Excellent work so far. I can't wait to see the finished project!
@jjh925 "My current struggle is with the insulation materials around the luggage compartment." To my point of view, you have to take care at the insulation between the engine bay and the passager compartment. That is a problem on GTB : the heat in the cabin with the engine just behind
Much progress ... Since the last post, I've dug a bunch into the motor to get it resealed. Among other items, I've now replaced all the valve stem seals; the various seals related to the cams (with some help from folks here), cam sprockets and distributors; differential output shaft seals; shift shaft seals (wow - not so difficult if the motor is out!); block-to-transmission is resealed; differential housing is resealed; timing gear bearings & shaft seals are replaced; timing gear cover gasket replaced; all the various gaskets in the "V" (cooling manifolds, oil stand, intakes, etc) have been replaced; all new Bosch injectors have been installed with new inner & outer O-tings; etc, etc, etc. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login The timing system was refreshed ... new belts & idler pulleys were installed and timing was confirmed / adjusted for each of the four cams. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Front & rear hubs were rebuilt. The bearings in the rear were great (so not replaced) and the bearings in the front were repacked. Parking brake is now fully re-assembled & functional. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login To be continued ...
All four calipers were rebuilt with fresh seals & boots. The calipers themselves were replaced in yellow zinc. Image Unavailable, Please Login Intake plenum was stripped & repainted. Image Unavailable, Please Login The "belly pan" has been stripped, cleaned, straightened, repaired, repainted & reinstalled with new gray caulk. It looks like there were a couple of times that stuff hit or scraped underneath, and there was an odd cut all the way through the aluminum right under the parking brake lever. I can't quite figure that one out ... the p-brake handle mechanism seems to sit nearly an inch above the belly pan. Regardless, the hole has been welded shut and it's all straight again. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login New QA1 coil-overs with Eibach springs have been installed. I used Verrel's "Unobtainium" mounting eyes for the front coils. A still have the original Koni units, and I'm looking into getting them refurbished just to keep this modification fully reversible, but these sure seem lighter and I love the idea of being able to adjust the ride hight. Also, like a dumb-ass, I torqued down the inner A-arm busing mounts, so those will need to be loosened & retightened after the car us under load (or more likely I'll just lift each corner one at a time with a jack and torque stuff down at that point). Image Unavailable, Please Login My wife and I working together managed to get the rear glass in with no drama. After all the stories I'd read about these breaking, plus Lou Trottier's video where his 308 rear glass was shattered - I was pretty stressed about this step, but in the end it went in relatively easily. The rubber seal is new from Eurospares. Image Unavailable, Please Login Drip rails are glued & riveted back in. Image Unavailable, Please Login
I also spent a few days recovering all the headliner & rear parcel shelf bits in the correct black-and-gray wool cloth. The main issue here was that the glue (the good high-solvent stuff from DAP) tended to soak through & stain the front of the material if you sprayed or brushed it onto the back. This wasn't an issue for most of the parts ... other than the headliner shell itself, all the cloth is just stretched over the part and glued only on the borders that wrap around the back. But the headliner shell is concave and "upside down" when installed, so after a lot of experimenting with other glues, I hit on the idea of sealing the backside before spraying on the contact cement. The "sealer" that worked really well was water-based PVA glue that I cut down 4-to-1 with distilled water. Worked like charm and I was able to spray the contact cement on the headliner with zero issues. And it's adhering really well. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Also, for the headliner, I've redone everything except the visors. I have enough left-over cloth to do them, but the visors were in perfect condition, so I've left them for now. Also, for the headliner, I've redone everything except the visors. I have enough left-over cloth to do them, but the visors were in perfect condition, so I've left them for now. I've installed 1" of new ceramic wool into the passenger side of the rear bulkhead. That makes sense. I now have a total of 1.5 inches of new ceramic wool, plus aramid fiber at a few strategic points where there are larger holes in the bulkhead (throttle cable, lower corners, holes where the frame members go thru), so I'm hoping this will be good. Image Unavailable, Please Login I've now also finally gotten everything under the front cowl installed. The hangup here was that for some *$&#$!* reason I'd neglected to put the zinc-plated "T" that connects the heater return lines into my first plating batch, so I had to do a second batch and wait for all that to come back. It's in there now - packed away way in the back, and everything else there is now torqued down & adjusted. The MC is a new unit from Superformance. The reservoir is also installed (not shown here), and I'm leaving the brake hardlines off for now so I can bench-bleed the MC later. Image Unavailable, Please Login For the brake booster & linkage, I was greatly aided by the YT videos by "BENZINA," who I'm pretty sure is "Nuvolari" here at FC? After using the methods he described, I double checked my work by putting a dab of clay on the end of the booster rod, attaching the MC, pulling it apart, cutting the dab of clay in half & measuring the gap - basically just like checking for valve-to-piston clearance. I adjusted the booster rod to give me just under 1.0mm of play. Lastly, I also finally got my front windshield glued in! I'd planned on doing this myself, but having spent nearly a grand on new glass, I figured I'd just checkbook-wrench this one. These guys from a local business were great to deal with; they understood the amount of work I had into this and worked with me to get the clips & lower trim glued into place before putting the glass in. Very pleased with the results so far - though I still have to install & seal up the trim. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Next up: - Install all the headliner bits, parcel shelf padding, etc., then glue in the side windows. - Lace in the AC lines that run through the right rocker and up behind the right fuel tank. - After that's done, I'll turn back to the engine compartment (re-paint gas tanks, install the heat shields & fuel lines at rear-top-front, etc), then I should be able to take the car off the dolly and think about dropping the motor back in! Hours spent to date: 1,412
Amazing work, well done! I would love to go through a 308 or 328 like this someday -- just not mine though, it's in "leave well enough alone" condition and I frequently have to restrain myself. If you need any fuel hose for the tank crossover pipe sleeves, fuel pump inlet, or filler neck and can't find it locally, let me know and I think I have some extra I can share. If you replace the fuel pump and/or accumulator, note they are off-the-shelf Bosch items, so no need to buy Ferrari-boxed items and pay the upcharge. Same for the fuel filter too.
Forgot to add, kudos for getting rid of the Dinitrol. While it's authentic to the car and period, it really does not age well and it accumulates dirt and grime, which makes working on the car a dirty job. Good riddance I say! We cannot import it into the USA anymore. I had some wash off the frame after a fuel leak, and worked hard to patch it up with a similar product from Fertan USA. I found myself questioning my sanity on that one. I had to do a little fiberglass repair work on my wheel well liners, as the screw holes were wallowed out and cracked. They are originally chopper gun glass formed in a mold. Easy to do patch jobs with fiberglass cloth and resin then you can nitpick on the black paint color like everything else you're fixing up.
