05/04/10. Another addition to the family. After selling 5 of my cars since xmas and saying I wasn't taking in any more strays, I did it again. My arguement is that the Range Rover is to big and thirsty for the short runs to the train station, and this is were a cheap little car would be handy. So I spotted the Cinq locally for sale and having owned 4 Cinq Sportings before knew straight away it would be perfect for the job if it was the right car. A few texts and a phone call later off we went to meet Joanne, the cars owner. The car was spot on mechanically having recently had a new starter, alternator, clutch, clutch cable, front struts and a wheel bearing. There's a little split in the rear bumper and the usual door parking dings but that's to be expected on a 13 year old car. A deal was done and "Lilly" Joannes name for the car, was off to her new home. She'll be well looked after Joanne so don't worry.
Sorry Joanne but the covers are a wee bit to much for me 
so will be coming off I'm afraid.
Thankfully the parcel shelf has no big speaker holes like most seem to suffer from these days.
13/04. I've noticed the last couple of days that the temp guage wasn't moving and there was no heat at all coming from the heater. This usually means the thermostat has stopped working. So I ordered a new one this morning and it was at the door when I got home. First job was to get the old one off. It is only held in with 2 10mm bolts. I took the heater pipe off before I took the thermo out as I find it's easier to do. It didn't take long to see what the problem was. The thermo's innards are all missing!
The space were the thermo goes.
New thermo on. I let the car warm through and bled the system. I didn't put in any anti-freeze beacuse there is a lot of brown water in the system so I'm going to drain it and flush it through.
17/04. In between spraying the Lancia I drained and flushed out the water system out of the car as it was a dirty brown colour from having no anti freeze. Fresh water and new anti freeze now in. I didn't bother taking any photo's.
28/05. Lilly's been making noises from the front and rear suspension that sounds very much like a wishbone on the front and rear trailing arm bushes were on their way out. So time to replace them. New wishbone and polybushes bought.
As soon as I got the front wheel off it was very obvious the track rod end was done to.
New one of those bought to.
29/05. Up early this morning to get stuck in. Front suspension first starting with the track rod end. 10 minute job. Losen the nut on the arm, the nut from the ball joint and a thump with the hammer. Out it pops.
New one fitted easily although the tracking will have to be checked now.
Front wishbone. WD40 over all the bolts and nuts to free them a bit. Anti-roll bar nuts are 13mm and the rest 17mm. Free off the bottom ball joint first then remove all the other bolts. It's pretty straight forward. When the bolts are all out one tap with the hamer and it will drop out.
There is a bracket on the wishbone that the anti-roll bar attaches to, this has to be transfered to the new arm. It's only held on with 2 13mm nuts. And you can see in the photo the ball joint rubber is spilt and it was knackered. refitting is just the reverse of taking it out.
Changing the trailing arm bushes isn't as easy. I took the handbrake cable off to allow movement. Then the bottom bolt off the damper so the arm would drop further. I know in the photo the arm bolts are already off but I forgot to take the photo first.
The arm bolts came out easier than I thought they would. You can see in the photo I have the inner bolt losened but didn't take it out until the outer one was off so the arm wouldn't be hanging on the one bolt.
Once the arm had dropped I started removing the old bush.
It didn't take me long to realise there was no way I was going to be able to do the job with the arm still attatched to the car. That ment the brake pipe had to come off and of course both brake pipes were ceased so had to be cut off and new pipes made.
Back to taking the old bush out. As I only had the one day to do everything I used a blow torch to melt the rubber bush out. That was easy, the outer metal casing though was not for moving and it took a lot of heat and a chisel before all 4 eventually came out. It took me over an hour to get all 4 out.
My nice new poly bushes.
Fitting them was pretty straight forward using the grease supplied with them to push them in. Getting the arms back in place in the car was a bit of work as they are a good tight fit. I used the trolley jack to push them into place and a good strong screwdriver to line up the holes for the bolts.
It took all day to get that lot done and just when I thought that was it I discovered both rear dampers are almost done and will have to be replaced. I'll get these on Monday.