Could a total novice, non-trained mechanic perform an engine-out?

To start:

1) The novice is good at watching instructional video's and can comprehend the content.
2) The novice has the basic tools, etc.

Is it possible that an average Joe could pull of, say a full major on a 308? Such an average Joe is patient and does a lot of reading with occasional questions to a forum community for help.

Would the above be possible? What would the biggest downfalls be where the novice would say 'screw it'?

 

Hah! Good question, AND great insight (ref your "biggest downfall ").
In fact, THAT is THE major factor for EVERYONE, including paid mechanics!
I guarantee there are several on this forum who have experienced shops where it was obvious that garages gave up on their customer's projects after months (and some cases into years), and threw everything back together and hoped to get away with it.

Stalled projects abound, and, dare I say, are the Rule. Witness "barn finds".
Oh yah, at the start, every project is accompanied by energy and vigor and breast beating and declarations that THEY are not quitters and they see everything through to the end, blah blah blah.
The trouble is that these folks never were truly faced with frustrations from numerous and unpredictable quarters, to include: parts availability, tools, money problems (eg, new baby, buying new home, need for some other necessary expense, medical bills, etc etc), illness (either personal or within the family), relationship problems (!!! a MAJOR FACTOR!!), employment problems (new job, getting released), relocating/moving, AND, another major factor - loss of interest, newer and shinier projects.
I've seen it all, and have undergone several of those project-enders myself.

YES, YOU CAN DO IT! There is no project on a car that you can't do, given that being a car mechanic is not a divine skill given only to a select few. Anything another man can do, you can do!
But, can you overcome the human factors mentioned above?
Can you stay dedicated to the project? Do you have enough money? Is your job and personal relationship stable? Try to look deeply into your situation.
Also, i left out another very important factor: Do you have a good workspace that is large enough, temperature controlled, equipped with electricity, and not a temp space?

Keep us informed, and good luck!!

 

You failed your first test. There is nothing about a 308 service that requires removing the engine.
If you are at that level of knowledge I suggest rethinking it.

 

More study required.

 

Hey Brian, no fail here. If it were me, I'd want to pull it to look at other items that may be in need of repair such as the clutch, etc., etc. just to soak up the entire experience. When I bought my first 308, there was a mechanic in Los Gatos, CA that allowed me to do the belt service (engine in) under his supervision at his garage on University Ave (you or some others here may know who I'm talking about, I can not remember his name). That was a very cool couple of days. I told him I wanted to get my hands dirty and he was all in, an Italian gentleman, maybe about 65-70 at the time, this was in 1995.

 

If you are not planning on looking at the rod bearings there is no reason to take it out. No good comes from taking a perfectly good car apart to look at it.

I keep getting more reasons to stand by my original position.

 

Stands to reason, thank you. OK, so let's not call this an engine - out

 

I hung out at a friend’s Ferrari restoration shop for years watching him perform majors on 308s, TRs, etc., before I attempted my own belt swap for the first time. Even after observing a few and asking probably too many questions of my very patient friend, I still managed to screw it up that first time and narrowly avoided damaging my TR.

Great experience (for me) in the long run, but nobody on an website should be telling you to go for it - you are working without a net.

 

What about practicing on a cheaper car first? Any vintage european car of that era would allow to understand the scope of tools and instrument required. Error would be less costly.

I did took quite Alpine engines out before working on my Ferrari (even assisted my mechanic in droping the cylinder head of my brother'365 prior to working on mine), and I would have never completed the task without the help of my mechanic who ended up performing 75% of labour.

I saved quite some money though, as he was more than happy to let me do all the rest (such as chasing the machinists, and hunting for parts!)

To answer you question : possible, yes but HIGHLY UNLIKELY.

 

About half of american males believe they can land a commercial passenger plane.

That's called self confidence bias... Same issue here.

 

I can land one.

 

You might wanna start by pricing out the cost of new valves and pistons

How many miles on the motor and has it had routine service throughout its life?

I'm with Mr. Crall that generally no good comes from taking apart a motor which is currently functioning well, especially one approaching 40+ years of age.

Also, can you post a picture of your tool chest w/ the draws open? Basic tools usually aren't it for these sorts of jobs. I mean just the other day I was changing an O2 sensor on my neighbor's SUV and you should have seen the crazy collection of tools I had to drag out just to remove two 10mm nuts and a couple of wiring harness clips. For automotive work at this level, there's no such thing as having "a basic set of tools". It's more like having every tool made, whether you think you'll ever use it or not - because eventually you will need it.

My tool collection over the last 40 years is a byproduct of buying a tool every time I run into something I don't have to do a job that I need. Eventually you end up owning everything you typically need. With that said, my collect collection (as extensive as it is) is dwarfed by our local Ferrari repair shop. So yeah, proceed with caution here I think.

Either way, we all have to start some place. Good luck!

Ray

 

Lets all get back to my post as I drafted it. I'm not talking about ME doing this work, just the average Joe in general, could they do the work with patience and available tools on the internet and forum advice along the way. What spurred the question was a 308 on BAT that had not had a major in something like 20 years. If I had bought this car (ya, I'm an average Joe and this work is not in my wheelhouse of expertise), could I have done the work?

 

Gawd, I've thought about that one often. I have many hours in a 172 and a 150. IMO, somebody that understands at least how a plane lands 'may' have a chance but they better be a good listener because some guy in a control tower will walk you through all of the steps to bring the plane down in one piece.

 

Well if automotive service is not in your wheelhouse of expertise, then I think you just answered your own question.

Kinda like asking if the average joe can jump in an Apache attack helicopter and fly it. Probably not...

Ray

 

Peter and I will land this plane - everyone else return to your seats. lol

This discussion reminds me a little bit of when I started asking my kids' late mother about US Marine pilots and their knowledge of the aircraft they flew (she oversaw maintenance on military helicopters). During a visit to base once, I had inquired as to how accurately they balance the helicopter rotor blades and I was kinda surprised nobody in the building knew the answer off the top of their heads. My ex told me, "I don't know either but I do know the guy who will know and I'll find out for you".

The next day the answer came back: 5 grams.

Okay, now we are talking. I asked more questions and basically asked if the pilots themselves were generally able to fix their own aircraft in the event of a crash in the middle east - for example - or if they'd be screwed and better just get on the radio can call for help. She told me some of the pilots, yes they could maybe fix things in the field but most probably not. She told me some of the pilots actually had read all the manuals and blueprints and knew more about servicing the air crafts than the people who were responsible for doing the service and those guys often times did double checked work and pointed out things which needed further attention, etc. She said most people just flew the birds and didn't know all that much about the internal systems, however.

I think cars are a very similar situation. You have people who know how to drive Ferraris but don't even know for sure what the name of their paint color spec is; then you have people who know everything about the motors and how to take the cars part and work on them and then everyone in between. In my experience, most people who are up for these sorts of jobs (like what you are asking about) already know they are able to handle the job without having to pose a lot of questions about could they do it. Also anyone with enough hands on experience to perform this kind of service isn't talking about "average sets of tools". This isn't directed at you personally, but I mean just in general terms I think you've already answered your own question.

Ferrari motors are not Toyota motors. I'll leave it there. Best left to the pros if you ask me - the pros with quite extensive sets of tools

Ray

 

ok we good.

Ray

 

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I don't attempt to fix anything that I'm not immediately able to go out and buy when I break it or screw it up beyond repair!

 

That's probably a pretty good rule of thumb

I have a fair amount of experience with engines and all things automotive over here. I don't think I would wanna cut my teeth or learn on something as advanced as your typical Ferrari motor. Even just engine building in general terms requires a lot of prerequisites I feel. You need to have a firm understanding of timing a motor, rebuilding and blueprinting engines, etc. Also if you aren't comfortable working with precision measuring equipment and understand those fields and how they apply to engine building, then I think you can probably end up doing more harm than good when it comes to something like a major service.

Subscribe to "Just rolled in" on YouTube and you'll see how off the rails things can go.

Ray

 

What a hoot, OMG too good! Like this one! Customer filled their washer fluid reservoir with gasoline............Brake rotor with a bullet hole!..........No oil change for 78K miles since new! BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Surprised a few dead bodies are not found in a few of these cars!



Thank you, I'll get hooked!

 

Yeah, that channel makes my day haha.

Ray

 

Pro tip: buy an old motorcycle and rebuild that.

if you succeed stop there. If you don’t, stop there.

My $.02

 

Back to the OP question, do you have access to someone skilled and trained that will let you watch and ask questions? The cars of that era are not mass produced, there are lots of insider tricks the factory used to assemble and diagnose issues which are not printed in the service manual (which frequently contains difficult translations). Case in point, in some places a TR service manual mentions torque in Nm, but, for example, the figure for the bolts which hold the pulleys to the cams quotes torque as 10 da Nm / (Kpm). Do not tighten those bolts to 10 Nm…

I once watched a retired ex-Lamborghini factory mechanic outside Modena to check timing on my Countach engine after it was assembled to confirm no errors were made. What would take me a while took him seconds, as the factory had drilled strategic holes in the block in places to look for specific unlabelled marks to check this stuff. No references in any manual to those marks. When I asked him to teach me, his limited English became more limited.

That being said, having the confidence and ability to work on them (within limits) has probably doubled my enjoyment of them.

 

You know my friend Bill from Texas used to say, "I don't know what I don't know". I believe he's still a member around here some place perhaps.

I think that phrase applies to engine building really well. You can rebuild a motor and feel like you did the absolute best job in the world - only to learn something totally new and important about precision engine building a year or two later - and then realize, "OMG, I didn't know I was supposed to do that".

That's why starting out doing your first service on a Ferrari motor probably isn't the best idea.

"Wait what? Everything is supposed to be at exactly 20 degrees C when you measure stuff?" Hmmmm.. I did not know that...

Ray