1981 308 gtb

If you are in Orange County then you are spoiled for choice and there is no shortage of talent and help available to you there so you are definitely in the right part of the country to own a 308 in need of TLC. If you choose to leave the engine in it is totally your decision but bear in mind that despite anyone's best efforts the scale of the job you need to do to make the car reliable and safe will take longer and the final product will be compromised by leaving the engine in. The reality is that there are some areas you just cannot reach with the engine in place whereas with it out most jobs are actually quite straight forward. I've seen it a bunch of times when someone gets into a project and the sum of all the small incremental tasks far outweighs the time, effort, and expense savings of first determining where you want to end up and then plotting the most efficient plan to get there. Just two days ago I lowered my engine in after a major servicing and changing of all the hoses and I smiled the whole time as I looked at all of the places in both the engine bay and far reaches of the engine I was able to save skinning my knuckles over by having the engine out.

On the subject of some of the comments made in this thread, I fail to see where anyone (including myself) ever spoke out in a negative or condescending way. Offering a response, while acknowledging the perceived experience level of the person you are directing the response too, serves to frame the response for the reader. It says 'I see where you are coming from so here is my advice given that perspective'. I think that in this thread a lot of very knowledgeable people have chimed in and nobody has discouraged this young lady from getting her hands dirty as far as she feels comfortable. What many people have rightly pointed out is that making a mistake (for whatever reason) is much more costly than in other cars so experienced guidance has extra value especially when you are watching your pennies. Luckily F-Chat exists so there is tons of free advice available. Being free it may not always be packaged as nicely as we would like but certainly I have found that with rare exceptions most posters offer their best guidance with only the most positive of intentions; I certainly try to

 

As a 5 yr member, but only a 5 month owner, i can definitely note 2 things:

1. Fchat does not suffer fools lightly.

2. Provided one is not a fool, the guidance freely offered here is beyond measure. I have personally saved hundreds upon hundreds of dollars in real costs, by doing the work myself... because this forum has helped me do it. In fact, if not for the knowledge shared by members of this forum, it's quite possible I would not be able to afford to own my Ferrari.

 

I was able to change my timing belt and tensioner bearings because of this forum and learned tons of tricks and upgrades for my 308.

 

Yep.

The problem is NEVER the newbie coming in and asking the right questions.

The problem is ALWAYS said newbie trying to talk down the experts when the advice given is more complicated, time consuming, and expensive than the "cheap and easy" fix which in the end actually become more expensive and complicated and time consuming than doing it the right way the first time around.

From what I can see, Claudia is of the former variety, not the latter.

-F

 

Hey, this is a GTB we have here!!! Image Unavailable, Please Login .....they are the best kind!