Work Resumes, Briefly

So after what seems like ages, Ange and I drove out to Boiling Springs early Saturday morning to visit with Derrick and Sarah and get a little Lancia labor under our belts. The main focus of our efforts was to get the pedal box rebuild completed and then reinstalled.

Step 1: We needed to repair the threads on the stud which extends off the clutch pedal. Somehow during disassembly, these threads had become mangled and we weren't able to get the retaining nut to catch and thread. This would basically have left the pedals free to work themselves out of the pedal box if not corrected. Luckily I managed to get the proper die to take and we re-threaded the bolt in somewhat short order.

Score: +1

Shiny New Distraction Step: I purchased some nice Magnecor plug wires from Jon at Midwest 124 while at the FLU National Convention (which reminds me, I've got pics to post...). These are really lovely and we wanted to install them so that, once the pedalbox, steering column and related wiring was complete, we'd have a nicely running Scorpion.

Well, things rarely go 'according to plan' when you're working on a vintage Italian car. The old plug wires were seemingly welded into the distributor cap as the corrosion was so great. Attempting to extract these distributor ends resulted in ripping the contacts off a few of the plug wires. This left us with new plug wires and a distributor that looked like hell, and the functionality of which both Derrick and I questioned.

Our first option was to use a distributor off one of the oooh.... 5 other Scorpion we have littering the garage floor. We soon realized that the dizzy on Black is different from the others. While annoying in the heat of the moment, it's actually an 'upgrade' from the points system used as OEM from Lancia. But that forced us into trying to clean up the old dizzy. This process went less than 'well'. Eventually we got frustrated and had a good laugh over the proposed "we should just go get a new one at AutoZone" joke. Turns out that the joke is on us. We were able to use the AutoZone parts counter computer to correctly identify the distributor cap used in the upgrade as one off a 1980 Fiat Brava 2.0L. Then, in a shocking turn of good luck, the parts counter guy said some magical words: "Huh, it looks like we have one in stock." I'm sure I shed a tear of joy.

The rest of the plug wire install went fairly well. The only other SNAFU was that, in addition to the upgraded distributor on Black, the location was also changed from being powered by the intake cam to being powered by the exhaust cam. This meant that the coil-to-distributor wire in our new Magnecor set was too short. Blast! Luckily the original wire was in OK shape, so we reused that for the time being.

Score: +2

Step 2: I added new connection ends to some of the wiring we'd been forced to cut when removing the steering column. Seemed to go well...

Score: +3

Step 3: Reinstalling the completed pedal box. Ugh. This was a bear. First, getting the input lines reconnected was going poorly. Luckily we give up on things quickly and this had us questioning our materials (along the lines of "There's something wrong with these nails!"). When realized that the new brake master cylinder input ports were larger than the old ones and this was causing the original input lines to be too tight. We swapped the input ports and away we went! The pedal box went in pretty smoothly after that. The steering rack was next, and that went in somewhat easily.

Score: +4

We then tested out our work by firing her up. All seemed really well until we attempted to use demonstrate the brake lights and the turn signals. Seems something in the electrical system isn't quite right. I'm fairly confident in my steering column work, so I'm not sure where we should be looking. Perhaps a relay?

Final Score: +3

(Sorry for all this verbiage and no photos. We'll do better with the photography in the future.)

We Break the Brakes

A weekend or so ago, Ange and I took a trip out to Carlisle to visit with Derrick and Sarah and to spend some time with our Lancia brood. Our aim was to replace the brake master cylinder in order to get some actual hydraulic pressure into the system. As it was, the master cylinder was completely blown.

The Scorpion shop manual seems to indicate that you must remove the steering rack in conjunction with the pedal box. So... that's what we did.

It wasn't terribly straight forward, but that was partially due to our inexperience with this type of extraction. Looking at it with the benefit of hindsight, it isn't all that challenging. So for future reference or for the edification of anyone reading this who's embarking on a similar bit of work, don't bother taking out the whole steering assembly.

There are six fasteners which secure the pedal box. Two are nuts (13mm, I think) which are accessible from within the trunk. The other four are accessed from within the cabin. These basically hold the pedal box to a metal plate which acts to join the steering assembly to the pedal box and hold both of those items to the structure of the dashboard.

Two of the four cabin fasteners are nuts (13mm, I think). These connect the pedal box and steering jacket to the dash mounting points. The other two (the two closer to the front bulkhead) are a bit interesting. They are round-headed bolts which have no keying (no hex or philips head) that thread into nuts which are welded to the back side of the pedal box. We had to use vise grips to grasp the round heads and rotate them off. This strange design "feature" was not a favorite of ours. Much cursing was involved. So we replaced these with M8x1.00 25mm bolts (Derrick, correct me if I'm wrong). I also ripped the head off one of the dash mounting point studs. We replaced that by drilling out the remaining stud and substituting an M8x1.00 45mm bolt.

Oh, there are also the three brake hardlines which run from the pedal box, through the bulkhead and off towards either the rear brakes directly or the brake booster. The brake lines were 10mm and something else....Derrick? Also the bulkhead fixtures connecting the hardlines on the pedalbox side to the hardlines on the truck side...those were 19mm and 24mm (I think).

Hopefully that makes sense when being read.

Anyhow, once we managed to extract the sucker, we realized just how badly off it was. The brake MC had most definitly spilled its guts all over the pedalbox.

The picture doesn't due it justice. It was a real mess. The brake fluid had eaten away or weakend the bond on much of the paint and there was a pretty decent amout of surface rust. Given the amount of effort to take it out, we decided it would be best to replace the clutch MC at the same time. We also wanted to restore the pedalbox and pedals as much as possible, so we have a nice, clean set of stuff to reinstall.

So we disassembled everything and set about cleaning, sanding, priming and painting.

Ah, during this whole process we realized two things. 1) I had ripped one of the welded-on nuts right off the pedal box as the round-head studs confused and frightened me. My natural response was anger and the liberal application of my massive and powerful physique. 2) Someone prior to us seems to have done the same thing to one of the pedalbox studs that allows mounting to the bulkhead.

So we pulled a 'spare' pedalbox out of Red and set about refurbishing that units for use in Black while we enact repairs on Black's pedalbox.

Here's a shot of the pedal box refurbishment:

We essentially washed the pieces with some dish-detergent, and then sanded them all down. We hit them with some primer which claims to be specifically formulated for 'rusty' metal. Once that had time to dry we sprayed them with the final coat of paint. The first box we did in a nice gloss black. Then Derrick channeled his inner fashionista and did the second set of parts in a dashing silver with a 'hammered' texture. It goes well with his favorite handbag.

The replacement clutch master cylinder was due to arrive last Thursday. So hopefully Derrick has gotten some of the reassembly work done and can give us an update on that work.

I leave you with this shot of Derrick enthusiastically supporting the refurbishment.

Some nice Pics

James took some nice pics of the Maser while we had it out to play.

You can see the new spoiler that I added to the Biturbo.

It wasn't all fun and no work; we did get the water pump for the air-to-liquid intercoolers connected and filled the system up.








I also took the GTV6 out for a spin and it was fantastic, as usual.

Machines

Sorry to keep you waiting - this is too much of a contraption to not be seen (pics from pbase.com).

800 HP AWD Ford Fiesta - Pike's Peak

Black '76 Most Recent Run

So on our way back from the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, Angela and I stopped in to visit Derrick and Sarah...and the Lancia brood. They were wonderful. And Derrick and Sarah were OK too. :-)

While not an official 'working' visit, Derrick and I managed to get a bit of diagnostic work done. Ange jumped into the Black '76 and fired her right up. For this cold-start, we had Ange pump the gas pedal once completely before starting the engine. I think this activates the choke, but that might be just a bunch of thought fragments smashing into one another to create an idea.

Anyhow, the car ran really well. Previously the idle seemed to climb over time, but with this running, it seemed to hold at about 2k rpm. However, it never dropped to what I would consider a normal warm idle. There didn't appear to be any burn-off of coolant, though there's maybe a bit of oil burning on-throttle.

Noted:

• Coolant hoses seemed to all be getting hot
• Passenger side coolant hose to the radiator got hot (we stupidly didn't check the driver side)
• Minor seeping from the radiator
• Radiator fans failed to come on at the standard 87 degrees Celsius
• Fascinating array of switches with unknown uses below the driver's side dash
• Brakes have no pressure whatsoever

I ordered a pile of stuff from Vicks and The Monte Hospital. Hopefully that stuff should be ready for our next work session. At which point, we should (fingers crossed) be able to get the car registered, insured, and road-tested! WOOO!

At last!!

Rick came over and helped me bleed the Maserati BiTurbo clutch. Amazingly it worked!! We took the car out and for the first time I was able to finally drive the car with a working clutch and working steering. As I got heat into the exhaust, the air / fuel gauge I just installed started to work and was stable in the stoich range as I was on the throttle. The boost was set to 5psi after the intercoolers were in the air flow (but not yet flowing coolant). The next step will be to finish the intercooler install, get an alignment, and set the boost.

Replaced bushing, new problem replaces old

I replaced the old bushing, which you can see was a complete mess.


The new one looks real nice.


But before I could even enjoy the fresh steering, I found a few new problems.

I got in the car and started it up and the clutch was always disengaged so I couldn't get any power to the wheels. I took out the slave cylinder and it was stuck open. So I took it apart, cleaned everything, and confirmed the seals were OK. I then replaced the part that makes contact with the pivot arm so that the cylinder inside would sit closer to the back wall keeping this from happening again. I then tried to bleed the system, but, since I was by myself, this proved difficult.

I ended up worrying that the master cylinder was bad. So I decided to take out the master cylinder and give that a rebuild also. While doing that I noticed that the spring on the clutch pedal was broken.


So I welded an arm on to the side and put that back in place and it's working well. After I rebuilt the master cylinder I put everything back together, but I'm still having difficulty bleeding it. I'll have to wait for help.

* If not documented in this service manual wiggle part till it works

As posted before, when the starter on the Biturbo stopped working I looked in the service manual and there was no documentation. The solution that finally worked was to wiggle the starter before I tightened the bolts. After I had the Biturbo engine running again, I decided to install an air/fuel gauge.

While I was sitting in the car all of the electrics suddenly died, the fuel pump, the lights, the dash, everything!

First I checked the fuses but after replacing a few that were missing the problem persisted. The next thing I did was to find the electric section of the service manual and the only thing in there is a child's drawing of the electrical system with every wire drawn with the brown crayon, where as they hired a professional artist to do 30 pictures of the cylinder head.

The Maserati Biturbo has a design flaw in the connectors on the printed circuit board inside the fuse box. So I removed the fuse box and Jim and I spent half a day trying to understand the internals of it. After hours of connectivity tests it appeared that everything was working fine. So we put it back in, connected everything up and the gauges still weren't working. After playing with the connectors pulling them out, putting them back, and wiggling some around, everything started working again.

Timing Belt Vendor #1 Finally Delivers

So, long ago, I ordered two timing belts. We had just gotten our first set of Scorpions back from VA, and all things were rosy. As part of our plans, I wanted to order a few timing belts so that we might replace the potentially dry-rotted one that had been sitting, static, on the Scorps for over 10 years. Now, let me step back a second and say that, despite the 'common knowledge' that Italian part vendors and mechanics are all temperamental and cryptic, I've had nothing but excellent experiences.

That said, I've now encountered the much rumored non-communicating and delay-packed Italian parts vendor. It was a few weeks after I placed my order, having heard nothing from the vendor confirming my order, that I went out and ordered from Vick's. I then contacted Vendor #1 and asked why I hadn't gotten a confirmation and a general "So, what's up with my order?" The response was an epic "We sent you a confirmation email weeks ago." Period.

Ooookaaay. So my response email went something like "[Angry thoughts redacted] Well, I've not gotten anything, can you please resend it?" That email was met with all the silence the internet can muster. Every piece of information humanity has ever created is available on this amazing 'internets', all except a simple timing belt order confirmation. There's a billion things going on throughout the internet at all times, which somehow only magnifies the effect of being ignored.

Dry your tears. I know, it's a trying situation, and reading such magnificent prose on the subject must cut like the sharpest of blades. Fear not though, Vick's is fantastic. Jerry's (the proprietor of Vick's) response to my inquiry was Walter Sobchak-esque: "You want a timing belt? Oh, I can get you a timing belt, believe me. With nail polish." Ok, it maybe wasn't quite like that. The lesson though, Vick's is great and they got me a belt in no time. I'll be going back to them.

I had just about given up on Vendor #1 actually getting me anything useful, when lo! They managed to deliver me something just the other day. They look good (see below).














Interestingly, the newspaper the Italian part was packed in was written in Chinese and contained a large ad for The Encyclopedia Britannica, in English.....with prices in yuan. Lancia Scorpions, the international language.

Hooza!!

I finally did it! I took the starter out and wiggled it around and then seated it back and tightened the bolts and its working. Don't know how, but I'm not going to question a good thing. I took the car out for a spin and it really needs a new bushing for the steering rack (I saw this when I was reassembling everything). There is about 15 degrees of steering wheel travel in which the car doesn't react as the steering rack slides back and forth on the bushing. However, if the steering rack is already in contact with a 'side', and you turn in that direction, it reacts instantly. The combination of these two things makes it a little scary to drive. Check out it running here, hopefully you can hear the turbos:

Starter part Deux

So I got the bolts through the bell housing and the starter and tried to start the BiTurbo again and this time a diffrent sound but still just as chilling. I'm looking at the picture again and I think it might need to go through 2 diffrent holes in the bell housing then the ones i have it in. It's awesome that there are a multitude of diffrent orientation in a spots that you can't see.

Starter

So I've figured out whats happened!!! There are no instructions for this in the transmission installation section of the service manual, nor is there a dedicated section for starter installation; but there is this diagram that I found in the engine section that shows that the starter is actually supported by bolts that go through the bell housing. I have the bolts and I know where they go through the bell housing, but I thought they were the usual "extra bolts" that I have lying around after any installation. Because those bolts also were being used for the trans grounding strap, which I had connected to another bolt, I figured that I didn't need them again. So I think that the starter slid further down into the V of the engine after I had removed the trans and I couldn't get the bolts through when putting it back in. Now the starters location is entirely hidden from view at all times and you can barely get your hand up to where it is supposed to be so I think this will be a challenge but I don't think I need to disassemble anything!

Milano body work

The rear fenders on the Milano were pretty rusted through when I got her. So I bought some replacement body panels and cut out the original body panels that were bad and welded in the new good ones. The next step will be to smooth everything out add some primer and then give it a fresh coat of paint.

Intercoolers

When I first got the intercoolers they looked like the first picture, pretty beaten up and poor looking.











To give them a nice look I sprayed them down with black crinkle paint that they use on truck bed liners and then used a sander to sand off the raised portion on the outer ring and the Maserati symbol . Given how hard it was to sand off the paint, I don't think I have to worry about them degrading for a long time.











Then, I cut the intake tubing to fit the intercoolers in and put them in the intake path. I welded a 1 inch diameter pipe onto the intake piping on the pressurized and non-pressureized path and connected in the two bypass valves I bought.










After this I tightened all the hose clamps and I'm ready to fire it up!

Progress?

Today I spent some time reassembling the Maserati after finally getting the trans back in after replacing the clutch. After getting the trans in, you have to reconnect the steering rack.










So I centered it, bolted it down, and attached it to the steering column.









Next I reconnect the exhaust, but before I did that I welded in an O2 bung and installed a sensor. This way I can monitor fuel ratio as I adjust the boost.









After I got all everything put back together and cleaned up the garage, I lowered the car and hopped in. When I pressed the starter (Ed: Bob has a 'Start/Stop Engine' button in the BiTurbo) it sounds like it is grinding against the back of the fly wheel and it isn't turning the engine. I have no idea how this happened, but it looks like I'll have to take everything off again and see whats going on.

I don't know the rpm you rev...

Third running event. Startup took a little effort, but it's been about a week since last startup. Some time with the fuel pump and pedal pumping helped out. Started it up, and let it run up to temp. Some observations:

• The idle continues to climb at idle - starts at 1.5k and climbs north of 3k rpm. I don't know what this means.
• We have oil pressure. ~20psi or so?
• The heater blows hot air. Well, maybe not "hot", but I feel a temperature difference swinging the lever from "hot" to "cold".
• Radiator is def getting some hot coolant flow. I actually noticed some smoking toward the front of the car. Probably some stuff burning off.
• Still a little smoky beneath the exhaust valve covers.
• From the overwhelming smell of Sex Panther in the garage, I would estimate that we are running "pig rich", as the kids say these days.
• We have no brakes. When running, the brake pedal goes straight to the floor. There is "fluid" in the reservoirs. Also, I didn't realize this contraption had 3 brake fluid reservoirs.

So, comment away. All ideas are appreciated.

I feel bad not posting a pic, so be jealous of THIS (Sarah rules):

Victory

To rewind a little bit, over the course of a month or so James and I managed to relocate the Scorpions back to my garage. They were located about 320 miles away in beautiful Roanoke, VA, so it was quite an effort - some of them didn't run, and the ones that probably would hadn't been run for a few years. So we figured it was best that we tow all of them back and not risk any damage or breakdowns trying to drive one back through the Blue Ridge Mountains. Our strategy for this was to drive two tow vehicles (w/trailers) down and get two at a time. It was about a 5.5-hr drive one way, 3-4 hours to load the cars/parts onto the trailer, and then a couple of hours to unload back at my place.

Incredibly, this process went almost 100% glitch-free. Only surprise was really that Bigfoot's starter failed the night before a planned trip, but luckily it was a straight-forward fix and it only delayed us a couple of hours the next morning. Oh, and I also learned that James and I can push a Land Rover LR3 with a trailer about 100 yards. Thankfully, there was no gas in the LR3 so that saved some weight.

Now it was time for the fun stuff - to try and get the healthiest candidate running again. We took most necessary precautions - drained/filled the gas tank (kind of), lubed up the cylinders, hand cranked a couple of times, new battery, debugged some electrical issues, starter fluid in hand... and then it was time to give it a go. Witness:

You may not be able to see it in the lower-quality vid, but the stuff that was being ejected from the muffler was actually mouse poison! Quite a bit of it. I hope that doesn't mean there are mice left in the exhaust system somewhere, but I suppose that's possible.

We let the car run for a while, and shut it down when we saw the temps getting around 210F or so with a lot of white smoke coming out of the tailpipe and header area. Since then, I've added quite a bit of coolant (we didn't check the level before our attempt - whoops), and it seems to run fine. The temp can still creep up past 190, but there's no smoke drama. I shut it down at about 210 just for precaution - I'm not really sure what temp is "normal" for these to run at. The coolant level still manages to drop a bit between heat cycles, so maybe the coolant just needs to work it's way through. Next steps are to bleed any air from the cooling system via the radiator plug, bleed/verify the brakes, oil change, and then the first road test!

Derrick

Greetings all, Derrick here. So James and I have recently acquired a few older Italian cars and hopefully this ‘blog will keep those that are interested updated on the status of these beauties (among other interesting, fun contraptions).

A little of my background – I’ve always had a thing for cars, but a few years back I bought a Subaru WRX Wagon, which brought the car thing to a whole new level. Before I knew it I was autocrossing the car every chance I had and was learning about ways to make it go faster. I’ve been competing and modifying the car for the past few seasons, and I thought it was about time I experienced some other cars. Enter the Scorpion. Enter the Scorpion. Enter the Scorpion. Enter the Scorpion. What have I done. Enter the Scorpion. Enter the Scorpion.

I'm pretty new to this Italian Car thing. My knowledge of these cars is pretty limited... but what’s NOT to love about a rare, 30+ year-old, Pininfarina, racing heritage’d, mid-engine, RWD, Italian two-seater?? We definitely have our work cut out for us. This should be fun.

Now for some pics of cars you haven’t seen yet:

The Gravedigger – if you ever see me gridded up at the autocross next to fully prepped Lotuses, Miatas, Civics, STIs – you’ll understand. This is my daily driver, prepped pretty well for autocross competition but far from “max attack”. List of upgrades include, but are not limited to: stiffer springs, adjustable struts, stiffer swaybars, camber bolts, camber plates, various suspension/driveline bushings upgraded, exhaust, wheels/tires for every occasion, and believe it or not, no boost modifications (yet). Might I note the mechanical similarity to… the Lancia Delta Integlory.

Bigfoot. This is relevant to the cause for two reasons: 1) it was/will be instrumental in retrieving cars/parts 2) it’s fixed or repaired daily which tends to take some work time away from the babies. That will be my excuse if it seems that progress is slow on the Scorpions.

That's it for now - I'll try to get some more exciting videos up of what we've done so far...

Scuderia Toro-serratura

Hi, I'm James and Derricks friend Bob. The origins of this post can be traced back to a spring day in early 2004 when James called me up and invited me down to his house in King of Prussia. It was on that day that he let me drive his GTV6 and not more then a few weeks after that Me, James, and Ange were driving to Lancaster with a pocket of cash and an Alfa in my sights. Little did I or James know what we had started... Now some 5 years later I have a few cars that I'd like to introduce.
My 1984 GTV6 was a carrier of the Alfa bug and the infection spread quickly. I bought the GTV6 with a 3.0L heart transplant. The aim of this car is a cruiser / track car and I try to keep this in mind when buying parts and making modifications. At this date I've removed the air conditioning, added stiffer rear springs and replaced several bushings with the poly replacements.


After being infected with the Alfa bug I couldn't last a full week and sometimes more driving a "normal" car. I found a neglected baby in need of some tender care. After replacing the battery and the timing belt I got the eninge to start but it was far from running smoothly. It took a long time to track down a minor vacum leak inside of the cold start air auxiliary valve. The small air leak was wreaking havok on Bosche L-jet fuel injection keeping it from being able to be a driveable car. After fixing the air leak, I cleaned up many bad sensors. Now she's my daily driver during the fall and winter months.

The next car in the stable is the classic GTV from 1974. As you can tell the outside is in need of some attention. The inside is in good shape as all the seats have been reupolstered. The engine was rescently rebuilt and since the picture it has been given performance springs which really improve the apperance and the handling.



For my next car I went south from Milano to the town of Modena to a tiny manufacturer called Maserati. The 1985 Biturbo has classic elegant lines which mask its true character that really wants to go fast. When the car arrived the previous owner didn't know that the wastegate has been disconnected. Luckily i found this out and reconnected it. Since then i've installed a manual boost controller, liquid to air intercoolers, bypass valves, and a SPEC stage 2 plus clutch.

Welcome & Introductions

Well, hello. Welcome to In The Garage. This is a blog to document and share the experiences of James and Derrick (and Shake and Bake, if they're interested) in dealing with the trials, tribulations, joys and excitement of buying, restoring and enjoying motor vehicles. It will, hopefully, be a fun thing.


So to kick it off, let's introduce the vehicles:

James' 1984 Alfa Romeo GTV6
I mostly use the GTV6 for nice-day cruising and Autox. Upgrades are not aimed at achieving 'maximum attack', but she still managed to perform respectably in STS. This is really a fantastic vehicle. I've driven just about everything from Porsche in that era, and while some are probably just as, if not more, capable, none were more engaging. Actually none were even close except the mid-80's 911, that's a nice vehicle. Anyhow, the Alfa really captured my interest, so I got one. I think that decision sparked the vintage Italian car spirit in my friend Bob and my brother-in-law Rick. It took longer to ignite Derrick's interest, but I think this car had something to do with it.

1976 Lancia Scorpion (Black)

Turns out I don't have a solid photo of Black without Derrick in it. So you get Derrick modelling the lovely '76. This Scorp is pretty well restored. It hadn't been run in 10yrs so we're working on getting it to run well, but the cosmetics are pretty solid. The interior has been converted from the original red to a subdued black. It's nicely done. There are also a host of mechanical upgrades which were done by either the PO or the fellow who owned it before him. I think there are relatively few things we know we want to do on this car. Euro bumpers would be a top candidate. The Ansa exhaust needs a restoration, and we might contemplate moving this car away from the Weber 32/36 to a set of dual Weber 40 DCNFs. It's all notional at this point.

1977 Lancia Scorpion (Gold)

So apparently neither Derrick nor I took a decent shot of Gold while we were picking it up. So I'm posting this shot Derrick's fiance Sarah took. Anyhow, the Gold paint is nice, except for one or two areas where the PO was eliminating a spot of rust. Overall though, very solid. The interior is a bit rough, as the seats are shot. Aftermarket wheels are neat. It also seems like the PO was in the midst of disassembling everything in the engine bay. Currently there's no carb, exhaust, thermostat, etc. The documentation we got with the car indicates that there were some planned upgrades, so likely the process to install those had begun.

1977 Lancia Scorpion (Silver)

Silver is interesting. It seems mostly complete, interior, exterior and mechanical. The PO seems to have stripped the car down to the metal and resprayed it in the OEM color (or close). The car needs to be reassembled now, but should be looking good once that's done. The interior is the oh-so-awesome Lancia red. This photo is of us loading her up and getting ready to haul her home.

1977 Lancia Scorpion (White)

Ahhh, white. Such a fantastic color. The base color of most Lancia Martini rally weapons. What's that? Unfamiliar? CLICK ME AND WEEP. Anyhow, the white '77 is solid, but there are a number of surface (non-structure or so we think) rust spots to address. The interior looks whole and fan-freakin-tastic in blue. I believe there's been some tuning work done on this one by the PO as well. We'll have to scour the documentation and get it all sorted out.

1976 Lancia Scorpion (Blue)

Blue is on the cusp of being a parts car. It seems like a lot of the structure is OK, but there are major areas of rust that will need to be carved out and replaced. Derrick believes this is less a problem and more an opportunity to create our own 037. If he or I had any of the required skills, I'd be completely on-board. Oh hell, I'm completely on board, who am I kidding?

1976 Lancia Scorpion (Red)

Red is likely going to be a parts car. It seems as though there are large portions of scructural rust and there's almost no major area that appears completely solid. I'd love for us to save it though, but it may be a bridge too far.

Well, those are the Derrick and James cars. Hopefully Rick and Bob will join in and post about their vehicles too. Similarly Derrick, if you want to chronical the WRX or the million BigFoot repairs...