Barn find.... today

I just looked it up, excellent suggestion Mark! Comparing that to the Burled Walnut... it makes the later look like a product of those that drink warm beer. Being as the car is already handicaped enough with Lucas electrics, only a fool would push their luck further! How my google image search also threw in a picture of Michelle Pfeiffer will leave me wondering for the rest of the day.... but I am grateful for that none the less.

 

I have only the findest memories of that track and the town of Elkhart Lake! Back when the drivers meetings were still in the wooden pagoda where the event steward would open with "If we survive this meeting without this falling down and killing us all... I want you to drive clean on the track"! Driving a Vintage race there where we shared the track and paddock with the Indy cars making up a rained out event. I too keep Laguna held in fond memory but that goes back a number of decades when my hair was still brown.

The stories these WWII guys have to tell..... I feel like a kid bellied up to the Motorola radio in a Rockwell painting! I attended a reunion with Dad of the Long Rangers Bomber Group some years back in Nashville and that was an event to remember. Dad was a Belly Turret gunner in a B-24 in the South Pacific. A good friend of mine, a chief steward of the Ferrari Challenge Series as well as a co worker in another Ferrari shop from years past, was one of the WWII Tuskegee Airmen, yet another great group of hero's with stories I enjoyed. Truely our Greatest Generation!

 

Your Father is a Hero along with all of these fine men!

This week...... August is the month that always puts people in this business either on Cloud 9 or over the top jumpy fighting off the waist deep alligators! In Colorado, August is the month where the local Ferrari Club has its late summer multi day driving event and the Morgan Adams Show discussed earlier as well as Monterey events. Mix that with the fact that the better part of Europe is off in LaLa Land doing what ever it is they do when doing nothing... what ever that IS, it doesnt include sending parts this direction!

This is the month where Triage repairs become a way of life in the quest to get all of the cars running. This amounts to the "Ten Minute!" call to grid where the cylinder head is still off, with the driver covered in grease from attempting to straighten a bent valve on a tree stump, refusing to give up on the quest to make the upcoming qualifying run. Its the only memory that comes close to the 'feeling' that the month of August has these days. You want for all the world to make that session so you are not gridded in the race behind a gaggle of under 1 Litre English lumps that will make it all but impossible to get around to fight for a respectable finishing position.

The problem with that.... we pulled it off, thus setting a bench mark that is burned into memory while also leaving a big guilt complex if you choose to give up. Yes, you really can straighten a bent valve on a tree stump, rolling the stem on a cutting board scarfed out of the RV as a makeshift run out gauge. Yes it sealed just fine, and I will share a little known secret that the RV parking area behind the paddock hill at RA has some of the finest sand that when mixed with stale beer from the evening before, makes an exceptional valve lapping compound. The clearances on the final pair of valves to be adjusted were done while riding on the front fender as the car was being pushed to the grid lane. "Warm up" consisted of only the drive time through the hot pits and to turn one.... and then the Go Pedal was pushed to the stops. Had that damn car Not qualified inside row 2 behind a pair of Cheating Panzers....... August would be a wonderful time of year for me, the height of summer, birds chirping and all the Alice in Wonderland, Sound of Music stuff. But Nooooo... it had to work, thus setting into place a mindset that All of these broken down cars just dragged out of storage the day before and could be made to successfully run in an event a week away!

Jumpy and Reactive? Ya Think?! Three cars left that are yet to make Stink with the show a week away, this thing with a Carp Spear on the grill and Lucas injection that has been dry for coming on 3 years..... how could that be a problem? An absolutely stunning vintage Ferrari that is all but completely missing a waterpump seal and has the oil filters marked 4-02, and one of the most stunning BBi's I have ever seen that has not had a key turned in so long the battery was making reverse voltage. This is the list AFTER the cars going on the drive were sent on their way while fixing little oversights such as the car that fell for the "Put Nitrogen in your tires and get better mileage".... but who needs a torque wrench for putting the wheels back on? This is when THE call comes in and Kris comes out to the shop to ask a question. She didn't recognize the voice at first and when asked if I was there, she responded with "Dave Who"? It was Jim, the MA event coordinator and one of the best friends one could ever hope to have and a true Ferrari enthusist, pulled in 27 different directions himself, way behind on his MUST DO list..... and I had forgotten to fill in "Interesting Facts" about the BBi when I sent in the registration. "Tell Dave I MUST HAVE THAT in the next 10 mins"! Poor Kris..... she got it from Jim and then came out to the shop just as I had the flip down magnifiers on, setting the injection timing on the Maser..... "Tell him its Flippin RED, what else would he need to know?!!!!!" That secured in history the fact that the very best that could be hoped for this evening for dinner would be a single over nuked petrofied Corn Dog and I would get good practice at groveling. August..... a beautiful time of year..... for a well aged Single Malt! Maybe the Europeans are really on to something when they just walk away in August, I will have to rethink this thing!

The 330? No good can come from being near that for another week.... It will all go away on the evening of the event and there will be a sense of satisfaction that the pain in the back from locking ones knees into a outside laced spoke wheel so as not to lean on a fender was really worth the effort. But until then..........

 

Normally we have it under control Carm, this year terrible winter setbacks pushed everything downhill. We all know what rolls downhill and I always find myself standing there. Much progress was made today at the shop so we will see if things settle back into place earlier than expected so we can get back on track.

 

Dad told me of a mission where they were running dangerously low on fuel on their return and threw overboard all the .50 cal guns and some hideously large and expensive bomb damage/recon cameras, anything that was heavy and not bolted down. Severe threats were made and the fuel tanks drained upon their return to verify if those actions were warranted.... they were, landing with only a few gallons remaining in both tanks. Those guys were Great, fast thinking farm boys who knew how to make Anything work when it needed to!

Dad flies in this Thursday for the show and I will have to ask him about the 29's and Tinian. I know my Uncle Howard, Dad's brother, was a crew chief on the 29's around that time.... The world grows smaller indeed!

Sanity will return Carm, just one more week of Triage here and things will get back to normal. I had to go into the shop Saturday to pour over wiring diagrams for a car that was broken down out of state on the local FCA tour. Finger nail file, Q-Tip and electrical tape..... its like the two guy's lost in the wilderness TV show.... "These are the normal things you might find yourself with when broken down out here. Our job is to show you how to build a high rise Condo with these three items....". Wiring schematics reviewed, failure analysis done with a theory in hand as to what might have failed, jumper wires were made out of what was found laying in the parking lot.... and it started right up. It was at that point where the 'anti-theft' switch a prior owner installed under the dash was noticed to have been hit by a knee.... the switch that doesnt show up on MY wiring diagrams! It all worked out for the better because the owners wife might have had reservations about a neighboring State return trip involving paper clips and jumper wires used as an ignition switch.... just a guess....

'Triage Auto Repair'.... where anything is fair game. In my youth I had a brilliant idea to drive my TR-4 cross country from Mpls to Las Vegas with an old girlfriend (one short sentence noting multiple problems already) at the time. Luggage had to go on the trunk rack because the trunk was full of spares.... I mean Everything, Piston, valves, springs.....! This is a car that could not make the trip from Mpls to St. Paul just across the river, without breaking down. Everything needed to rebuild the car on hand.... except a front generator housing. Sure, I had spare brush sets, bearings, bushings... everything to rebuild a failed unit, but not a front housing.... that was now broken on the plains of eastern CO. I thanked the rancher out loud as I cut the bottom strand of his already failed barbed wire fence, wrapping a loop from the generator body to the inner fender horn mount.... and then twisting the loop with a near by tree branch to tension the old tractor belt driving that and the waterpump. Normally one would hold their breath in hopes a repair like this would last a few hours. Being as the Triage repair also fixed the problems related to a failed motor mount on the same side with the engine now restrained to an inner fender..... I had already bleed enough fabricating the fix, removing it would mean I would have to replace the housing AND a motor mount. Thinking back, I cant remember if I sold that car repaired per the manual or with the barbed wire still intact, I think the latter, either way it lasted far longer than the girlfriend!

As long as I was at the shop and everything was quite..... It actually worked out just fine because I made progress on doing delicate adjustments with no distractions.

 

A very good thing as it turns out! Her sense of humor was highly put to the test when she found out I had no top with and we hit snow in Vail. All but sealed when we crossed the desert a short while later with no shade. Somewhat of a cranky gal she was!

Only as good as the effort from the one under pressure in a parking lot, that is the one that gets the kudo's. It all worked out just fine. It was but one of three returning with bubble gum and barbed wire repairs from that event.

 

A Wonderful and productive day yesterday! Now one big step closer to working on the subject at hand, the 330.

The old Maser fired right up, dead smooth and with all the right sounds and gauge readings. It was not run long enough to say we are out of the woods yet but alas, it may make it to the show along with the other projects laying about the shop.... baby steps but all in the right direction!

Mark (MWR4440) and Sylvia stopped by the shop late afternoon, moments after the Maserati, which was backed in to facilitate the engine install, completely polluted the entire shop with fumes of well aged and seasoned fuel. Mark and family are on a vacation of the Western half of the country, from Germany. Being a local boy, they ended the tour with spending time with his folks here.

NO is the short answer to the question if I had learned my lesson of backing the 330 into the stall right next to the office. Not expecting the old Froggigmobile to actually fire up, lightening did strike twice in the same spot but this time to an extent that made the shop un inhabitable to even the dogs! It is said that Practice makes Perfect..... the Maser was parked right next to the 330 with the tail pipes aimed in the same direction. I can now consider this little 'Oppps' Mastered to an extreme! This time I did it to the point where a decision was made to live to fight the battles another day and we decided to pack it in an hour early and spend a wonderful evening with Sylvia and Mark.

The evening ended with clear insight into a number of matters. Mark is every bit as passionate about the Ferrari Marque as I had envisioned. We are far too much the same for the good of those around us and last but by no means the least.... he is a Very Lucky man who definitely Married UP... another trait we share! We were taught the proper way to serve and drink German Beer, while solving all the Marques problems in a single, enjoyable evening. THIS is what this hobby/passion we share, is all about... THIS is it, it just doesn't get any better, friendships that distance has no effect on.

 

250 GT ‘Tour de France’

 

Naw... just a case of a blind squirrel finding a nut... the 'win' was merely an accident. Randy, 2M is lunch money to play in that areana...

The TdF... that is a tough one but....... I think I have more fond memories of 0677GT TdF than I do of the GTO. With the 10MM cams timed to race spec's for the long straights at the 'Ring', while shod with the side pipes..... that brings back visceral memories. The side pipes were built and tuned to the exact correct length where their use 'fattened' up the 10MM cams a great deal over the long pipes. Lumpy and throaty during low to mid rev's with a hair raising Banshee Scream at redline and well beyond.... That was the only car where I could work on the next sessions cars back in the paddock at RA, the Glen or Laguna and be able to tell exactly where on the track the TdF was, no other car made those sounds, nothing even close! I tried to duplicate it on the TR, GTO and SWB's but alas, nothing close, it was meant to be unique... and was! The gearbox was like a hot knife through butter and Bob used it masterfully... he needed to when the drum brakes would start to go away mid session. The Chicklet differential with a toe netural alignment liked straight line braking with a Full Power On turn in, but under those conditions, when the trailing arm bushings were fresh, it had the most Drop Dead Beautiful, rear end slightly out, text book 4 wheel slide one could ever dream of! Pour the coals to it, turn the wheel the intended direction and then slowly take it to half of reverse lock and a picture perfect slide started, ending with a smooth hook up of the tires and a slingshot exit. It is no wonder Oliver stated that was his favorite race car of all time... the man had good taste and knew his cars!

We were just packed up and underway, heading back home to Mpls from a Fall race at Road America, maybe 20 miles from the track the transporter lost an engine. Faced with the decision of leaving the GTO, TdF and a Comp SWB on the side of the road..... Hell NO, leave that damn old transporter there and we drive the cars home. Full Fall colors on the back roads of Wisconsin, a crisp late afternoon, and all 3 cars were unloaded. Race tires, no liscense plates, wide open race exhausts on all.... and 6 hours of back roads driving to get home..... As fate would have it, I had to drive the TdF TO the track that race because that was the only time to break in a new engine before flogging it in anger for the weekend. 'Break in' is never 'fun' because all of your senses go into hyperdrive mode and you are focusing on every little sound and vibration. But after a successful weekend, Bob swearing every session that he really didnt ignore the redline on the tach (BS!), the old mouse trap springs surviving just fine and all was proven well.... Now faced with the same drive home but with no reservations about the condition of the lump.... Three noisy Red cars, sounding for all the world like the back roads in France in the late 50's, made their way back home through the Kettle Moraine region of WI. Small town cops would wave and then just cover their eyes in a kind gesture granting us passage through town but when we hit the "City Limits" sign.... Hell would break loose all over again........ All three cars, each with its unique tone and sounds, each mashing the Go pedal a moment after the one in front of it exiting a corner, the sounds echoing off the rock cliff's alondside the road.... and we got PAID to do that shlt, not paid well, but at that point who was counting?! And I wonder why I am deaf now..... Please!

Those 3 letters, weather speaking about the car, the race or a color... it just brings a smile to me, always will. Now to fight off the urge to put side pipes on a Series 1 330.......

 

Imagine that gaggle snorting, popping and chugging through a small farming town in an attempt to keep them as quite and un noticed as possible. Stealth? Fail!
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It would be no surprise Art, I am sure it would sound great! Bob Donner, having owned the last GTO and Bob Bodin owning the first, were good friends and we would meet at various tracks. Donner ran side pipes on his GTO many times and the sound was simply mesmerizing. The 6 carbs mellowed it out a bit over the 3 carb setup but beautiful none the less.

It is an interesting thought Art... I have never heard one with street cams before.... Oh what am I talking about, I need it to Run and Drive first