International Lancia Forums

Cooling in Flavia's. I have a Vignale which I have run both through the hills and also on VERY hot days ie;35-40deg Celcius. The radiator has had the entire cooling system thoroughly cleaned with hoses thermastat and the like replaced. No trouble what so ever. Incidently the radiator does NOT have shutters on the front as they are not required in our warmer climate. They were theirm when the car was built but have been removed by other persons.

I am restoring an 1800cc Zagato Flavia and I am interested in the auxillaryt fan you have seen somewhere. Was it a Lancia addition or not. Regards, harry Heuchan Perth Western Australia

Hooray for the old Lancias.

My experience with Flaminias (all alloy engine like the Flavia) and Fulvias resembles that reported by Huib. I live in Southern California which has lots of traffic jams and can get quite hot. Overheating only occurs when there's something wrong. Isn't it wonderful that such old designs can perform so well in modern conditions? In the case of an old car that hasn't been gone through recently, there is a lot that can be wrong and Huib listed the likely culprits admirably. The only addition I offer is the (hopefully not applicable in your case) possibility of internal corrosion to the alloy heads and blocks from previous owners' lackadaisical maintenance of the coolant. The corroded material can gather in some inconvenient place in the engine and interfere with water flow.

Thanks Alan and Randy. When I wrote the earlier posting I could not be 100% sure as I have not driven all Lancia's in all conditions. On the other hand, the experience I have both in driving them and working on them strongly indicated this would be the case.

Luckily I have a friendly radiator shop around the corner. A new core costs a 100 euro. A new heater core less. Being originally from Indonesia and living in a country with winters I ask them to put a bigger core in the heater unit, which tends to be expensive, but still much less than a 100 euro.

The original thermostat is becoming expensive, over 30 euro. However, the Wahler 3029.83 is available everywhere and fits nicely in the hose. It costs around 10 euro. Put it in the right way: that is with the feeler into the original thermostat housing.

New radiator hoses have to be original, but are usually not overly expensive. For the other hoses I buy 4 meters of Gates 12mm heater hose. A Flaminia probably needs a bit more.

For about 250 euro your Flavia or Fulvia has a completely new cooling system. One of the first things one has to do, when one buys an over 30 year old car. Chances are 99% that the system was neglected by previous owners. On all cars I bought except the Appia the radiator was bad or very bad. I have the privilige of teaching a few guys and girls of the next generation how to maintain their Fulvia's in my barn. After all we must make sure our Lancia's will live for the next centuries. So, I see quite a few rads. Invariably they are bad.

Even when the condition of the system and the climate are such that overheating does not occur, the engine will probably run at a temperature which is higher than it is designed for. This leads to other problems. E.g. oil is thinner and oil pressure is lower.

Don't forget to put new bearings in the radiator fan. I have seen more than once a heater fan go through the radiator like a propellor. If the original bearings are the types which are "greased for life" does not mean average life is 83 years as with humans. Life of a bearing could be two hours. After more than 30 years I doubt the grease is chemically still grease. Better replace them. They cost next to nothing.

Hello Florent,
Lancia Flavia 815. spare parts catalogue is a mining site of informations (1968 edition), but it brings you a pretty headache if you try to correctly gather what it states.
About water coolers it refers to three types of them for 1.8 coupè and convertible, each type having shutters or not (six types of cooler in total). Notes at the end of the drawing descriptions, do not state if they are fitted to cars leaving for hotter countries. I did the check for 815.330\331\430\431 (1.8 coupè) and 815.334\335\434 (1.8 convertible) because I own a 1964 1.8 coupè and these models have the same radiators.
- For 815.430\434 (iniezione) one only type of cooler was fitted from Lancia, with or without shutter; these ones were fitted to cars ranging from chassis 12560 (first type of new coupè cluster) to 16568 (last coupè built) and Lancia states for them “815.430 origin”. No note was put at the end of the table for these radiators\chassis.
- For 815.330\334 (and even 815.130 with 1727cm3 - variante 1005 – or 815.130 with 815.300 engine!), two types of cooler were fitted, each with or without shutters; first type fitted to cars ranging from 815.330.4100 (first 1.8 coupè built-see Pininfarina section) to 815.330.10983 , second type from 815.330.10894 to 815.330.12559 (last strip speedometer coupè built) and Lancia states for them “815.330 origin”. Notes were put at the end of the table, stating which a chassis, among first or second batch of cars, had the two types of radiators swapped (old radiator with new batch, new radiator with old batch); no mention about chassis with or w.o. shutters.
If you want I go on in boring you to death with part numbers and so on…….let me know.
Today I’m not yet able to state the real difference among these radiators. I will be greatly pleased (and not only me I presume), in having a word by the boffins working at Lancia in those days.
Ciao a tutti, Carlo.
p.s. I sent to all of you, rad.tif. Were you able to read it?

Ted:

Carlo's wonderful e-mail demonstrates the value of a parts book. I have found this resource to be more helpful than the shop manual in many cases. They have excellent blow-up diagrams and list everything in several languages. As Carlo mentions, Lancia actually noted down individual cars that were equipped with atypical parts. Quite amazing for a company building 30,000 cars a year. You will want an edition similar to Carlo's, focusing on the 815 Flavia versions (there are later ones-819 & 820-they won't help you).

I assume that radiators without shutters went to locales with weather like my Southern California weather--we simply don't need the shutters.

Don't be too intimidated by the plethora of model numbers cited by Carlo. Lancia used a separate number suffix for right hand drive and left hand drive cars. Lancia also used a separate number for the injection cars. They also had separate numbers for the early 1.5 liter cars vis-a-vis the 1.8 liter cars. So, as it turns out, the serial numbers are very informative as to what type of car you are dealing with. In fact, I've found the numbers to be a good defense against buying a car that a previous owner had performed strange "mix and match" operations on with respect to the engine and transmission.

Carlo,

I've got the spare parts catalogue but it must be the first time that I do not think about having a look at this mine to find the answer to my question !!
Thank you for spending time to find informations. I think my cars have their original radiator and they both have shutters (815400 engine for both) but I've got a 815334 for spares, coming from Italy and it does not have shutters, and I know some other cars in France with or without shutters and that's why I was wondering if someone had any explaination about shutters fitting on Flavia radiators.

Any way, you're right, it would be really great to hear from someone who worked on Flavias....

Regards

Florent

PS : I've correctly received your file (many, many thanks), but there's only one page and I feel like there must be some more... right ??

Hello to all of you guys,
I did not put the second page of rad.tif, for I did not scanned it. In that page I wondered about to put an heater extractor in the engine bay (which I did sometime ago) or to find a Flavia 1.8 coupè\cabriolet radiator with header tank OVER fan blades, as presumed when reading spare parts catalogue.
By the way, I did not rebuilt my engine and did not decrusted crankcase water ways , hence I can not be sure over the causes of my Flavia overheating when queing. Florent, check if the right side of your header tank has a welded roundel, if so, someone removed thermostat and shutters.

I will be retired within four months and will have more time to spent on my cars (Fulvia, Flavia, Giardinetta), also I’m very pleased in sending as a gift to Huib, the simplified wiring digrams I made for Flavia 1.8 coupè iniezione and my Flavia coupè carburazione. I already sent to Huib the wiring diagram of Fulvia GT\2C and I like to say HE CAN DISPOSE OF THEM IN THE WAY HE WANTS. He did and is doing, a great strain in his Lancia site and I feel in debt with him. I made these simplified wiring diagrams, drawing them fuse by fuse. They are a big work, I think will be so helpful for passionate and professionals. I hope them could represent some reward for Huib. Ciao a tutti, Carlo.

Hello Harry,
hope this message could reach you, for the first I sent went aborted.
Filippo did a research in his library index for Flavia Zagato having fan instead of front grille. The car is an 815 SPORT PROTOTIPO Zagato, depitched in the front page of January 1996 Ruote Classiche italian magazine. Better if you can find that number for there is a long article. Ciao, Carlo.

Ted,

I have a Flavia Vignale that I am restoring (slowly due to other comittments) and could help with quite a lot, I suspect, since it is mostly original. I also have some extra parts that may help, as I acquired another Vignale that came with two of most parts. I was not looking to get rid of them, but would be happy to help a fellow enthusiast if stuck for something unobtainable.

Best Regards Peter