360 Challenge/Stradale Manual build thread

Bit of a historic moment - first new bit to get bolted to the Stradale lump! Hurahh!
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Look I know it's only a pas pump and it's a small step but when you're knee deep in bits of Ferrrari you NEED this to keep you going! Posting these pics gives me a buzz of achievement and keeps the impetus up!!!
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Ok so the next bit I have been agonising over is the plenum tops. I love the wrinkle finish so that was a given that I was keeping it, but I hate the way it attracts dirt because of the very Matt finish. Given that my plenum only had a couple of tiny chips in it I decided to try and find a durable solution that i could apply over the top of the Ferrari finish.

I started by degreasing the assembly with petrol, and then moved to a water based product - I used a toothbrush to really work the degreaser into the wrinkle and then rinsed it several times. I then carefull prepared the underside to paint first as you can see here.

Honestly I was very lucky and found a perfect match. "Simply sprays red brake caliper paint part code s017" is a precise match for the Ferrari colour, so much that you have to carefully look to see if you have actually painted! Except of course that being caliper paint it is more glossy - my plan is to be able to clean the plenum much easier with this finish.
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And in to the high tech baking oven, F1 style :-E
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And the final bit of this afternoons efforts was to check and restore the vacuum capsule that opens the central compensation valve. Avid thread followers will recall Angus doing this and discovering a faulty diaphragm.
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I was luckier however and noted the diaphragm in good order. So I just cleaned it up and refinished it.
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Et voila - I used a bit of rubber grease to lunricate the diaphragm before I put it back together and also went for a spot of low strength threadlock on the screws.
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Ok so I went and removed the plenum cover from the boiler house so I could remove the masking before the caliper paint goes rock hard and makes it hard work / risks flaking the edges.

I have to say - oh my goodness what an amazing finish.

The pictures will not do this justice but honestly it's gorgeous deep red with a low but definite lustre. I recommend this very highly - fantastic.

Just got to sand off the "Ferrari" logos now and that really is a cool job. Happy
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Underneath. For masking those little bits I use an adhesive backed foil tape. You can press it over the part then remove and make a perfect mask using scissors. Dead easy and works well.
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Morning Gents

Actually Aldous I have been reading your page and noted that excellent timing article.

The engine you timed up there was a long way out wasn't it. I was hoping to be able to leave the guts of the motor untouched but it appears now like I should really do these things.

If it's not too much trouble could you comment on these and anything to watch out for?

1) time up as per your article.
2) how hard is rear main seal?
3) I'm replacing the cam top gaskets as I want to paint the covers. Do I need to do camshaft seals or is this just silly?
4) it's a 2004 stradale engine with 10k - variators?

I haven't done the belts yet but will do and was going to install the hill engineering tensioners also.

Appreciate all your help.

Best

Ju

 

Thankyou that's really kind. Growing up as a child my dad started to restore a series 1 fhc jaguar e type. I watched him do it and I was fascinated by it. The funny thing is that then I was 7 years old and actually he is still restoring the car now and I'm 41! It is nearly finished but that's what you call a slow process! He made a spray booth in his garage and painted the car using cellulose himself - it was an amazing finish but the paint was faulty and one year he pulled back the covers to find out the whole thing had crazed and cracked. He had to repaint the whole car - -and that was after assembly - a disaster! It takes truly great resolve to start unbolting the bits you lovingly bolted on a year ago to sand down the finish that was perfect. Dad is 72 now and the car hasn't turned a wheel in 40 years.

Me starting the Ferrari project has happily inspired him also and he is now back "on it" in his own senior man cave working to finish the car. It will be a proud moment when that finally rolls out!

 

Hi Trev - I know what you mean. The factory colour is very, very close to Eastwood detail gray paint aerosol (great product). It's a paint designed for replicating the cast alloy colour. It's a little hard to say it's an exact match because the covers seem to get deeper gray with age - looking at my two engines here the 99 engine is a fair bit darker than the 04 motor even taking the grime into consideration.

For me I'm definitely going for silver, however, and given the success of the plenum cover I may use the simply sprays silver brake caliper paint over he factory wrinkle which is in perfect shape on my strad lump.

 

So over the last week I have been rebuilding the alternator on the car. There is nothing actually wrong with it but I was keen to strip it and refurbish it anyway whilst it's all in bits and given that the inside of the piece is made up of very cheap denso parts and actually carries a hefty "Ferrari" price tag! I learned a fair bit of what could be useful information to other owners so I might do a 360 alternator rebuild article separately.

Anyway. I finished off the inlet manifold by sanding the paint off the Ferrari logo. Looks brilliant now!
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I figure it is probably better to keep everything in this thread to save clutter so I have titled this post appropriately and hopefully it may help someone later.

So the alternator is a denso type quoted by Ferrari as 150A - having stripped it and researched I can report that the stator is a wye (star) type configuration as opposed to the later type "delta" type. Also interesting is the fact that it's more likely to be somewhere between 120 and 130A - not 150, given that the denso stator of that design isn't available in 150A! It would appear to be commonplace for amperage willy waving to go on amongst these manufacturers rather like in audio! Anyway - wye design offers more amps at lower rpm, vs the delta type which offers more at higher rpm, typically. I did consider changing the stator and rotor and rectifier over to delta as typically they are quieter electrically but there could then be issues with the dash warning light as output at idle etc would likely be reduced. So instead I decided to settle for a rebuild.

If anyone is wondering why I would bother - honestly an alternator is a powerful and much overlooked device that spins at very serious rpm. Although the diodes are designed to "fail safe" in the event of a breakdown it doesn't always happen and I've seen a lot of problems caused by faulty alternators from strange behaviour all the way to roasted ecu units. Given that the bits to do this job are like $100 to me it makes sense to address it.

Here is the alternator as it came off the car.
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Remove the rear cover and terminal housing and here we can see the brush box (contacts the slip rings on the rotor), rectifier (converts the three phase AC to dc) and regulator (sets the dc output)

Remove the four screws fastening the stator to the rectifier, and the securing screws for the regulator and rectifier.
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Lift the electronics clear and this is the guts underneath. You can see my slip rings are in decent shape and won't need replacing. Just a clean will be fine. You can remove the red brush box gasket.
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Next the front pulley is removed using either an impact gun or by trapping the (steel) pulley hard in the vice and using a big lever on a manly socket. As long as you trap the pulley hard and manage to undo the nut first time you won't mark it unduly.

Once this is done you can remove the nuts from the case sides and tap the sides round gently to dislodge it and withdraw the rotor from the unit to reveal the stator nestling inside.
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Ok so next you need to decide if you are going to remove the stator.

Maybe I should explain how to test this. The only way to check the stator is to remove the terminals from it using a massive soldering iron or blow lamp (taking care not to cook the insulation on the wires as this will scrap the stator) and then separate the wires. You then check continuity between them. On each wire you only want continuity between it and ONE other cable. Any other result and the stator is faulty and should be replaced.

The other reason to remove it is if you want to clean and paint the unit properly which is very hard with the stator in place.

So - firstly you have to be gentle and understand that the wires are fragile. The method is to put the unit in the oven (helps to have an understanding Mrs) and warm it to about 140 or so for a while and then on removal tap the case edges on a hard surface. If it won't budge then from the front you can (oh so carefully) use a punch to dislodge it making sure you are only contacting the iron core and not the wires or wire jackets.

It is also helpful to mark the case to see the orientation of the stator for reassembly to save faffing trying to line up the rectifier later.
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Next up you need to remove the rotor from the bearing. To do this use a puller around the case and ensure that the central puller pin is sharp enough to contact the depression in the rotor and NOT the resin insulation of the edges of the slip ring. With this set up the rotor will easily come out of the bearing.

To remove the bearing for replacement just remove the locking plate (for all these removals go need a perfectly fitting screwdriver with lots of pressure and power otherwise you'll damage the screws and....not good) then tap the bearing from the front with a socket. Doesn't matter much about the bearing obviously.

Ps this picture shows the rear bearing with no locking screws - same procedure - see pic above for the front bearing with the lock screws.
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Final disassembly job if you really want a full strip and paint is the bearing housing. Since the studs are two lengths (mark them or photograph) you have to hit them independently with your hammer (remember to put a nut on top obviously) so it's really important to heat the case up in the oven. On this you want to go pretty hot - 200 - and then gently but firmly (I've always thought that sounds like a contradiction but you know what i mean!) tap the pins out (one screw to remove first lol).
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Ok so now you have the bare case halves you can go ahead and degrease and clean away on everything ready for painting, refurb and reassembly.

I'll cover what parts you need and the reassembly notes in my next update as I have run out of time.
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