'The Ratarossa': The Testarossa Spider Rebuild Project

That's one hell of an angle. Beauty

 

Been away on Holiday and work trips the last few weeks so progress has been slow. That said I had a little time on my hands yesterday and decided to focus attention on the engine and seeing if it had any chance of running

 

From previous investigation the engine would turn over but that was the extent of it. Listening closer to the mechanics I figured there was no fuel pumps cutting in on ignition. Located the pumps (thanks for the help here guys) and checked all connectors and metered them, confirmed power was there so it appeared both pumps were defective, this was not surprising as car has stood still for ??? years possibly 20+. I ordered two new pumps and went to work fitting them.

During fitting there was some old fuel (very small amount) in both tanks, my concern was this would cause problems and also if this was elsewhere in the fuel system, heads, pipes etc etc. I had left some new fuel in the tanks for a couple of weeks while I was away from home and this seems to dissolve the old crude nicely. I drained out on return and got a bucket load of semi orange coloured fuel. Fingers crossed it was only the tanks.

Confirmed both new fuel pumps were working. Got a nice clicking and priming noise on ignition.

I added some new fuel ...........
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Turned the car over a few times and nothing much happened.

Tried a few more time

I had a very slight murmur which got a little stronger but nothing near firing up.

I started to one by one check all the fuel lines and connections to see if fuel was getting to various areas along the line.

Replaced the Fuel filters

Replaced all the spark plugs.

 

Took off both cold start valves and sprayed them with cleaner. reseated and tried again .......... got a little bit stronger but again not near firing up.

Took off again the cold start valves and hooked up a fuel line into each, fed some fuel along with some cleaner and cold start. reseated the valves and tried again.

with fingers crossed

 

BINGO !!! The engine fired up

very lumpy at first, no suppose after all those years out of action.

Gradually the smoke got less and less and the engine beat smoothed out, eventually becoming a beautiful idle after about 20 minutes. The car actually sounds better than my Testarossa coupe.

Today I am one friggin happy chappy !!! What a result.

 

Video one, this was a few mins in after start up. Most of the smoke had cleared by now.

https://youtu.be/56AFa1wKmHk

 

Video 2, this is about 30 mins after the car had been fired up for the first time. As you can hear the car is idling pretty sweetly now. This is with zero tinkering or setting up.

https://youtu.be/L583f2oYRZA

 

With the engine running it was time to see if the gearbox was ok and attempt to move the car.

A quick small blip backward the forward revealed all was good. So I moved the car onto the drive to get some fresh UK air alongside his coupe brother.

So we have:

1. Running Engine
2. Working gearbox (reverse and 1st tested)

= Car movement by itself for the first time in many many years
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you let the engine run with the old cambelts????

 

Yes big risk, but I needed to know the engine state before plowing big money into dropping engine/gearbox out for all the service work. Had I a full on ramp in the garage then the belts etc would have come off first.

 

LOL, yeah don't rev the engine too high with those old cambelts though!

Although, cambelts still working after 20+ years of 'oxidation' kind of speaks against the voodoo and FUD of the 3-5 year replacement cycle...

 

this is the same as with the diff:
no question if it will fail, only when
and if then the damage is high

 

Glad it is working so well and there was no nasty noise and cursing! Looking forward to watching further as you progress.

Keep up the good work.

Regards.

Mark.

 

Hi Scott
Douglas valley has just got a Testarossa in for breaking
I think it is the one that crashed on Chelsea bridge earlier this year
You should be ok for hard to locate parts as he has only just started to break it
Hope this helps
Regards Mike

 

Scott,
The US side marker lights work with the parking and headlights. They stay on constant, do not blink with turn signals. How did they support the side windows without the rest of the frame? I had the door panel off my TR and the window kind of floats on the cables and pulleys.

 

Thanks Mike, I've already had a chat to Steve at Douglas valley, he gets the TR in next week to break. Hopefully I can get some bits off the car.

 

Hi Guys

Can someone explain what the secondary air pumps function is on US cars ?

I have noticed mine is missing the belt, pipe and filter and wondering what effect this will have on the car when its running ?
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sorry wrong image attached ..... try this
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this all is a joke for stupid goverment regulations:
this airpump is pumping fresh air into the exhaust that the emissions at the end of the exhaust will be not so concentrated

 

The airpump supplies more oxygen to the cats so a full conversion of the exhaust can be done. Without oxygen the cats wouldnt be as effective

 

I have sent the 16' wheels away to get refurbished. So while the car is up in the air for a while over the xmas period Ive decided to take a look at the suspension starting with the front, it has bothered me why the wheel arch gap was so high so I put my 1990 TR next to the project and removed the wheel to compare the two side by side looking for anything out of alignment. Happy to report that everything appears to be correct and no signs of front end crash damage.
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It looked pretty dirty in there so I decided to start a clean up and rebuild of the front end suspension as its one of my projects to complete on the long list.
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Started to order up the necessary parts from Superformance.

Today I went hunting for a close match for the Koni Shocks, found this Fiat colour that looks pretty good.

Ferrari did a great job of protecting everything as there practically no rust, the sealant they used though is one pig to get off.

 

images
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