355 Major / Restoration of my 355!

I know there are plenty of threads on the DIY major / restorations, but I thought I would add to the database with my major restoration project on my (new to me) 1999 355 F1 Spider.

I bought this 355 a couple months ago knowing that it needed a major. Once the car was received, I realized it needed more than a major - the interior needed to be fixed (leather and sticky plastic), roof was not working, steering rack was leaking and the engine bay was filthy/grimy... I decided to do a full restore comprising of the following:

New Leather
De-sticky Plastic
Steering Rack Rebuild
Front Suspension Bush replacement
Fix Spider roof
Engine Major
Rear Suspension Bush replacement
Clutch

I will also probably end up:
Replacing gearbox / engine mounts
Shock Mounts

I will update this thread (hopefully on a weekly basis) over the next few months as I get various parts from vendors and installed. I probably won't be able to give more than a couple hours a night so a weekly update sounds about right...

So far, in the past 2 months, I have been able to:

New Dash Leather
Renew plastic interior
Fix spider roof - system was flushed/bled, forks aligned, fixed seat pots

This past week, I was finally able to pull the engine out... During the engine 'coming out' party, I found 2 seized AC hoses that would NOT budge... In addition, the previous (or prior) owner had installed a 360 F1 pump, and the hoses were routed such that the pump could NOT be removed without disconnecting the system - which lead me to believe that the engine has probably not been dropped in a while!

After engine removal, the state of the front of the engine can be seen in the pictures below... I still need to remove the crank pulley to check for leaks at the front engine seal, but for now the front shows 2 different leaks on initial examination (marked A (coolant leak) and B (oil leak) in the last picture below...

The underside of the car showed definite signs of coolant and oil leaking when I first bought it...
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Saving post #2 for future status updates

 

The cam tensioners show 2 different signs of wear:

1) the left tensioner is leaking grease and the hyd tensioner seems to be less than the 2.5mm gaping that a new one should have?
2) the right hyd tensioner shows a lot of gap

 

I've got a whole new Inco Shielded Exhaust system coming in - headers, 200CEL Cats, Y pipe and Muffler all Inco-Shielded... Stay tuned

I do have a question about the starting the belt change, which I have posted in another thread:

355 - Timing Belt Question | FerrariChat

Any help is appreciated!!

Thanks

 

Inconel Shielding

 

Here is a short update on the Interior that was fixed:

New Leather on both Seats
New Black Leather on Dash - the blue leather was not replaced as not enough of the correct color was available! Will probably get to it later on...
All Plastic Bits hydro-dipped in CF with a clear coat... I think it looks pretty cool. The only piece I am not yet sure about is the HVAC unit, since it needs to be able to show the light through the unit... This is what I have done for now, but I do not like it so I am thinking of how else to get the CF look with a factory light through it...

 

The engine works done so far:

All accessories removed from front of engine (Alternator, PS pump, Water Pump, AC Compressor)
Exhaust removed
Oil Tank Removed

The engine is filthy...


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After 1 day of cleaning the lower part of the 5-8 bank and left side of the gearbox...


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Also.. from another thread:

"As I am about to start my first major (355) on my own, I thought to collect some data from the braintrust to use as a handy guide later on... I will DEFINATELY read/use the WSM during the major, but I thought it might be fun to make a list of small details that are sometimes overlooked when doing a major service...

Please feel free to chime in with anything relevant, but I would actually like to know the following:

1) Which mating surfaces should include the use of a liquid gasket/silicon/sealant?
2) Which surface (if any) should NOT have any liquid gasket/silicon/sealant used?
3) Any bolts that require lubrication before being installed?
4) Any bolts that SHOULD be loctited when installed?"

Thanks!