360 Challenge/Stradale Manual build thread

I ground the rust off, treated the surface...
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The cv joints were rebuilt at the same time.
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Then I repainted them in extreme chassis black
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Finally they were reassembled with new gaiters, clips and covers. Originally the outboard ends are zinc plated but looking at how badly that did I think the black coating will be a good plan. One point is that the clamps supplied by Ferrari in the gaiter kit for the small end are too small and had to be replaced.
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Another angle - they look a bit better now haha!
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I also finally managed to finish the inlet manifold. First off the bare casting got a thorough clean...
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Then, after finishing the milled down butterflies were reinstalled and all of the hardware was carefully rebuilt.
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The flat screws were used to bolt the butterflies back in. I used extreme care and loctite 270 in copious quantities. Really don't fancy a screw falling out...
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Here is a "before" shot showing the original shaft thickness and screw profile
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And this is the new profile - much less restrictive.
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Anyhow, new gaskets fitted and I could finally mate the halves back up...
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Looks good - pleased
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Thought I would perch it on top of the motor for a quick look...
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Hi guys. Thanks. It's been very slow but I'm gaining momentum again - It helped to move the GT3 into storage and now the F car is in the garage so that makes it easier.

Petrol is my go to degreaser for most things, yes. But on a big casting like the inlet manifold where it is literally bare of any other parts I use a simple water based one as well.

There is a guy on here in another section (think it's BB) who has discovered a way to get aluminium looking bright and totally clean just by treating it with something. But when he was asked he refused to tell, explaining that it has taken him a long time to work it out. (He's not a hobbyist this guy it's a commercial enterprise for him so you can understand it) -- anyway -- it can't be too difficult to work out if you know things about materials in a chemical way (my knowledge is very rudimentary) and if you do please let me know!

 

So at the moment I'm working on mechanical things on the engine - getting ready to time the cams, replace cam seals and rear main seal. Fair bit of refinishing going on like these cam covers which look a bit fresher now.
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Something that might be of help to someone else. I noticed that my fuel gauge would read reasonably linear down to around 4/5 empty but then the gauge would "stick" and eventually the car would run out of juice with the indicator still reporting fuel present.

I've read a few things about bending the fuel arm etc but I was not wholly convinced so I cracked the whole thing open to take a look.

Here you can see the whole assembly with the fuel arm sat flat on the "bench" lol.

Also my lovely Mrs sat having a beer!
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Specifically, in my case, the issue was a dead spot in the wiper type resistor that is attached to the float arm.

This is a "post cleaning" photograph with the issue solved. I just used some fine wet and dry sandpaper to clean the resistor board carefully and measuring it with my meter the dead spot disappeared instantly and the arm moving now results in a resistance of around 3 ohms "full" to around 300 ohms "empty"

Obviously I'm some way off (ahem) actually being able to report that it's solved the issue on the road but in principle I think it's done.

Hope this helps at some point
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Since most of the posts for my project have not really hinted at what is in store and it's taking so damned long I thought I'd include a pic of a set of little brakes I found knocking around in my project storeroom, just to liven things up a bit!
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Yes Mark I did - they were just too good value to resist and like I said to Emma great value for £100 😬