Yo DD. I'm saving the paint scrapings, old window gaskets, rust and bondo from the stripping for you. That way you'll own most of a vintage Ferrari, anyway. DM
In all seriousness, Ferrari has NEVER been very good at fit and finish. Even on brand new cars, they still need touching up. On my brand-new Stradale, the undercoating showed through in spots. This explains why I get such a kick out of the originality nuts. Ferraris were meant to go fast, not to look pretty. The pretty boys go for the Lambos. Dale BTW, about the Stradale, who cared about the paint? Gawd, I'd trade almost all my tomorrows for just one mo day at the track.
I found a guy in TN that is going to paint it, and another leather guy that did a friend's 400i 5 speed. I think the car is going to stay in the south (cheaper labor rates too).
dave, the last set of mouse hair our "brazilan friend" has was from the 90's, and not the same. oh well....... i am glad to see your car is moving along. i have to be honest, how can anyone know what to expect when they strip their cars? given the photos you have shown (and with your car being a nice, solid older car) there is no telling what one could expect on any dino. thanks for the photo documentation. please keep it coming.
Shawn. Exactly correct on the rust. I expected trouble with the doors, they looked a little rough to begin with. The rockers, well, they were much worse than expected. Fortunately, the frame is very solid. The real surprise was some stress damage in the rear, and an indication that some fairly major work (bondo) had been done there. When we stripped off the paint, the entore back end had been gone over. There was also a metal forming crack back there, where the guys with the hammers had over stressed the metal, and it had failed, apparently just from driving the car all those years. Overall, there haven't been a lot of probelms I didn't expect though. More pix after the New Year. Dave
Dave, I've always loved the Dino. Yours is a '72? How many miles? It is going to be spectacular! Keith
'72 US spec. 59,000 miles. Don't have the early records, but the dino register seems to back that up. Thanks, Dave
Amazing progress Dave. A very ambitious project to say the least. Thanks for sharing it with the community.
Dave, my car when stripped to the metal was found to be slightly worse than yours and the rear two arches (Flares)were mostly constructed of fibreglass! my body work guy has spent ages reconstructing firstly in cardboard and then metal as obviuosly no panels are available, both sills (or rockers as you call them!) are being replaced and these i managed to get from superformance although they are approx half an inch shorter from the originals! The chassis is in pretty good shape ( how are you going to paint yours?) . Doors are in a similar shape to yours, both under panels behind rear wheels were rotten too and thes have been replaced and thats about as far as it's got at the moment. Somebody tell me coz i'm a bit thick, how to post photos and i'll put some up. Regards Graham. PS Dave you have a PM
This think is way more complicated than it needs to be. How many of you Dino guys out there grease you hinge pins once a year? Nifty little grease fitting on top with a tiny spring and ball bearing. CDM Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I believe T-Rutlands has repro door hinge pins with that style lubricating cap and they are pretty close to original. There is a brass fitting available for your grease gun that fits that octagonal cap.
Work continues to progress. We've stripped it all to bare metal, repaired the rockers, in anticipation of the epoxy filler coat. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Now it's getting interesting. here's the epoxy coat going on. Paint in about a week. STAY TUNED DM Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
The whole thing's making me crazy. By the way, there's about 80 hours of metal work into it at this point, above and beyond what the insurance co is willing to pay for. So, those of you who thought I was getting off cheap, think again. Oh, and that's epoxy primer on there, not the filler. that's next. Dave
Somehow, the words "cheap" & "Ferrari" are seldom used in the same paragraph. Unless of course, one is talking about what a Ferrari is "not".
Looks great Dave. Unfortunately, it's going to be much more expensive than you think. You're going to have to buy a driver Ferrari now that this one is "perfect"...
