Daytona Rebuild

Great choice for selecting a Dino! The Daytona lacks those seductive curves and the Dino's proportions offer superior weight and balance for driving.

 

I'm not exactly sure if it is silver, but it looks more grey to me.

If it is grey then my guess is that it is primer that they have sprayed a highly reflective clear over to inspect their work on the body lines. It is a stage during painting concours cars that reveals all imperfections and gives them a chance to see and identify any odd lines that might show up in the final paint. After examining (scrutinizing) this premature clear coat, they note the imperfect areas, address any issues, and then go to final sanding and painting stages.

Then again, I could be wrong...

 

I can think of two ways to have door keys made for your car;

1) Get the lock number off the cylinder and have a key made from that, but that is not always easy on Italian locks as the markings aren't always on
them.
2) Find a master locksmith who can make a key from your door cylinder.
In extreme cases this might require taking a blank, wiggling it in the cylinder to get pin marks, filing down the areas of pin marks, and repeating until the pins make no more marks on the blank resulting in proper key depth. It is expensive, time consuming and puts a lot of wear on the pins.

And if you haven't done so already, have copies made of all the keys you currently do have and put the originals in a safe place.

PS - The reason I know about 2) is from a bad experience (Alaska Airlines lost my keys as they were in checked luggage). If you want to remove your lock cylinder and send it to Master Locksmith, Don Whitten, to do what I had to do, then PM me and I'll send you his address.

 

Carlo - just a thought - it looks like Tim's found new panels at Ferrari UK so maybe they have locks (with keys !) too

www.ferraripart.co.uk

 

Nesting posts is easy, but you have to manually move the [ / QUOTE ] at the end of the first comment to follow the [ / QUOTE ] of the second comment.

For example if you want to nest these two comments:

so it looks like this:

First, get both comments to be quoted items by selecting the + PLUS sign in the lower right of each comment box. The + sign is next to the QUOTE box

Second, select the QUOTE box and you should see text like this:

[ QUOTE=TimRoper;136237133 ]Synchro
Anyway, how do you do that posting previous posts as 'quotes' thing on this site? can't find any instructions for dimmos like me.[ /QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE=synchro;136236915 ]Great choice for selecting a Dino! (..snip!...).
[ /QUOTE ]


Third, move the [ / QUOTE ] at the end of first comment by cutting it and pasting it after the second comment's [ / QUOTE ], and it will look like this (note: the items in BOLD are the subjects):

[ QUOTE=TimRoper;136237133 ]Synchro
Anyway, how do you do that posting previous posts as 'quotes' thing on this site? can't find any instructions for dimmos like me.

[ QUOTE=synchro;136236915 ]Great choice for selecting a Dino! (..snip!...).
[ /QUOTE ] [ /QUOTE ]

and select Submit Reply

 

Tim,

Yes I did. It now lives in Sydney and I'm slowly working through the issues, most of which arise from lack of use and some questionable servicing in the past. Body is excellent, mechanicals 75%, some originality issues to address. Have just commenced an engine rebuild. Started with replacing sodium exhaust valves but found more bore wear than I liked (3 thou) when the heads came off. So its getting a complete refresh and 10:1 pistons. Despite (or perhaps because of) all this, I'm enjoying it immensly!

 

Oh man, these pics almost make me ill. To think about the rust worm chewing, chewing, chewing underneath all that shiny paint. You sir, are my hero. May the gods smile upon your project.

Dale

 

Rust is the most important issue when assessing the condition of a Daytona, or indeed any early Ferrari. A body rebuild will exceed the cost of a mechanical rebuild every time.

They all have rust - somewhere. Unless you've got a documented body rebuild, like Tim's going through here, you have to assume that there'll be corrosion. Its just a matter of knowing where to look. If you don't know the cars, get an experienced person to help. If you can see external bubbles, I'm afraid you should cost in a full restoration.

Provided the body panels haven't perforated, 90% of the time the rust on the inside can be treated and arrested without major cost. Ditto inside chassis tubes. The steel is good quality and most of the rust trap areas are accessible.

The positive thing to remember Tim is that your car will be good for another 30 years now and you have a more than reasonable likelyhood of recouping the restoration cost in appreciation within 3-5 years.

 

Very impressive to see how badly Ferrari build their cars in that period.

I had my Dino 246GTS done like this Daytona rebuild years ago and after racing it and using it on the road (also in the rain) I had to do some of it again.
We recently replaced most of the central chassistube which is hidden by the floorplate.

As I am in the process of buying a Daytona, this thread puts me with my feet back on the ground. I'd love to buy it but I now will take an even better look at the "original" rust!

 

One difficulty is that not all sellers are going to be happy for a buyer to remove door trims and inner guards, but all are necessary in order to carry out a real inspection.

After checking the door internals, put the car on stands with all wheels off. Remove front and rear inner guard panels (note, the complete inner guards can't be removed, only the smaller inspection panels). With this done, its possible to inspect the inner sills, the interior of the front guards, etc. Next step is to take a small hammer and a scraper, "sound" all of the chassis rails by tapping with the hammer, corroded areas will have a duller ring. Look for trouble where the sill-support outriggers join the main oval rails and inside the inner sill tubes. Anywhere that fiberglass is bonded onto the chassis is a danger too. This includes the floor and inner rear guards.

About the only place that you can't check is under the windscreen and rear window rubbers.

Note that most interior surfaces will have a coating of "alpha" rust. This is quite OK and actually protects the metal. It is the flaking "beta" rust that leads to perforation. I have spent many hours scraping and sanding, coating with fish oil and then underbody paint. Spray cans of fish oil are good for the innaccessible areas. Pour fish oil directly into the sill tubes and allow to drain back out. Its a dirty and unpleasant job, however cars that I treated in this way 20 years ago are still looking good today. When the inner guard panels go back on, your handiwork is hidden from all but the most particular concours judges!

 

A bore scope is also very good for visually inspecting areas that otherwise cannot be inspected. I have fished my bore scope with light into all sorts of nooks and cranies that otherwise would be blind.

I am very lucky that the PO of my Daytona was fanatical about rust prevention and my car has lived here in Atlanta since the mid 1970s, always in a climate controlled garage. Starting in the 1970s, he pumped the chassis tubes and every area of bodywork accessible full of waxoyl goop. It has been very effective. Despite this, the doors were both reskinned in the mid 1980s by Bo Pirkle's shop.

I also had to fix a rusted through aread below the drivers side rear quarter window. There are metal tubes through with the cables to release the fuel filler and trunk latch run. These tubes pass very close to the outer quarter panel skin. To prevent the tubes rubbing on the panel, Ferrari apparently fixed some foam to the tubes between them and the bodywork. Foam of course holds moisture..... add 30 years time.... a faint bubble began to appear in the bodywork. Bo did a great job fixing that too, but until that faint bubble began to appear you never would have known there was any issue. When Bo had the rusty section cut out, we could see all the rest of the inner quarter panel. No rust issues at all.... it was only where that damn foam was pushed against the bodywork!




Terry

 

You've got to have some sympathy for Ferrari, no other car manufacturer is expected to build a car that lasts for 50 years!

Porsches, Benzes, Rolls Royce, etc cars from the 50's to early 80's all rusted and often very quickly. The Germans introduced full body galvanising only because government regulation required 6 years of corrosion protection, they then turned this into a marketing advantage.

Early Ferraris have the benefit of being (relatively) straight forward to repair and of course economically viable. A rusty 911S goes straight to the crusher.

 

Tim, you could dip the car, but I doubt it will help. Look at the 80's cars that were dipped and still rusted within 5 years. You'd also have issues with micro-contamination of the external surfaces that could affect your paint.

My suggestion is that when your bodywork is finished, primed and painted, but before any trim goes back in, I would spend a day spraying fish oil into every internal cavity that you can reach. Every screw that goes back into the body should be dipped in fish oil first. You will have fish oil dripping out for about 6 months and cats will follow you down the road, but the red men will be banished!

I have met many body guys who poo-poo fish oil and talk about superior modern treatments. All that I know is that the 246 I restored in 1986 and the 365GT I did in 1990 have not a speck of rust today. Sydney is on the coast, the air is humid and salty, so cars do rust here.

 

fish oil.... like FISH oil??? or is this a technical term for something in the restorer's treasure chest of secrets?... thanks... sorry for the random (dumb?) question.... I just had to ask.

Thanks,

-e

PS: Tim, I'm sure you saw the article in Octane about the MotoTechniques resto of the GTO. When you are done, will you total the man hours that went into this thing for those of us avidly following the progress? BTW, does the guy(s) working on your car ONLY work on your car until it's done or are they tending to other customers' pride&joy projects at the same time - meaning that progress could be happening quicker if you were the only one there? Just curious is all...

Thanks again for the many many detailed pics...

-e

 

Yep, its FISH oil! Has been used for generations in Australia and I've seen it on the shelf in hardware stores in the UK. It smells, it doesn't dry and you can't paint over it, so you can't use it where it will be visible. However, it has remarkable penetrating properties and will work its way into every crevice, capilliary force even sends it uphill.

 

Might take away from that 'new car smell'. (Or in this case freshly restored old car smell)