Introducing my 456 GTA

This is the third Ferrari I have been fortunate to own over the last 20 years or so. I started the journey with an immaculate1989 328 GTB with a very low mileage. The previous owner had kept it in his lounge!

I then bought a 1969 365 GTC which has to be my all time favourite and still a much underrated car,(more about that later if you're interested). I bought my current 465 GTA in 2021. Tying them all together is the fact that as well as using them for high days and holidays with my wife, I have always done all maintenance myself.

My car is below, outside a small villa in Umbria which we rented a couple of years ago.

I'm not sure who the first owner was, but early in 1998 it was bought at a year old by heavyweight boxing champion Lennox Lewis who, at 6' 5" had an extension added to the seat runner. Apart from his passion for boxing and fast cars he also loved his music and he installed a monster sound system which must have been state of the art at the time. Twin amplifiers lined the rear of the boot (trunk) together with twin bass speakers. They took up so much space that my first job on buying the car was to strip them out so we could get our luggage in!

He also made some alterations to the console layout by moving the switches and adding a screen for a rudimentary SatNav system, again probably state of the art at the time, but very out of date 20 years later.
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Point and squirt versus a more sedate ride with the added advantage of decent aircon, but then I'm quite a bit older now! Both great cars.

A slight side effect of taking out the amplifiers was that we didn't have a radio which was fine for the first year but I began to think about how best to install something more up to date and make best use of alterations made to the fascia by Lennox. In the end I plumped for a modern Pioneer system which had the option to mount a screen separately from the body and came with Blue tooth connectivity, Apple Car Play etc. That ended up being a winter project of which the biggest challenge was probably all the stripping back of what had been previously added.

Out came the dash, the central console and cover, a front seat, the rear seats and much of the boot lining, not to mention the glove box, which held the existing radio body. The new screen is bigger than the original satnav and I made up a new surround covered in black leather, which fits nicely in the central console. I had thought I would fit the body in the boot, but the extension cables supplied by Pioneer are not long enough and in the end I cut the bottom half off the rear glove box and mounted the body underneath it.

I also fitted a socket for my phone so that on long trips I don't run the risk of loosing battery and my only reservation is that I mounted it just on the passenger side of the footwell whereas it would have been better coming from the the rear. I now enjoy the benefits of hands free telephone, decent satnav information, radio, Spotify etc. 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 Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Oh, I managed to keep the ashtray and lighter set up, so you'd never know I'd done anything unless you are into the detail.
I'm into cam belt change and cam timing at the moment, so may (probably will) have some questions shortly.

I replaced all my hoses a couple of years ago, so have had experience of removing the inlet manifold. I managed to find some small earth magnets which fit inside a flexible 10mm socket and hold those awkward nuts. As I work alone and I'm getting weaker I find it difficult to lift the whole manifold straight up, but find I can quite easily raise the front end and slide it out onto a board. I was pleased to see the hoses have held up fine and I don't have any work to do in the vee.

I've removed the cam covers and found the most frustrating and awkward part of that was trying to remove the phase sensor from the back of the right hand cover. Two 6mm nuts and one socket screw, the latter which I just could not get out. In the end I knurled a bit of steel and set in a short length of an Allen key to get it sorted. I know you can buy Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login tiny thumb wheel ratchets for this kind of job, but I don't have one!

Another thing I have made up is an extension probe for my dti and some 25mm long spacers to hold a cross rail clear of the cams. The dti fits in an 8mm reamed hole and is locked in place with a cross screw. TDC has been easy to locate.

Family duty over Easter is keeping me out of the garage, but I hope to get back in next week.