Hi guys, Looking at a 1986 Mondial 3.2 Cabriolet to add to my collection. I'm pretty handy, and work on all my cars now. I've seen the horror stories regarding major service cost at the dealers, and I'm wondering for any DIYers, what was your last major service cost, parts only? It's helping me to make my decision. Thanks, Mike
I would contact Daniel at our title sponsor, Ricambi (Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati Parts - Ricambi America, Inc.). He can tell you exactly what you need, what is suggested, and what it will cost. Mike
There are different ways to go about it. You can order the kit from Ricambi or you can do a lot of research and go to various vendors to put it together yourself. For me it was more a matter of patience. I've ordered the Ricambi kit twice for my car and you have everything you need for the service. It's that way with about everything. Fuel, coolant and evaporative lines. You can get them from all over or go to the one source. The one source is maybe more money and I feel is high quality, or you can call all over the country to piece it together. Most bits readily available, a few odd sizes are harder to find. The variable that will come up where we can't give you a dollar figure is all the other items that can pop up while you are in there. Will you discover it is time for spark plug wires, caps and rotors. I haven't priced in a while but I think you'll be in for $250 per cap or more and over $100 per rotor. On my first service I redid the plug wires myself on a budget from a cheap kit and they held up for 5 years and 20K miles. Cost, $30 plus my labor. I also had a leaking fuel injector so I pulled it and added new seals. I had a leaky oil cooler and had to replace a line. My clutch slave cylinder was leaking and got rebuilt. I could have left these things but I wanted a clean running leak free car. There were a lot of other small items I attended to. I personally reused my water pump and it held up for an additional 5 years and is still going strong. These are all choices you'll have to make. You didn't ask, but I will add that I have found it a very rewarding car to work on. There are things that are hard to do and hard to get to, but to know that you have successfully serviced your own Ferrari is really quite remarkable. The service kit from Ricambi is currently $1100 for the 3.2. As a interesting FYI, I dropped in at a Ferrari dealer in the NW, Portland I think and asked them about parts. They told me that for these old cars, they order from Ricambi. Now this is only one dealer but it was the guy at the parts counter that said this.
Parts/kits run $1k-2K depending on how much stuff you replace while the engine is out (yes you can do it in, but mondials are designed to drop out and IMO the extra time on doing that makes working on the engine easier) Indi shops probably do it for you for $3500-$5000 again depending on how much you opt to replace/upgrade. You should get in touch with Tim (2NA) member here, he's up in Bloomington and highly recommended.
Also have a look at eurospares as the basic service kit is about £80, gives you cam belts, aux belts and all filters. You can also get plugs etc. Superperformance also do kits but you r best to shop between the 2 as 1 has better deals over the other on different items. The price quoted of the kit from Ricambi seems a bit steep but he does not mention what it contains. It is better value to buy the cam belt kit if you intend to to do the idlers as well. The springs in the tensioner need inspection in case they are original but they are expensive.
Belts - $139.65 That's for 2 timing belts, and 3 accessory belts. The accessory belts will have to come off in order to get to the timing belts. So you might as well change them. Hill Engineering Idlers - $175.00 The grease dries out of the idlers, and that's what usually causes the timing belts to fail. It is possible to grease the old idlers, but the Hill Engineering Idlers are highly recommended. It's faster to do with the engine in the car, working through the right rear wheel well. The absolute hardest part of the job is removing, and replacing the AC pump. Not a lot of access space there.
With that kind of thinking, your service cost will be much more than it needs to be. Accessory belts are fine to leave in place for several service intervals. OP is talking about a major, which requires R&R of the cam covers. That's doable with the engine-in, but a major PITA.
Leaving $104.51 worth of used accessory belts on the car after they've already been removed, so you can go back and do it at a later date is borderline insanity. Re-tensioning old belts is always ill advised anyway. It will cause the old belts to stretch, and eventually break. Anyone who has done this job, knows the bulk of the labor is removal and installation of the AC pump. The AC belt is also known for problems. Cam covers are a piece of cake with the engine in. With the forward bank on a Cabriolet, you work through the interior access panel. Dropping the engine is a lot of work, that will take many hours. I've done it both ways.
I have also done my Cabriolet both ways. When I got the car I replaced the belts then 3 years later I stumbled onto a 328 engine and swapped it out. While I had the engine out I did not reinstall the ac compressor. My thought was that it was so pathetic that it would be much easier to replace belts in another 3 years without it. warm weather is top down weather anyhow.
...is what drove me to buy a Mondial in the first place. I've been doing just fine with my reused accessory belts, TYVM. Put the $104.51 in my gas tank instead.
