Aussie Testarossa rebuild | FerrariChat

Aussie Testarossa rebuild

Discussion in 'Boxers/TR/M' started by uzz32soarer, May 1, 2012.

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  1. uzz32soarer

    uzz32soarer F1 Rookie

    Sep 9, 2006
    3,088
    Melbourne, Australia
    Full Name:
    Robert Hayden
    Hi guys, as most are aware, my diff failed in December last year and I've recently begun the surgery to repair it. With the high amount of hours involved, it simply couldn't go out to a dealer sa I will be doing most of the work at home.

    I have moved the pctures in another thread to here and will start a new chapter on this repair. As is the norm with these cars, one small (relatively) job has grown arms and legs and now has turned into a full resto of the underside of the car.

    I will post up images and a few details of what I find along the journey. Hopefully some of you blokes can glean a little knowledge from what I'm up to and put it to use some day.

    This thread may turn into a bit of a reference thread over time but will basically be dedicated to what I've found and fixed on my car which is a UK spec 1988.5 Testarossa which was imported into Australia in 2007.

    For those not aware, Australia never got the Testarossa, only one was ever factory delivered here, so most of our cars are UK derived with the occasional Hong Kong or Singapore car thrown in for good measure.

    Even the most carefully looked after UK cars will suffer from the dreaded rust. Simple road spray will find it's way into the most amazing places and add a little road salt to the mix and you have a recipe for disaster.
     
  2. uzz32soarer

    uzz32soarer F1 Rookie

    Sep 9, 2006
    3,088
    Melbourne, Australia
    Full Name:
    Robert Hayden
    So here is where we begin this chapter.

    Driving out of a petrol station in first gear, car seems a little odd. Enterthe roadway and shift to second. No...something strange, seems as though it has selected 1.5, drive doesnt feel right. Pull over in a back street, 600mm pool of diff oil under the car.

    Arange transp[ort to get the car home. It's still able to be rolled in neutral at this point. Get it into the garage and onto the four post hoist where it normally parks above my Pantera.

    First job, drain the oil. 42mm socket required for this. Result. Two roller bearings attached to the magnetic sump plug. Hmmm not good.

    Christmas comes along two weeks later and the good wife buys me a digital borescope so I can stick it in the sump hole and get really depressed.

    Sure enough, I can see the shattered side carrier and bits of bearing everywhere. At this stage I'm a bit stressed and start gathering information about parts required and cost etc.

    I raise the rear wheels and start to rotate whilst looking with the borescope, but after a few turns, the wheel locks up. Bugger! Maybe a bearing has dropped into the crown wheel teeth and any further movement may chip a tooth and cost me a crownwheel.

    First job, disconnect the driveshafts at the hub end. Then the car can be moved around without the diff turning.
     
  3. uzz32soarer

    uzz32soarer F1 Rookie

    Sep 9, 2006
    3,088
    Melbourne, Australia
    Full Name:
    Robert Hayden
    #3 uzz32soarer, May 1, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    Now it's time to rearange the workshop / garage.

    I normally have one four post car stacking hoist and the Ferrari is on this. But now I need a two post hoist to enable me to safely remove the engine for this repair.

    Two pos hoists take up a lot more room, so we start pulling the garage apart. My woodwork bench that I made 30 years ago goes to a neighbour. Shelving gets relocated. New, smaller workstations are fabricated, and after a few weekends we have cleared space for the two poster.

    I wanted a clear floor unit and chose a Radum 4200 kg overhead hoist with electric release. This runs cables over the top so you always keep clear floor which is important if your car is dead and has to be pushed.

    We purchased the hoist (The wife - Suzie - and I ) in flat pack and trailered it home. It was a big job to errect it as I was very specific as to location. I needed to move the four post hoist (with dead Testa on it) to a different corner of the garage and still be able to drive by that hoist to get in line to come under the two post. When completed I had 6mm of clearance to the roof!

    This couldn't have happened at a worse time as I had two cars on the water from the USA. Knowing they were close left me with little option other than get another four post parking hoist and put in the carport attached to the front of the garage. There is good height there but it's on a slope so I had to modify the hoist legs to keep it level. More fabrication!

    Here's some pics of setting up the space and moving the first hoist into place.
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  4. uzz32soarer

    uzz32soarer F1 Rookie

    Sep 9, 2006
    3,088
    Melbourne, Australia
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    Robert Hayden
    #4 uzz32soarer, May 1, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  5. uzz32soarer

    uzz32soarer F1 Rookie

    Sep 9, 2006
    3,088
    Melbourne, Australia
    Full Name:
    Robert Hayden
    #7 uzz32soarer, May 1, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    Now to move things along from the other thread now that the scene has been set.

    So a few months have gone by whilst I scour the World looking for the parts needed to fix my baby.

    I've decided to have a go at all of the strip down myself, I simply can't afford to throw $40k at this repair, much of that being the labour component.

    I moved a lot of things around in the garage and purchased / installed a 2 post lift. The Testarossa has been moved onto the new lift and I've made a start in the engine removal process.

    The new hoist made it easy, but I was very methodical (read slow) and it still took me about 11 hours. I actually photographed and wrote down every step so this obviously added to the time frame.

    So here'e the new cradle in position, then the car lowered down, and finally the engine and subframe clear of the car and pulled away into another area in the garage.
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  6. uzz32soarer

    uzz32soarer F1 Rookie

    Sep 9, 2006
    3,088
    Melbourne, Australia
    Full Name:
    Robert Hayden
    #8 uzz32soarer, May 1, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    16th April 2012

    Today I moved on to the next step. Remove the engine from the subframe.

    This was a real nightmare as the driveline had siezed and I couldn't turn the half shafts or CV's. They are really long and stick out of the subframe and there simply isn't any way to lift the engine out of the subframe without unbolting the driveshafts.

    Or is there>>>>>>>>>>>>>

    Took me many hours to figure it out, but I started by removing the wheels, brake ducts and shockers. This then gave me some where for the driveshafts to go so that I could twinst the engine at an angle as I lifted it up and finally I managed to get one CV joint over the top rail. At that point it was simply a matter of moving the engine or sub frame and angling the drive shafts over the top of the sub frame. Then the engine lifted straight off.

    I set the engine onto three car stands. Two at the rear and dropped the original engine mounts onto the car stands, and then one at the front centre onto a length or 4 x 4" oregon spread across the width of the gearbox.

    Then I was able to remove all of the clutch assembly and the rear engine mounts, then remove the entire cover to be able to finally see into the diff space.

    What I saw nearly made me cry...........................
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  7. uzz32soarer

    uzz32soarer F1 Rookie

    Sep 9, 2006
    3,088
    Melbourne, Australia
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    Robert Hayden
    #9 uzz32soarer, May 1, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    The weld had 100% let go and allowed the diff to move sideways into the bearing cage and shell.

    This had spun and destroyed the bearing which in turn smashed the side support to pieces. The diff had jammed completely as large chunks of the side carrier were wedged around the crown wheel and pinion.

    The quill shaft looked fine, but was jammed in the box. Part of the side carrier had smashed and then been crushed around the end of the quill shaft so I couldn't pull it out.

    Amazing amount of damage, and it went at 10 km/ph!!

    The nest step was to get the driveshafts off and this was a challenge, but after some hours of work I was able to release the RHS carrier which wasn't damaged at all. This can be removed without taking the exhaust off.

    Unfortunately the LHS carrier removal requires removal of the exhaust. If you haven't looked at your exhaust manifold bolts, then you may be in for a suprise.

    Mine were so badly rusted that some did not even resemble nuts anymore, and were seriously difficult to remove.

    Only one on the LHS gave me problems and using a cold chisel, I cut off the nut and the exhaust came away.

    Not so good on the RHS. Your wheel throws a lot of water at the rear most exhaust and those bolts were terrible to get off. In the end, three studs sheered off, two had to be cut off with a cold chisel and the others came off okay. The ones that acually came off were towards the front of the car.

    Once the exhaust was removed, the side carrier was removed and then the diff, or what used to be a diff, was extracted.
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  8. uzz32soarer

    uzz32soarer F1 Rookie

    Sep 9, 2006
    3,088
    Melbourne, Australia
    Full Name:
    Robert Hayden
    #11 uzz32soarer, May 1, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    So here is the diff. Completely fell apart and came out in many parts. Even the clutch packs and spiders came apart.

    Totally rooted!!

    Amazing. This has to be one of the worst implosions I've ever seen.

    So at this stage all I'm concerned about is my crown wheel and pinion. I certainly didn't want to end up like Mel in Holland and have to scrounge the World for a crown wheel set.

    And some of the smashed parts:

    And now after looking at all this misery, here some GREAT news!!!!!!!!!!!

    Apart from some very minor scuffing where the crownwheel probably ate a bit of alloy, there is NO DAMAGE (YAHAHAHA) to the crown wheel and pinion.

    I'll polish the tops with a bit of 1500 grit just to make sure, but at the moment I've looked very long and hard at them, and they seem to be intact.

    That's a $5000 saving................................yeah baby!!

    So I have a few challenges still to go. First will be to see if I can get the broken studs out of the heads and get a full set of new stainless studs and brass nuts.

    Next is to detach the gearbox and start the cleaning process. A borescope up the oil gallery holes looks really good as though most of the material was contained to the diff compartment.

    For those that haven't seen inside the casing with the diff removed, check the last couple of pictures.
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  9. uzz32soarer

    uzz32soarer F1 Rookie

    Sep 9, 2006
    3,088
    Melbourne, Australia
    Full Name:
    Robert Hayden
    Another week or two have gone by and I don't seem to have progressed too far. I spent every day of the first week in front of the bench grinder with wire wheel or in the sandblasting cabinet.

    You think that your car is in pretty good shape, and then you start undoing nuts, bolts, engine mounts etc.

    Everything is either a bit dirty, a bit rusty, a bit greasy, or something.

    You pull off the rear suspension, and think, yeah, that could have a clean up and whilst I'm about it, get the springs powedercoated again. And might as well rebuild the konis whilst they ae on the floor.

    Stuff it, it I am doing the back springs, then might as well do the front ones. And yeah, the front control arms could have a clean up..................

    So now it appears that the job has grown arms and legs and as it's turning to Winter here in Oz, I might as well knuckle down and completely rebuild her underside with shockers, bushes, springs, and plate every nut, bolt and bracket as they are supposed to be.

    Sheeeeesh>>>>>>>>>>>>>
     
  10. uzz32soarer

    uzz32soarer F1 Rookie

    Sep 9, 2006
    3,088
    Melbourne, Australia
    Full Name:
    Robert Hayden
    #13 uzz32soarer, May 1, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    When you send stuff out to a CAD plater, you will get back a bucket or box of jumbled bolts, nuts and plates.

    To make this easier to deal with, as I pulled something apart, I tossed them on a pad, grabbed a marker and wrote what they were and where they were from.

    You think you have this under control, and then a week later you are still pulling things apart and they start to amass. This way when they all come back bright and shiny I will be able to sort and bag them all ready to go back on the car.

    For those interesting parts, lay a small engineering ruler on the page as well so you can get a size refernece in your photos.
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  11. uzz32soarer

    uzz32soarer F1 Rookie

    Sep 9, 2006
    3,088
    Melbourne, Australia
    Full Name:
    Robert Hayden
    #14 uzz32soarer, May 1, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    Here's a nasty thing that I found.

    We are all aware how much road debris gets caught around the top of the rear shocker turrect. Every time you lift the lid and look in, there is grit, gravel and general crud in there. I blow mine out and pressure wash it often in this area to try and keep it clean.

    What we don't see is how much is at the other end!

    Your spring sits on a land attached to the shocker. Between the lad and the col is a rubber insulator. You actually have one at the top and a smaller one at the bottom. Water, dirt and detrius find it's way in between the steel land and the rubber insulator and this turns into a right old mess after twenty years.

    Unless you remove your rear shockers and springs you will never see this, even if under the car.

    Here's what the lands on my shockers looked like when I took the insulators off.
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  12. uzz32soarer

    uzz32soarer F1 Rookie

    Sep 9, 2006
    3,088
    Melbourne, Australia
    Full Name:
    Robert Hayden
    #15 uzz32soarer, May 1, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    So the shockers were stripped down, bushes removed and into the sandblaster they went. Only to do the bottoms, you don't want to damage the shafts with the abrasives. I'll let Koni look after that part of them. They will come back looking like new and fully reconditioned.

    Then onto the springs. Some of the rear springs could have just had a clean and gone back in, but one looked average and the two fronts were terrible.

    They will be tested by Koni to ensure that they have retained the right height and temper over the years and then will be shot peened and powdercoated back to new again.
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  13. bpu699

    bpu699 F1 World Champ
    Owner Silver Subscribed

    Dec 9, 2003
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    wisconsin/chicago
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    bo
    Wow...

    More power to you...

    I would have been seriously depressed for a long time...

    Amazing undertaking!

    Bo
     
  14. simon klein

    simon klein Two Time F1 World Champ
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    Feb 25, 2009
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    Beaut thread ,Rob,it's good to see not all your trouble is in vain with all the peripheral maintenance being done.
     
  15. uzz32soarer

    uzz32soarer F1 Rookie

    Sep 9, 2006
    3,088
    Melbourne, Australia
    Full Name:
    Robert Hayden
    Thanks Simon,

    Aiming for mid July. You know why. See how I go.
     
  16. uzz32soarer

    uzz32soarer F1 Rookie

    Sep 9, 2006
    3,088
    Melbourne, Australia
    Full Name:
    Robert Hayden
    Hahaha..........don't get me wrong Bo. I'm still depressed. But what do you do?
     
  17. normv

    normv F1 Rookie
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    May 3, 2005
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    Norm
    Wow, such damage, yet great pictures. Not to mention some pretty nice other cars too, Love the Pantera.
     
  18. JeremyJon

    JeremyJon F1 Veteran

    Jul 28, 2010
    7,569
    Calgary, Canada
    amazing garage, that's a heck of alot in small a space....best of luck in your repairs :)
     
  19. deangpsx8

    deangpsx8 Formula Junior

    May 2, 2008
    477
    Melbourne-Australia
    Full Name:
    Dean C
    Get back to work Rob!......hehehe Dean...on the other side of Melbourne sitting in my office getting Corporate @rse or @ss ...depending on which part of the world you are reading this
     
  20. RacerX_GTO

    RacerX_GTO F1 World Champ
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    Nov 2, 2003
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    Just looking at the damage from here hurt! Good detail in the pictures
     
  21. simon klein

    simon klein Two Time F1 World Champ
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    Feb 25, 2009
    28,802
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    simon klein
    Aahh,yes,July.
    I'm not sure if I'll be doing it either.
    It won't be in the red car that Rob soooo very nearly overtook you in,cos it's at the body doctor.
    I may have to bring the Volksy.
     
  22. Spasso

    Spasso F1 World Champ

    Feb 16, 2003
    14,648
    Land of Slugs & Moss
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    Han Solo
    Thanks for taking the time and effort to document this Robert.
    It's great service you are providing during a time of catastrophe.
    I hope she goes together for you.
     

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