Lancia Kappa

[GG2]

Hello - newly joined, hope this post is OK?

 

Am doing research into early pre-Lambda Lancias, and wondering about the differences between Kappa engines in the cars and their use in the commercial trucks.

Thanks for any help, 

 

Geoff

[Ivan Saxton]

Geoff and Royce Fullard would tell you that the problem with Kappa engines is that they used babbit crankshaft bearings without bronze backing.  I have not yet looked inside mine,  but I expect the bearings may well be diecast babbit, like Rutenber did with some of their engines around the same time.   Australian Six bought a batch of those dud Rutenber engines for their assembled cars in Sydney, and they may have had expensive repairs to do after the cars were sold.  Geoff and his brothers made bronze-back bearings for their family car, and they had no more trouble.     Stuart Middlehurst had engine /gearbox and radiator from a Pentiota truck.   Nick Langford bought the radiator, and John Shellard bought the rest for spares or to overcome problems with his early Kappa.        I have basis of a1911 Lancia Delta, but the only gearbox I could get so far is a Theta.  Do you by chance know of a spare Epsilon or earlier gearbox, which would save me having to make alterations I would prefer not to do.  If I could get a correct gearbox, the excellent Theta gearbox would be available.   The other problem I have with the Delta is that someone tried to break up the engine with a hammer.   The aluminium alloy has about 7% zinc content because zinc was used instead of silicon to fluidise the aluminium in the foundry.  Often if you try to weld this stuff, cracks run everywhere.  So failing a spare crankcase somewhere, I will have to make up missing sections and use metal stitching.     Incidentally, if you want front brakes on a Kappa for safety in modern traffic,  Tipo 8 Isotta Fraschini will bolt straight on.   

[GG2]

Thank you for the interesting input. Didn't know this. Great to know from someone who has these cars! 

 

 

On the Theta parts book, the big end is drawn as solid babbit, as you say. A Kappa engine drawing shows a bearing with a ring around it, but  both have same part number so probably the same. The Iota parts book again shows one part - its possible the backing (if ever used) and the babbit were sold together, but the illustrations seem to support the Fullard story. Interesting enough, the bearing is numbered: 

  Theta - 12105 for the big end

  Kappa - 42105 for the big end, 42104 for the main

  Iota - 42105 for the big end

So it seems the flaw was maintained for a while. 

 

On the gearbox, have you been in touch with Roland Grazebrook? He has much more knowledge about these. 

Can you tell more about the differences between the Theta and the Kappa? Same dimensions, but different engines. Kappa has the removable head, and condos are shown on the drawings with some vertical markings (are these oil passages or ribbing?). 

 

Appreciate any help - I'm better on the postwar cars.... 

 

Geoff

 

 

[John_S_in_Penna]

Geoff, it was great that you got a reply from Ivan Saxton.

He is among the most knowledgeable members on our forum.

 

Any Lancia is an obscure car here in the United States,

so most people know almost nothing about them.  Thankfully

Ivan saw your inquiry!

[GG2]

John - 

Can't agree more. I've worked mostly on Aurelias, and the transition from about 1940 to 1960. Am just getting into the trucks and the earlier cars (pre-Lambda), and the information is thin everywhere, thinner yet in the US. Its even. better  good to hear from people who own these cars, and really know them.

Found a few images from parts books about the bearings. The first is from a 1910 Gamma parts book, the second is from a 1913 (likely Eta, similar to Ivan's Delta) parts book. The later Kappa and Iota trucks look pretty much the same.

 

As to early cars in the US, there are oddly  two SGV vehicles in the Boyertown Museum in Pennsylvania. 1911-12 era cars. Its likely they used Lancia drive trains, and rebodied them, but details are of course hard to find. They need some inspection...  Anyone been to the Boyerstown Museum, or live nearby? 

 

Finally, there is the very early Thomas Adams, and then Adams-Montant, connection to Lancia, he was a distributor for Lancia in NYC as early as 1910 or so. Anyone know of him? 

Geoff

 

Edited December 13, 2018 by GG2 (see edit history)

[Ivan Saxton]

Hello again Geoff,    When I telephoned Marc Bondini  to alert him to your thread here, he told me your identity; but no email address to which I could send photos.  I bought a copy of your excellent book on Aurelia and designer De Virgillio when you were out here for Castlemaine.   ( you will remember the most generously catered lunch for a car event,  and perhaps the wire or hay-band to indicate that the outdoor facility was occupied.)   I have a B22 Aurelia, which I have used for periods as normal transport.  I remember two occasions when I visited the dentist virtually in central Melbourne, which is 70 miles from here.   Without particular reason, I glanced at my watch as I drove out my gate, and was astonished that I was in the dentist's waiting room just 70 minutes later.  That Aurelia slows for traffic and regains its cruising speed so quickly and effortlessly, that it could almost be described as having contemporary Grand Prix technology in a family saloon.   Who could suggest that Americans are not interested in Lancias : As in your account of Briggs Cuningham first encountering Bracco and Lurani's B20 Aurelia after the 1951 Le Mans 24 Hour race, and his subsequent purchase of a new B20 plus mechanical spares.

As to the relationship of SGV and Lancia,  you need to check out  "Phianna, Darling of the Titans",  which is a transcribed interview by Frank N. Potter with Miles Harold Carpenter for Volume 12, No12 of the June 1962 issue of Automobilists of the Upper Hudson Valley.    Carpenter must have been one of the most exceptional young people involved with the first automobiles.  It is all in that article that you can readily find via Google.  As a teenage dealer for Chalmers cars in Texas,  he communicated so many improvements to components of the car that Hugh Chalmers, at a dealers convention , introduced him as the "Chalmers companies' Texas Engineering Department" or similar title.  There is a front-view photo of a Phianna which clearly shows the pressed-form front axle as it was still used on some earliest Lancia Kappas.  There is also a photo of an SGV 4 cylinder engine which I would liken to a Lancia Epsilon or perhaps Eta engine with reversal side-to side to better suit left hand drive.  ( Incidentaly, Dela and Epsion were similar engines with same bore and stroke.  Most past authors and other people are unaware of the important differences between Delta and Epsilon engines.  Gamma and Delta had water pumps gear-driven inside the timing gear enclosure at front of the engine.  This most certainty caused many engines to be damaged beyond practical recovery, unless the owner knew to constantly drain water from beneath the oil in the sump before using the car.  Epsilon and later engines including Kappa had the water pump external on the left side of the engine,, which had less propensity to emulsify the engine oil.     A year or so back,  Dr John Baeke had the task of finding a new owner for John Caperton's good running SGV.  If you care to give me by Private Message an email address to which I can forward details and photos of that car.   ( JC also had Rochester Duesenberg engine Roamers.  Duesenberg "walking-beam" engine had combustion chamber and valve operation to early Lancia aircraft engines. It is believed that the first Duesenberg/Mason 4 cyl walking beam engine was built privately 1909-10.)   It is possible that Lancia took notice of other people's ideas that might become useful,  though.  But when he pulled out of the pits of the Vanderbilt Cup into the path of Walter Christie's massive V4 cross-engine 4 wheel drive racer, it was many decades after his time before his company built a car of that configuration.   You can buy good copies quite cheaply of John Bentley's book  " Great American Automobiles".  In the chapter on the New York- Paris Race, one of two nominated entries that did not show up was a Lancia entered by the Hol-Tan Company.   There could have been negative publicity if such a new car had problems on such a challenging race.           The 1911 Lancia Delta it is interesting that the 17/49 crown wheel and pinion were very early spiral bevel gears.  But the direction tended to push the gear pair apart, instead of drawing them into mesh as has been practice ever since.  Near that, the rear axle ran on ball bearings, which tended to loose balls with noisy and destructive consequences.  It is sensible and safer to re-engineer to taper roller bearings.    I hope you can manage to visit when you are here for Castlemaine in October.         I have known Roland for a long time, and he has been very helpful.  I think he started off with Aurelia, and he said he " gradually got older."

I hope you can get down here at Castlemaine time.  There is interesting stuff that is not seen elsewhere,  such as 6 cylinder, 6 litre 1923 cuff-valve Peugeot,  joy ride in the 1923 Roamer Duesenberg,  and one of the mid 1928 SPECIAL prototype DV 32 Stutz engines which John Bently mentioned in " Great American Automobiles"  , but no-one who took parts from it before I got it  could understand what it was.    Main bearing cap differences between it and two other slightly earlier BB Stutz engines give a pretty good understanding of why That Stutz Black Hawk speedster blew up in the match race against the Hispano Suiza at Indianapolis.   I apologise some of this is tangential or parallel to the Kappa theme, but most of it should be of interest,

[GG2]

Ivan and others - 

Thanks for all this good info. I've read the referenced material, and its pretty clear that SGV was interested in working off the Lancia design for their cars up to about 1913-1914. There are some complications in the story.... The SGV pictures you sent (from a 1913 model)  has the engine is totally flipped (mirror symmetry) from the Lancia one to accommodate LHD. In looking at photos of a 1913 car (dating is never accurate - might be 1911-12 also), it looks like a different version of Lancia's motor. One wonders if it was really possible to remake the car in the US - there are some extensive and complex alum castings, not so easily replicated. More likely they done by Lancia under some contract,  to make a revised engine for SGV - although investigation in the archives in Torino haven't revealed this. A mystery to be solved. 

 

Of course, it would be great to see one, and look to see if there are any Lancia ID marks. A few SGVs are readily known: one at the Nicolis Museum in Italy, where they refer to it as a 1909, bodied by SGV, but a Lancia car. Its RHD, and most likely has a Lancia engine. 

Then there is John Capterton's car in the US, referenced above, as a 1913 SGV  model, but LHD, and with the flipped engine.
A Gamma racer was sold a few years back in England, with an SGV body. Its not clear what that was, but I have lost track of it.      

Finally, there are two in the Boyerstown Museum in PA. I think dated 1911 and 1912... need to be inspected! Anyone nearby and interested in taking a look?

Any other ideas?