Espada thread

It is likely the angle gear directly at the left front wheel. The gears become worn and the part extending into the wheel bearing region brakes (intentionally) as soon as the gears block.

If that is the actual cause, you have to look for a new gears, wherein I believe that 4 different transmission ratios exist. You need to disassemble the gears and count the wheels teeth for calculating the ratio.

Unlikely (although not to exclude) that the cable broke. Then quite simple, you reach the end at the speedo from under the dash and the opposite end is easily reached at the left front wheel. You can thus easily test the cable for function. You might want to replace it anyway, if the speedo showed some fidgeting.

I do not recall what the effeorts are to get the gears off the left wheel. I believe to remember that not only the road wheel must go off, but the shock/spring as well. It is somewhat fiddly that part. Aside a new gears you will then need the broken driver rod, and do not forget to get the broken-off part out . Anyway, it is not a job of minutes .

Cheers, Bernhard

P.S.: If your car is RHD and it is the gears, poor you, then go to VLG, where another fellow has the same problem. No new gears available, since it rotates reverse ...

 

Thank you BJJ for your precise explanation!!!
I will take a look with the mechanich to try to find out the reason.
It is LHD.
The speedo was moving all the time, you did not know wether speed was 100 or 120. That´s what you call "fidgeting", (new word for me, thanks again!)

 

I looked up that word in a dictionary ...

Yes, in my case this was even worst, one would not know whether the speed is 50 or 120 . A new cable did the job, no moving anymore.

But a complete failure (breaking) of the cable is quite uncommon.

Cheers, Bernhard

 

Let me contribute to the collective speedometer drive failure statistics by saying that my speedo cable has failed three times and the speedo gearbox zero times (since 1986).

The last repair was successfully done with a core only: ATP Speedometer Cable Core Kits YC-101 - Free Shipping on Orders Over $99 at Summit Racing

Laust

 

Oh goodie, now I can buy a bunch of these and market them as vintage Lambo speedo repair kits for $600.

 

Nope, there are some business idiots selling the whole cable with all fittings for under € 100 and you will have to face ugly comments in various forums because of your kit price.


Laust, that is amazing, I never ever had a broken speedometer cable core with any of my cars. How the heck can that happen? OK, I always have replaced the cables as soon as the speedo indicator began to fidget around ...

Cheers, Bernhard

 

I'm flexible ... $50 then!

 

Oh, special price and sales action, great, but then I will have to think about what to do with the $550 off your regular price. I might ask my wife, sure she will have an idea . Would you please send me the $550, which I will have saved, in advance? Thank you!

 

Just a few years back (2010) .....

http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/18216/lot/340/

P.S.: please, into what does the marketing phrase "commensurately good condition" actually translate?

 

Well Deloreans are still relatively cheap. Could you use one of those and go back to pick up this gem for say $45K and then tow it into the future? You just might make at least a quick $100K!

 

This will not work, since towing ropes do not conduct temporal particles. The car must do the time transition under own power.

Further, temporal particles need amplification through gullwing doors (you should know this!). And I do not want to anticipate comments here if I turn up with an Espada, which I have converted to gullwing doors, just for trying to make a nice profit ......

 

Well if you do show up with gullwings doors perhaps it's the Espada prototype or the Marzal and then that certainly should yield a healthy profit!

Just to be safe bring a temporal tow rope ...

 

So, here are two photos of my new interior. Now the process of fitting starts. I anticipate great fun in particular with the dash ... .

Cheers, Bernhard

P.S.: The higher headrest of the drivers seat is a modification made by a prior owner. Since it looks as if the headrests were adjustable (they are not), I left it as it is, since I am rather tall and it fits like this.
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Adjustable headrests? That is quite a modification as the headrests are integral to that infamous perforated back cover! LOL.

You must be excited.

Are you doing anything to that insert piece in the top[ of the dash that always sags when warm? If you do or have figured that out I'd be interested to hear about it.

 

The appearance is as if it were adjustable. In fact some prior owner simply welded the extension to seat and headrest, so it will stay in this position until someone gets to it with a saw *looooooool*.

I have indeed thought about fixing and stabilizing the insert, but I must look how to achieve this. I definetely do not intend to glue it into the cutout, like the factory did (I believe). The intention is to make a rotatable metal locking bar, the ends of which hold the insert down in the cutout. This may at the same time act as a form stabilizing support, spanning it in the direction front/rear.

Or perhaps I just lay it into the cutout and thats it. Then I can bend it back into proper form as often as I need to *loooool*

Cheers, Bernhard

 

Bernhard, congrats, the interior of your Espada will look for sure splendid, once all the new leathered pieces have been installed....☺. Don't think, there are too many Espadas with dark green leather around.


Saluti,

Jürgen

 

Thank you, Jürgen, I am just as confident .

Assembly will still need one or the other thought, in particular with respect to detail improvements. As a probably well-known example I name fixing of the armrests at the doors. Or the dash insert, as adressed by Bob.

The leather does not yet have any holes for any fixing elements. And there are quite a lot, alone all that trim in the door panels. Holes will be made at my place and according to the specific parts (trim etc.) to be assembled. And not with a diy market cutter, but using medical scalpels and dentist tools (that stuff is very versatile and useful for various garage purposes ).

Cheers, Bernhard

 

I have to also cut the holes on the underside of the armrests. I'm using socket headed cap screws instead of phillips heads this time. I hope that works out. I also got some tan inserts to cover the holes instead of the black rubber plugs three of which were missing. My interior is senape coloured.

I looked at that drop in piece in the dash and I was thinking of gluing an aluminum angle piece on the underside but it looked to me as though that would hit something?

 

I do not know what kind of plugs were there originally. Neither in my Jarama nor in the Espada any kind of plug has survived the decades . Are rubber plugs what was originally fitted? I know that in early 911s the rests indeed carried black rubber/plastic plugs underneath, looks rather cheap, though being original.

I have cleaned up and properly arranged all stuff under the dash. That was chaos there before and a rather easy job with the dash out, but took one or the other afternoon nevertheless. I believe that (now) nothing would be hit by a moderately dimensioned angle piece. That "lid"-piece will be the last detail I will be attending to. In any case I want it removable, for service purposes, with a few strokes of work only.

Cheers, Bernhard

 

Mine is easily removed via access from the glove box. I think aluminum tabs secure it to the underside of the rest of the dash? It just sags horribly in the summer ...

 

Mine just rested in the recess, no means of fixing evident (and no traces of such). Actually, at some time it was just glued in, as evident from "historic" glue residues ... . But that, obviously, is no acceptable solution, except maybe for the factory at that time . Another non-original detail coming up .... .

My glove box did not have a "ceiling", i.e. after opening one could reach up and right into all that stuff under the dash. I am wondering, whether this is original like this? I am thinking about closing the dash above the glove box. Then access from underneath to the lid would be rather restricted.

Cheers, Bernhard

 

It's difficult for me to check things such as this due to the remote location of the car but ... mine was pretty unmolested just neglected. Here's my recollection of how I did it after asking on VLG. I went through the glove box , which is quite crude/unfinished , to reach in and move the aluminum sheet metal tabs attached to the underside of that panel so that they were no longer under the lip of the rest of the dash.

So perhaps yours are gone and/or the owner tried gluing it to see if that would fix the sag.

From what I've observed they all sag.

We do need to solve this.

Perhaps some thin stiff honeycomb material glued to the underside and then velcro to attach the entire panel to the rest of the dash from underneath with the glove box remaining open on top.

I am due for a visit to my remote garage hopefully in the next week so if I remember I'll have a look see.

 

So, I now have fetched the new interior from Augsburg, a 750 mile trip in a boring daily driver on one day .

I am absolutely delighted about the magnificent work Hubert has done. He has kept a rear seat for display at his stand at the Stuttgart Retro Classic in March, so that anyone visiting this fair can have a look at these as a reference for his work on Espadas. By the way, I believe he is present here also (V8Lambo).

Sunday I spent 6 hours assembling one door trim and fitting thereof. Of course all holes etc. have to be made with the other door trim parts at hand and/or at the vehicle. In particular the hole for the release handle needs to punched at the absolutely correct place, since otherwise is will look bad, obviously. This means semi-fitting of the otherwise assembled door panel and fixing in the final position, so that you can locate the release shaft by feeling (and bolts screwed into the door threads for fixing of the armrest) and make the holes after having removed the panel again.

Aside this, I know that I should have made fotos when ripping all the stuff out. There are two trim panels (essentially triangle shape with two very long sides and one very short side, the long sides about maybe 0.8 m), which I in the moment have no idea, where they go . Anyone know by heart?

Assembling is really fun, I should be through end of March latest, so well in time for the classic car season . It is a great difference between working with filthy, oily parts covered with grime, or assembling things with white thin cotton gloves ... . And having the fortune of "table-space" of several square meters is a great advantage, in particular for this work, working is rather relaxed and things work out much more easily.

Cheers, Bernhard

 

Bernhard, glad to hear, that you are happy with the work of my friend☺!

Having looked at your seats an other leather covered parts of your Espada, they finally received the attention, love and accuracy they should have received when produced one of the most expensive and most exclusive car's of it's time. ...



Saluti,

Jürgen

 

Hi Jürgen,

The difficult parts still to come, i.e. fitting of all that stuff. Your friend will be all too happy not having to do that himself . In the meanwhile I have assembled and fitted two door panels. This took about 12 hours in total, I really do not know where this time has been left . Everything must be done really carefully, one wrong placed cut and ******. It is not made easier by that the factory not working really precise. E.g. the left door is a little bit longer than the right door, but the trim panels are of same length. "Adjustment" was/is by way of the panel surrounds and their placement (together with the positioning of the panel). Essentially nothing seems to be straight forward.

Yesterday I found out about the two panels I was wondering about. They belong to the C-pillars .

Fitting the dash will presumably be a nightmare .....

Cheers, Bernhard