308 GTB SN34389

The next stage of the project is going to focus on the engine, the motor has been blue printed. Cylinder liners are being replaced as there is some corrosion at the bottom O seal, these liners are really expensive in the context of engine spares.

 

After 6 months or so almost all the spray work has been done. I am quite happy with the result. What i cant illustrate in these pictures is how well everything opens and closes. I suppose 540 hours in the body shop would see to that!



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Some more pics. Quite what this is going to be like in an African summer with no air con is another matter..
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I will have a look , a lot of that work was done last year(during lockdown), when I got the body back from sandblasting and metal repair it was already coated.

 

Thanks for the wishes.

Hopefully next week the body will be back from the body shop (there were some very small issues I wanted to be sorted out). The build proper is probably going to start in early 2022. New wiring loom is there, I have the seat covers from Lupi, all the engineering work on the engine will also be started in early 2022. All going well the finished car might be read around August 2022!

In terms of air con, I thought about that and I am guessing that the factory air con is not very good anyway! Interestingly there are not many cars in SA without air con either!

 

Seems its been a very very long time since I updated this thread.

As ever life and gets in the way but the project has been progressing fairly well but what has become very apparent is that restoring 308's is perhaps not the simple process it may seen, even compared to the Daytona we did a few years back.

From the outset the idea has been to try return this car to "as left factory" spec. This has resulted in a rather long list of parts being needed, bear in mind this engine had 76k kms on it when we stripped it, despite this relatively low mileage it was decided to do a full rebuild. The one slight "problem" as you will see is the finished engine looks too nice to refit to the car, well in my opinion anyway!

A lot of care has been taken by the master Ferrari restorer to try and get details accurate. The wiring loom (from Dario Gozzi in Italy) has been installed, the interior is being put together, leather from Luppi and the suspension is installed so effectively the car can be put on its wheels. Wheels, this is probably one area where deviation may take place, the restorer is motivating for 16 inch wheels to be installed on aesthetic and practical reasons.

The parts list has been very long and economically this project makes very little sense, though I do believe once completed this will be one of the better 308's around.


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Some more pics.

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And more
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Items which still need to be attended to, the significant one is the exhaust, the manifolds are pretty much past their best, as is the rear silencer box. Cant put the engine in until the exhaust is on apparently. One other mod which we did was to put stainless steel coolant pipes because not sure I really want coolant mixing with a fine leather interior...

With some luck it should hopefully be completed by year end....yes maybe this year end!

 

So this is what we started with....and what we landed up with.
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The project should pick up pace a bit now, its been decided to order 16 inch wheels, these were apparently an option in period. The exhaust system needs to be replaced, the entire system so this posed a question between going for the single pipe or the quad pipe system which I believe was also an option. It looks like the latter will be the route to go.

This week the trimmer is also going to commence on the interior work.

 

The project should pick up pace a bit now, its been decided to order 16 inch wheels, these were apparently an option in period. The exhaust system needs to be replaced, the entire system so this posed a question between going for the single pipe or the quad pipe system which I believe was also an option. It looks like the latter will be the route to go.

This week the trimmer is also going to commence on the interior work.

 

Thank for the kind compliments.

The gearbox and engine were fully rebuilt, the box was actually in pretty good shape and I think we just did bearings simply because the car was not a runner when bought so we had no idea what sort of condition it was in.

Interesting thing about this is it was sold to a RHD market but its a LHD car, more info on this earlier in the thread. The restorer has suggested fitting the "Ansa sports exhaust" which will hopefully give the V8 a bit of a voice!

 

More progress has been made. One question I have, is the grill supposed to have the badge on it? I spent some time looking at different 308 pictures and some cars have the horse and others not, was this an option or was this retrofitted post build?

 

Thanks for the kind words!

Thanks for the clarification re the horse.