Aussie Testarossa rebuild

Yes it does take an extra effort at the end of a long day to clean up and then post, but it's great reference material for everybody, me inclusive.

One of the worst things to remove from the car are the front shockers.

There are four nuts on top and one bolt through the shocker eye down below. Two 13mm nuts at the front upper are easy. Unless they are rusted badly you will get them off without too much problems. Use a 6 hex spanner or socket to get to them.

The two at the rear closest to the body work are REALLY difficult. The most forward one can be done with a 6 hex ring spanner if you are careful, but the other one is a nightmare.

I tried for two days before coming up with a solution. A 13mm 6 hex ring spanner with a double offset. This means that the bend is twice as long (or deep) as a normal ring spanner and you can just get this in there and mkae tiny turns at a time.

Of the eight studs, two screwed out, one snapped and the other nuts came off.

Not so easy down below on the big 19mm nut / bolt. The nut rattled off fine. Generally I replace these Nylocks so I screw the nut back on about half, give it a belt with the hammer and the bolt slides right out.

Not this time! Something was holding the bolt seriously tight and it simply would not come out. I have a 1.2m breaker bar for doing up things that are simply bloody tight. With a 6 hex impact socket attached I gave it my best and bang went my back.

Limped inside and Suzie lay me down and had to massage my back and put me to bed. Next day I tried again, and this time - some movement! BUT.........it was actually the centre of the bush tearing away from the rubber of the shocker bush. It ended up turning quite freely, but wouldnt come out.

The hammers got bigger. First a ball peen, then a BIG ball pee, then a mash hammer, then a sledge hammer and still nothing.

Then the Oxy set came out and I heated the head and end of the bolt. I figured that water had got in there and rusted the shocker bush central steel sleeve to the bolt. Maybe heat would break the bond. Nope, no such luck.

Okay, stuffed at this point and looking for options. Out to the tool store and came home with an air hacksaw and a selection of super strong carbon steel blades in 24t.

Carefully, I slipped the blade onto the rubber and cut through to the bush. Then through the bush, through the centre bolt and out the other side. Then move to the other side of the shocker and repeat. Three hours per side. Man those bastard bolts are strong. Must be a grade 10 at least.

Finally I could release the lower control arm bolts, flip the arm out of the way and extract the strut.

Once I removed the bush from the shocker I could see the bolt seriously fused into the bush. Good thing that I didn't need a wheel alignment as this bolt must be removed to fit the alignment shims in alongside the lower ball joint.
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Todays effort:

The studs need to be removed from the alloy shocker mounts so that they can be cleaned up and sent off for coating. The factory look for these would have been raw alloy, but this gets very grimy over the years and looks like crap. I'm going to have mine anodised in natural alloy colour and then clear powdercoated so that the finish remains and they are easy to keep clean.

The rubber / steel mounts will be cleaned up and then CAD coated. New stainless studs will be fitted with coppper coated nuts so that there are no future rust issues.

First step was the wire wheel again, then into the sandblaster and then the studs removed.

I needed oxy to get them out and managed by heating the alloy around the studs and using a rotary stud extractor tool. Three broke and had to be drilled out. What a PITA!

Anyway 9 hours later I have the shocker mounts all ready to go off to be coated.
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I also made a start on the front stabilizer bar mounts.

These will be treated the same as the alloy shocker mounts.
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I'm going to anodise first to ensure consistency of colour and finish on all parts. Then clear coat to protect.

 

Nylocks are a problem these days. Metric standard accross the world is blue and Imperial standard is white. Virtually impossible to get yellow and white anymore.

 

Bags and bags of bolts, nuts and plates all ready for the CAD platers.

Check out the brake duct. What a difference a bit of elbow grease makes.
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I don't know about the 'King' part Mark. I reckon if I was a king I'd pay someone to do this crap and go drive the Pantera in the meantime.

Weather is crap here though. No cars or bikes go out in this rain, so I may as well spend my days in the sandblasting cabinet. The garage is warm, the stereo is pumping. It's not all bad.

 

Thanks Guy. Yep, Suzie doesn't like to miss out on much. I bought a new bike a couple of years ago after a 20+ year spell from riding. Didn't take long until she booked a rider training course and came home with her licence. Now she's stepped up from a GS500 to a Ducati ST2.

I was doing rear hubs one night and she wanders down to the garage and looks over the work. Naturally she had to pick up a small paint brush and touch up the chips on the bolt heads where the socket or spanner had connected.

Cleaning cooling pipes in an earlier repair to the injection system.

Cutting new door liners when we rebuilt the rubbers and seals on the doors.
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Testarossa- They say it's like buying a light plane and maintaining a helicopter.

Guess what, it's worse because there are not many 25 year old helicopters that have worked in salty environments still flying. Now you can see why.

 

I expect that it would have been treated like any other engine out service. Replace what was required and put it back together. I'm sure I would have been driving it a month ago.

Unless you specify differently, 99% of mechanics will do a repair job, not a restoration / repair job. Yes, the decent ones will always replace the Nylocks, especially on critaical components like the 16 sub frame removal bolts and the 4 upper frame bolts, but how many would replace the sheet metal tab plates on the CV joints and things like that.

I certainly wouldn't want to pay a Ferrari mechanice for the 8 / 9 hours that it took yesterday to remove the shocker studs and restore those parts ready for plating!

I might be getting a little carried away though. This morning I've made a jig to spread the handbrake cable spring so I can clean it properly and then plate it all around the spring wire.

Ah well..............makes me happy! Most of the time.

 

Nothing wrong with 'girlie'!

You just need to find one that can wear two hats. The 'girlie' hat when you need a girlie woman, and the 'mate' hat when you need a hand in the garage.

The old girl shapes up okay, for a part time mechanic that is...................
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