1973 Ferrari 365gt4 2+2 Chassis 17635

A friend, after following my adventures buying a 400gt auto on BaT, found this on his local fb marketplace in Houston and sent it over knowing I was looking for parts. It had been sitting in a storage unit since 1993 and the owners of the storage place, having taken ownership in the late 90s, finally decided to sell it. I was originally interested in it for parts for my 400 (see thread and build up to buying this one here) but after some discussion and having my friend check it out, it was clear it was probably too nice for parts. Some negotiation and a wire transfer later and it's now mine.
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As I'm currently recovering from surgery for a torn bicep, I couldn't really do anything about getting the car ready to ship. Luckily, the same friend that flew with me to Arizona and helped get the 400 running volunteered to fly out and visit his friends in Houston (one of them is the one that found and examined the car in person for me) and get the car ready for shipping. The car was remarkably complete, only missing the steering wheel due to apparent theft at some point. I ordered up some pirelli p5's, a knockoff wrench, a new steering wheel collar and momo adapter, and had them all delivered to Houston. My friend arrived on a Friday evening and by Sunday afternoon the car had new tires, a steering wheel, and all 4 brakes freed up so it could easily be transported. Based on parts in the trunk, it appears to have been parked for some suspension work as there were new in bag bushings and a pair of springs, tbd on what for until the car arrives, but that gave some confidence that there weren't mechanical issues with the drivetrain. A check of the fluids showed that oil and coolant were full and looked to be in good shape (though old). That's a far sight better than the situation with the 400, so hopefully the fuel system and brakes don't fight too much when it gets here.
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I then went about getting shipping arranged, and the car went onto the truck today with an eta of 4 days. I'll still be a little over a week from clearance for isn't my bicep again, but I sold be able to get subs help to get it into my garage until I can properly work on it.
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It's the latter but often means enduring the former

 

Yeah, title says '73 for whatever reason. I'm perfectly happy to go with '74 if that's what it is.

Al Maktoum family makes sense as the car was found in oil country (Houston) so likely brought over by them at some point and left/sold here.

 

Car arrived today!

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Got the all clear Friday to use my arm again so spent most of the weekend in the garage. I spent almost all day Sunday on the 365 and made quite a bit of progress.

Starting with what I know from the history and some receipts I found in the trunk. Last inspection expired in 1985, plates expired in 1987, which makes me think it was renewed in '85 but not driven much past that before it was parked. Per the PO it was put in storage in 1993. It looks like a bunch of parts were purchased in 1981, to include all suspension bushings, a pair of springs with rubber isolators, and wheel bearings. There was also a full engine gasket kit in the trunk, which was discouraging, but then found some used exhaust manifold gaskets mixed in with the suspension bushings and corresponding exhaust gaskets missing from the gasket kit. There was also a roll of unused muffler tape in the trunk, which makes me think the gasket kit was bought to fix an exhaust leak. The head gaskets were still in plastic. I didn't check to see if other gaskets were missing.The receipts were labeled Dow as the customer and there was a hand written note from a Jed? Dow in one of the boxes saying "sorry I missed you, here are the brake pads and bearings. I'll call you tomorrow.". No brake pads in the trunk so guessing they were installed. I'm thinking Jed Dow was the parts supplier? Anybody know of a Jed Dow in Houston dealing with Ferrari parts?
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Then we get to the cosmetics, and there's some stuff to unpack there. The paint was a poor quality respray in white, which appears to be the original color as the silver insulating coating on the cabin air intakes over the front wheels is peeling revealing the same white underneath. However, in a few places there is evidence of metallic gold underneath the white, which indicates it was resprayed gold at some point, then back to white.

Then we get to the interior... The seats had an interesting Persian looking pattern set of tailored seat covers installed. When I say tailored I mean the seats were removed, disassembled, covered, then reassembled. The driver side cover had ripped revealing the original leather underneath, so the rest was pulled off and we started digging into the other seats. We got to the back and pulled the persian cover off revealing another set of covers...in white tiger stripes. So the car was apparently a tasteful white over black with a red carpet, then painted gold and had white tiger stripe seat covers installed, then back to white with the Persian seat covers. I'm struggling to picture this car in his gold with white tiger seats, but maybe somebody would remember that in Houston back in the late 70s, really 80s? That seems like it'd be hard to forget and matches the time period.
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Then on to mechanicals. Coolant is full and still green, oil is full and didn't appear to have any moisture or other contamination. I drained what was in the fuel tank and it was the most foul smelling gas I've had the pleasure of encountering, but luckily only a gallon or two and no chunks of stuff coming out. I pulled the fuel filter and it was full of the same full gas but luckily looked very clean with no varnish or anything that worried me. To the front we lubricated the carb linkage and worked then back and forth until they moved smoothly. I vacuumed out and removed the spark plugs, which appeared to be new or near new AC r44xls. I couple of cylinders on the drivers side appeared to be running rich but the rest looked really good. I sprayed fogging oil in the cylinders to let it soak and then popped the top of the carbs. They actually did not look very dirty, but I poured seafoam into each of them and put the cap back on to let them soak. Next I put a socket on the crank bolt and put a breaker bar on it to see if the engine would move and it did, did not feel too stiff. Encouraging. Things then moved to electrical, the lock cylinder was already out as I don't have a key and it has to be removed for the steering to work. Just 3 wires, so put the battery from the 400 in, checked for smoke (the period Clarion tape player immediately lit up but it appears to have middle east bands (M, S1, S2) and not US. Jumped the outer wire to accessory to see what would happen and it came to life including the fuel pumps making an absolute racket. Then tried the start wire and it spun over no problem. That's about where I left it, next will be to see if I can get the pumps to pull fresh fuel, clean the carb jets, put new plugs in, and try to fire it up.

 

Haha! - I'm going to see if I can shampoo the rear seats so they at least don't smell and then maybe run them for a while. Paint wise, I'm not a big fan of the white but it's not bad, and I already have a metallic brown 400 (which I really do like) along with another gold car, so it will either go back to white or maybe a light metallic blue which looks really handsome on these cars. I don't know that would go with the red carpet (which is in good shape), so we'll see. Long way to go before that's a concern.

 

The 400 is nice enough it doesn't need a full resto - it's in much better condition cosmetically than this one. I will probably finish up the water pump, reseal the engine and then drive it around. I actually like the color combo on the 400 a lot more, especially the interior, and prefer the styling updates on the 400, though I really like the knock-offs on the 365. However, I really prefer the 5 speed. So my heart says put the 5 speed in the 400 with the bigger 4.8 engine, swap over the knock offs, and get the best of everything (for my tastes).

My wallet says leave them both original and sell one of them. I usually follow my heart when it comes to cars, so we'll see.

 

I haven't had a ton of time to work on it, but I got new plugs in it and started to work on the fuel system. I put fresh fuel in the tank with some sea foam and then tried the pumps to see if they'd pull fuel. The pumps are definitely running but not pulling fuel yet, I'm going to have to crawl under the car and start checking lines for obstruction and see if I can prime them. Is there any trick if the fuel system has been run completely dry to priming it? I tried manually filling the filter canister but that didn't seem to do anything. I also may need more than 5 gallons in the tanks to get them to pull fuel. Once I get fuel working I can move to the carbs, and then it'll be time to try to fire it up!