77 308 GTB Major Service & Mini Restoration

Some of you may remember the follow thread from a while back when I helped my friend and fellow F-chatter do a major on his 308 along with replacing the sodium valves:

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/76-gtb-major-service-with-sodium-extraction.507926/

Well this year, and after 15 years of ownership, it was my turn so my 1977 308 GTB #20783 got treated to a major service along with changing the sodium valves and a cosmetic freshening of the engine bay. Much like the other job we focused on good sound mechanical work but in my case we added some plating and trim paint to the engine bay to give it a more restored appearance. We tried to be concours correct but did not go insane tracking down every last bit because I have no intentions of showing the car.

Where things did deviate is that I originally was going to do a major to tackle a long existing oil leak and this ballooned into removing the engine, pulling the heads while we were at it, and replacing the sodium exhaust valves. One thing led to another so we stripped and plated close to 600 fasteners, re-built the carbs, and replaced the exhaust. I started in the spring with the idea that I could finish it quickly but the racing season and business got in the way so here I am in November just buttoning up the job Missing the driving season in the 308 was rough so the Dino got a lot more mileage in 2017

Anyways I know you guys love picture and service threads so I thought I would share my experience. First step was getting ready to pull the engine and assessing the current condition. Compression and leak down numbers came out GREAT and the car consumes no oil so there was no need to touch the bottom end. What was due was replacing of every bit of rubber and the sodium valves were original so out came the engine.

Here we are using the strap method and pulling out the lump:

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#20783 has an assembly number of 96A which appears all over the place on the car. It shows as a January 1977 build and every casting on the car shows a 1976 manufacture date on it. Ironically my friends car is #20621 also a US 308 GTB shows a December 1976 build but every casting on his car shows a 1977 manufacture date on it. Who knows what happens with Ferrari but certainly your car is very close to mine. I believe the closest car I have info on was either 6 or 8 serial numbers away from mine making it only 3-4 cars away. Maybe one day I'll find my cars brother.

 

Now for some pictures of the engine out of the car. It was not terrible just a lot of accumulated dirt over the years and varnished fuel on the outside of the carbs. From what I could see it did not appear as though the engine had ever been out. Let me tell you that pulling the engine is the way to go. It takes less than a day and gives access that you just cannot dream about otherwise. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I often harp on about the value in pulling the engine when you have more than three tasks to do in the engine bay and the engine out pics should show why. With the engine out you get incredible access to everything making otherwise tough jobs turn into simple tasks that take minutes instead of hours. With the engine out we also took the time to clean and remove any grease or accumulated dirt over the years. All cleaning was done with a combination of Simple Green or WD40 scrubbed with a plastic brush and rinsed with water. Final drying was done with compressed air to get in all the nooks and crannies. Here are pics of my brother helping out and showing what real engine bay access looks like.

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After the engine bay was cleaned, the fuel tanks and all ancillary items were removed. In addition all of the hoses were removed because they were all going to be replaced. At 40 years old the paint in the engine bay had seen newer days so first the lower frame rails were touched up and then the whole back of the car was masked to allow a re-spray of the black.

Chips were sanded and feathered out and then any bare metal was spot primed. We decided to leave all the original ID plates in place and mask them off rather than remove them. By being careful with the film build of the new paint around the edges we could ensure a perfect finish without it looking like the plates were masked off. Once everything was primed and prepped proper 2 pack paint was applied with a paint gun and allowed to harden. In the end the engine bay looked factory new and ready for re-assembly. The last two images give a feel for the before and after.

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Great but it seems like things are really dead around here. There are few threads and not a lot of posts or engagement. It's always nice to spawn a bit of discussion and most threads seem a little flat nowadays.

 

Getting back to the engine and gearbox it was now time to take off all of the ancillaries and eventually take off the heads. Before pulling the heads the whole assembly was given a good cleaning and de-greasing. This again was done with a combination of Simple Green and WD40, lots of scrubbing, and compressed air to dry things fast. Once cleaned I used my trusty homemade puller to take off the heads. As expected the cylinder bores looked perfect so there was no reason to go any deeper. In the last photo are all the parts that came off the engine awaiting cleaning and restoration.

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With most of the dirty work out of the way it was time to prepare fasteners for plating. To do this the following procedure is used:

1. All parts are separated by assembly and the original finish is determined by inspection.
2. Parts are grouped, counted, and photographed.
3. Each group is then cleaned using a wire brush on a bench grinder or glass bead in a media blaster. We do not rely on the chemical strip at the plater because it does not remove any scale.
4. The clean parts are then bagged and sent to plating. Everything is photographed, counted, and a numbering system is used to track everything
5. Once back from the plater the parts are removed from the hanging wires (done at the plater) and re-grouped into their respective assemblies.

In total the plating does not cost much but the work to keep track of everything is substantial. In this job we did close to 600 parts and not a single washer was lost.

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While putting everything back together we decided to give the paint a bit of a refreshing. Most of the original lacquer is on the car and every year I debate re-painting the car as it is nice from 10 feet but by no means a show car. That said it is nice to not have to worry about stone chips and minor dings so with this big service we actually decided to give the paint its first machine polishing in over ten years.

This process started with removing everything on the tail to clean accumulated soot and road grime that is not otherwise possible to access. Once stripped a rag with cleaner was used to remove the heavy stuff before clay barring the paint in preparation for polish. The lacquer on the car is very very thin and old so we decided against any wet sanding and just went straight to compound with a polisher and a lot of care.

Before the polish we also touched up chips with some original lacquer we had. When opening the can the paint was fairly hard but the cool thing with lacquer is that is is re-activated with the addition of lacquer thinner. In this case I added more than 100% the paint volume in thinner but sure enough with some time all the paint softened and was ready to apply with a brush. Lacquer is great in that it dries fast and blends well. Once the touch ups dried we carefully sanded the repairs flat and then polished everything with the mechanical polisher.

In the end the paint still has all of its original cracks but is much much nicer than we started. Now it looks great from 5 feet away and those last few feet will re-quire a bare metal re-spray. Not this year or even next

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Excellent info on the tail light installation. I am in the process of replacing some of the lights and fitting all new gaskets. The sheet metal from factory is not perfectly even to the shape of the lights so a little extra sealing will be necessary to keep the lights from leaking.

 

This will surely be the last polish. The paint is very thin and fragile and the next time it will be a strip and re-paint. I love the idea of preserving originality but I think my paint is at the end of that life but for now it looks pretty good and I'm not afraid to use it.

 

No swirl marks or fading of any kind. The whole paint was looking flat and after polishing it now reflects light decently well. In reality the shinier finish makes the cracking on the paint actually more visible but I consider it an acceptable trade off to having the paint looking dull. Lacquer paint has a lot of failings but the ability to polish it is not one of them. When polishing a lot of material deposits itself on the foam pad so it is imperative to regularly blow the pad out with compressed air to keep it clean.