400 Restoration works. Essex GB

I thought I would share some photos of work I carried out on the 400.
She had been worked on badly by a specialist, and on further inspection had a lot more rust and mechanical issues.
So I first started by locating and cutting out all the rust.
Having owned 100s of old fast Fiats Alfas and Lancias over the years this was something I was used to and enjoy.
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Thanks for commenting.
My main expertise is restoration of Maserati 3500, Sebring and Ghibli models, however nothing was too taxing on this 400, the rust kept coming and I remade all repair panels in house, butt welding them in and spending time linishing and fettling to get a decent finish.

The front chassis and inner arch guards were both absolutely rotten, a Lamborghini specialist near London decided to bond sheet metal over the rotten box sections, much to my clients dismay.

Once it was all cut out, and exhaust manifolds removed to gain access to the rear of the box sections (where they meet the tubular sections) I was able to fully weld the new box sections in which are the same dimensions and wall thickness as the originals.

The sills were also badly corroded and full of filler, I cut the outer sills off and found the inners to be heavily corroded too, so more cutting out and welding in new sections.

This 400 had factory rear AC, and two AC lines (as well as metal brake lines) run inside the drivers (UK RHD) sill.
I removed the AC lines which were age hardened and cracking up, and the brake lines were badly rusting too.

With the sills emptied, I spent weeks chasing the rust and welding in new metal to the inner sill area, before fettling my new outer sills to fit neatly and welded them on.

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Turning my attention to the chassis, I removed the Aluminium floor sections and addressed all the rust by taking the entire tubular chassis to bare metal.
It was then Epoxy primed and coated in special chassis black, which although more glossy than the satin factory finish, was an acceptable finish once coated with protective wax.
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The car had two left side calipers fitted meaning the rhs caliper bleed nipple was pointing downwards, unless you live in a world with sinking gravity it would be impossible to bleed them, as well as this they were both sticking badly.
One of my suppliers found new ATE calipers, a matched pair from a BMW 2002 which are identical, I simply fitted the 400's spacers to them and they worked fine.
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I remade all the brake pipes as they were badly rusted, in my opinion this car was not safe to drive yet a specialist had given it the all clear weeks before.
Considering my client took his young children out in the car, this specialist which also glued new metal over the rotten front chassis should be quite ashamed.
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As all the rubber brake hoses were perished and cracking up, I replaced those too with braided items.
All fuel hoses were replaced too, they were visibly leaking and cracking up.
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They are aluminium sheet closing panels and are riveted on in between the tubular chassis sections, two in the front two in the rear.
There is a layer of glass wool wadding inbetween them and the fibreglass floor.

 

Hi there!
These are made specifically for this application to certified standards. As they run inside the sill, I wanted to make sure they will last the life of the vehicle and not rust like the factory steel ones.
The O rings are all new yes.
Thanks for commenting!

 

Welding complete, I took time to linish and fettle all the welds before straightening all the metal work to minimise the amount of filler required, infact only a whisker was used.
I did not lead load the seams as I do with my bare shell restorations (very enjoyable task) for safety reasons.
The colour (Blu Sera Metalizzato) was painstakingly matched and I sprayed 26 test cards before settling on the one you see in these images.

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Copper.

 

With the external bodywork and chassis welding complete I was able to put the 400 through our model specific Dinitrol corrosion control treatment programme (F400/019E) which involved a week of rust location and treatment, removing all existing chassis coatings and some more welding before injecting hot Dinitrol into the inner sill structure, into all chassis sections, and coating the inner wheel arch wells as wells inside A pillars, scuttle panel, engine bay and inner rear quarter panels.

I coated my newly repaired front box sections/inner wheel arch closing panel first with VHT black then High Temp anti corrosive wax, one of the reasons they rust out here is the close proximity to the exhaust manifold which eventually degrades and burns off any coating here.
I injected my new box sections with high temp anti corrosive wax and made sure that entire structure was well coated internally and externally.

In addition to this I replaced the radiator header tank with a new Alloy one as the metal one it had was heavily corroded internally.

The fuel sender float had failed due to a pinhole allowing fuel to enter inside it, however on testing the unit outside the tank I found the unit to be faulty and fitted a new one.

The new sender unit was a universal one from Superformance who are conveniently located at the end of my road.
It took a few attempts to bend the float arm to the correct shape (to avoid hitting a baffle in the tank)

The fuel pump to filter pipe was kinked however finding an exact replacement was tricky. I visited Superformance again and asked to see filter to pump hoses for other Ferrari models and with a bit of fiddling fitted the one you see.. I am not 100% happy with it and am looking at a period Mercedes rubber one which has the same terminations and thread fittings.
It looks close to the handbrake cable in this photo, which was taken in the mocking up stage.. I was able to rotate each end of the pipe to give enough clearance.

The metal Gearbox oil cooler pipes were badly corroded externally, I had them remade with braided items which fitted perfectly.

First test drive was ok, however a fairly dead (wooden) feeling brake pedal highlighted the possibility of a failing servo or perhaps it not getting enough vacuum.
The car will be back with me soon for this and other jobs so I will report back.
Thanks for reading.
Mike @ www.corotec.co.uk
Essex GB



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Hi there.
I checked all the braided fuel line hoses at Superformance (they are at the end of my road) and the one I used was the best of the bunch however it is not correct and I am not happy with how it fits.
It has one end with a 90deg outlet which is not correct its also too long and is actually trying to kink itself, it took a lot of playing around to adjust the angle of each union (filter and pump) to find a happy medium where it does not kink, hit the handbrake cable or the floor.

I was studying period Mercedes rubber hoses such as that fitted to the R107 V8 but did not have time to investigate as the 400 had to go out.

In short, I would not suggest fitting the hose I used (328 I believe) and believe a better solution can be found.
Custom hose makers near me (they made me the gearbox oil cooler lines) did not have the specific olive type termination, or if they did it was not the correct taper of olive and would not seat correctly in the 400's fuel filter or pump.

As an aside, the Hill Engineering fuel pump I fitted was much noisier than expected, has anyone else found some HE pumps to be very whiney?

Best

Mike Colasuonno
MD
www.corotec.co.uk