Old/vintage Italian cars

when I was a kid in the 70s my mum had a Fiat 850, the big brother of the original Fiat 500, a little water cooled 850 cc 4 cyl engine in the back, this car had a bullet proof engine, it didn't matter how badly it was treated it always started and never let my mum down. the oil filler and the petrol filler were both in the back, and one day my mum asked the garage to fill it up with petrol (there were the days when you could fill up for a fiver) as she was running low, she drove off and was surprised to see she was still low on fuel. my dad suggested the gauge was broken and would fix it when he got home from work. A full day of driving and when my dad checked it later that evening it turned out the garage had filled the engine with petrol and not the tank.. the car never complained and ran for many more years until it was upgraded to an Allegro My first car in 1978 was a fiat 850, I even rolled it at Silverstone, on a club day (520x12 cross plies are not good )

I was worried with the Ferrari that it would be temperamental and challenging to keep and maintain, and now after 10 years it still hasn't let me down, ok the clutch and cable went, I have had the odd water pipe break and fan belt go, but nothing really bad..

I noticed for the past month or so it hasn't been running well, getting very hot, coughing and spluttering, quite noisy and generally not much fun to drive. So yesterday I took a look at it...
All 8 spark plugs were loose, no really loose! they had bizarrely unscrewed themselves or had never been tightened in the 2 years the plugs have been fitted! The dizzy cap was only being held on with one clip, so that was flapping around.

I drilled the oil filter mount and tapped it 1/8" bsp and fitted a manual pressure gauge in the engine compartment, it looks like electric sender/gauge is reading low, with a cold engine I get 85 - 95 psi of oil pressure at idle, and on a red hot really thrashed engine (90 - 100 deg C water / oil temp) 45 psi at idle.. and this is on a car that has spent 15 years of its life as a Donnington track car and my daily drive for 10 years, the engine has never been touched and I have no idea how many miles it has done (many many speedos later)..

Tighten up the plugs, repair the dizzie cap, balance the carbs, clean all the oil and grease of the engine, clean the air filter and it is back to being fast and fun to drive...

Vintage Italian cars... Brilliant I just wish they had used better metal for the body!

By the way, there is a classic car show at the Royal Farm Shop in Old Windsor this Sunday Events | Windsor Farm Shops I had my Dino in the show last year parked next to an old Bugatti - nice - its free too.