Dino coupe #01832

I am far into the process of taking #01832 apart. It is a '71 euro coupe that I bought about three years ago from a fellow Fchatter. He had purchased it on Ebay and was uniterested in the lengthy restoration that it would need. However for me it was exactly what I was looking for. I had mechanically refurbished a '74 Dino gts and felt like I wanted another project. Well I got one!! The car had been hit pretty hard in the right front. The whole front clip had been replaced and the passenger side door. The hit was hard enough to bend the inner tie rod arm in the rack 13 degrees. The car had originally been sent to Switzerland,California, Texas(?), Florida, New Hampshire. It is in a million pieces now in Ct and parts in NY state as I work on the restoration. This website has been really so helpful in learning about these great cars. I never could have done my other car nor even considered doing this one without this help. Jselevan, Omgjon,Coop, Bob Z, Corbani and many many others a big thanks. I am going to attach a few pics in the next post. One of em shows the hood which was not the original one but had been hit, "picked out" and then cut with an cross and bondo filled over!! The car was originally silver then red. I will post more shots from time to time.

 

Here is the hood with the cross in it and here is the engine lid with the original body # (which matches other areas stamped on the car) which must have been painted on by the factory before they painted the car!
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I rechecked my notes and you are absolutely correct It was delivered to Auto Becker(Importer) in Dusseldorf Germany. It is listed as Euro Model Invoice D

 

It has about 30,000 km (18,000 miles). I have just pulled the motor completely apart and finished pulling the pistons out about an hour ago. It doesn't look like it needed to be pulled apart but I wanted to try it anyway. In any case I will have the block dipped & checked, the crank polished, heads checked out etc etc. I will then try to re-assemble it and get it running on the stand. As I mentioned a few weeks back I expect a long time to go by. How is your project going? I had another sheet metal question for you when you have some time. The drip trays you made will be attached to that cut up hood (which was missing them) and painted. You did a great job- thanks again!

 

I am enclosing a "before" and "after" picture of 01832. The before shows it with my '74 GTS and the after is how it looked this morning after I spent the weekend on it. I have a long way to go!!
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Guys- I took some shots of my 01832 after taking the engine to the machine shop. There were some odd things that we found out and I have posted pics. I was just anxious to go through the exercise of rebuilding the engine as I had never taken one this far apart. The motor had been rebuilt at some point. I thought this was odd as the car only had 30,000 km. However I am glad that I did as you can see in the photo of the head with cyl 1,2,3 that cylinder #2 shows marks at the periphery which would indicate that something banged around hard up there. The pistons which are 92.5mm are AE pistons and I have been told that OE was Borgo. So clearly new pistons were put in. The machine shop said that the cylinders needed to be rebored to 93mm . I am going to use Arias pistons (per Corbani's post) for the new ones. The heads show some corrosion like Daviekj post and one (marked with an arrow) is as deep as 3.6mm. So I have to see if I need to get them welded & skimmed (although that is the deepest). The machine shop said that if the gaskets cover the corrosion (they do) then it is not a problem. Have to consider this one. The harmonic balancer is very beat looking. The rubber has cracked off and the woodruff key slot in the cam gear (not shown) was worn down which created too much play. I need to replace that gear now. However I think that the harmonic balancer was so out of whack that it was vibrating the crank which may have worn the cam gear woodruff key slot down. I have also enclosed two pictures of the front timing chain cover which I had welded up as there were big grooves underneath where the water pump impeller sat which must have vibrated to cause such. There are also strange grind areas (see next to the crank hole) on the plate. I don't know how these came about. I do know that the vibration was a big part of the problem. I am surprised at how poorly the harmonic balancer looks. Either it was repaired (badly) with a heavy handed welder or maybe they came that way out of the factory. I will have to replace it in any case. The body is going to the media blast guy on monday. You can see my attempt with chemical stripper on the right front fender and it was lousy. I don't have the patience for that anyway. I had the hood etc stripped by my restorer the other day (see previous post) and although it revealed important details (body # etc) at 23 hours at 45 bucks an hour it came out to over a grand to do. I can get what is left of the car done for about the same amount (not frame or underside). I took some time investigating the soda blast method and had a sample done. However it sort of frosted the metal although I only had the alum hood spot tested. In any case this guy will pick up the car & drop it back off all done. I will then have the bare body back. My painter can't paint the car for a while and does not want the body primed by anyone else with unkown primers etc. I understand his concern as he wants to do all the painting etc and doesn't want any unknowns. I have been very concerned about spot surface rust after the car is stripped. I have been told of this product called Gibbs protectorant and I bought two cans. I am told it will allow untreated metal to not accumulate rust for a long time. I will put this stuff on when I get the car back and see how it holds up. So there you are ...a mess of a garage but an interesting project!! Stay tuned
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ok - a few answers and a few questions here! The chasis # on my '74 gts is 08278,,,it is a US version and is pretty much all done. As you know they are never totally done! Omgjon- I may be a few months a head of you but I move slow and I am certain you will be done long before me! The car was originally silver and then painted red. I have gone back and forth on the color I will paint it but have considered a blue sera metalazito with tan/black daytona seats headlight covers and campy wheels (no flairs tho) or return it to silver and maybe ox blood interior. I know it won't be red ...I considered black but no and not yellow. I will have a long time before I am down to the paint color considerations. Coop- I checked the valves with a magnet & it did not stick. I did not have them replaced just cleaned up. I was terrified with the dropped valve syndrome with my GTS and had all of those replaced with new sodium filled valves. I have heard strong arguments about the pro's/cons of this and just decided to redo those. I am not concerned with that issue on the GT as I am pretty sure these have been replaced. I don't have a strong reason for not doing it. Maybe I am less paranoid about it now. I am curious why the PERIPHERY of the #2 cylinder has the marks and I don't see evidence of it in the head of that cylinder. Maybe on the very edge of it. Possibly they machined it out & I cant tell. I will ask the machine shop to look really carefully at the bore in cylinder #2 for any evidence of it. But I cant understand why the marks are on the outside of the cylinder? If a valve dropped woudn't it be IN the cylinder? How would something get between the block & the head as these surfaces are mated? I don't know. So I still have questions on all this. Any good comments on the harmonic balancer- it really is crummy looking!? Does anyone else recall that as a problem? I am going to look at the GTS and see what that one looks like. And yes those awful federal regulation side marker lights are coming off. I hate em.

 

So I had the car picked up by American Dry Stripping in Milford Ct. Gary Jones runs the place and he could not be more professional or nicer to me during this project. My plan was to have them strip the exterior paint & I would wire wheel the frame and subframe afterward. However, when I looked at his shop & their ability to do plastic media, grit and a whole variety of services I decided to have the whole thing done at the same time. The only problem was I had left the fibreglass inner panels in and as I was advised by Jon & John that the smart move was to take them out. Gary was nice enough to let me work in his shop which I have done the last two days. So far I have spent 8 hours cutting with a cutoff wheel & drilling rivets and I am only done with the front tub (where the spare goes) and the cockpit. You will notice that the cockpit came out in two pieces (and a fraction). Jon & jeff did it in only one piece. I have a lot to learn!! The rivets were quite hard to find and to drill out. There was fibreglass on top of them & it made finding them tough. Some were copper! I kept thinking the whole time "my body man will kill me when he sees this!!" But I am about 1/2 through I hope. I have to do the front bulkhead which has many tight curves which will be hard to get with a cutoff tool. I bought some dremel cutting wheels and hope I can use those with some effect. I still have to take out the rear firewall/engine piece and the trunk. I figured if I was dumb enough to go as far as I have I might as well do the whole thing. We shall see!!

 

these didn't attach on the last post...

 

I'll make u a deal..if u tell me how to send more pics on this fchat ( I guess I am maxxed out) I will tell u how to do the waterpump. Ok- I'll tell you anyway!! Mine just came off but was very hard to get off as some of the studs had corroded. There were no issues with it hitting the hb. I have a euro so the hb might be different (actually they are from the us versions). However, if you take an air impact wrench & put a 36mm nut (pretty sure that is the size) it will spin the bolt off. There is one HUGE caveat though in taking the hb off. When I took mine off the forward woodruff key which holds the hb in line to the crankshaft fell off & into the front cover. It didnt bother me as I was taking my cover off but if not then u have a very big problem. I bought one of Jacques water pumps (built on your original ) too. I hope they work well. Now how do I open some space up so I can send todays pics!!??

 

Now that I have finally subscribed to the Silver version of Fchat I can post more pics. The best $15 bucks you can spend (thanks Dave). I am enclosing pics of my fibreglass removal. It has taken me 10 hours and I think I am 60% done. It is very tough to find glassed over rivets and drill them out. What really amazes me is that Jon & Jeff were able to take many of the pieces out in one. I couldn't do that with the cockpit nor the front bulkhead. I keep thinking my body guy will kill me. Well I am told that fibreglass is easy to repair so that you can't tell the difference. I have to takeout the other half of the front bulkhead,the engine side firewall, the fuel tanks and rear the inner fenders. I hope to get about 4 hours into it tomorrow. It is coming along!!
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leave it in!! Too late now...I just have the trunk & engine side firewall to take out (and inner fenders). I think this will take me 4x as long as pulling the engine when I am done. Of course I have done that before so there is a (steep) learning curve to this. I hope to have it all out next week.

 

Here are a few shots of my fibreglass removal project. My car is an early 1971 and the engine side firewall had a cloth matt in front of the fibreglass section. That was it- no aluminum shield nor even a rubber isolating piece for where the electrics go through. It had never been taken apart before so I am sure it is original. I will modify and upgrade when I put it back together. I still have to take out the rear trunk area and inner fenders. The rear trunk area is constructed differently than others I have seen. I hope to get the rest out next week and get it ALL blasted.
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