repro service & parts manuals

There were no factory shop manuals for those cars. There was one factory generic owners manual for those cars. It is possible the owners manual has been reprinted.

 

With respect to early manuals for the 250GT, all the inside plug cars shared the same manuals, that came with the manual pouch with the car. There were two manuals:

The owners manual, directions for use and upkeep of the Ferrari cars 250 Granturismo: "instuzione per l'uso e la manutenzione delle vetture"

The spare parts catalogue: "catalogo parti di ricambio"

These manuals are based on the earlier inside-plug 250GT; there were no updates to my knowledge for the evolution through the 508D chassis & 128D motor or the various nuances between models. You are on your own from there. The nicest originals were perfect bound with green covers, expensive to find in nice condition; there were later versions with the two manuals combined, spiral bound (one version by Chinetti). The manuals came in a leather pouch. An original inside-plug pouch is very difficult to find in any condition and the price is dear. There was a very nice, accurate reproduction of the pouch made in the late 1990s. If I recall, it is discretely embossed "1997".

Pininfarina did print a body parts catalogue for the 250 Coupe Pininfarina. A nice original one is hard bound with cloth-wrapped covers, blue-line ammonia-developed printed pages, which are subject to fade if exposed too much to natural light.

These manuals are readily found in various reproduction formats of inconsistent quality. Recommend best just get the following book which has the 250GT manuals reproduced, easily found (first edition print quality is best):

"FERRARI: Operating, Maintenance and Service Handbooks 1948 - 1963" by Richard F. Merritt

Don't expect much detail service information from these early manuals, very general like "remove the engine".

The other useful information is the compilation of excellent technical articles by Dyke Ridgley and Jim Riff as they appeared periodically in the Ferrari Market Letter.

The Tom Yang site has an excellent archive of hands-on technical information and first-hand experiences.

GTO Engineering in the UK is reportedly publishing their own parts manuals going back to 1959 in the spirit of the original manuals, based on their parts business. After the inside-plug manuals, the next factory parts books appear with the 275 and 330 models. There were some factory books called "Listina Prezzi". These had parts numbers with simple description and prices in lire, no illustrations, rare I think.

I stand corrected if I have any of this wrong.

 

Hi,

With Dyke (DWR46) and Chris(Lancia) steping in you already have answers from real experts with lots of experience. Dyke wrote a lot of material which is very helpfull.

In addition to the already mentioned material I found the following very helpfull for the overhaul of my outside plug engine:
- 250 Gte Uso et Manutenzione
This is a collection of different material from different sources. You will find it to download or as a hardcopy cheaply

- official 330 workshop manual
The 330 and 275 had official workshop manuals which are usefull to understand how things were done.

Just be carefull with all english translations. They very often contain severe faults, e.g. on torque settings, timing or oil pressure.

Cheers
Christopher

 

would a 250LM owner manual help?

 

considering i just recently finished my 58 Ellena Restoration, the two manual mentioned above (post #3) are the best you will find - from there, you go to the guys with experience when you say "mine is a little different than what i see in the manual" .

 

redfred84 - have sent you PM

 

I bought these when I had my 57 Ellena.
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When I bought them, it was a package of stuff. These were in same package. The person had supposedly owned a LWB California before


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Image Unavailable, Please Login Found these in my library, The tech tips from Dyke and Sue Ridgley are great and extremely helpful . The one for the 330 GTC in Italian but many illustrated pictures and diagrams.

 

I got most of my information from the original owners manual in French.....with notes in ink on the pages in English by various mechanics.