355 F355 Manual Conversion - DIY

I am getting ready to start a F355 manual conversion and mechanical restoration alone the lines of the my 575 project:
https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/575-maranello-manual-conversion.708383/page-4#post-150221807

I bought the car as a non runner with the plan of going through the engine and doing the manual conversion. I have already pulled the clutch/flywheel and sent them out for a rebuild.

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This man is a glutton for punishment!

 

Made some gearstick alignment inserts that fit really snugly into the 355 gate and hold the gearstick right in the middle of the gate whilst the gear linkage is being set. Will send you over a set to help you on your way.
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Care to share that file?

 

Started tearing apart the flywheel. I am going to repack and replace the bearings while it's apart.
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The car really needs a mechanical restoration since it's almost 30 years old(car only has 8k miles)

Before pulling the motor out, I went ahead and pulled out all the F1 actuator bits. Pulled the under panel so that I can get to the shifter area.

I then pulled the engine out. I used a modified 15mm wrench and a hammer to loosen the head bolts. The HILL Engineering tool can break when loosening these bolts, which is why I start with a hammer. I do use a another wrench or nut to keep the wrench from slipping... Then the head is off to get valve guides.



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Great work. Does it really need valve guides at 8K miles?

 

Lol, no. But it makes the car much easier to sell if choose too.

 

I mean you're past the point of no return now anyway, but I always though that the later cars like yours should be pretty robust in terms of valve guides. Not impervious to wear (thinking about the Auto Tech Nick videos), but should still be pretty good at only 8k miles. Be interesting to see what wear you find anyway. Data points always helpful.

 

Wow, that might be the worst case of 'might as wells' I've ever seen!

 

I am a king of while your in there.. the car is 27 years old and parts do degrade over time. Car sitting and starting is awful for parts, and I want this car to be as reliable as possible.

Anyways, I decided to go ahead and drop the pan, clean the oil pickup, replace oil pump guide and do the timing sprocket bearings.

1. Unbolt the oil pump nut
2. Pull the front cover
3. Pull the oil pump
4. Remove sprockets
5. Remove bearings
6. When installing the cover bearings, Get the bearing in about 1/2 way and then install the o ring. While inserting the bearing passed the o ring make sure it doesn't get dislodged.
7. Pull and install inner bearings
8. Pull and clean oil pump and pickups
9. Reinstall the oil pump
10. Reinstall the crank sprocket/chain on the front cover.
11. Reinstall the timing sprockets
12. Install new oil pump guide
13. Reinstall the front cover.


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You're really replacing ball bearings at 8k? They don't degrade over time. I guess if you want to, go for it. But this part of the engine is quite robust. Why not do main and rod bearings too?

In terms of resale value, I would personally value a well-running 8k mile engine that had not been messed with quite a bit more than an 8k mile engine that someone had changed a bunch of parts on. Part of why a low-mileage original car is so valuable is because random mechanics have not monkeyed around with it over the years.

 

The reason I do that is the inner bearing races are plastic and do degrade over time. They turn into hard plastic and do fail, which is why I replace them. The outer bearings fail as well, which is why they sell uprated bearings.

These cars do not typically eat bearings, and the bearings do not degrade while sitting. I did check a few of them and they looked as new.

I have the exact opposite thought as you do on low mileage engines. Every one I have used has needed more work than a high mileage. They typically leak more from sitting, roller bearings hate to sit, and valves can be unhappy(You must be lucky having good luck with low mileage cars). The one thing I do not mess with is the pistons and cylinders. If they are broken in correctly then it's better to leave them alone than do a hone and put in new rings. This is the one place where low mileage motors tend to be good.

I agree that most people that work on these cars do not do good work. I am yet again redoing work that was done poorly from a prior shop.

Most would just do a belt swap and call it a day. I want this car to be dead reliable for years to come, which is why the cars I build tend to be much more reliable than others.

 

Here I pulled my engine and put it on an engine stand haha

I to have collected almost the pieces to convert my car, all I really need now is my clutch pedal. seems Ill have to make one put of a early pedal like targatime did.

If interested I have the factory clutch lines that run from the master cylinder down through the firewall down to the front junction, then the line from there all the way to the engine cradle.

I may have one set of the hard clutch lines available if anyone is interested.

I will have a complete set up for sale in the future, the clutch pedal is my only real hiccup at this time.


johnny

 

If you ever see this much good between any seal/crush washer, it's a good sign to find another mechanic.... This is just a friendly PSA.

Anyways, stuff like this takes forever to clean up correctly. The previous expert Ferrari shop, used a ton of sealant instead of the correct O-ring, and also used a ton of sealant to install the oil temperature switch. If you have to use sealant for a threaded item, use thread sealant, not rtv(you shouldn't need sealant for this).

This is another reason why I pulled the sump, and you could see there was some rtv attached to the oil pickup screen.

Anyways, cleaned up the oil tank.
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To reuse the slave cylinder, you need to replace the inner(black)seals. When I do this, I also replace the outer blue seals, since it's easier for me to cut them out(so I do not mess up the bore).

A few tips.
-Make sure you look at the orientation of the black seal when removing them. Some fit on the top or bottom side of the bore.
-I use brake caliper assembly lube to install the cylinder on the shaft.
-Make sure you clean out all the old slave cylinder fluid with brake clean.
-Go ahead and replace all the slave cylinder seals.

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Wiring for the gauges.

For the manual swap, you need to move the oil pressure gauge to the cluster, and add the oil temp gauge.

For the oil temp gauge, you need to swap the brown wire and the grey black wire on the white connector. Then run the grey black wire to the cluster for the oil pressure. I added a connector so that I can easily remove the cluster.

The oil pressure gauge gets its power and ground from the coolant gauge.

My car already had the brown wire out and a oil temperature in place.
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Pumpkin is rebuilt with all new bearings, and a rebuilt clutch.
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