Eurocarguy101's 1984 308 GTS QV

Continued from winter refurbishment above.

I cleaned and replaced the bushings in the sway bar end links, which cleaned up really well. Pressing out the one bushing was pretty easy compared to the control arm bushings.

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I replaced the torn intake boot, and air filter, changed the oil with Castrol Edge 5w40 and used a UFI filter instead of the Bosch filter the previous mechanic used. I replaced the transmission fluid with MT90 and what a difference in the 2-3 and 3-4 shift. The 1–2 shift when cold is better, but still difficult if you can get it at all.

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I also replaced the window switches and the snap cover to the top vinyl.

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Continued from winter refurbishment above.

I replaced all of the ball joints. I am still undecided on which shock/doing combo I want to go so those remained untouched except for cleaning. I resprayed the inner fender wells with new paint and touched up some of the scratches after the below pics. Don’t mind the excessive anti-seize as this was wiped up after the pics. I got the car aligned afterwards and it feels like I’m driving a whole different car. I look forward to feedback from you guys!

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Looking good!

 

An impressive amount of work done to rebuild the steering rack, but you could have just bought a new rack for around $200.

See page 2 in this thread:

ebay steering rack | FerrariChat

 

Yes, a lesson I learned the hard way. I was hesitant to buy the cheap rack due to potential quality issues and it wouldn’t have necessarily been original. Though, it has been slightly modified to fit so it would have negated that point. While I was at it, I should have bought the faster rack and pinion, but oh well.

 

It might be a bit of Stockholm Syndrome but, after driving the car for 10 years, I have grown quite accustomed to the stock rack. I don't notice anymore that it might be slower than the racks in other cars. In fact, I kind of like how the car feels at speed. My parking lot maneuverability is probably better too.

 

Some pictures from when I was invited to be part of the Radwood Royalty section of Radwood in the Cars and Community during The Amelia in March. It was a great event despite the rain. I also met Tyler Hoover with his converted 599. If you haven’t been to The Amelia yet, you should definitely go.

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Some more pics from the Concours.


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Had a great lunch drive in May with the Northeast Florida Chapter of the FCA.

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A friend wanted to take some pics to build his portfolio of his photography business and his shots came out great! I hit 48,000 on the way home on May 20, 2023.

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More shots from the phot shoot:

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Finally installed the led lights in the dash from superbrightleds.com to replace some of the burned out incandescent bulbs. I also installed the Hill Engineering 50mm steering wheel spacer from SF and it feels much better. The new screws and bolts in the kit was a nice surprise! I’m not sure why the speedo side is much brighter than the tach. I didn’t bypass the rheostat, but these dim.

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Before, which was hard to see at night:

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The LED lights look really nice. Great photos of your 308, Thanks for sharing!!

 

As many of you have asked, the black seat covers are vinyl and they have driven me nuts since I got the car. I did a little diy project this week before the Amelia Concours weekend since it’s in the Saturday Cars and Community show. I took off the black vinyl seat covers and did some repair work on the torn and crack original seats. Definitely not perfect, but a little better and I can cover the main issue on the passenger seat with a hat. I used the Leatherique rejuvenator and dye, a brush and an airbrush for these results after I (poorly) attempted the to patch the tears and cracks, better than before, but definitely not concours level. I also used heat activated crack filler and a heat gun to fill in the worst cracks. Honest opinion please. I can out the black covers back on until I can get the bottom redone. I followed Mike’s instructions, albeit slightly abbreviated due to time.

http://www.leatherique.com/do_it_your_self_instruction/ferrari-re-dye-by-mike-char.html

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What the seats started out as. The passenger side was like cardboard. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login


Some prep work:
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Finished product:
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Can you elaborate on which bulbs you purchased from superbrightleds.com (looks like 74-WWHP and BA9S-WW4-90-12VAC) and how many of each? Are these all "plug and play" or need some special adaptor? Also, why "warm white" and not "cool" or "natural" brightness? Is it closer to the stock look?

Thanks and compliments on your progress.

 

I could have told you at one point, but I’m not sure which ones I ended up installing and some of the parts are still packed from my recent move so my apologies. I am attaching my invoice so you can cross-reference. They did not need an adapter.

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May I recommend that when you are placing a bulb behind a RED lens, choose a RED BULB. And when you are placing a bulb behind an AMBER lens, choose an AMBER BULB. Whites wash out behind colored lenses.

 

Honestly, those seats look amazing. Excellent work!

 

It’s been a while since I posted. The ole 308 hit another milestone this week by rolling over 49k miles - not bad for a 40 year old car. I replaced the checked taillights with NOS pieces straight from Italy and I replaced a couple of the badges to keep it looking fresh and original. We then went to the Second Annual Ferrari Club of America Northeast Florida Chapter Picnic.

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Looking good!!

 

Over the past few months, I did quite a bit of fixing past shop fixes and LOTS of cleaning. The oil sump gasket and the gearbox sump gaskets were leaking profusely, as were the improper oil seals for the shift shaft. The previous shop used the wrong type of gasket sealer on the gaskets and made a huge mess. The previous shift shaft seals were not the correct type. The front seal was not installed behind the wavy washer that is pressed into the block, but it was rather sitting on the outside of the block - that was just lazy. When shifting, the old spring style seal would stay affixed to the shaft when it would move away from the block and therefore dump oil when shifting. I replaced the gaskets, crush washers, and the shift shaft seals with the proper quad-lock seals (what a pain to get those in). I also replaced the hardware for the sump pans with nylock nuts because the nuts can be a source of leaks per some sources. I replaced the oil pump screen while I was in there as well. Most sources said you could remove the shift shaft that goes into the block without having to remove the intermediate shift shaft, but I could not get it out no matter what angle I put the engine, which also required removing most of the interior because the bolt was too long for the center console to remain in place (oh, the joys of Italian cars). I painted the intermediate shift shaft rod and removed some of the surface rust, while it was out to clean it up, and replaced the old bellows with fresh new original parts from FerrParts. I replaced the old rubber silent blocks in the shift shaft with new delrin silent blocks to eliminate any play in the shaft from Verell.

I also cleaned and replaced the 41 year old grease in the shifter, repainted the inside, and cleaned up quite a bit of the mess from where it looks like old leather dye was sprayed inside, and years of dirt and hair were balled up as well.

I previously used the Redline gearbox oil, but decided to try the Royal Purple 75w-90 this time. The cold shifts are much smoother and the gear box feels much better when warm. I need to make a few minor adjustments to the shift shaft, but that should make it even better. Stay tuned, more updates to come this year!

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Some more pictures from the last update.

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Well, my previous seat repair didn’t last and it wasn’t quite up to my expectations. However, I’ll admit it was largely my doing for trying to touch up a few spots and the touchups just came out awful with streaking. Plus, the seats never matched the rest of the interior. When I was doing the shift shaft seals and pulling the interior, I managed to put my hand through the passenger side seat bottom and the leather tore pretty bad - embarrassing and frustrating. The search for the right color leather was on, but without wanting to spend an arm and a leg right as the tariffs were coming into effect. The local shops didn’t have quite what I wanted as the color was just too brown.

While doom scrolling Facebook Marketplace, I found a pair of seats listed by a guy who had horrible pictures and didn’t really know much about them. They looked like they could use some love with some rejuvenator oil and a VERY good cleaning. They weren’t quite right because whoever recovered them had the seat backs on the wrong sides (pouch on driver side) and the headrests didn’t have the embossed Cavallinos. The foam appeared to be decent, there were no tears in the leather, so I took a chance on them knowing I’d have to try to re-dye the seats and everything again to match. Round 2 begins.

The seats came a few days later and they were in a little better shape than I anticipated. The black marks were possibly paint and not tears, which the guy confirmed before buying them.
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I stripped off the old dye with acetone, lacquer thinner, and Leatherique’s prep solution. What I found interesting was that each product would take off different parts of the dye better than others. For example, there were times the acetone would take a section off really easily, but then it wouldn’t touch others very well same with the Leatherique prep solution. After MANY rounds of using Leatherique Rejuvenator that kept soaking into the seats, I tried adding a couple rounds of Obenauf’s Leather Conditioner like I did on my Porsche seats that seemed to help. I cannot say that one is better than another or if it was an accumulation effect. It took quite a few attempts to get the headrests to come out, but I think letting the rejuvenator oil on for a couple weeks softened up the leather enough to get enough pressure on the hidden clip releases.

I also pulled the rest of the leather parts of the interior and followed the same process. I did a few touchups with filler on the center console and the door panels.

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Previously, I tried using an airbrush to spray the dye. However, it used a lot of product. A friend suggested to use a cloth and rub it on. It came out much better, but took more light coats. It was definitely a time consuming process. I also took the seat tops and bottoms apart so I could get more angles.

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After it was all back together, here are the finished pics. I also painted the side trim pieces and swapped the seat rails. Be sure to know which of the outer rails is which since the seats won’t align on the holes if they are swapped (“new seats” didn’t come with rails).

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Overall, I am much happier than they were before. I’d rate the outcome at a 8.5/10 with a 10 being a full hide replacement by a top notch professional, but at a fraction of the costs.