .
Drove them like a regular car. ( The tops always leaked in the rain. So so heaters, but a great exhaust note..)
I actually became pretty knowledgeable at fixing them too.
Now that they are the price of small houses, most peopl tow them to shows & don't actually repair them to drive.
Nice to have one back in the shop again.
( I think I sold my last one to pay for a plane ticket to Italy. I went to visit Moto Morini, & the Ducati factory.
Preservation of equity ? Errr.... Maybe not. But they say memories are priceless. Darn it. )
Harvest season ?
Don't forget to make home made pickles: The store bought ones don't taste the same......
Even if you don't grow your own, go to a Farmers market, buy some cucumbers & find a recipe.
Here's another crowded day at the shop.
How many Lancias ?
A little closer to some of them ....
Now here's a Lancia Flavia with a 1956 Alfa Romeo 1900 Sprint
Fascinating to drive them one after another. So different.
The Alfa has a wonderful whirr & chain howl that's very mechanical.
The Flavia is narrow & quiet with lighter steering.
They both need carburettor work.
Bad lighting, but a very nicely done interior.
Those pesky carbs.
Flooding, hard starting, not enough venturi effect to get the airspeed up below 3000 RPM
Those venturis have literally been bored out into a straight tube with no neck down.
Just tell the owner to rev it up constantly. ( What's the quote ? "Drive it like you stole it " ? )
Good luck smoothing out that off idle flat spot. ( It helps to raise the float level 4mm so the transition from the emulsion tubes starts earlier...)
Looks so innocent with the airbox installed. Kinda like a new Audi or something, just hide the scary techno parts under a cover...
Look:
Here's a close relative.
Also an Alfa Romeo sprint, but a few years later with a 1300 motor.
Cousins:
I have always enjoyed the Bertone cars. Just look at that door panel:
George Jetson would have wanted one I'm sure.
This Sprint had a carburation issue & also a mystery noise.
Back when I was a Rock & Roll singer in England I used to haunt used bookstores to restore my sanity from working in the music industry.
Over the years I acquired a great selection of old volumes.
Todays' good fortune is that I found one of those books with a diagram of this actual rare carburettor & the area making the hiss:
On close inspection it appears the carb on the bench is missing some parts that are in the drawing:
Wow. It would have taken forever to have figured that out without a diagram.
Here the camera lens was covered by a sticking iris, but you can make out some drawings & part of the choke mechanism I fabricated.
At some point the vacuum compensating valve for the choke had been lost.
It automatically adjusts for the initial choke richness by opening with vacuum & letting in more air to lean out the mixture.
As it was missing, it simply became a constant vacuum leak & hampered off idle transitions. Similar problem to the 1900 but a different cause.
Weber never offered the part originally, & you had to buy a whole new top cover for the carb if you wanted one.
That was back in the 60s, if you could even find a Weber dealer.
A very nice design, & a pleasure to fabricate a new one with some brass bits, a light spring, & a lathe.
With the miracle of a lathe you can just make stuff.
I still can't believe what you can do with one.
Going together. Much simpler than the earlier yellow Sprint:
Ready to go.
What a great little car.
Now here's a gorgeous little first series Appia.
I was hot for a Lancia & a friend of mine had the same fever.
It is so difficult to find a nice one here in the States.
Just two guys having a beer one day, I think it was Ira that said: "Heck. I'll bet we could find some Lancias in Italy."
That's how it started.
We made a deal: He would sort out the travel details, & once there I would be the mechanic/car specialist.
Find 2 cars, bring 'em home & split the expenses.
What could possibly go wrong ?
A few months later we bought some plane tickets, did a bunch of research & went to Milan.
3000 kilometers on a rent a car in 12 days and complete burn out.
Just madness really. What would we do if we even found some cars ? How do we get them home to San Francisco?
Like anything else, go as far as you can & from there you can see further.
The journey deserves it's own webpage but the bottom line is Ira found this Appia and I found a Fulvia GT in a nice dark green.
Somehow we got the paperwork done & shoved them into a 40 foot container & just made it back to the airport in time.
That was almost 6 years ago. I have since imported 11 cars out of Europe, but this Appia & my Fulvia are what started it all.
I still drive the Fulvia all the time & Ira exercises this Appia regularly.
Note the twin carb setup & handmade Abarth header !
Snappy.
Here's a starter rebuild for a Citroen:
A nice shot of some aluminum on the bench.
Here's a cute little signal generator I made for a fuel injection project. It's an old scanner motor driving a paddle wheel from a GEO Metro distributor triggering a variable reluctor coil.
Speed adjustable & puts out a great sine wave. It helped solve a tuning mystery.
I also built this little board that allows one to ask questions of a fuel injection computer & review the results on an oscilloscope.
The learning curve was steep but it has really come in handy several times.
I learned how to open up & resolder heater cores recently.
Good thing too. Look at the mook in this one:
Proud new owner with a Lancia Ardea:
Look at that original Italian wool. What colors !
Trying to figure out how Lancia originally installed this trim strip on a Flaminia:
Rebuilding a Lancia Flavia generator from assorted parts.
Here's a transaxle conversion I was working on with two different ring & pinions:
Word has gotten out that I can fix Citroens .......
A super clean LP400 that needed some electrical work. Did anyone mention the easiest way to get to the relays that are mounted to a board welded to the frame tubing is to remove the windshield ? Ow.
Carb adjustment ? How hard could it be............
Here's a typical day at Eddins Moto: Cars everywhere. A bit of crowding but every one is interesting
Well, not actually a car, but here I am with my Band Mavalour playing at the Viper Room in Hollywood on a Saturday night. I'm the guy with the Telecaster.
A good time out !
A nice pair of series III Appias:
A very clean Ferrari 365 GT 2+2
Among other things, the drainplug had snapped off. Here's how to make a bolt from a piece of brass: (& what's left of the old one next to it. )
Turn to size, 16mm
Cut some 1.5 mm threads
clean up a bit past the threads
Cut it off & here's the 1/2 way point
Get creative on a mill & put a 17mm hex on the other end, & bevel the head 30 degrees for aesthetics,
Installed.
Here's a nice Lotus Europa in for a freshen up:
An English car with a French Motor & a wiring harness related to a blackberry bramble.
I can't wait to drive it when it's up & running, but I'm still looking for sparks.
A great Alfa Romeo 1900 that came in:
Here's the Appia motor coming along:
The new Citroen I found hidden in a building in France.
It's the one that's getting a gauge from the Gauges page
The Garden is enjoying the weather:
So that's what goes on inside a modern Camera.
It died & I admit it was the devil to fix. Tiny little pieces. How do they make them?
While I was in there I fine tuned the closeup feature. Nice details now....
I always liked Lamborghini Espadas.
Another great thing with Lamborghinis is any color is OK. It's not like a Ferrari where anything but red raises eyebrows.
A great Green Metalic on this example:
Lotsa stuff here. Carburettor work really isn't so bad, but if you're going to adjust the valves you'd better have a sandwich lying around.
It could take awhile.
Here's the motor of the month . Looks normal from here with the head off of this Lancia Appia:
Hmm. One piston has gone missing and left the connecting rod & wristpin to sit in the open.
Ah. There's the piston: It was hiding in the sump.
As the piston migrated about it left aluminum bits about like a fog. (or chocolate chips in ice cream.)
This piston just smeared over the ring lands like grainy peanut butter.
Tough to see in this photo, but the piston bits are holding the valves open.
Wow !
Another nice day.
Here's the front of the shop this afternoon:
Lancia Flaminia Pininfarina coupe
Note the center dual exhaust !
The Devilish leak prone booster:
Inside of th power booster:
A Maserati Indy in an interesting color. In for tuning to get rid of a miss, & a curious set of problems:
Handbrake on, Generator light goes on too. Use the turn signals and the gas gauge goes out.
Step on the brakes and the water temp & Oil temp gauges fail.
And if you open the drivers door with the engine running the tach fails.
Ow.
To top it all off, it has a French wiring harness.
All fixed now, but vexing in the moment.
It runs really well & feels like an Italian Corvette.
The sound between cement buildings in the industrial section of town is wonderful.
Here's some shots of a Lancia Fulvia front wheel bearing hub.
A beautiful forging.
That nut would not come out. That's Jasons' foot in the photo.
He held the acetelyne torch while I used a 7 foot ( yes, seven foot )
breaker bar on yet another fancy ring nut socket.
Finally all apart
The Shop Christmas card:
What a nice Series III Lancia Appia !
It was in for several things including front brakes. Beautiful pieces:
Wow.
Seems to be a Cisitalia from the late Thirties or 1940s.
Once I got it tuned up it sounded great with that open exhaust pipe.
Even the guys from the Howlett machine works came out to listen.
Here's a nice Ferrari 212 Inter that came in with running issues. Sounded great, but would mis-fire above 3000. A long path to find the electrical gremlins, but it did sound like the traditional "ripping of silk" when it left. Remember to always check the relationship of the rotor to the cap pins when tuning distributors with multiple sets of points.........
Gibson reviewing a pesky module failure:
Here's A nice original Lancia Flaminia Zagato. It had been sitting for awhile so it came in for a variety of things:
Freshen up the brakes;
Carb tuning, & of course that booster in the back ground caused no end of grief...
Axle work;
The transaxle came out;
A beautiful hand made electrical relay;
A stub Axle;
Mike Machining those rare rotors:
Some bits ready for re-assembly:
An ultra rare Maserati 5000 in for tuning issues: Check out the inlets for that early Lucas Petrol Injection.
Lots of distributors, plugs & points sets too.......
A Maserati Mexico. Came in for a tuning issue and now pulls like a freight train:
A great 4 cam 3.0 litre Lamborghini Urraco. This particular example now sings:
I should have taken more photos. It has some very nice lines in person.
The Fulvia you want to own. A true factory Rally car, not an imitation:
A Lancia Fulvia motor in for a little refresh:
Look at the tar in the sump!
There was a rod knock, & here's the reason:
Together again:
A Lamborghini 350. It came in for for a tuning mystery :
The oscilloscope before:
The oscilloscope after
A nice Alfa 1900 Primavera in for Brake work:
An early Guzzi V7 Sport in for tuning:
An early Ferrari 250 PF for a mystery driveability issue:
A sweet little Fiat 500 for a ground up restoration:
An Appia motor. Beautiful pieces:
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