Lancia Motor Club

General => General Chat => Topic started by: nthomas1 on 08 August, 2021, 12:02:27 PM



Title: Organisation and sharing of restoration and maintenance information
Post by: nthomas1 on 08 August, 2021, 12:02:27 PM

Does anybody have thoughts on how to better organise and share restoration and maintenance information for Lancia models?

I have a mass of Fulvia information on my laptop, culled over the last six years from many different sources and organised pretty much along the lines of the TAV sequence.  Much of this I have cut-and-pasted from various forums and websites. 

There’s a lot of information about my own restoration that I’ve included in a number of threads in the Fulvia section of the LMC forum.  Conscious of how laborious it can be reading through a long thread (my “Slow S2 Rebuild thread has 51 pages), I recently developed an index to help with access. 

A person now embarking on a Fulvia restoration can search forums like our LMC one, Restorides  or Lancisti. They can do a Google search, or they can do a Facebook search.  Trying this approach using “Fulvia Brakes” as a search criteria pulls up some useful data, but not in any structured way. 

Social media, Facebook in particular, seems now to be the dominant place for asking questions and posting information about Fulvias. There are a number of Fulvia-related Facebook groups.  However,  a  “Fulvia Brakes” search, for example, shows only a handful of posts related to brakes, whereas I know that there’s a mountain of information in there, but it’s not readily accessible.  I know because of I’ve been tracking brake topics in half a dozen Fulvia related Facebook groups over the last 6 months as I’ve worked on my own brakes.

I would be willing to invest some time in building and maintaining some form of knowledge base (for Fulvia)  to help make information more accessible, but it would need some technical input, and the development of an overall structure. And I’m sure there are some copyright issues that would need to be addressed.

I’d be interested to hear the views of others.



Title: Re: Organisation and sharing of restoration and maintenance information
Post by: GG on 08 August, 2021, 02:45:25 PM
There is, in short, no good answer to this.

With regard to the Fulvia, there is another website/forum <http://lancisti.net> where most  Fulvia discussion in the US happens, but is  oddly unlinked to any other locations. There is also  Huib's forum and his excellent inventory of factory materials. It would be nice (very!) for all of this to be centralized. Given the spread out nature of things these days, a central listing of available information would be a positive first step. This could be supplemented by a detailed indexing of information, or threads, perhaps which could be posted on your own site (perhaps)?

The same issue came up on Aurelias. Info was either non-existent on the web, or scattered all over the place. First off is Paul Mayo's excellent workshop manual, where he has tried to compile all the maintenance tips and directions over many years. But it does not keep up with the web. Hard copy only.

Some 15 years ago,  surprised by how little Aurelia restoration info was on the web,  started posting info on a restoration on a website. This has grown into a more comprehensive Aurelia website <www.lanciaaurelia.info> where a lot of information is posted both on pages and a long, but unindexed (ouch) blog. There is some information on ASTs, Parts books, tech info, but  does not track all maintenance matters, nor all the ASTs. There is a listing of suppliers and of different information sources. Many ASTs were reprinted by James Steerman some years ago, again hard copy only. Again, information is scattered, and difficult for those who are not fully in the know. I suspect this hurts Lancia appreciation in the larger picture: its hard to get a handle on all the information, and its likely some owners and their cars suffer.

Factory copyright is not a critical issue, as this material has been in the public domain for many decades now. However, coordination among all the players and different  groups/forums/publications is a big issue. And, as you say, the long threads which can be difficult to peruse, or even can be lost, is also a concern.

Hope this helps.

Geoff


Title: Re: Organisation and sharing of restoration and maintenance information
Post by: neil-yaj396 on 09 August, 2021, 07:07:41 AM
Social Media sites only retain posts for a limited period, so they can be good for instant responses but are no good for the long term retention of information.


Title: Re: Organisation and sharing of restoration and maintenance information
Post by: lancialulu on 09 August, 2021, 07:28:42 AM
I wonder if in LMC membership there would be a volunteer for "information officer"??

It would require the dedication of a monk and the technical ability to sift the wheat from the chaff (so much rubbish advice on social media and to a lesser extent on forums).

They would get a lot of support from the club committee and maybe the club on-line library is the place to collect this stuff.

Tim

PS Not volunteering!


Title: Re: Organisation and sharing of restoration and maintenance information
Post by: A1.6HPE on 09 August, 2021, 09:53:29 PM
In days gone by, the club used to publish "Journals" that referenced a particular model and contained related articles and information.  The articles were sometimes fresh and sometimes collated from the monthly News-sheet/Viva-Lancia. I think Brian Long was the main driver behind these.
Perhaps a revival of these would help.

Leo