LANCIA GAMMA BERLINA
RUN BY Martin Buckley
OWNED SINCE May 2019
PREVIOUS REPORT December 2021
At the end of January I decided it was time to give the Lancia an airing, and what better excuse than the Gamma Consortium Winter Lunch near Aylesbury? Rather than just drive over on the Sunday morning, my wife Mia decided that we should make a bit of an adventure out of it and book into The George Hotel in Dorchesteron-thames the night before, driving there via Hungerford on Saturday afternoon for a look around the antiques market.
All went to plan, although I came away empty-handed in Hungerford because the person who sold motoring books in the big antiques shop has moved on to planes, trains and anything but the rare car titles I remembered from my previous visit. Driving in the gloom brought it home to me how awful the headlights are on this car, not helped by the fact that the righthand one had no dipped beam.
Otherwise the Gamma was going well, although I was becoming aware of a low-speed ‘miss’ that suggested new plugs may be in order. The car was also proving hard to keep going when cold, but we got to lunch in Aylesbury without incident.
Six Gammas turned out at the Canaletto restaurant, which was impressive for a gloomy afternoon in January. Meanwhile Mia, not a particular fan of this car, even admitted through gritted teeth on our return journey that “the seats are quite comfortable”.
While it was out of the barn, I decided to get Ken Britton to look at the running problem and a few other issues such as the brake warning light, the bonnet catches and the passenger-side electric door mirror. Ken had been promising to let me have a go in his Vauxhall Omega-engined Gilbern Genie and was kind enough to let me have this bright-green Welsh monster as a courtesy car while he was working on the Gamma. His only instruction was not to do any burnouts because they chew up the Mgc-type rear axle.
This was my first drive of any sort of Gilbern and, more than anything, the vivid torque reminded me of driving a Cobra with a roof on: maybe the kinked gearlever is another mental link.
What a joy a big engine in a light car is: you can tootle about in fifth gear all day, or dispatch virtually anything through the gears using 235bhp to move just 1931lb. Ken might even part with it if you wave enough money at him.
The Lancia’s spark plugs were a bit grim, but the running issue was really down to the fact that the idle screw had dropped out of the carburettor. With it back in, the low-speed urge has returned and it’s going better than ever.
It seems the door mirror needs a new motor, but Ken was defeated by the bonnet issue. I suspect it has something to do with the fit of the bonnet rather than the catches themselves. Another problem is the oil-pressure gauge, which currently flicks to full deflection with the ignition on, before you have attempted to fire the engine.
I consulted Gamma expert Charles Shelton on this and he said: “There are two pressure senders near the oil filter; the small one triggers the warning light and the large one does the actual gauge – I assume that you want the large one?” Apparently the small one often leaks oil: something inside it fails, and fluid passes through and accumulates on top of the cylinder head until you go round a corner, when it spills on to the exhaust. “It then produces a smokescreen reminiscent of a WW1 destroyer,” said Shelton. “The large one is pretty expensive as I recall, but I’ll see what I can turn up.”
He went on to say that I might not need even a new sender; it just sounded as if it was shorting to earth: “Try disconnecting it from the sender, then turning on the ignition and watching the gauge before shorting the connector to the engine block to see if that makes a difference.” That all sounds a bit technical, but I’ll give it a go.
‘I was becoming aware of a low-speed “miss” and it was proving hard to keep going when cold, but we got to lunch in Aylesbury without incident’