Good afternoon folks, I've been a member of this online community for some years but have little activity here because, when the war started in 2002, perpetual deployments to Iraq resulted in my 1978 308 GTB being pushed to the rear of the garage and placed in a CarCoon. At the time the war started, I'd actually purchased a set of Birdman's replacement fuseblocks (at the time, they were $120 rather than the nearly $400 they are now), and they sat in the cardboard box in which they were sent to me. Well, This past month, I decided to finally (after nearly twenty years) have my Ferrari serviced professionally and put it back on the road. In the process of doing this, I found Birdman's fuseblocks. Why do I share this? Simply put, as I undertook the swap out, this morning, I was absolutely shocked at the overall improvement in the car's behavior. Lights were brighter, things moved quicker and, in several cases, things worked that weren't working before. I strongly suggest, based on my (albeit limited) experience, that anyone with a 308 variant perform a deliberate fuse-block swap with Birdman's product before attempting a diagnosis of what appears to be a faulty or misbehaving circuit. Pictures of my car to follow. I hope this finds everyone well. Thanks to the site administrators for allowing me to participate in this group. -LTC Ruotolo
Before and after Birdman fuseblock replacement; Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Beautiful car! Enjoy it in good health. And thank you for your service and sacrifice for the country!
You’re quite welcome, sir. It’s an immeasurable honor to wear the uniform of any service - more especially considering how many people would like to, but, for some reason, can’t.
Thank you, very much. It’s a Momo and was on the car when I bought it in 2000. The car remains original but for that and, I believe, the shift knob.
Beautiful GTB - glad you’re able to get it back on the road! Enjoy it in the best of health and thank you for your service!
Thank you, kindly, sir - and you’re most welcome. My only regret, outside of some relatively small tactical errors I made as a young Lieutenant, is not being able to live four times, thereby being able to spend twenty years in each branch of the Armed Forces. We say “Go Army, Beat Navy,” but when it all comes down to the wire, we’re all one team that wears the same flag on our right shoulder, and couldn’t do our job without the others. When your boots hit the sand in a combat zone for the very first time, there’s no other feeling like it in the world. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Haha I bought a 308 GTBI before one of my Trips to Iraq I had it running the next year and it was the last car I drove off base with that DD214 in hand.
If that’s not the ultimate retirement/ETS gift, I can’t imagine what would be! Thank you for your sacrifice, my brother, and welcome home. -Trident 5
Thank you for your service Joe!! And I'm glad you found the fuseblocks. A lot of people seemed to order them and then stash them rather than install them. Then a few years later when the stock fusebox melted, they couldn't find them and had to order another pair. I've seen this happen a surprising number of times. The good news is that means at some point, more pairs will show up on eBay! The price increase over the years reflected not only rising costs of materials, but also my lack of time for building them. Every time I decided I wasn't going to do it anymore, people would beg me to make "just one more pair" and I finally decided that the solution was to simply increase the price so I was making far fewer pairs. I have been building fuseblocks in my basement since 2007. That's a long time. I'm tired of it! I have a real job (well, some would consider it that)! When I started making them, my son was 1 year old and now he is in college. Alas, the production has finally truly come to an end. I ran out of backplates, and my "backplate guy" has retired. To get another order of them made, I got a bunch of totally ridiculous quotes and I had to order a stupid number to get the price anywhere near reasonable. Furthermore, the quality on the Buss fuseholders I have been using has gone downhill dramatically. The problem is that they put some kind of plating on the terminals and it doesn't stick well. After I solder to it, the slightest tweak and the plating peels off along with the solder. So I started getting a lot of returns because of this issue, making it look like the solder joints were bad. I just couldn't in good conscience keep selling a product that I had no faith in. So, I'm done. It's the quality of the fuse holders that really ended it for me. So frustrating. It has been a great 17 years of fuseblocks. If you have a pair, they will last as long as the car. My 308 still has the very first pair I built, going strong. And I still have the car of course My kids forbid selling it. They refer to the car as "their childhood." Birdman
I think it was even a year earlier ... I installed the two fuse boxes in may 2006 - or maybe I was just lucky and got one of your "pre-series models" car still going strong up to this day - only this yearI I re-newed all relais as a preemptive measure . Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
