360 Challenge/Stradale Manual build thread

@rustybits - just to be clear you mean the o ring seals on the casings for the left and right driveshafts, right? Not the actual shaft oil seals (which I haven't touched and which seem perfect in every way)

 

You know I guess we all have those stories and maybe it's only the same as looking at stocks retrospectively. It all seems so obvious with hindsight!

Anyway - can squeeze in a small update photo or two just to cheer myself up with a bit of restoration!

So here we have a tired looking 360 engine heat shield.

They are made from fiberglass and on the section that comes close to the manifold they have some foil backed thermal blanket glued and riveted on. Over time the glue fails a bit on the stretched bit close to the manifold and they do get to look a bit horrid...
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The fiberglass protective pieces are easily removed.
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Then some new pieces cut from thermo tec sheet or similar using the old ones as a pattern. I had the remnants of an old turbo kit lying around which worked fine.
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The side panels were cleaned, painted in high temperature paint and then I masked off the contact area and applied strong glue.
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Et voila - a pair of refurbished and much happier looking heat shields. I might actually make a couple of little alloy pieces that rivet in to the recesses near the manifolds which will stop the heat shield from losing the shape as the adhesive degrades over time (like the originals did)
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So as I posted elsewhere on here I encountered a senior moment (I'm 42 and that's happening already!) during rebuilding the innards of the box the other day.

Somehow I managed to use the wrong loctite on the four screws that hold the retaining plate! I went to tidy the garage and realised I had used "243" which is a medium strength compound (it's the new version of the 242 that Ferrari recommend for various things - 243 is apparently less sensitive to contamination on parts than was 242) - but either way it wasn't the right one for those bolts inside the gearbox which called for 270 or equivalent (more like a superglue than a threadlock haha but you really don't want nuts and bolts floating around inside your gearbox do you?)

Anyway I thought about it and couldn't get it out of my head - it had to come to bits again. Damn it!!!
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More for my OCD than anything else - here we go Julian you can relax now you definitely did it right this time!!
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Now that that's taken care of finally (and if you read this Mark I weighed the rear cover in my hands and to be honest it's not really an issue - I'll keep that 360) I moved on to securing the pinion housing.

This calls for a torque of 30nm and again loctite 270 (haha) - the little plate at the bottom stops the oil draining back into the diff chamber so quickly.

Whilst I'm at it - it's interesting to note that the Ferrari manual recommends never to remove the nut securing the oil feed pipe. There seems to be some online confusion about this so I'll clear it up here. They mean the large nut at the top of the gearbox. Not the 10mm but securing the pipe. Trying to work on the pinion with the pipe in place is impossible/extremely difficult. If you remove the 10mm bolt (and for goodness sake remember to loctite that in like crazy on build with 270 and go to about 19nm on clean threads) - but anyway if you remove the little bolt the pipe just falls out of the nut fitting and you can work away happily. There is no need to mess about trying to leave the pipe in situ. Hope that helps someone.

Right that's it for now.

Hoping to receive some parts from Neil at eurospares shortly like the new seals discussed earlier and also new ball joints for the manual selector. Most of them are ok but there is one that is a bit stiff and I want this car perfect.
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Heheh had to sort it was driving me nuts - hate going backwards and doing things twice!! Aargh!

 

Just in case anyone needs it here are the official recommendations: (torques in Nm)
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So today I had to straighten a bent motor stud on the Stradale block. Not sure how it got bent but I had to warm the stud and carefully tap it straight. The tolerances getting the mount to fit are tight.
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Here we go. For my restoration I'm removing the original parts and refurbishing or replacing everything - but that includes being sympathetic to the original look where I can. So if castings were bare alloy im just degreasing them and wire brushing them up. I'm not painting them silver, and I'm not sending them for media blasting either. I'm hoping to achieve a "loved race car" look when it's complete - which makes the car usable - rather than a "brand new" look.

This pic kind of illustrates that as will the next few of the starter motor rebuild and detail.
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First I degreased the case externally.
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The starter motor comes to pieces easily.
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The commutator on the armature definitely needed a bit of a clean...
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Best way to do this is a glass fibre pencil.
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Main motor case was factory silver so I refreshed that.
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I also burned the remaining plating off the mounting rods and the rear solenoid cover and refinished them in gold enamel. I decided to do that because the galvanisation had failed totally and so I couldn't see the point replicating the factory finish for it to fail again. Im hoping the gold will be a little more corrosion resistant and looks as close to plating as possible with paint.

Here are all the parts of the starter, with the bracket refinished in Eastwood's awesome "chassis extreme black" which is a wonderful tough product for refinishing such things.
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The original weather seals were ok- just needed to clean them and lubricate the rubber a bit to restore.
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If you do this, it can be tricky to get all four brushes safely back over the commutator. Be aware the brushes are fragile - enlist a helper if necessary to press two of the brushes back whilst you press the other 2. I actually managed it alone on my last try but it is a tricky little job.
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The rebuilt solenoid went back together nicely also
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And there we go - clean and tidy nicely refreshed and looks pretty without being over the top bling, to my eyes at least.
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