LP400 S3 - 1121374 - Nut and Bolt Restoration

Fantastic thread. The Countach looks so menacing and so right in black. And that color combination with the Bianco interior is stunning. Congratulations!

 

Totally agree. This is great. The carbs look fantastic.

 

Yes very cool indeed...

Here's a reference picture of carburetors and another car's engine bay that I like to compare things to. Looks like the Carbs being rebuilt here are spot on.
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I cannot wait to see updates in this thread.

 

One interesting point - I see the VC covers in two styles - not sure which one is correct.

Both have wrinkle paint.

One version has the Lamborghini lettering in wrinkle black;

The other version has the lettering in aluminum/natural color.

Any thought on which are correct?

 

Chris,

Apologies for not chiming in earlier on some of the details, I can tell you its been a busy holiday season!

Perhaps I can comment on some questions asked in the thread as it relates to what is correct for the LP400S S3:

Cam-covers finish:
These should in fact be all-black satin wrinkle. For example, see below an LP400S S3, in this case a car just two (2) cars off your chassis number, in this case below, chassis no. 1121378 being delivered at the Sant Agata works by Guilio Alfieri & staff late October 1981. You can see the CC are all-black. The filing-off of the "Lamborghini" script is something that was started mostly in the USA in contemporary times, and has simply been copied by many people because it looks cool.

Coolant reservoir:
This should be black wrinkle for an LP400S S3, as seen in the image below. The factory finish of the reservoirs was not durable and these items were always the first to require re-finishing, so many have been refinished over the years in different ways, but they started out with a wrinkle finish.

Window-cranks:
Yours have been replaced, the correct items for an S3 are the slender units from the FIAT/Lancia/Alfa parts bin as shown in the image below.

Hope these notes help, none of them are critically important, but if faithful reproduction is desired, then these are some of the details.

I think this car when finished will make a stunning partner for that mind-blowing Downdraft of yours.
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As I mentioned elsewhere, the green LP400S is very close, the correctable details are few and minor, but they are there.

 

Thanks Joe - on the S2 I'm restoring we left the Lamborghini lettering wrinkle black figuring that later on it could always be shaved off. My mechanic was pretty convinced that it was wrinkle finish everywhere on the VC covers so I'm glad I listened

Separate question - what is recommended for modern ignition coils? I tried to replate the original Marelli coils with disastrous results, so I think they will be shelved along with the red resistor and instead will use some modern Bosch 0012 coils but are there any other alternatives?

 

What is the correct paint finish on the actual frame,? Gloss ,satin ? Black ?did it change from the S1.2.3 on to the qv? I know my cars frame is satin black, but its also untouched for 27 year, lots of tecnical advances in the lasr 25Years reg paints and primers, do one chose the old original or somthing new non original,but light years ahead in every possible aspect.?

 

Not sure about satin black, on my S2 it looked like the old frame was painted a semi-gloss black.

We re-did everything black (frame and underbody) in a 2-stage semi-gloss black, I have to find out what the paint codes were but it was a modern 2-stage long-lasting application which replicated the original color. I'll see if I can find a before-and-after shot.

Just as another interesting tidbit - when the car was in at the body shop for this frame repaint, the shop called and said that they had good evidence of the car possibly being spray-painted at the factory inside the engine bay - on the firewall in the engine bay they found two different paint thicknesses going down roughly the middle of the car; thought was that two separate line workers one on each side would have put finishing touches on the firewall side.

Does anybody have this experience on their cars? There were paint runs of different thickness on each of the two sides and the car had not been touched since 1979 until now.

 

Here's a shot of the engine bay after refinishing it, it looks a little glossier in the picture than in reality due to flash.
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Here's one challenge - how to get back to this look with modern coil performance?
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Satin, and I don't think it was ever changed thru the variants.

 

That is a beautiful look.

You mentioned you tried to replate the original Marelli coils with disastrous results, what happened?

My understanding is that the Marelli BK2A must be used without resistors, or, the coil current is too low to create a spark.

If you want to maintain the original look, I think you best bet is to check in with a specialist like Adrian in Germany Magneti Marelli Dinoplex, SAE701 and Microplex Repair and Restoration Documents , he can advise on modern Bosch coils also.

 

The resistor restoration is not a big deal and information can be found on it easily. I found the best color match is a RAL Red Oxide paint.

Problem lies in the coil main body -- the original coils were almost certainly plated before assembly and in order to get back the look in the picture I tried to plate 3 separate pairs of coils:

-- one pair was used Marelli coils which were previously repainted, and which I stripped and polished ready for plating;
-- the other pair was better condition Marelli coils but still with oxidized bodies and dull plating after 35 years;
-- the last pair was Bosch OEM 0012s with silver body (same as the blue ones but raw finish);

All stickers were removed, coils degreased, polished, etc., etc.

Plastic part and connectors were wrapped first in painters tape then in quite a few layers of heavy duty Gorilla-type tape.

Goal was to plate only the body and then re-apply the Marelli stickers. If everything worked out the Marelli ones could be kept on a shelf and the Bosch ones with Marelli print on them could be used (it just wouldn't say Marelli on the plastic). Size is the same within 1 mm or so of coil body length.

Note that the Bosch ones are solid filled and the Marellis have the PCB liquid fill.

Long story short - after all this prep work, the plating came out very uneven on all the coils including the new Bosch coils which were in perfect condition.

One of the older pair of Marellis also actually leaked during plating.

So the conclusion I had was that it's probably not possible to evenly plate the coil assembled.

 

Chris are you re-doing the wheels on the car?

 

Here is an image of the correct window-cranks for your LP400S
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And here is what you need, its a FIAT part:

Fiat 124 x 19 x 1 9 Window Crank RARE Cromodora 128 Spider | eBay

You'll need to buy all 4 (I think) to get the 2 you need, you'd better brace yourself, the Seller wants $12 each
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