My Car: 1983 308 QV US After Labor Day weekend and a 560 mile 2 day run, Ive had to face handling my radiator leak. On Labor Day I had a leak / spray at the center bottom of my radiator that I fixed with Stop Leak. But I new that was a quick fix so I started searching this sight to find out what removing the radiator would take. I have to say, its very involved. But not something that cant be done. I primarily followed this thread: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=195173&highlight=radiator+removal which has great info and pics. But, I thought Id document my own as well. The real drag of this job is the fact that there are two 10mm bolts at the bottom of the radiator that attaches the air conditioning radiator to the coolant radiator chassis. Those screws are covered by the front Valence. There is no way around having to remove the front bumper, grill and valence. The removal of the front of the car has to be done to get the radiator out. The bottom of front fenders, front valence and under skid plate are all one piece. Things I did / removed: I put the car on ramps in the rear and jack stands in the front and removed front tires. I made sure the front of the car was a little lower than the back for better draining. Remove access panel under the front of the car. Drained the coolant. This takes a while so I started doing it early. To drain the coolant, I loosened the hose under the access panel under the front of the car. Removed Hood. I used a silver sharpie to mark the position of the hood to the hinges, well see if it works when I put it together. Removed Spare Tire. Removed Battery Cover. BTW, put the head lights up, youll know why later. Removed Battery. Removed Grill. Removed Front wheel well inner liner at the front of the wheel well. (4 Philips head screws, three on top, one in the middle) Removed Bumper. My front bumper has new bumper tubes to pull the bumper in. There was one 22mm bolt per side under the hood at the rear of the bumper brackets. Its a tight squeeze to get to them, that's why you want the headlights up. REMEMBER TO UNPLUG THE TURN SIGNAL LIGHTS! The bumper just pulled out the front, no problem. Front Valence. The other thread I mentioned has great information on the valence removal, its worth a read. Information on how to remove the valence is here (pictures!!) http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=195173&highlight=radiator+removal The valence splits from the front fenders at the black horizontal body seem. There are small bolts inside the front of each fender (7 per side, 8mm), to access them you have to have the grill and bumper off as well as the wheel well liners. There was one screw on each side that was covered in putty / undercoating spray. You have to dig that out to get to the screw. It's on the wheel well side, second from the back, right against the upper (non removable) wheel well. The valence is also pop riveted in. You will have to either drill or chisel the rivets off. There are two rivets per side in the front of the valance below where the bumper brackets are. They are in an area tat is hard to get a drill into, so I chiseled the heads off. Under the car there are a series of rivets across the rear of the skid plate / valence. I used a drill on those. There are 6 or 8 rivets under the car. Once all the screws were out and the rivets removed I ran a razor blade down the top of the black horizontal body seem on the lower front fenders to score the paint (my car has been repainted). This will prevent chipping. The valence slides forward like a dresser drawer. I tapped the lower fenders on the inner wheel well with a rubber mallet towards the front of the car. The whole front valence broke free with little effort. It slid forward just a little, and then you have to pull the lower fenders out a little on each side to get it to clear the rest of the body work. Then it just pulls forward into your hands, don't drop it! Removed Radiator coolant hoses top and bottom. Removed Top radiator bolts (One per side, top) There is one screw that holds the air conditioning lines to the radiator bracket (10mm) on the passenger side. Removed Fans (One 10mm bolt each) Remove the two 10mm bolts I mentioned earlier at the bottom of the radiator, one on both sides. This separates the air conditioning radiator from the coolant radiator and the reason you just did all that work! You have to jockey the air conditioning radiator away from the coolant radiator, but then the coolant radiator lifts right out. The air conditioning radiator stays in the car, but you have to prop it up a little. Dont let it hang or twist the air conditioning lines. That's it, simple as pie! The question is, can I put it back together? More to come on that! Also, I have found a radiator shop in Bakersfield, California called Davis Radiator Shop 2500 E California Ave Bakersfield, CA 93307-2011 (661) 324-9886 I called last week and he quoted me $75 to boil, rot, re-core, repair and pressure test my radiator as long as I took it out of the car and brought it too him. I told him what the car was and I was shocked when he didnt say Oh, yeah, one of those Ferraris huh? $400 bucks! Instead he said he had a one day turn around! So, Ill let you know how that goes! I guess I'll spend the next few days cleaning everything I can touch. More to come Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Looks good Chris. Reminds me of when I changed out my spoiler in late 2007 (search my posts for those pictures if you like). I cleaned my heater blower ducts then too which had clumps of road debris in them. The heater and defrost worked better after that! Check your two blower mounting tabs for cracks too. Bob
Wow Chris it looks like you did a little overkill from my experiance. I had to remove my 77 raditor and unless there are significant differences I did not do all of the work you did. I guess the big difference was I removed the AC condensor with the rad. By doing this I did not touch the front end nor did I remove the hood. The whold deal from drain of fluids to having the rad. on the floor took a little over an hour. Rad. shop pulled the top and bottom caps and resoldered everything and repainted it for $80. Leak tested and ready to reinstall. Took me 2 1/2 hours to get it back together and running and that was with a recharge of the AC system. My only difficulty was that I needed a 2nd person to lift out and reinstall the rad. Good luck.
+1. I just did had this done myself the exact same way cept we did pull the hood off. Had a newer higher capacity, more efficient core put in and boiled and cleaned the condensor while we were in there. It runs great great now and seems to cool properly.
I don't know if the GTB/S hinges are different, but on the GT4 I removed the tiny circlip and removed the pins from the hinges. I didn't want to have to deal with re-aligning the body panels. Judging by how good the factory was(n't) always so good about it, I'm guessing there's some fiddling necesssary. By pulling the pins the lid will go back exactly as it was.
Is the bumper/valence difficult to remove? I was able to do this without removing these 2 items. I did have to remove the grill, but once the upper radiator mounts were removed I was able to lift the radiator assembly to get at the lower bolts holding the radiator and the condenser together. I did not have to open up the AC lines, but I did lift the radiator and condenser out together, separated them, and then placed the condenser back in the car. This last step did require another person to help. It does look alot easier to do with the bumper/valence off though. Aaron
Hey Bob, I will take a look at your pic's and good call on the heater ducts, I'll take a look at them since I'm here. I'm going to clean everything I can get my hands on. The bottom of my Valence has some dents in it from before I got the car, so I'm going to pound them out while I have it off. I don't plan on doing this again. There was no way to do that before. Hey Steve, I had thought about disconnecting the A/C, but the system has just been recharged and works great. Plus I didn't want to open up the R12 to the atomosphere and I have no way of evacuating it properly. Hey Barcheta, I thought about the high capacity radiator, but my car stays pretty cool. So for $75 and a few days work, I'll be on the road soon! Hey Brian, I'll have to look and see if there are pins on my car. I hate having to align body panels. That would make life easy! Hey Aaron, My radiator wouldn't move at all. I tried everything, but it wouldn't even wiggle. I was really hoping to not have to take it down this far, but once I pulled the two bottom bolts, the radiator came right out. I might not put them back in! LOL For the future. We'll see As for if it is hard to take the valence off....No it's easy, just time consuming. I have about 8 hours into it all. I moved pretty slow on it all though, cleaning as I've gone. The goal now is to get it spotless when it goes back together. The hood, bummer grill and valence are all in my living room, this way it's easier for the wife to clean them! LOL She's such a good woman! Thanks for all the advise guys!
Wow, that's a lot of work; but you're getting to know your car and you've got easy access to inspect and get some other stuff done. I just pulled my radiator (after bragging many, many years of no cooling issues), and I didn't even put the car on jacks. Took the hood off, removed the top half of the forward spare tire well, opened the drain, removed the hoses, and therm-switch wires, removed the small bolt that connects the A/C lines to the radiator mount, removed the two 10mm bolts on top, pulled radiator & condenser straight up far enough to get at the two 10mm bolts on the bottom (there is plenty of give in the A/C lines to allow a lot of upward movement), separated the radiator from the condenser and pulled the radiator the rest of the way out.
Your spare tire well comes out? Mine is pop riveted in, I guess that would have been one option, drill out the rivets on the tire well. I dropped off the radiator today, He told me $50!!! So now I have to work on pounding out the dents on the bottom of my valence. As you can see from the pictures, I have to keep the hood near the bar, in case I need a drink! Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
There, I pounded out the dents with a rubber mallet and a few wood blocks. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I did drill out the rivets, and getting the remains out is a PIA, but like you I have good access to inspect and get some other stuff done. I'm going to put it back together with rivnuts. I think you just wanted to bring part of your car in the house;-D
Rivnuts??? What are those? Your right about wanting the car in the house....I feel so much closer to it this way....I wonder what my wife would think if I brought a few pieces into the bedroom! LOL
Rivnuts are basically a pop rivet with threads, so you pop the base in and use a screw to fasten. After spending the past few hours cleaning out the old pop rivets, Ive decided rivnuts are not necessary. The lower brace and around where the spare wheel attaches are thick enough to tap, and everywhere else is strong enough to use a short broad-head sheet metal screw. Ill want to take it apart again in November-December to replace the heater hoses while its laid up to replace rear suspension bushings and fuel lines, but for now I just want to get it back on the road as soon as possible. Seattle is having the best summer in history, and I have already given up three and a half weeks to replacing the clutch, CV joints, rebuilding rear calipers, changing some shift linkage bushings, and replacing the fans. Not complaining; I just want to drive my car! Good luck on getting yours back on the road soon too Ferraris make better for drives than interior decoration
OK, interesting. I don't think I'll need Revnuts either. I only have to deal with about 10 rivets anyways and I don't plan on coming back in here! (famous last words) I agree with you. The weather has been great down here in Southern California, but we're starting to get rain and it has cooled off a bunch, so I want to get this put back together and drive it a little more before she is put away for winter. I'm off to do some cleaning. Chris
Did your front valance have as many rocks/dirt in it as mine did? When you got to put it on, make sure the car is in the shade and put the valance out in the sun for awhile to heat it up, expands it a bit, and make it more flexible. That should help it slide on. Make sure you have a 2nd hand to put it on as well. When I took mine off, it felt like I was about to break it to get it past those rails/stops it's mounted on.
Question: Is your valence fiberglass? Mine is metal, but it's still a good idea to put it in the sun and get it to expand a little and yes, I will have someone help me. I now have the valence straitened and the bottom painted black. I've been cleaning, but there isn't much to clean. There really wasn't much dirt or rocks in there at all. I was surprised. This car is very clean, even in the radiator bay. I checked the heater ducting and it was clean as well. Once I have the radiator back (Friday) Ill start putting it back together. I'm thinking of making a stainless steel sheet cover / skid plate to protect the nose of the car. I have a huge sheet of stainless steel sitting around, I need to create something with it! Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Have you ever noticed that the 328 radiator is slanted forwards? It makes sense so that there is airflow around the spare tire tub. Anyway the mod could work on the 308?
Everything in the picture above is Metal. I think it's aluminum, it's light. Would be nice to have this piece in carbon fiber, then if you hit it on something it wouldn't get trashed!
I have never seen a 328 radiator up close, next time I'm around one I'll ask if I can look. The car stays cool, no problem when everything is working right. But the car is 26 years old. These things need to be worked out. I'm glad I'm doing it, now I know what has been handled. Gives me piece of mind. I'll pick up the radiator in the morning and then the process of reassembly begins.
piece of mind...... so, you must be new to the world of 308 ownership;-) I also pick mine up tomorrow. $225 + tax for a rebuild. I should have told them it was for a Fiat and they probably would have done it for $50. Oh well, seems I'll never learn. BTW, did you have much trouble finding suitable hose? I could find the #20267 90degree bend at several places, but had to have the straight Gates hose ordered (also arrives tomorrow morning). Good luck putting yours back together. I plan to be back on the road collecting more bugs this weekend.
Robert, I was with Chris when his radiator blew and saw the cause. Chris can correct me but it appeared to just need a tank seam repair and a good boiling (cleaning) out of the existing core. I would presume from your $225 amount, they had to heavily patch or even replace your whole core and/or one or both tanks completely ..... BIG difference. So do not fret about a presumed overpayment.
All my hoses are brand new from my last major a little over a year ago. The only hose I need to do is the heater hose that is about 4-5 feet long. I'm going to measure that and pick it up today. I need some new hose clamps too. Yeah, I guess piece of mind mind end up being more expensive that I first thought! I read a tread on here right when I bought the car, the guy was talking about the stresses of ownership. How he can't handle the pressure, leaving the car in a parking lot and freaking out that someone might mess with it. Or the fear of crashing it and on and on. I have to say, mix that with keeping it running and yeah, it's stressful. My real feel is taking something apart and breaking something else. Somthing REALLY EXPENSIVE! Oh well, I will do what ever it takes, after all this is the car I'm ging to be laid to rest in!
Bob, your right about mine, I also had added stop leak once before to fix the same leak about a year before. When I took it to the radiator guy he looked it over and said it was no big deal, just a cleaning and seem repair, thats why it was only $50. Hopefully it will hold up. If I ever do this again, it may be with one of those hi po aluminum rad's, $1,100!!! Plus new modern fans!
Got the radiator put back in, and had a pleasant drive after exactly one week. Not too bad; specially since the good weather is returning from tomorrow. Chris: good luck moving yours from the rec room to the highway. Image Unavailable, Please Login