Hey all - I am new to this board and new to Ferraris. I've been going through reading as much as I can about what to do to start up a Testarossa that hasn't been turned on in last 10 years. Obviously I am very excited to turn this thing on and just listen to the engine sing...the sweet sound of a 12Cyl come to life. But herein lies the problem, I am too scared to turn this thing on that hasn't been turned on in so many years. I would appreciate if fellow TR owners can share their experience and/or give pointers on what I ought to do prior to waking the beast. I would like to know if it is ok turn this on without doing the cam belts or out of body service to engine and go around the block at low revs. Any thoughts, opinions, are welcome. Thanks,
Don't start it. Flat bed that puppy to your mechanic and have him look at it first. You don't know if a tensioner bearing has seized, or if the belt is going to snap. You will also have to change out the fuel filters and change the oil. Before firing the engine after everything has been checked and repaired as needed..squirt some oil in the cylinders. Roll it over with the plugs out of the engine(with ignition and fuel disabled). Once that done install new plugs and fire her up. Just remeber that if the car was not stored correctly, you WILL be replacing fuel system components.
problem is once you get it fired up you wont be able to stay at the low revs just to go around the block, so do it right and fire it up after the belts so you can drive it like its meant to be. You would feel terrible to fire it up and break the belts so don't risk it. And plan on doing the fuel system, cooling system and brakes too. Its cheap and easy to do them (well cheap is a relative term). I just 2 months ago fired up a Dino that had sat for 14 years, I towed it home and cut the rad hoses, pulled the rad and took it to the shop. didn't even check it, let them do it. Same with the fuel tank (s). Replaced every inch of rubber fuel/brake/cooling hose I could find. Flushed out the fuel system and replaced the fan belt, checked the valves, did the carbs and new tires and barely stop driving it long enough to reply. Overall it was not a lot of money and now I dont have to worry about it for a while and can just enjoy the summer weather. Do it right, either yourself or at a shop but don't risk it firing it up as-is if that belt can cause the valves to kiss the pistons. At least the Dino is chain driven so that was one less worry for me.
Youve got some good advice there mate. Last year I bought one that had only done 3600miles and my Ferrari Specialist (Independant Not Main Dealer) told me to trailer it to him, I was lucky after the belts I only had a few things that needed replacing because they were seized or perished. Also youve probably got the original tyres on as I have and I have been strongly recommended to change them immediately, although they still look great the rubber has gone hard and they are potentialy dangerous, so you have a good bit to think about before you fire up the BEAST. Good Luck Mate
Thanks all for the good advice. I've made a decision to take the engine out of the bay and perform the required service in my shop with help from my techs. First step to drain all fluids from fuel cell, oil pan, trans, and coolant. Next I will remove engine from body Replace all spark plugs, drive belts and coolant and fuel hoses. Button it up and turn her on. Any advice, or opinions. Are there any special tools I will need to do the serivces mentioned? If anyone can share experience for doing this at home, I would welcome the advice and/or information thay can share to do this job.
Where's "CARGUY" on this one? http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=336 You may have read this thread ... You may back track on "Carguy's" threads and read some more information. The only advice that I would put forth is have the workshop manual, the operator's manual and parts manual for your car before you start. Best wishes
Don't start it! I don't have to repeat what was said earlier, but I will. Flatbed the car to the nearest Ferrari specialist and go over the entire car with him. It must be prepared for this momentous occasion! Try seaching this board for more information... I remember having read things about starting a car that hasn't been started in years.
Thanks again for the great input from ya'll and esp. carguy for a personal email back with pointers. Anyone have a shop manual they would be willing to part with ? Of course I would be happy to pay for it. I will post with pics after I am done with details if I don't screw it up in next few weeks. I'll be reading posts so if anyone comes up with anything I would love to hear/read it.
Well we got it going, and surprisingly not overly complex job. Actually this was one of the easier jobs we have done. Perhaps I was under the mystique Ferrari so, working on exotic should equal to more complexity more difficulty, more of everything. But turns out no special tools were needed nothing out of the ordinary was used to complete servcing the 12 cyl of TR. The following is all that was done to get the car re-started. 1) Replace all belts 2) Replace fuel/air filters 3) Replace all of the fluids. 4) Replace couple of the hoses Only out of ordinary replacement were the fuel pumps at the bottom of fuel cell. But those were out of a MBZ so not a bug isssue. Altogethr we spent about 24 hours - basically started the job last Tuesday morn and were done with all of the R/R work by Friday . I'll write complete details in next few days. But if anyone has questions email it to ne, I'm happy to help.
Yeah I have a question....you say you only spent 24 hours!! If you did all that in 24 hrs I'm a ballerina...and I've been doing it wrong for 17 years. Do you mean that two of you spent 24 hrs each...making it a 48 hour job......which is probably about 8-10 more than I would have estimated it at and a fair time for the work in reality.....
I have a question - where the Eff do you guys keep coming up with these cars that haven't been started in 10-20 years?! I look, and look, and look, and search, and look for a "barn find", and the closest I have come is a Lambo Jalpa that hasn't moved in about 5 years...but I don't want that! I want an F-car!!!
I did notice a lot of things missing from that service, (i.e....water pump reseal, cam seal/crank seal replacement, valve adjustment, cam timing adjustment/check, etc..) which may explain the difference along with two guys doing the job. Fair time is about 45-50 hours, but does varie due to what each technician does during the service. best regards, jim
Also you and ferrarifixer have to remember that we calculate the time from when we go out to the parking lot to get the car until the time we test drive it, top off the fluids, recharge the A/C, test the batt and alt, ck the lights, etc, etc, etc, double ck everything and park it back in the lot ready for the owner to pick up.
You will need to have the fuel tanks boiled out, Fuel distributors rebuilt, injectors replaced, along with fuel pumps, accumulators, filters, and clean all fuel lines before it will run anyway.
To Ferrari-fixer - It was not my intent to dis-credit your abilities or for that matter anyone else that may have felt we did this in unusally short time. - However to drain all of the fluids (fuel, oil, coolant and gear-box oil) and replace cam-belts, acc'y drive belts, fuel & air filters and spark plugs, my tech spent approx 24 hours of time over a period of 3 days of 8 hours each day to do majority of the work. I think he may have spent couple of additional hours to button her up. But to fire her up from not having been turned on for about 10 years I would say about 24 hours of time was spent. Again my point was I was expecting something totally mind-boggling experience and this turned out to be just not the case. Perhaps its over-simplifying it but that was my experience. In regards to number of people it took to do this was the doctor and I as an nurse part time. (You know wrench nurse, wrench doctor - socket nurse, socket kinda stuff is all the help I gave to the doctor.) See my next post with some photos of the job with elaborate explanation.
After reading few of the posts after I had finished typing my response to Ferrrarifixer here is what I have to say: 1) The car has fired up and have been driven it for several miles and I drove it up to 60+ MPH (slowly) and runs really really well. (Big smile on my face). It needs few things to be done to it but will explain later. 2) We didn't replace water pump (I know we should have, but customer wasn't willing to spend dollars to do everything) but fuel pumps, battery and other small misc. items were replaced in time mentioned. 3) Many of the steps and procedures we wished we could've done but didn't because ....well see #2 4) As one of the posters had mentioned I didn't start the clock from parking lot to completion of test drive, therfore number of hours are significantly less plus we didn't do all of the steps as we wished we could have. Enough said about the discrepency of hours. Here are some pictures and short explanations of them. Ok I guess my pic file size is too big - so I will need to do some editing before I can post. Sorry folks. To be continued.............
Hey, I'm not offended, it takes much more than that to offend me. I'm amazed you did it so quickly, I got the opinion you were a keen amateur. I'm intrigued as to why you changed the fuel pumps though...what was wrong? I've never had a faulty one on any Trossa. Maybe I'm just lucky? I've just about finished a belts, plugs and fluids service on a 92 TR myself this week. Not a schedule though, car has only done 8,900km so no need for valve clearances (which can be done in situ anyway) and no leaks to fix other than a few hose clamps to nip up. I've spent 20 hours so far (engine out, change belts etc, engine back in but no exhaust/panels on or fluids filled yet) and about 10 hours to go until finished.
I had to replace fuel pumps becuase they were burned out. I think only one of them was burned but didn't want to chance it so we did both while we were down there replacing the hoses. We just completed perfroming the new BAR 97 California emissions test and this thing passed with with flying colors. I mean this one was clean as per new CA test requirements. P.S. - Any fellow Californian (or as Governer calls it Kalifornian) need to get their TR smogged or need to know the HC, NO, or CO&, numbers to pass it the test - stop by or email me, I would be happy to share them.
After reading the articles on engine removal on the TR's I have a question on what everyones using for a engine stand. I have a two post lift and a roll around engine table but I thought I would need a engine stand to support the engine when it's out of the car. Any help on this would be appreciated.
I doubt that the fuel pumps were burned out. I had a similar problem with mine after not starting her for awhile. After I cut the pumps apart, it was apparent that they were siezed by rust, and a call to a distributor confirmed that rust is the usual suspect. Water in the fuel is a culprit. Either way, you have to replace the pumps. Great job!
Here is what we did - we have a 2 post lift as well. We disconnected the engine via the sub-frame and suspension from main chassis, allowing us to drop the engine with trans/diff off the body. Then we used both the floor jacks along engine stands to support the engine in the fore and aft position to prevent the engine tilting in either motion. - 16 bolts that are on towards the front of the car and several along both sides.
I have a question about gear oil capacity and fill points before I put this car on the road full time, so far its only been on a test drives. - I would appreciate if anyone of the pros can confirm the following. Does TR have a total of 17 pints (approx 7.5 litres) of gear oil capacity for both trans and diff? Is the fill point on the side of diff and rear of the transaxle as shown in the manual. Thnx-
I just put 10.5 litres of oil in the TR I serviced. TRossa has a slightly different level I think but not by much. My TR drained for 3 days through both drain plugs so it was very empty. To fill all the flat 12's (and most others too) , remove the LEVEL bung...its in the gap between the bell housing and rear of tranny casing, then FILL the whole thing through the plug on top of the transfer case until it spills out the level plug.
Thanks for the info. We added approx 20 pints at which point it was overflowing so we let it run for a few sec to reduce the overflow drain stream and we buttoned her up. Though it is still very hard sometimes to shift from 1st to 2nd and getting her to go in reverse from standstill is intermittently very difficult. But I think we may need to re-build the master/slave cylinder. Any thoughts ???
