Engine out Major Service - DIY, No Lift, Pictures

It was a fun job to replace the plug wires.

An easy time at the workbench screwing the wires into the caps, then finishing the evening by laying the new wires into new clips on the cleaned & painted valve covers. Getting the final wire layout to my liking was a particularly pleasant task.

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Still need to order a few more clips as the 83 US QV has extra clips to bend the wires around the air pump.

 

The fuel pump has bugged me since I got the car. It runs and drives great, but the pump is clearly wrong as it has a yellow stripe, plastic reducer in the fuel feed line, hacked on spade connectors, and the pump body wrapped in foam and tape to fit the bracket. I didn’t bother to change it back in the spring when I did the major service, but seems like a good time to dig into it now, since it could be a future failure point.

When I pulled out the pump and looked up the Bosch code, I was amazed to find that it is a pump from a Volvo 240. Who on earth puts a 4cyl fuel pump into a V8 car? I guess it was an ok decision back in time, as the pump is cheap, and the car has plenty of fuel to pull hard to the redline.

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The new pump I ordered showed the correct version on the website with the built in check valve, but what arrived was the updated version with the replaceable valve. A tad unhappy, since it will need fuel line mods, but the new style is an improvement, so I may as well stick with it. Oh well, I guess no driving for a few days while I sort out the options to switch from a threaded fitting to a banjo fitting.

 

Thanks for the suggestion for the alternate pump. Returning the $300 pump that can cause issues in exchange for a $60 pump that has much better capacity is an awesome idea.

I didn’t see the T Rutlands suggestion till after I had ordered the parts from Bel Metric to make the new braided fuel line. We shall see how that goes.

In the meantime, weather is awesome for driving this weekend, so spent 20 minutes reinstalling the crappy Volvo pump, and now have the car back on the road till the new parts come in.

 

I finally got around to replacing the Volvo fuel pump with the new Bosch one, which also allowed me to get rid of a plastic reducer fitting in the pump feed line.

I was a bit worried about the smaller capacity pump per Rifledriver’s comment, but with the new pump, the car pulls strongly to redline on my local steep mountain hwy. There might be a capacity issue on the larger 3.2 engines, but I am happy with the new pump on my QV.

 

I found that braided Cohline was correct for the Mondial QV accumulator line. I had some of the right size from Verell’s kit bought last spring for replacing the injector lines. The original plastic lines were brittle, and two broke when moving them out of the way for valve cover removal.

Making the new line was surprisingly easy. I put two plastic cable ties side by side and used a Dremel & cut off wheel between them to cut the stainless line cleanly without any fraying. The Cohline banjo, swivel, collar, and cap fittings from Bel Metric were only $27… great!

Last year I had made the new injector lines by using a simple jig to hold the plastic Cohline tubing while pressing in the injector fittings. I drilled a hole between two hardwood scraps that was one bit size smaller than the tubing. I then re-drilled the top half-inch a couple of bit sizes larger than the tube to allow expansion as the fitting was pressed in. Worked perfectly.

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I did the same with the larger braided hose except I had to use a small hammer and wood block to tap in the fitting, as the larger size required more force to insert.

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It seemed a bit surreal to be working in my little 10’ by 10’ basement woodworking shop to hand make parts for a 41 year old Ferrari.

 

I used the normal Ferrari part from one of the main US Italian parts suppliers. You might want to try running the car with the fuel distributor safety switch un-plugged to rule out issues with one of the two pump power circuits/relays.

 

Nope...only had the Ferrari part # from the parts diagram.