I was driving the car the other day when a puff of smoke (smelled badly) came out of the center a/c vents as the radio turned off all of a sudden. This nor any other electrical glitches having occurred before in the past 8 years, led Michel to source the cause of the “haywire”. When he found the relay pictured above, looking very much like an electrical jellyfish, it very well likely had something to do with it since the radio began working great thereafter…
This weekend we gave our '84 400i a good workout. Friday morning we left our Finger Lakes home and drove to the Adirondacks near Lake George; its was about 3.5 hour drive much on county roads. We picked up a bear there, see pic. We then drove south 2+ hours to Mt.Temper in the Catskills, staying overnight at the Emerson Inn. Saturday we drove the Catskill Conquest Rally, The 1903 Automobile Endurance Run. This is a one day touristic rally, no times or deadlines and stop where you wish at shops, festival, scenic views, etc. The variety of cars is amazing as the couple of pictures indicate, with the 1932 Pierce-Arrow 54 Club Sedan as the star of the show. There were two other Ferrari's: 1961 yellow 250 GTE and 1915 California T. It took a bit over 2 hours to the end point going thru several small towns of historic interest (to some). We had a pub lunch and returned to the Inn via one of the recommended routes without doubling back over the same roads. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
A bit of valve seat cutting. I've replaced the worn valve guides now cutting new seats and fitting stainless exhaust valves. I even knocked up an attachment for my dial gauge to check valve seat concentricity. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Control pressure regulators (a.k.a WUR), the hard way. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login The idea is to push out (1mm) the cylinder that hold the stainless diaphragm. As the diaphragm gets away from the pressure springs, the control pressure will drop. From then on put the WUR back in the engine bay and lightly tap on the cylinder in order to push again the cylinder inside the WUR, which will apply more pressure on the diaphragm. (cold pressure is a lot easier, but it works the other way round when you tap on the zinc plated pin which is next to the "France" marking, this reduces the cold pressure)
As I've said in the other thread it still pollutes way too much, but I am so happy to hear again this old friend.
If it were not for this leaky head, the engine would be perfect... Here performing the fine-tuning with transparent spark-plugs, you can hear how the RPM increases when the combustion transitions from yellowish to blue.
raemin What RPM are you doing the tuning with the transparent plug? Is that where you want it optimum? Ken
The k-jet is slightly lean at mid-range, so I adjust idle to slightly rich and then check that I am not starving the engine at mid-range (3000rpm). The transparent plugs are fragile, and mine are 20 years old, so even if the leaflet says they can sustain high rpm, I do not push the rpm to redline. In any case the K-jet are much more rich at wide open throttle, so no point in chasing a perfect tune there. As an additional check I also pull the throttle so as to trigger the vacuum enrichment (during this transition you can see that the control pressure slightly "bumps"): the objective is to validate that once again the spark is still consistent and does not become either grossly rich or way to lean during this transition. So far I did not replace the vacuum diaphragms of the WUR (that's a lot of work and the membrane are not exposed to gasoline), so checking the proper operation of this old membrane is necessary. Whenever I have some spare time I will post the full disassembly of my K-jets, that's a one day job well worth the effort.
Look what I've received this morning... Image Unavailable, Please Login The head wants 4 new exhaust valve guides, but that's the best one I've come across so far. Murray Glegg is kindly accepting to make a new batch of 400i head gaskets next week. Hopefully this will be a bullet-proof combination. Let's see how long it take to drop the faulty head and put this one back.
Today was memorial's day in France. Started the engine after lunch at 3pm took me 3 hours to reach the cylinder head. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login If it were not for the involved cost, it's a joy to work on this engine: no grease, no stuck gaskets, what a difference compared to the same work I did 8 years ago! I am impatient to drop this head and see what went wrong?
Took me another 4hours to drop the head, so 7hrs so far. Image Unavailable, Please Login Last time I did it was 8 years ago so almost forgot to remove the horizontal bolt that's hidden under the alternator mount... Image Unavailable, Please Login Now time to send the head to a specialist and see what went wrong!
....and bought this Aussie colour changed one instead....I'm not Romeo BTW he must not have bought it! https://aunz.citnow.com/vtd6pXpv5KU
Can;t tell you Jim I;d have to kill you! Sent the pics to my mechanic so he can have a peruse... More pics of 17895,I didn't pay the ask price BTW; https://classicthrottleshop.com/1974-ferrari-365-gt4-2-2-azzurro-di-mare/
I’m guessing they are there to supply power to the high current items to keep the load off of the original electrical system. I’ve often thought this would be a good idea but haven’t seen any cars with this modification done.
Bugger! I wanted to go have a look at that and take some reference pics for my car. Congrats on the new wheels! Sent from my iPad using FerrariChat
Well it's probably going to hang around there for at least a week or so while the logistics are worked out If you get yer finger out and tee it up with David there perhaps they'll help you out with my blessing.
Comments on relays: 365 does not have the high pressure fuel pumps of the later injected cars, so the relays likely serve the fans and lights. Many have seen my previous posts where I installed two relays under the rear seats for the fuel pumps (a few inches away). For the fans I was more discrete. I installed a new small fuse block behind the battery and ran 12 gauge wires to 3 relays hidden away near the fans. All the control logic remains unchanged just the power bypasses the fuse/relay panel. I don't believe the 365's have a similar panel or at least a lot less complex one. Ken
Good day Ken, I have not gone through the entire wiring system on my 365, but there is one "main" panel located behind the passenger foot reset... see attached picture. With that said I have found a number of relays sprinkled around/behind the dash area and I also think there are some specialty ones in the front near the radiator. All in all it is a bit of an adventure to find all these little bits. Perhaps on Simon's new addition, its the relay/fuse assembly up front was to try and address these issues ? Cheers, Sam Image Unavailable, Please Login