Reply to "Pre-LMC visit to Italy"

OK, so back to my Longchamp, drove back to meet with Raffaele. He drove first in his Fiat 500, me following, about 30 km to the other shop. And we got my Longchamp on a lift, and when the lift was all the way up, they used some vertical support beams under each arm, just in case, a bit scary . The shop was full of classic car projects, I won’t tell as promised, but a Pantera was there, but also French, English and other Italian classic cars, totally taken apart.

They got the bottom oil plug out of the rear end, oil drained out, they said it was wrong oil just by looking at viscosity and color. And we drove to another town to get new oil, definitely a thicker oil. Got the oil in, and then Raffaele and I drove the car. He wanted to participate in every test trip, really committed to getting this solved. The noise was slightly lower was our conclusion, and we weren’t 100% sure. Could still be rear end of course. But maybe not.

Then we turned our attention to the transmission. Just a note, these people were really into actually fixing this. If one thing didn’t work, don’t just send the customer away, then we try something else. And time was getting nearer the all-important Italian football game. But they just went on the whole day, let’s try this let’s try that. And very friendly all the way. OK, so transmission is new from Summit from 5 year’s ago, so should not be the weak link. But checking the oil, I found three things wrong. It wasn’t as red as it used to, it smelled a little burned, just a little, I’ve smelled worse, and there was too much of it. That there was too much I couldn’t understand, I check frequently, but we took out a liter or so, until the reading at idle was right. I know that oil expands with heat, but if oil is overheated, will it stay expanded? Hhmm

Raffaele also told me that later Longchamps and Deauvilles had transmission oil coolers added. And as he told me, for normal driving it’s not needed but “if you want to race through Germany and in hot Italy, you should put on a transmission oil cooler.” And of course he’s right. Got quite a few plans for the Longchamp this winter.

Back to the noise. After removing the excess oil, I went testing again with Raffaele. And the noise was much lower. Strange. But we agreed it was much lower. At times almost to be ignored. So the next thing was to change the oil in the transmission. But then we had run into football game time and the shop to get it in was closed. So we could do no more that day.

I drove back to my campsite, and we agreed I’d be back on Saturday, when I’m anyway driving from Venice to Nice, to get new transmission oil. They’ll help me on a Saturday. That might fix the problem, it might not, but then I don’t think there’s more we can do for now. On the list for this winter are definitely rear bearings, rear end, and maybe a new transmission, always wanted that 4th gear anyway.