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De-                   ing!

Delta Evo2 Martini livery
removing martini vinyl from integrale

This is a customer's Evo2. It has come from Japan, and it's been painted white, then Martinied up. It's a poor job, the lights and glass have been masked around, there's white spray on the door liners and window rubbers.

The decals are easily removeble printed vinyl, so with the weather being warm, the stickers are coming off easily.

I'll give it some love, and strip it down for painting red again, here's how this was done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way home the sun was warm, I pulled some decals off when I stopped for lunch. It felt good!

A Martini livery Delta

That's enough for one day, the Delta's away for the night, you can see all the red finish exposed behind the bumper.

This is a nice Evo2, we'll clean it up ready for painting, but there's a good bit of work yet.

So back home the work started, we peeled the stickers off, and when we got bored with that we started stripping the car itself.

 

Bumpers and bonnet off, lights out and radiators off.

The engine bay has been can sprayed matt black, I'll get most things out of the way, but taking the engine out is a step too far!

 

The car is very sound, there's no rust down below, the paintjob has been done quickly though, and laid on thickly too. It'll take some work to get it right.

Lancia Delta front end removed
Lancia Delta front bumper removal

Bumper removal

A good day's work!

More red is exposed. But the white paint is everywhere, it's thick too, every grommet and bolt head is painted. Every component will have to be cleaned with thinners, like the interior light switch below.

I'll use new bolts to reassemble.

Lancia Delta red interior

As it's taken apart, the Delta's history is slowly revealed, the rear offside ashtray was full. Only that one ashtray, it was full of slim menthol stubs, smoked not much more than half way down. Must have been a mysterious back seat guest

At the bottom of another door this Abarth card was found.

Some door card mountings weren't factory drilled, a lazy day at the factory?

A red interior

Lancia Delta stripdown rear
Lancia Delta stripdown

That's it for another day, all windows are out, lights and trim all removed. The rear mud flaps are mounted with massive Allen bolts & 13mm nuts, attached to the bumper and wheelarch, I can't reach the inside bolts without taking the wheels off, I'll leave that a while!

 

I collected this Delta in the UK home counties, the journey up North with the car revealed it had no turbo boost, so I'll strip the front, and remove the turbo for a rebuild, and see what else is wrong. It's just had the belts done, so that's one less job.

Bertone badge on Delta Integrale

This Bertone badge is behind the bumper on the front valance.

It's a paint stamp of some kind, does that mean the last Deltas were assembled by Bertone?

I'd like to know, if anyone has the answer.

Delta Integrale exhaust manifold

All that's left to remove are the headlights, windscreen washers and bonnet prop, oh and the turbo. The air box is removed to access the n/s headlight, but of course the relays are in the way.

Next whip off the turbo, I undo the hardest nut 1st, the hidden manifold bolt, made harder as it brought out the stud too.

There's no need for me to explain what a horrible job extracting the turbo is, everyone already knows!

A hidden Bertone badge

An Integrale as nature intended - in bits!

That's it for now, it's as stripped as it's going to be today!

 

There's some rust on the lower windscreen rail, I'll have to sort that out before the car's painted, and get the rest of the stickers off too.

 

I'll continue when the car goes for painting.

 

a stripped down integrale

Right, time to take the doors off. I disconnected all the wires into the door systems, and carefully labelled them. I removed the door stop pins and undid the door hinge bolts. There are spacers here behind the hinges, again I labelled them all. Sometimes there are more or less shims to level up the doors, but all the hinges had 3 shims each, back and front.

 

I'm going to leave the tailgate in place, unless the painter is really struggling, I'll leave it alone. I've removed every removable item, but the back door wiring is such a ball-ache to put back I'll leave the door in place.

 

Confirming this is a sound car, behind the wings was as new. There is just one hole in the windscreen pillar, it must have been a stone chip left to rust, I'll fix that next.

removing wiring from delta door

A man being careful...for once

There was a little hole in the screen pillar, at least it was small until I cleaned it. So I cut a little piece of sheet to weld in.

 

I did this, and of course blew through the pillar it was so thin. I built up weld around the repair then ground it back.

 

A skim of filler, sanding with a block, then a spray of primer did the trick.

 

When the paint dried, I could see a pin hole in the filler, but the painter can fix that!

 

The lower windscreen rail is ok, I gave it a good cleaning then treated it with Jenolite.

integrale windscreen pillar repair

A bit of filler hides a lot

Integrale with no doors
hilux loaded with delta bits

Well the Delta is stripped down now, I have to keep it towable to get it to the paint shop, so that's as stripped as it will get.

Lancia Delta ready for repaint

My laziness has been out-voted, this strip down isn't enough, the engine must come out. I know they're right too! So that'll be next.

Pete the painter wants all the doors, bumpers and trims first. So there's just one more job, taking the stickers off the bumpers.

 

When this is done, I'll load the pick up and deliver the parts, it's just around the corner so won't take long.

removing selenia sticker

A Hilux earning its keep

6 weeks later . . . .

Pete had been very busy, he'd flatted off all the white and primed the car. He was a bit worried about the Japanese paint adhesion, and wether it would take a solvent based paint job.

But he tested areas, and all was ok.

So Pete has repaired the bumpers, painted them and all the trim parts. Then the door frames and engine bay, it's looking great.

Watching your car transforming in the hands of a skilled painter is a true joy!

Integrale in paintshop
Delta in paintshop
Delta repaint

I had removed everything from the car, the tailgate too in the end. Pete painted all the trim off the car, with the door edges, bonnet and tailgate. Then the guys fitted the 5 doors and lined them up.

Pete then painted the exterior completely, to ensure there was no chance of a paint shade or finish difference between the doors and the body. Pete used a Rosso red, expensive, 2 pack system, he mixed the final coat with half clear gloss lacquer to give good shine. This worked very well, the gloss finish is deep, not with a modern water based mad shine, but a lustre like an original factory finish. The body edges are crisp and original, not with the heavy float of a modern finish.

You'll see above that Pete painted the door window frames and the B pillar satin black, the Evo2 is the only Delta to have a painted centre pillar, the others are a plastic trim.

The call came that the Evo was finished, it looked superb, as red as red can be!

I collected the car on the trailer, carefully winching it up on its cradle, being very gentle.

It's not far from the paint shop to our lock up, but I strapped that little car down well.

So now we have to put everything back on the car. I'm so pleased with the paintwork, it seems a shame to cover any up!

I had collected the bumpers and trim earlier, all carefully bubble wrapped, put away safely ready for fitting, after I've put the oily bits back on.

repainted delta on trailer
repainted delta
repainted integrale

You probably get the hint that I like this paint job! As with everything Delta-wise it was expensive.

But they say the quality remains when the price is forgotten, that is very true. This is a perfect paint job.

Next is to get the engine back in, without scratching the paint. I'll wrap the car up like the beautiful baby it is!

Report on fitting up next.

You probably get the hint that I like this paint job! As with everything Delta-wise it was expensive.

But they say the quality remains when the price is forgotten, that is very true. This is a perfect paint job.

Next is to get the engine back in, without scratching the paint. I'll wrap the car up like the beautiful baby it is!

Report on fitting up next.

On Top Gear, when Jackie Stewart showed James May how to drive fast on the track, Jackie told May not to accelerate out of a corner until you could keep on accelerating.

I was reminded of this when rebuilding our Delta, don't tighten up any bolt, until you can tighten them all!

There are some, well many, areas that need sequential assembly. I fitted new engine

mountings to this car, and the area shown above left has 8, 9, or maybe 10 bolts which must all line up with their holes.

This is asking a lot! The jiggling and bar work required to fit one bolt often requires the previous bolt to be removed before it'll pick up its thread, then maybe the whole previous component removed, etc. etc.

I guess if you were doing this assembly every day you'd soon get the rythm, but as a part-timer doing this job maybe once a year, much can happen in between times to make you forget the last time you did one!

lancia delta top mount
lancia delta engine mounting
integrale engine in place
integrale turbo mount

Another example of too tight too soon.

The bloody bottom turbo support bracket didn't quite line up, I knew

it was wrong to dog it up at the engine, but I went ahead anyway,

and was punished for my impatience.

Getting engine started

I refurbished this car's engine, all belts, water pump, clutch etc. as recorded on other pages. Re-installation wasn't without problems, again as reported on other pages, but I fought back and wrestled the car to submission. The motor looked lovely in it's freshly painted bay, however it got up and dealt me a knockout blow, with the engine installed, it wouldn't start!

lancia delta engine cam cover

So I proceeded in the usual way, checking every multi-plug connection, I checked and swapped all the relays, I fitted new spark plugs and leads, I also replaced the crank sensor. The plugs did have a spark outside the engine, but no joy within.

 

I checked every sensor again, and cleaned its connections, nothing would make the engine start. I didn't want to continue the build-up until the engine ran, so I turned to the fuel supply.

 

There was no smell of fuel in the engine, so I tested the pump, its pressure, and the fuel rail pressure, all were good. The injectors were clicking so they were getting a signal. I was stumped and getting more disheartened. I even attempted to see if the injectors sprayed off the car. This didn't work of course.

lancia delta pump pressure test
lancia delta fuel pressure test

With the injectors off, I decided an injector clean would do no harm. So I removed them, with the fuel rail, this isn't hard to do, and took them for a good cleaning.

 

I took the parts to Fuel Injection Services in Burscough, this is a long established company specialising in fuel supply repairs.

Injectors are discussed in more detail on the injector page, here . At Burscough, the boys ultrasonically cleaned the fueling parts. They use an Asnu machine, which pulses the injector while cleaning it. I assumed the machine blasted through the injector with big pressure, but it only uses 2.5bar or so, and gently cleans the parts.

 

Steve told me modern unleaded fuel can leave a varnish-like film on the injector parts, bunging up the little internal filter basket and sticking the needle valve inside its holder. So the Asnu solvent and careful cleaning did the trick, with the car not being used for 6 months, the fuel residue had indeed hardened around the internal filter, and blocked the spray nozzle too.

A faulty injector was changed, and the assembly re-installed on the car.

I hooked up the fuel pressure sensor and all the pipes, put the plugs and leads back on, and made sure the sensors were all plugged in correctly. I connected the battery, turned the ignition on allowing the fuel pressure to build up, then more in hope than confidence I turned the key.

The engine fired up straight away! Joy!! It ran a treat, no misfire, just perfect. Well that's another lesson learned,

or several lessons really, but mostly - keep trying!

I don't care what it does, as long as it starts up!

A malfunctioning Delta can really spoil your outlook on life, your Italian baby's problems become such a priority, nothing else seems to matter as much!

Christmas is good, but a sweet running Delta...!

A nice build date confirmation

With the car now starting up, I'll leave the engine and continue with other work. I had the roof lining remade locally in an Alcantra-like material, it's ready to fit.

 The first job was fitting the windows and door furniture, this is covered on the Windows page here.

 

 

The rear, window level, air vent cover, interior rear trim and strut covers, seat backs and seat belts were fitted next, not in the right order. So they had to be removed and refitted in the correct sequence, which I have forgotten already! Roof lining next.

delta fuel tank build date
integrale rear interior

Back to business...

Roof Lining

The old roof lining was grey, dirty and as usual, sagging. They are a simple job to remove and have recovered, and brighten up the interior when refitted.

lancia delta roof lining
integrale interior mirror
lancia delta grab handles

When removing the rooflining, you need to remove all the plastic window trim, sun visors, grab handles, rear view mirror, front and rear interior lights.

The front console with the clock, above the rear mirror needs careful treatment, the old plastic is now getting brittle, so needs gentle handling.

The first thing to do is remove the interior light, this hides 2 fixing screws for the console. These are often overlooked, and the console plastic broken, this had happened here previously, so refitting will need some big flat washers. Then remove the mirror mounting.

Removing the remaining fixings is quite simple, then draw the lining assembly out of the tailgate.

 

To refit, slide the lining back in, push it up into place and it should stay up there, while you refit the grab handles.

You'll need to grow another hand to refit these, one to hold the screw, one to hold the screwdriver, and the third to hold the handle down against its spring. Good luck!

Each handle mounting frame thing has a little knob on the side, this needs to engage under the roof lining surround.

Windscreen Washers

Don't even think about saving the old washer jets, getting them out will drive you mad!

Pull them out and throw them away, then ring AECar and order a new pair, at £5.40 each they're a bargain.

integrale sun visor

When these cars were assembled, some of the smaller trim parts were fixed with sharp, hardened, undrilled self threading screws. This makes it hard to locate the thread again when the little hole is covered over.

The sun visors and the carpet side trim screws for instance, can be hard to locate. Make sure you keep the screws with the trim when removing, using the original screws is helpful.

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