My wife said "what about a B20 ?"

[simonandjuliet]

Not something that you hear everyday - your husband or wife suggesting that you buy another car, especially when you have one or two already !

But that's what happened about 18 months ago and I bought a lovely, complete and running 4th series B20. I knew that there needed to be some metalwork done and then a bare metal repaint (and so did my wife) so no real surprises , except that there always are some ......

So this thread will be about a relatively straight forward body renovation, done in-house by Dog and his team. I get involved when needed and of course, pay the bills

It has taken much more time than anticipated but there were reasons for that , so please read on !

(I think that I did start a thread about the B20 but can't find it anywhere, so starting again)

[simonandjuliet]

A couple of photos from early on

First showing the car as it was when delivered

Others showing the areas where attention was most needed once the car had been stripped of all its paint.

The rear valance had had various repairs over the years, most recently by Peter Harding in the late 70's, when the car was last painted.
The wheel arches were also a bit tatty having had a few repairs and possibly a small accident on one side, so I bought a new set of arches
The side jacking points had also been removed so they have been re-installed
And then the floors, whilst strong, they had been plated over so they have been cut out and new panels made using home-made tooling for the indentations
Most parts have been hand made and I'll show those as we go along

I really liked the cream colour, but wanted to repaint in an original colour - much more about that later

The previous (long term) owner is a well known Forum member so I will let him identify himself if he wishes to !!

[impaw]

I will follow this thread with great interest.

And I am 100% positive that my wife never will suggest weŽd get another car:D
So count yourself lucky!

[chriswgawne]

We are so lucky in our marriages Simon aren't we?
I cant imagine having such a time consuming hobby as these old cars  in which my wife didnt want to be an equal partner.

 We bought this (our very first Aurelia) B20 back in 1978 in Stoke on Trent as a complete car but in bits. It was in a dry garage along with a pre war Audi race car! It sat for some years in my garage in Surrey  due to lack of funds and time ( and a couple of blind alleys along the way) but eventually the car was back on the road  and it became pretty well used over the following 30 years both in Italy for 12 years  and the UK.
With advancing years, grandchildren and Brexit it seemed appropriate a few years ago that we reduced the number of old cars and as a result Simon is now well along the way of doing a lovely job of a full body restoration which Jacky and I are very pleased about.
Keep the photos and progress updates coming Simon!
Chris

[simonandjuliet]

Thanks Chris !

Starting at the back, first job was to remake the rear valance. As I said, the majority of the repair panels were hand made.

To help the process I had already bought a shrinker/stretcher and manual bead roller, and to these I added an English wheel - all low end, affordable tools from people like "Frosts".

Dog and especially Papa F, have training and experience, but they don't fabricate parts everyday, so there was some trial and error .....

The rear valance was made up from 3 pieces, fitted and then welded into place with the lower skirts (more later)once he inner panels had been cleaned up and primed

[simonandjuliet]

Must mention a very fiddly piece that probably took longer than the rest of the rear valance - the inset light !

The photos explain it better than I can - starting with the old .....

[simonandjuliet]

This is not our first foray into B20 ownership,I was lucky enough to have a 3rd series when I was a student. I was living in Liverpool 8 just after the riots and even though the B20 was parked on the street , it was never touched !

I can't find a photo in Liverpool, but the slightly out of focus shot was taken in Rickmansworth in about 1985

I had lots of adventures in this car and loved it then sold her to David Laver (seen here getting his photo taken....) who then sold it to the Kennedys who are still racing it very successfully

[DavidLaver]

Am looking forward to this !!!

[simonandjuliet]

I hope it brings back some happy memories David !

Chris had buckets fitted to the car, but I am going back to standard trim (which came with the car , just needs to be re-upholstered at some point in the future), out they came and Marvin is keeping them warm whilst he checks on progress ....

The floor was cut out along with some extra cill plates. I am looking for photos of the new "pressings" for the grooves on the floor, but can't find any just yet - when "papa F" gets back I'll look on his phone ! But the photo shows an early practice piece.

[simonandjuliet]

Back to the back end, the side pieces were rolled on the English wheel and then fitted provisionally whilst the wheel arch was prepared. We didn't use the whole panel , just went back into the wing 3 inches or so

Then all welded in - you can also see that the hole for the jack has been revealed !

[simonandjuliet]

Once all the metalwork was done, we tipped her on her side and then removed all the old underseal ..... horrible job even when you can access the under sides

Again, some previous repairs were neatened up and then everything had 2 pack primer before underseal

Then back to bodywork

[Parisien]

Couldn't agree more, I think I totalled 40 hrs removing the under seal plus on cabin side of floor, not something I'll be repeating any time soon!

My metalwork no where near as solid as yours, and the following sandblasting revealed just how bad it was.

P

[simonandjuliet]

I asked Dog to summarise what he did on the underseal etc, his reply is below !


"Right,  so, with your  Lancia, underneath, we have gone back to bare metal and applied an epoxy primer and then a coating of Mipa MS300 which is a Polymer based sealer, this has a high level of protection and is resistant to high temperatures and the application process I use  very closely matches the original Lancia finish from that time. It also retains a 'rubbery' texture so provides great resistance to stone chips.
Inside the shell we have followed a similar process with the epoxy primer though I've only used small amounts of MS300 in key areas like where the floor pans meet the sills etc.. Then I have coated all the lower half - floor pans, boot floor, wheel Wells, bulkhead,  inner sills with U-pol Raptor to create a hard, protective 'shell' inside the car.....Currently this is black as it arrives outta the tin but it may end up in body colour colour depending on what the client wants, he's a fussy bugger...🤭🤭🤭😜"

[simonandjuliet]

So , colours ......
 
According to the records our car was originally Amaranto - a bit of a "Marmite" colour - you either love it , or you hate it !!
 
Thanks to one of our number who lives in the States I found a code/colour. I showed various photos of Aurelias in Amaranto to my wife and daughter - they weren't convinced. So next I asked Dog to prep and paint an Appia wing that I left in the kitchen for a week, but they still didn't like it....
 
So the search was on for a colour that was correct for an S4 B20 - and one that my wife liked !
 
I identified the available options. I didn't want a metallic so that narrowed it down. The problem was then how to get an "accurate" colour. Dog uses MIPA paints and they couldn't provide codes for 1950's Lancias, especially since they were originally painted with  Max Meyer paints (bought by Lechler ?? please correct any errors that I make !)
 
Tim Heath put me in touch with a company in Germany who makes up rattle cans using Lechler paints with the original paint codes, so I bought the non-metallic paints and Dog painted 6"x4" spray-out cards
 
These were then presented to the girls and between us we made a unanimous decison - rare in our house
 
So the colour will be Azzurro Celeste NF 8012 and we have painted the dash & column so far

Just need to find a space in Dog's busy agenda to finish the painting !!

[GG]

Looks like a right lovely color - the early cars look great in pastels, very period.
The overall subject of color is a deep rabbit hole - there are several posts of it on an older blog: http://blog.lanciainfo.com/?s=color, but the bottom line is its very hard to get back to original colors with certainty. Lechler did do an updated matching in the early 1990s, although their paints can't be found in the US, so hard to check. Paul Mayo and I have done a fair amount of work in this, without full resolution.
Your use of their small sample bottles to make swatches is a great idea (long hoped the club would make a library of the colors for sharing) - but the Avorio seems way off... although others seem better.
If you've found something you like, and it seems you have, then hooray. And we can all tiptoe around the deep hole!