83 Mondial QV - EV conversion project using Tesla LDU

I'm not proud. I know the quality of my welds. The mondial is at my friend's bodyshop and his lead tech has agreed to lay better beads for my welds.

I have considered upgrading to a 240V welder. It's one reason to consider putting an outlet on the wall next to my lift where the charger will eventually live.

 

Q: Are these fender badges "real" Ferrari badges or just "real enough"?
- Some previous owner stuck them to the front fenders of my Mondial and I pulled them off (cut off using string) prior to painting.
- I don't really love them so they won't be going back on my car.

They are made of metal (96-97grams on my kitchen scale) and are slightly curved to match the vehicle fenders vs being flat plates.

If they are legit though, I have no qualms about selling them off.
The alternative is to stick one on a gold chain and wear it around my neck for halloween.

Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Q: Does anyone have a 3D scan of the front and rear spindles?
- I already know the distance between the two mount points for the caliper bracket because I have the stock caliper braket in hand.
- I'm specifically interested in knowing the distances:
a) in the z axis between the face front face of the caliper bracket mount point and the front face of the spindle (where the rotor rests)
b) the thickness of the caliper bracket mount point
c) the distance between one of the caliper bracket mount point centers and the center of rotation of the hub itself.


My Mondial is in the paint shop still and it's not as easy for me to take these scans.
Since the "complete" big brake kit I purchased had the wrong brackets and rear rotor hats and no replacement was forthcoming, I went in a different direction and am piecing together my own big brake kit from wilwood components. I have approx $4400 into new setup already but one benefit (for me at least), is that the rear parking brake it no longer a mechanically actuated drum an electronic servo controlled mechanism. All I need to do is make 6 brackets (2 for the front spindles, 2 for the rear spindles, and 2 for the EPB).

This piece of trick kit is ~$1200 by itself.
https://www.wilwood.com/brakekits/BrakeKitListRear?mincatdesc=Electronic%20Parking%20Brake%20Rear%20Retrofit%20Brake%20Kit

I won't send any brackets out for production until I confirm measurements on my own car first BUT if someone has these numbers (or a 3D scan), I can at least CAD up a rough estimate of what this looks like and save a little time.

 

It's been a few months since i posted but I didn't have much to report as my friend took my Mondial into his shop when things were slow, and then they got busy again. His uncle is now working on the car (one of the guys with all the old school steel working skills vs the "kids" who are better at working aluminum).

1) Easiest fix was in the back corner near the rear lights
Image Unavailable, Please Login

2) I knew the door sill plates had rust under them so this wasn't unexpected. Cancer seems to be on a single plane so the plan is to cut it back and weld the neplate in.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

3) I also didn't realize that the vinplate near the door latch was a plate covering another plate. The uncle removed it (I think it was riveted on) and found this bit of cancer to fix. Other side was fine.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
4) Now I know the front end was in an accident (this was not an expensive Mondial) because the car came with a Mondial 3.2 front bumper. Apparently the repair included a bit more bondo on the front passenger fender (tip was bondo vs steel). They'll add more sheet steel and fix this. We had a discussion and while the section of the repair will be more expensive than originally expected, its not a significant undertaking and they were already cutting/filling in the fender corner lights anyway. He's not making me a new fender NOR is he just slapping more bondo on there and calling it a day. I'm not going for Ferrari Classiche certification on this car so whatever.

Image Unavailable, Please Login

Since they are actively working on this car, I'll probably get it back by the New Years. After that, its all on me to get the car running

On the big brake kit front, my buddy started helping me CAD up the brackets necessary to make a big brake kit out of Wilwood components. What we learned is that the bolt holes for my chosen Wilwood calipers are only slightly farther out than the stock position so the bracket we need to fab will need to have the holes offset. I'll post pictures of the 3D print we'll make to test fitment but what this means is we'll have the calipers mounted 10 or 15 degrees higher than the stock calipers. In other words, if the calipers mount at 9 o'clock on the FR corner of the car when looking at the brake face, the Wilwood calipers will sit at approx 10 o-clock.

Pic of the rear. The little guy at 3 oclock is the electronic parking brake.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
We were originally going to make a banana shaped bracket with 2 holes to mount to the stock spindle and 3 holes for mounting the wilwood calipers so the same bracket can be reused for either side of the car (L or R). However, the delta in cost between 2x the same bracket and 1x each of the unique brackets from the chinese CNC house is $5 so... I'm probably not going to bother. If I shomehow break a specific bracket, I'll just order a new one from the same CNC house.

Total cost so far is $4540. The brackets (6x of them -- 2 front, 2 rear, 2 ebrake) will cost maybe $250. I'll also need custom SS brake lines which will run another $250 for 4 made locally. So $5K for my own BB kit. In hindsight, I could probably have saved $250 by not springing for the fancy black oxide coating (the surface bits will wear off but the slots will remain black and it prevents rust forming inside the rotor vent channels. The reality is I needed to hit $1K per jegs.com order to use a Q3-2024 coupon and I forgot I needed brake pads which would have helped me push over the $1K limit instead of springing for the fancier rotors). Oh well.

PS. Yes, my buddies uncle is fixing my booger welds

 

Oh, I also decided to go textured body color (azuro hyperion, or Corolla blue-gray as my friend called it) for that black stripe at the bottom of the door. I figured I should go this route if the front and back are going to the body colored as well (except for the very bottom lip of the 3.2 front bumper AND the exhaust valance at the rear which will now just cover my LDU support bracket.

 

Its Jan. We took my kid skiing for a few days, saw my mother-in-law, oh and I caught covid again. Sigh.

The good news is that while I was away, more progress was made by my friend's body shop. They found a bit more bondo than they expected (I wasn't worried, this was a bottom dollar Ferrari after all) but they added metal and welded things up nicely.

Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login

This last one is a work in progress. You can see that they are starting to fill in the gap between the roof panel and the roof. It is curious though that some previous owner had skim coated bondo on the top panel. Dunno.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Pics from a week ago.

Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Body Work
Just before going on vacation for my kid's Spring Break, my friend's body shop finally finished the car. I think it was worth the wait esp since its hard to find a shop willing to charge reasonable rates for this kind of body work anywhere near SF (rust repair, shaving fenders, welding up the sunroof, etc.) Getting this car back now that I'm back from vacation reminded me of how much I missed having a project car I can work on daily (in little increments). I'm also quite happy with my chosen color (Azzuro Hyperion), which is a good thing considering that I paid for the paintjob

Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Model
While I was waiting for the car, I did ask my friend to paint this model another friend gave me after I took it apart with the same paint. I think it came out pretty well and will look quite similar to my final car (except with a 3.2 front bumper, both side mirrors, and my car is rolling on the fifteen52 rims).

Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

Brakes
With the car back, I was also able to test fit my brake adapter brackets. It was a good thing that my friend recommended we testfit these 3d printed backets before ordering them CNC'd from China.
- Once I started test fitting things, I realized that while my Wilwood rotor hats had both 5 x 4.25 and 5 x 4.5 bolt patterns, one is drilled for 13mm lug bolts and the other 14mm. Of course, the bolt pattern I need (5 x 108mm aka 5 x 4.25) was drilled for M13. That's nothing an M14 drill bit, some cutting oil, and a drill press cannot fix.
- Front calipers, once I drill the rotor hats (and fabricate some hubcentric rings so everything mounts property), will bolt right up with our adapter.

Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

On the rear though, I found that the larger rear spindles got in the way of both my EPB and rear caliper relocation brackets. I will also need to reduce the rotational offset between the old holes and the new ones on the rear bracket bracket so that they will fit. There will be a V2 of both.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

Overspray from previous owner's paintjob
One thing I didn't count on was red overspray on some of the rubber gaskets/trim on the car.. some of which like the trim around the rear window, was reinstalled before I had a chance to clean up the rubber bits. This wouldn't have mattered if I had the car repainted Rosso Corsa but looks like unintentional/unwanted pinstriping once the car was blue. I checked in with a few friends and was given different advice on how to remove the cured paint bits on rubber.

- After a little experimentation, what I settled on was a combination of silicone spray (to act as a lubricant to remove grime) and plastic credit cards/my fingernails to gently scrub off the red paint bits.

I was quite happy with the results after a few hours of work.

Before
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
In progress (protected the paint while I scrubbed some of the rubber I couldn't remove)
Image Unavailable, Please Login
After
Image Unavailable, Please Login


Q: For Afterburner or anyone else with restoration experience - is there a recommended refinishing coat for these plastic/rubber bits?

While I can live with the rest buttresses and the black side strake molding in their current condition, this car is a project for me so if there's a product I can use to fill in some of the rubber erosion on these buttress pieces, please LMK.

My first thought was plastidip rubber coating spray but a friend said that while this stuff is easy to paint, it does fade in color over time. Would something like Rustoleum Rubberized Undercoating work better?
Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login

Besides drilling out the rotor hats, I have some hub centric rings to fab up on a lathe this weekend. Fun!

 

I'll have to look at that product as it seems to be designed for exterior use (vs Plastidip)/

Yesterday I took my kid to do some volunteer work (temporarily catching and identifyinng native CA bees for some study), but I did manage to spend a little time making progress on the car by drilling out the 5 x 4.25 bolt pattern on my Wilwood rotor hats to 14mm.

Tips
- I used a $15 cobalt steel 14mm (M14) drill bit from Amazon. Cheapest models were $10 HSS. A friend suggested looking for NOS of American-made drill bits on eBay by my impatience won out.
- Use the biggest drill press you have access to and set it to the lowest RPM possible. Instead of the tablestop drill press (+1 upgrade from the cheapest model) I have that goes down to ~600ish RPM, I used a neighbors which can get down to 150RPM.
- Be very careful about centering the new bit on the old hole. It helps to have a friend clamp down the piece while you hold the drill bit in place (two clamps on as seen in the picture was overkill so we ended up using just one clamp for the other 19 holes I had to drill)
- Use cutting oil
- This was an aluminum alloy so I didn't expect much resistance but I also didn't want to mess up $200 rotor hats, either. The aluminum shavings came off in long spirals and you didn't see the oil cooking off so I know I wasn't introducing too much heat into the hats. Too fast and you get smaller aluminum chips plus a dull drill bit.

Net result was this worked just fine. I should have a V2 of the brackets to test fit on the rears soon.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
In looking at the fully assembled rotor, I may rotate the angle of the new calipers slightly back from the stock mounting position to give more clearance between the top caliper to bracket mounting bolt and the UCA. Its a little close. 3D prints are so nice
It will be interesting to see how much the current govt is going to make my caliper brackets cost

PS. I don't hate money enough to pay for this black electro coat on the rotors just to have pretty slots and more rust resistance interior vanes; I needed to pay that slight premium to qualify for the next larger JEGS coupon discount which more than made up for the bougie rotor coating.

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Hahaha. I think Urs you and I have two significantly different opinions of what "severely damaged" means FWIW, I think the pitting shows wear but its not like there are huge chunks missing. The camera flash definitely brings out some of the pitting on the surface but given how easy it is to remove these pieces, I'm not above trying to repaint it... eventually. I'm actually OK with the condition today... I just want to think about how I could make it better.

Rear Trunk
2) I did find this crack in the fiberglass base of the trunk, so I plan to use this as a test surface for some bumper/trim paint. Besides the crack itse, it already had some discoloration/scratches so its a perfect candidate to test how well the spray works to fill in surface imperfections. Repair was fairly simple: mix up some fiberglass epoxy, cut out a small rectangle of fiberglass, and fill in both the top plus reinforcement on the bottom.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Still a little wet so I wiped up some excess epoxy
Image Unavailable, Please Login

I'm considering what to put underneath this fiberglass layer. I had to lift up the floor by an inch or so at the front to make room for the Tesla LDU; I think I'll use some of the metal heat shield bits underneath but NOT the thick exhaust heat shield because its no necessary.
- I spent a little more time cleaning up the holes for the rivets I had drilled out to remove these pieces.

Front Calipers (again)
Now that I have the front rotors in place, I realized that there will need to be a V2 of the front relocation brackets
- The top-most bolt that holds the Wilwood caliper to the bracket is too close to the top of the front spindle assembly; I will be better off moving the wilwood caliper down (closer to the stock mounting position)
- The backside of the banana shaped relocation bracket is too close to the brake pad itself once assembled. I need to make the whole relocation bracket skinnier so it won't have a chance of binding.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

Custom Axles
I also put some research into my custom brackets. I have no problems sacrificing my stock Ferrari axles AND Tesla Model S axles are stupid cheap (they break a lot) so my plan is to get two Tesla rear axles @ $200/pair, cut and weld them together with my Ferrari stubs to test fit things.

Interesting video that outlines the method


1) The alternative is to spend $750/$1300/$1990 for Tesla LDU to 930CV stubs (depending on supplier/metallurgy) and cut down the Ferrari axles (which are 930CV to 930CV axles). Its still unclear if the 930to930 custom axles are that much cheaper (need to call DSS) but another supplier (Dutchman axles) builds them for $1350-$1500 OR

2) roll the dice by taking measurements and buying full custom Tesla shaft ferrari spindle flange custom axles at $2K+.

In comparison, buying the sacrificial tesla rear axles and then sacrificing my existing Ferrari axles may be a better safer option.

 

Hubcentric rings and Brakes
This weekend I spent time working on my caliper relocation brackets with my friend and finishing up the machining of hubcentric rings on his lathe

1) The hubcentric rings are needed because the OD of the spindles are 67mm, with a slight radius near the base, the ID of my rotor hat is 3", and the ID of my wheels are 73.1mm. I needed to make rings to help center the wheels when they are spinning (and take some of the load off of the wheel bolts). A bit of test fitment was required because I didn't notice until test fitting that there's a slight radius (when cut at an ID of 67.1mm all the way down, I was getting a bit of resistance at the base so it wouldn't sit entirely flush).
Image Unavailable, Please Login

I'm onto the third iteration of each of the caliper relocation brackets.
Key challenges:
1) On both the front and rear caliper brackets, while I knew the distance out from the axis of rotation the Wilwood calipers need to sit and the distance from the face of the spindle hub the calipers need to be mounted based on the position of the rotor), distance is too close between the stock and new caliper mounting holes to allow them to sit in the same "clock" position as stock. Therefore, I needed the new wilwood calipers to sit slightly rotated from the stock mounting position. Getting exactly how much offset was needed is the tricky part: too close, and the new mount bolt head or the mounting boss on the caliper itself would interfere with the stock caliper mounting position. Rotated too far away and you run into issues with the new bolt head hitting the spindle itself. Hence, the need to get my friend to print some brackets and test-fit things.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

2) I also made the mistake of not realizing that the stock spindle-to-caliper mounting holes are M12 up front but only M10 in the rear.That was easily fixed with the brackets by filling in the hole in the printed bracket with hot glue and drilling a smaller hole. Finally, I got the rear calipers mounted and could test fit clearance.

The good news is that for now, it looks like the 9mm spacers I bought will NOT be necessary for clearance between the face of the new e-brake and rear calipers and the 18" wheels. If needed, I'll need to make hubcentric rings to take accomodate this extra 9mm of thickness AND accept the additional stress on the wheel bolts.

Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

I may still want them for cosmetic reasons though. While I put the body on the ground, I'm still missing some weight in the rear (the rear battery pack isn't mounted) so I really don't know what it looks like when the car is more squat. Image on the left is with the 9mm spacer, and image on the right (passenger side) is without. I don't think its noticeable at all but feel free to chime in. Now, if I buy some wider wheels in the future, the math may change.

Image Unavailable, Please Login

Next steps: I'm waiting to hear back from driveshaftshop about the custom axles, Ii should probably plumb in the rear brake lines again, and I need to buy some custom hydraulic brake lines (something I've done before for my lemons car).

Oh, I should also check about the rear swaybar mounting. Hopefully, the rear LDU won't cause me issues here (but I suspect it might)

 

Heya everyone
As I wait for parts like my axle stubs to arrive (I probably should have ordered it sooner) and the final brake relocation brackets to finish the big brake setup, I've taken some time to reassemble other parts of the car.

Q: How were the windshield washer hoses routed from the reservoir/pump at the front right of the car (above the battery) to underneath the window cowling?

- I had to replace my cowling because they got misplaced (no big deal, $130/pair) while my car was repainted and as I reassemble things, I don't recall my car having the hoses in place.
- No hole underneath the cowling matches seems obvious as "here is how one or both misters got their juice" but I suppose I could run the tubing through the hoses that serve as drains. Even with my EV battery in place, I can route them upwards to the pump w/o too much fuss. I also need to test that the motor still works after so many years of neglect (looks like $26 bucks off ebay if it is buggered up).

Image Unavailable, Please Login
Q: Is this how they were routed from the factory?
I'm not going for Officine Classiche certification here and this was some tubing I already owned so that seems to fit so that's what I plan to use. If I can ape the original routing, I'd like to do so.

Headlamps (again)
My other recent project was reinstalling my headlamps after the body shop took them apart to paint them.
- In hindsight, I should have done this in advance as one of my harnesses went missing. This again was no big deal because a) I DGAF about authenticity and b) H4 headlamp sockets are $10/pair off eBay. Took 15 min to make a new harness AND they now match because when I bought the car, the pass side was "hardwired" to the harness and the socket was missing.
- After rebuilding a new headlamp harness (has a plug into the vehicle chassis and two H4 plugs for the LED lights) for the driver's side headlamp, neither side would turn on.
- 12V battery was dead -- something else I should have taken off the car before repainting and left on a battery minder.
- Once the battery was replaced, I quickly root caused the stalks not working to a disconnected ground in the under-dash harness (was likely disconnected for repainting).
- Then, I found that one eye was "sleepy" (like a ricer RX7 in the late 90s). If you turned the knob to adjust the headlamp position, the relay would trigger and it would end back up at the sleepy position At first, I wondered if my new fuse panel or relay logic had a loose wire or blown relay but once I swapped headlamp positions, I found the issue followed the headlamp so therefore it was with the motor itself.
- I pulled the headlamp motor and after confirming that the wiring was good (four wires and 1 ground attached to some specific contacts on the motor), I realized the issue was that the headlamp motor was out of phase with the headlamp itself. In other words, when the headlamp thought it was in the OFF or ON position, it was actually physically in the "half up" position. T
- The solution was merely to put the headlamp in a known position (say off), unbolt it from the headlamp, and adjust the position of the aseembly to match what the motor thought it should be.

It turns out I'm still better with wiring than mechanical stuff. I can't wait to finally get the axles made, the big brake system plumbed in, and the front battery mounted. After that, I just need to mount the two radiators and pumps and tackle the EV wiring.

I'm also glad I enjoy this stuff. I think this would be much more stressful if I was doing this EV conversion as a job.

 

Urs:
My replacement u-clips came in from Amazon so I was reinstalling my cowling and wanted to plumb in the wipers.
- I found the equivalent hole for the washer fluid hose you mentioned but on LHD cars, its on the side vs the bottom of the rain catching basin.
- My cowling is now reinstalled and that's a few more parts I will no longer have to keep track of.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

It does look like the flimsy plastic nut cover at the base of my driver's side (left) wiper arm was broken off though. I wonder if I can find a suitable replacement
"wiper arm base cap"

Seems kind of silly to spend $50-150+ for an entire replacement arm. Arm Ferrari Part# 60767800

Example (not sure if it works -- if someone has already found a replacement, please do share)
https://mossmotors.com/bau1124-cover-wiper-arm

Tom Vails All Ferrari Parts and Recambi does list a wiper arm covers but not sure what car it goes to (probably something much newer)

 

In theory yes, but the challenge is getting an appropriate model for the replacement. The 3D scanners I've tried in the past weren't that great. You do make a good point though so maybe someone has created a model already I can print on thingiverse.com or other similar website. In comparison, making a replacement headlamp motor knob was much easier and the result looks just like the original. The other challenge is that the gap between the segment that bolts to the wiper motor and the rest of the arm is fairly thin -- a printedmaterial thin enough to fit through might not be strong enough to be easily printed.
I did find two models that looked pretty close and probably worth printing.
https://www.printables.com/model/508984-mitsubishi-montero-pajero-dodge-raider-wiper-arm-p
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6936985

Going down another avenue (finding something off the shelf), I did find that the LH wiper is a Bosch 399-990-553 Offset J-Hook wiper arm measuring 18" long with the wiper nut cover itself being 2" long x .75" wide (approx).
It was also used as the RH wiper arm on a W123 Mercedes (1976-86) -- these arms are available new so I do have options here.

 

I took a look and my car also has the same wiperarms on the L&R side -- same Bosch 399 990 553 offset J-Hook @ 18" long.
Considering I have a 3.2 bumper, I cannot say with 100% conviction that this is original either.