Fixed the airduct cracks with UHU-Por. Regular Cyanoacrylate is a big no-no as it makes a brittle bond. In the past I have used hypalon (inflatable boats) glue. This later glue which seems to be Neoprene mixed with MEC works really well. but it leaves brown marks that are ugly. By contrast UHU-Por is clear & soft, remains pesky for ages though. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Finally not "done today", but more of a one day job that ended-up as a 2 weeks trial and error process. "almost finished today"... In the process of refurbishing my Aspera compressor I had to remove the metalic gasket, and as these are impossible to source I had to make the re-assembly with this old gasket. I suspect the compressor will leak badly. As my mechanic had a york lying in his part bin, I just made a complete overall (all head gaskets, shaft seals, fresh POE oil, new coat of paint). The ASPERA is of much higher quality, likely to vibrate less due to the shorter stroke, the Aspera so-so paint-job looks like a work of art compared to flaky coat applied to the york. This being said, the York has a built-in filter on the suction port, the shaft seal is protected by an outer ring that keeps the dust away from the fragile carbon seal, and unlike the ASPERA spare parts are easy to source. So I have now 2 compressors, will keep whichever passes the vacuum test and if need be will purchase a new ER206R (not ER210R). Image Unavailable, Please Login See: No dust protection on the ASPERA Image Unavailable, Please Login Last but not least my mechanic has just installed my bigger condenser (same size as stock, but twice as thick). That's a tight fit. He just placed the input-output upside down (my new hoses are way to stiff), and the fan blades are reversed. I tried (to no avail) to convince him the intrados is where we get the maximum air pressure. We agreed I will swap the blades when he is having lunch... Image Unavailable, Please Login
As I'd rather avoid converting the car into a huge barbecue, I thought replacing the fuel hoses would be a good idea. While we were there, it seemed logical to remove the tanks and clear the accumulated gunk. Image Unavailable, Please Login The hoses are dry rot, and the sound proofing material (see pic on the right of the tank) captured whatever liquid was there. Here below the consequences in the trunk (It's going to take a bit more time than originally planed...) Image Unavailable, Please Login
Here below the consequences in the trunk (It's going to take a bit more time than originally planed...) It always does!
I'm trying to get my tanks back in at the moment, which is easy enough all except for the 2 brand new un-stretched cross over pibe rubber tubes. So damm tight to push/pull across the pipe and onto the tanks. It's a real SOB
Hi All, My left front turn signal was not working. I had also reported a knock before. I thought the rear muffler hit something. Arriving in the garage, the flashing light appears to work. Took a ride with my technician. And a knocking is heard when driving over a speed bump. Clearly left behind. So, car on the bridge. Turns out the left rear shock absorber has come out of its seat, I'm not happy this year.
"Today" is going to cover last 10 days. On Sept. 25 we drove from our home in the Finger Lakes to the Emerson Resort in Mt. Temper in the Catskills (NY), this was about a 125 mile, 3 hour drive, no Interstates. On the 26th we drove the "2020 Catskill Conquest - The 1903 Auto Run". Primary route was about 80 miles to Unadilla. The first few miles were a bit Mickey Mouse but rest of route was beautiful sweeping road with lots of elevation change. A caught onto the tail of a group of 8 cars with a V-12 XKE in front of me. There was a return route back to the start but this was taking us away from home and would have covered some of the route we came on. So there was a side route we followed to add about 50 miles. We then headed to a B&B in the direction of home and stayed the night after a very nice dinner at The Silo somewhere near Bainbridge. Drove home on the 27th. Car ran like a top with no issues which was a good omen for what was to come..... On Oct. 3 we loaded up the car for a week of travel including our new puppy. We dropped the puppy at my daughter's house in Baltimore which is a 5+ hour drive and not shortest route to our real destination. The pup barfed a few times in the car but we had a rear seat protector so no harm done to the car. We made ti to Front Royal, VA for the night. In the morning we headed to the Green Briar in White Sulfur Springs, WV. This was the starting point for the "2020 Mountain Mille", which is a 1000 mile rally over 4 1/2 days in WV, VA and NC. Rally had two timed stages each morning for 4 days. These stages ranged from 34 to 85 miles and are TSD stages timed to nearest second (plus and minus). Each day included lunch and various attraction such as private car collections, car museum and historical sites. (see my Facebook page for details and pics) Afternoons had one or two Transit stages to get us to our hotels: Green Briar 1st and last night, Berry Hill (VA) 2nd night, and Chetola (NC) for 3rd and 4th nights. The 8 timed stages totaled 575 miles and the transit legs added 411 miles for a total approaching "mille miglia". Some of the competitive miles were on the Blue Ridge Parkway but they were the boring routes compared to the state/county "highways". The "Back of the Dragon" on the last day has 400 turns in 32 miles and most are hairpins! As for the competition, many of the 40 or so entries did not compete in the timed runs, about 20 did compete. I managed only 3 seconds time penalty and was 4th overall. My only electronics was a digital stopwatch, but most people used GPS (not Google maps) our friends in an F360 use two GPS's and an atomic clock. I have used the same technique on previous rallies: start 1 minute behind our friends (Martin and Suzanne) in their F360, drive like hell until we catch them, then follow them because Suzanne NEVER misses a turn. My wife is a very good navigator but being behind Suzanne lets her relax and enjoy the route and just check off the instructions in case we get split up. Martin was really upset because they gave him 1 second penalty for the first time in several rallies; the timer must have been wrong! Everyone is very surprised how my "BIG" Ferrari (400i Auto) goes so fast; my answer is torque and driver! I can lose much faster cars on the twisty bits. Martin is very good driver and I saw a few others that know how to drive but most are car enthusiasts with no racing background. I raced 12 years and rallied 2 years (a long time ago) but never stopped driving racing lines every day. Thursday night was a banquet at the Green Briar. Friday morning we were on the road by 8:00, picked up the pup in Baltimore and made it home to our Finger Lakes house by 6:30 PM. Dog did not barf! Car did not miss a beat, but sure a LOT of brake dust on both front and rear wheels! So total of two weeks was about 2500 miles. My odometer is now up to 84,385, that is about 47,000 miles in 14 years. For pictures see my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ken.battle.758/ I now have car washed and in the work zone of my garage ready for its winter R&R. I have several other posts on this forum with the jobs to be done this winter. Ken (no longer in South Jersey)
Rebuilt two distributors today. I stripped, cleaned, greased, fitted new bearings, O-rings & oil seal. The one off my running car had had the bearings & oil seal replaced at some stage previously. The damaged oil seal in the pictures was out of this one and had been damaged during previous installation - no wonder I had a fair oil leak under the distributor. Both distributors had very hard brittle O-rings that were well past their used by dates. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Have you checked the centrifugal advance curve? I have posted on another thread a contact to have that done on a Sun "dyno". Ken
The one off the car was checked with the engine running & performed well except for all the oil running out of it. The other one is off a low mileage car that hasn't run for over 20 years & was all gummed up - should be fairly close now it's all freed up again. While it would be nice to have them accurately set I have had too many items go missing in the post to risk these for such a small gain. Cheers, Al
Al, at least check it out with the engine running. Be sure you get max advance per spec. Setting up on a bench normally gives improvements just over idle up to about 3000 RPM. Ken
Thanks Ken, The one I was able to check with a running engine was checked prior to rebuild & plan on checking both again when back on running engines as is normal practice. These are not something I've found to go out of specification anyway. I've rebuilt lots of distributors over the last 30 odd years (admittedly this is only the second & third Ferrari ones) & only ever had to have one re-graphed in that time - maybe I've just been lucky. Maybe this is why the Sun distributor dyno's are so few & far between? Cheers, Al
Finally replaced the front fog/driving lights for my 412, serial 64223. Had been unhappy with the somewhat road grit blasted finishes on the original CIBIE lenses for some time. I try to be a stickler for originality, so didn't want to replace the lights with Hella or Bosch, which would have been easier/cheaper, but waited till I found the original CIBIE lenses and reflectors. Here's some pictures of before and after. You can see the Cibie/Valeo part numbers for the old and new ones - the new ones have a slightly different retaining clip for the bulb holders, which fitted the new lenses perfectly BTW, if anyone would like the old lenses (no bulbs), you can have them free if you pay the shipping from Ontario Canada. Send me a PM if interested. Oliver Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
The misleading flywheel markings did not help much the rebirth of my engine... Two inlet bent valves a few gaskets as well as many hours wasted. On the plus side we are now pretty good (and fast) at removing cylinder heads. Image Unavailable, Please Login That's where we were 2 weeks ago Image Unavailable, Please Login
It's been discussed before, I've installed an inline cooling pump on the underside, and the aluminium Tee fitting does not fit any-more. As you can see the pump is shoe-horned between the mechanical pump and the radiator Image Unavailable, Please Login I am investigating how to source a custom made 38/45/25 (silicon) Tee, in the meantime I cannot use the thermostat. This being said since we last talk about it I've somehow enhanced the system. I've re-used a 2 step temperature probe (from an Alfa car), so as to start the inline pump at 79°C and the fans at 83°C. I've also added a 2500w bloc heater that preheats the coolant to 63°C, and a heavy duty marco pump that's supposed to prime the oil. For now the whole of this is pretty useless...
I prefer to drive my Brother's 365 Very different than mine: runs perfectly and does not cost (me) a penny... Image Unavailable, Please Login
My mechanic does all the hard work, then lets me play with the old-school hand-tool ... Image Unavailable, Please Login
I went on a fishing expedition with the hopes of catching an elusive electrical jellyfish monster wreaking havoc on the car's electronics - and it was caught Image Unavailable, Please Login
Good day OttoB, Well, at least yours looks "normal"... Below is what I found lurking in the console... I think it was someone's attempt at trying to filter the electrical noise into the radio... Cheers, Sam Image Unavailable, Please Login
My yellow car was in good company today. I could not resist capturing these beauties while Franck had a fight with the Magneti Marelli distributor... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login On my side I took this opportunity to chase the Gremlins that were failing the windscreen washer, rear turn signal and horn. Let's see if we can crank this engine tomorrow and pass the inspection on Friday...
There is an horrendous amount of work left, but I am really happy to share this video: the last time time I heard this engine was 8 years and 3 weeks ago. Broken sodium valve, destroyed piston, bent rod, bent crankshaft, cracks in the head... Let's call it a resurrection.