Hi all, I bought a 1977 308 GTB about 3 years ago as a restoration project car. The car was last registered in Mass in 2005 and at that time had an electrical short and fire under the dash. The fire caused very little damage to the interior but did fry the ignition switch and a lot of wiring harness under the dash. The car was then sold to a guy in New Hampshire and the car just sat until I bought it in 2006. It took me a weekend to sort of the electrical and redo the damaged wiring and I was able to start the car. I drove the car a couple miles around the house to see how everything worked, then parked in the garage to do rebuild. It sat until this year when I got some time to work on it. I pulled the engine out and am now dismantling the engine, so now I am getting serious. I know the arguments of buying a good condition 308 vs a project car. I could spend almost as much on parts restoring the car as just buying a good condition car. But, I love working on cars, particularly this car, and in the end will have satisfaction of doing it myself. It is a complete car, so it is worthy of rebuilding. This car will live again! Questions I have: 1) Does anyone know of this car and its past history? It is black now though was originally red. 2) The closest thing to a workshop manual I can find on-line is for a GT4. Is this applicable to my engine? It is the same engine, right? As I mirco the pistons, cylinders etc, all the dimensions are similar to whats in the GT4 manual. 3) Any references to a machine shop in the area that will do Ferrari-quality work. I live in southern Maine, so some place in NH or northern Mass would be best. Thanks for the help.
You may want to PM Verell Boen and jwise. Mr. Wise is in Maine, and can offer some tips on local services you're looking for. Verell is in Northern Mass, and can also point you to area services you'll be needing. Keep us posted, there are many New Englanders waist-deep in carb and injected 308 engines this time of year who can help or lend advice!
Welcome aboard... a model WELL worth saving and as yours sounds "all there" well done! You are absolutely correct the WSM from the GT4 IS "our" manual on the 1975- 1979 engines, Ferrari was frugal with paper! Actually there IS a 1977 'amendment to the Owners Manual, it covers the seat switch on the fuel pump and is the ONLY place you'll find a correct wiring schematic, for our year. What is your five digit VIN???? It's the one on the steering column, and is also the last five numbers of your stamping on the RH engine compartment, where is has the frame designations also: F106AB * XXXXX * We are here for you, brudda! Alan
The other electrical weak link is the fuse block feeding the fuel pump... Often, as an older pump freezes up it'll overload the circuit and instead of taking the fuse out the excess heat will melt the terminals on the block itself.. So inspect the white and black fuse blocks, and if ok, clean the fuses and bend the clips tight, to ensure all is well there.... On these old cars Contact Cleaner is your friend!
That is a great product! I just have all the boxes of the old style fuses....LOL! The last set of OEM blocks I installed were an improved design, but pricey, at $400.00 for the pair.......
Thanks for the advice on the fuse blocks and I will be eventually replacing my fuse blocks for the sake of reliability. But I dont think my fire was caused by the fuse block or the fuel pump circuit. What got fried in my case was ignition switch, generator light on the dash, the ignition bypass relay and the wires from what is called on the wiring diagram the AMP terminal board. The AMP terminal board is the +12VDC source to the electrical system and supplies power to the most of the electrical system through the fuse blocks. But there are a few circuits in the car (such as the generator light and ignition switch) that are powered directly from the AMP terminal board without any fuse in between. Some how a short to ground occurred in one of these circuits, which caused the component and wires to start to melt and eventually to catch fire. It is hard to tell exactly where the short occurred since the wires were so toasted. Either way, I think my solution for the future is to put an in-line fuse of sufficient capacity on the +12VDC powering the AMP terminal board so there will be no un-fused circuits in the car, except for the starter, of course. This way no possible shorts in the future will cause a fire. Make sense?
Hi Jim, I've seen this scenario before on both 308's and 328's...The ignition switch "fries" and causes damage to either the fusebox and/or the wiring harness. The good news is that switch is readily available and not too bad "by Ferrari standards" to change. I'm pretty sure that I've got a wiring diagram for that car in my library. Drop me a PM if you need more help. I'm just outside of Manchester...and ususually have a few red cars in for service and TLC. Project cars...seen and done many of them David
David is DA MAN! As soon as I get my hands on that Prototype 5.0L Boxer, I'm sending it up to him! Hopefully the differential won;t explode on the way up there.....
Bubba, Thanks for the shameless plug. As I've said before, those "who know", know where to get their Ferrari's sorted out! Don't worry about the differential. We'll be having a "Ferrari BBQ and have your BB/BBi differential replaced, while you wait" party one of these days! Maybe Paul will even come down with some real Canadian beer for the festivities. Onward, David
Thanks for offers on wiring diagrams. But, I already got diagrams for this car, and I already redid the wiring and was able to start and run the car. I was able to do all the work under the dash without removing it.
