Wake up" a 328 GTS

Hallo everybody. First time I post something here. I am finalizing the buy of a 1986 Ferrari 328 with just 14000 miles on the clock that sadly has not been properly run since 1997....
Is there anybody who could give me some suggestions on the best way to smoothly take to live this lady?
Sorry for my English (I am Italian) and thanks in advance.

 

Take it for the 15K service immediately.

Budget for a major service plus. Be prepared to spend up to a quarter of the purchase price to have it "made right".

 

Disagree. Change oil, brake fluid, and coolant. Then drive it . Check for leaks. Drive it. Wash it. Drive it. Eat. Sleep. Drive it. And then, drive it some more.


Tom

 

Then weep as your timing belt snaps.

 

Welcome to the Ferrari world. 1st do you have any documentation on the car? If not I kind of agree that you need to get the 15K service. If this is a dealer car maybe you can get them to do this before you buy. Also the only area I worry about is the timing belts and tensioner bearings. This is the whole game so you want this to be good. I use Nick's ground rule here and that is belt change every 30K or 3 years , whichever comes 1st.
By the way your english is better then my Italian. Cho

 

Needs a major service its been standing to long DONT RISK IT,leaving a car standing for years is murder or museum stuff,engine out tappets,all belts and tensioners,water pump,plugs,may need cam-crank seals while the motors out,full brake strip and ALL FLUIDS CHANGED, you cant cut corners with ferraris it will only get more expensive and be off the road with stiupid things going wrong all the time,
cheers
Dale.

 

Oops, Sorry. Disregard my previous post . What was I thinking ?I had forgotten about all the FERRARI BOOGEYMEN . Especially the dreaded PHANTOM OF THE SNAPPING TIMING BELTS ! Now that i've got a clear head----- Have the 60K service done. Then put the car in a temperature / humidity controlled room. Don't drive it ---ever. After all, it may break. Then , once a year, have the dealer pick it up and change the fluids. BUT UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DRIVE IT !!!!

Tom

 

Thanks everybody for suggestions. I see that they range from do everything to change fluids and drive it. This is perhaps my fault not having given full details.
Stating that the car has not had a proper driving means that, every now and then has been started but not driven on the main road. During the inspection I did everything seemed to be fine, even considering that the private who owns it has a proper storage place with de humidifier in place. No rust anywhere, brake disks like new, no wear or deterioration on the inside, all seal perfect, engine bay spotless.
When I started it, engine run smoothly but I could not drive it because of no insurance, MoT etc etc.
Before being stopped, the car has always been serviced by the same Ferrari dealer who sold it.
What else can I say... only problem will be to lower the driving seat in order to be a little more comfortable when driving it. I am 1.90 and I need some mode head room. Any suggestion on this?
Again, thanks everybody.
Eugenio

 

This all depends....at the minimum you will need all the fluids changed and a careful inspection performed...most would agree that 6 years under storage, even in the best of conditions, would make it advisable to go ahead and have the belts replaced...not a huge deal.

Me? Why not go ahead and have the major service performed (around $3 to 4k depending on who/where done) and then drive "worry free" that you have done "due diligence". Now the car will require nothing more than fluid changes for another 6 years or so.

BTW, consider replacing the tires if you intend to drive the car any more spiritedly than cruising down the highway...after 6 or 7 years, tires lose a good deal of their grip and become "hard".

 

1.90? Is that meters? Let me get my conversion chart out. That's 6.2336 feet. That's 6'-23/4"

OK.

I too would like to know how to lower the seats in my 308 if anybody knows. All I can tell is that you would have to cut the floorboard out to do it.

 

Sheesh - apparently you think "we" are advocates for Garage Queens.

Everyone feels the same as you, that it is meant to be driven early and often, BUT it needs to get a thorough checkup first, that's all.

 

Sorry. Didn't mean to disparage any one person or group of people. I just didn't want Eugenio being scared into not driving his car. I guess I overeacted and allowed my curmudgeon mode to come on too strong.


Tom

 

As already recommended:

1) Change all the fluids
2) 15,000 mile service including the belt change
3) Carefully examine the tires for small cracks (called 'dry rot'),
If they're only 6 or 7 years old, they may not have it, but certainly will have lost flexibility, so don't push them too hard as Dave recommended.

Most of your hoses, seals, etc. should be OK, but keep an eye out for leaks.

Also periodicly check below the weep holes on the bottom of the water pump for coolant or a brown stain. It's possible that tiny amounts of coolant have seeped into the bearings and may cause them to fail before too many miles.

Have a good drive.

 

There are two approaches to Ferrari ownership (or any highly tuned car, for that matter).

One is to plunge a lot of money into preventative maintenance at the scheduled intervals, fixing not only what's wrong, but what is likely to go wrong over the next 15K miles. That results in "daily driver" reliability, especially with a 328, which is pretty well suited to daily use.

The other, more suited to the do-it-yourself mechanic, is to just fix each problem as it crops up. This lets you put less into each repair. But unless you enjoy working on the car, you might soon become frustrated with the frequency of problems.

Most people on this list probably fall somewhere between these two extremes, accounting for the variety of answers.

I suspect that most people who condemn Italian cars for being "unreliable" use a shop to do the work, but use the "just enough" approach. But any car will become unreliable if you skimp on service. (It might take a Toyota 10 years to become unreliable on shoddy service, but it gets there.)

As for lowering the seat, I'm 1.93 and I fit in my 328 with the stock seat. It did seem very tight when I first tried on the car, but over time, you get used to it, you find where there's room for your knees, etc., and it becomes more comfortable ... like breaking in a pair of driving gloves.

If your proportions are more torso than legs, you might have to move the seat base forward to permit more rake (angle) to the seat back. I also have to stow the targa top "backwards", with the outside toward the rear, to leave room for the seat to recline enough.

 

I'm one to agree that you should at least change the timing belts and tensioners too (along with a fluids change). A car sitting a significant time between starts/running can have some corrosion in these bearings and cause them to go bad quickly after some constant running. Mine went from a squeak to a significant clatter in about a month. When the clatter occurred, the ball retainer had already disintegrated which was about a quarter mile from home. I'm just glad this didn't happen while traveling at high speeds or high revs where it wouldn't have been noticed before major damage occurred.

 

Just thank to you all for suggestions.
Monday the car will be mine and will be carefully driven to the garage of a friend (10 miles away) where we will replace timing belts and tensioner, all other belts and all fluids. We will disassemble the water pump (looking for possible corrosion) and replace all hoses as well.
We are considering draining the fuel tanks and clean them, depending on the amount of debries found.
As a final touch, refill of the AC system. After that, I hope to be able to drive around by Christmas.
Ciao
Eugenio

 

For the Magnum P.I. TV show they had the same problem with getting Tom Selleck into a 308. To lower his seat, they actually had to remove material from the seat cushion because the seat can't be made any lower. His head still stuck out the top though.

Birdman

 

Best of luck in timely diagnosis and repair - Devil is in the details, and all that.

Then, as Tom B so passionately emphasizes, and rightly so -

driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!

 

It isn't necessary to disassemble the water pump. There are two 'weep' holes in the bottom of the water pump's nose. If they haven't been dripping anything down onto the engine, then the odds are quite high that it's OK. If you disassemble the pump, odds are you'll have to rebuild it as it's just about impossible to get the bearings & seal out w/o damageing them. There's also some risk of breaking the pump's nose casting in the process of removing the bearings.

Better to just check it for dripping every few weeks for the 1st few months.