Whats your mechanical background?

A friend of mine who is a great mechanic once said:

If it sticks, force it. If it breaks, it needed to be fixed anyway.

While that may not be entirely true, the point is to jump in. Twice now I've discovered random electrical problems by just disconnecting the large connectors on my Mondial's fuse/relay panel. I wouldn't have found the problems if I hadn't taken it apart and found the burn marks. There have also been a fair number of vacuum leaks, loose wiring connections, etc--all you have to do is proceed so you can put it back together, then there is nothing to lose.

Back to your original question, the first "big" job I did was changing the head gasket on my BMW 533. This also involved replacing the clutch slave cylinder, brake master and slave cylinder, brake accumulator, water pump, etc..I had a really good manual (Bentley) and realized that it isn't rocket science, it's having the right information. Now all you have to do is Google a lot an post a lot of questions on FerrariChat....

 

My brother and I run our own workshop in Mount Isa.

We have both been backyard Ferrari technicians for over 30 yrs.
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Before my Ferrari, I rarely ever changed the oil myself. Didn't know how and couldn't care less.

I had ZERO mechanical accumen or experience. NONE.



Now .... I try to fix IT ALL myself first and so far have suceeded at EVERY turn (Thanx for all the help (info) guys!!!!!!!).

I REALLY Love doing it. It makes the bond with the car so much deeper. I just don't "OWN" a Ferrari. We are a part of each other. Can't really explain it better than
that. Sorry.


MAYBE someday I'll grad to "Grease Monkey."


NEVER make it to "Certified Tech."

 

In school, I started working for college and car money as a gas pump attendant. (Stations still had pump attendants, back then.)
My first night, the manager told me, "The Ford there needs a brake job. Chilton's manuals are in the cabinet." And then he left.
Ever since then, my motto has been, "I stand behind my brake jobs --- as long as the car isn't in reverse."

My father was a gear-head, too. He always told me that a "parts swapper" wasn't a real mechanic. When a window motor broke on my first car, instead of replacing it, he had me open it up and fix it. To my surprise, it worked.

The amount of work I can do on my own cars varies with the amount of spare time and garage space I have available.
Lately, I just don't have the time or space (or energy) to do much on my own.

Which is a bit of a shame, because the Ferrari is not just a magnificent driving machine, but it's "elegant" engineering, too.
I'm constantly surprised by the clever little bits in the 328.

And sometimes by the "what were they thinking" bits, too.
(Like the shift shaft running through the oil pan, or anything on the wiring diagram. )

 

When I was 18 I took a course in auto mechanics, but except for math they didn't teach me much. At 5 or 6 my Mom was buying me plastic models and got me into the NASA space cadet deal, I had all kinds of spacecraft models coming in the mail to paint and glue together. I remember building a complex GP motorcycle model kit around 7 years old. By 9 years old I was building rubber band powered wooden airplane models at a rate of two per month and could actually make them fly very well and understood a lot of the engineering and physics of flight. At 10 I was taking single cylinder lawnmower and other stationary engines apart and putting them back together. By 12 I was helping men pull car engines and fix them and put them back together, and had committed firing orders and other tidbit specs of all American V-8's to memory. My mom would get mad because I would come home all dirty and my clothes wrecked. That was what I called going out to play. At 15 I brought home a 1966 Pontiac GTO with a cammed up 421 that had a 6.13 rear axle with a 4 speed. Yes, it was a cannon. My Dad took it away from me after he saw it could pull the front tires off the street. After that I moved away from a lot of mechanic work until I got out of high school. But I have never not fixed things, either for myself or others. Ive worked on farm tractors to airplanes, and at 51 I sometimes wonder if I'm not dumber today than I was at 13. This 308 stuff would have been a cinch when I was 13. Now I just think about doing it, a lot more than actually doing it. But when I look back and see Mr Ferrari standing proudly alongside his obviously greasy dirty mechanics, and read how highly he valued them, and I always felt a kinship. Ferrari knew what grease under your finger nails meant. When all the wine and cheese crowd clowns were standing around their over polished machines, Ferrari was standing over by his fellow grease monkey buddies. LOL.

I agree with the posts above. Never be afraid to take things apart or learn something new. There is no other way to learn than by doing. You can read books about Flying, Golf, playing guitar, or car repair until your blue in the face, but you'll never know a damn thing until you get off your butt and learn it. In the case of flying, its impossible to learn it from a book, you'll end up dead. WILL be dead, not maybe be dead. That is not a statement, it is a fact. Book knowledge and intelligence are not enough.

I always laughed at the song "Momma don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys". Don't let them grow up be mechanics either. Song plays the same either way.

 

Boy if that's not the truth. Seems only someone who can understand mechanics can see the true beauty in these machines that's missing from almost everything else in the world. And Lamborghini's, Old Maserati's, and old Jag's fit into that too. There are truly jewels of both art and engineering.

Beyond the mechanical bits, what impresses me most with the 308 is the body. The engine really isn't high tech at all, its simple 1940's technology. But the body is incredibly intricate. No, not the quality of the welds, but the shapes. I honestly do not believe anyone else in the world could have made that car without making some dramatic compromises to flatter and simpler panels. Hell, most of the models of 308's are compromised, the design is too difficult to create all the compound curves. I think I owned the first car 2 or 3 years, and have been looking at them since R&T first showed a picture. I was out in the garage breathing in it's beauty one night a couple years ago, when I realized the rear panel between the tail lights was bowed out into a compound curve (the license plate is further out (rearward) than the panel is near the lights), and the deck lid edge is rounded horizontally to follow the same curvature. Its only a slight curve, but a curve all the same. There truly is not a straight line anywhere except the lateral line. The man who penned that car was a true artist, but the guys who took it off the paper and put it to metal were true artisans. The door releases are trick too.

 

+1 on everything here for me. I have never worked on a car before, but with the help of the FChat brethren I have learned to do several things. I didn't think a day would come when I would own a Ferrari, and REPAIR it also.

 

As the old saying goes, if you want it done right, do it yourself!

Whenever I am about to start on a new home or car project I always get anxious but the fact of the matter is, you’ll do better than a professional hire if you take your time and do your research. Paid help is in a hurry to finish and quality suffers. From laminate flooring to a head gasket, do your research, get the proper tools and have at it. If you break it, you can still pay to have it fixed.

I worked for 6 years in High School and college as a VW mechanic and then I took a step back and paid people to do my oil. Then, one day some 20 years later, the mod bug hit me and I started reacquainting myself with the Saab. A couple of years later and I am now officially obsessed with the car. You put some blood and sweat into it and it loves you right back. There is nothing cooler than doing some fun work to the car and then taking it out for that maiden voyage. Install a 3” exhaust and drive that sucker!

 

I have a degree from SUNY Farmingdaly NY in automotive engineering, I sometimes wish I pursued it further. I am a Licensed electrician who does all the work himself except when I don't have the time or parts availabilty. If you can it is a very rewarding experience getting intimately familiar with your car. What I like best is knowing what it is that I hear or see as it happens and what to do about it. All this is impossible on any 2000+ anything though.

 

I used to tinker with my MG's years ago, but never went as far as major surgery. I can replace most anything that bolts on and off, and can dissasemble and reassemble some of the others, but I generally leave the engine work for someone else.

 

I started out when I was about 16. My father was an Electronics Engineer and believed you could fix anything if you understood how it worked. He had me fix my own cars and would work with me, which helped save a lot of money. When I was 17 he purchased a basket case of a Corvette that we spent two years tearing down and rebuilding. After that I was hooked. I have always worked on my own cars unless pressed for time or if I did not have advanced equipment for a job. I got real ambitious 12 years ago and built a Cobra from the frame up. I highly recommend this to people who want to learn and not break the bank. You get your hand on every part of a car this way. In the end I had an exact 427 S/C competition replica that was very hard to tell from an original car.

Racing car construction, racing and open track events are what really did it as far as leaning. Having to build engines, replace transmissions, set alignments, balance chassis and hundreds of other things was really good experience. I am actually looking forward to my engine out service in 3 years. It will give me a chance to learn a lot and too give the inside and outside of the engine and engine bay a solid goings over. I don’t feel intimidated by the 348 parts accept for one item, the transaxle. Hopefully I will never have to do that repair.

--Mike

 

I've "always" maintained my own cars and have progressively, from task to task, taken on more complicated, risky, but rewarding tasks. Today, my cars will only go to a body shop for sheetmetal and paintwork, and an alignment shop for their 4-wheel alignment. Everything else, I do (except machine shop work such as valve guide or seat installation) Although I have never done an automatic transmission overhaul, the next time one of my cars requires one (knocking on wood) I will tackle it.

But sadly, while I have maintained my Ferrari and helped my friends with theirs, (and love every one they built) they are crude in comparison to a Mercedes Benz. There are four Benzes in my family and I maintain them all, from valve jobs to brake jobs and everything in between. The owner who has never maintained his Mercedes for an appreciable amount of time, is missing out on the most rewarding aspect of these automobiles IMO.

 

I feel intimate w/ my RX-7. Have explored every square inch other than rebuilding the engine or transmission. Know my way around a Holley pretty well. My fear is having my car fall off the jack stands in the driveway & crush my head like a cantaloupe & force my splintered ribs into my pleural cavity. Maybe someone will find me on a Sunday afternoon?

 

Bought an MGB at 16. Used ever cent I had.
Then the clutch went.
Its not that I didnt want to spend the money to fix it at a shop. Its that I couldn't.
Followed soon by brakes, electrics etc etc.
Found out I was good with my hands.... and mind.

Joined military as aircraft sheet metal repairman among other things.
Then 20 years as Aircraft mechanic then Inspector.

One note; there are places when a qualified mechanic with experience and proper tools is worth every penny. Electrical diagnostics, to me, is one of them.

 

My family is full of car nuts so I came by it naturally. There is a picture in my garage of me at about 4 yrs old asleep under the family car "helping" Dad. I've done everything from engine builds and rebuilds to brakes and suspension design and fab. Lately I've been doing LS1 swaps into older vehicles (91 Camaro and 71 Vette so far) complete with efi and custom wiring and computer calibrations. My new hobby is fixing wrecked 05+ Cadillac STSs.

I know I'll need my skills if I were to buy a Ferrari because I can't afford to pay for maintainance, ha.

 

As a kid I learned about cars by working on other peoples cars. I was too poor to have one of my own. After a hitch in the navy I worked in a wrecking yard for two years and learned how to take cars apart, rebuild engines, and all kinds of stuff on cars that didn't matter. then I left auto mechannics for about 30 years and have finally gotten back into wrenching. I retired from everything else and now have the time to relearn all that I have forgotten.

 

Hard to compete here, but I can put together just about any Snap-Together model kits using only Super Glue.

 

I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering. I rebuilt my Lusso motor back in the 80's. I have restored 9 cars and 90 vintage motorcycles.

 

I got the mechanical bug in the 8th grade when I bought my first motorcycle in basket case form. Since then I have wrenched on the following:

Several Motocross bikes.
Kawasaki, Honda, Yamaha, Polaris, TigerShark, Sea-Doo watercraft.
Kawasaki, Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, KTM motorcycles and ATV's.
Rockwell Goss Metroliner web printing press
Several hot rod cars.
Former bosses Ferrari 308GTB, Rolls Royce, Porsche, Land Rovers


Currently I work at the #2 Honda ATV dealer in the USA and have worked at the #1 Kawasaki dealer in the US as a service tech / service manager

 

When I used jack stands, what I'd do would be to take the wheel off the car and sit it under the car frame. That way, if the car fell, the wheel would take some of the weight, possibly giving me a chance to scream for help.

But it's when I was trying to swap the coil-overs in the Celica that I realized I was fighting the anti-sway bars, and broke down and bought a portable low-rise car lift.
Fantastic investment. Swapping winter/summer wheels, brake pads, or even just lifting the car when I want to wax it without getting a back ache. (I'm gettin' old. )

It's a parallelogram lift with a safety lock bar. And I put the jack stands under the lift pads as an extra safety catch.
(Trianoid: one more than a paranoid. )

 

At least you use jack stands mate!

I recently had a pea-brain mate that lifted the rear of his Toyota Landcruiser ute to replace the rear leaf springs. He had a few friends there helping/standing around drinking beer.

The silly boys didnt use jack stands and the car fell off the jack.

The ute came crashing down on his leg and he was pinned. His 4 friends were quick to act and went next door to grab the 2 guys next door to help lift the ute off him. It took 6 guys to lift the corner of the ute up so he could slide out.

My mates leg was crushed and broken in 3 places. Lucky, the sharp bits under there didnt cut his leg off or cut the big artery in his leg. He would have bled out in a few minutes. He just returned to work after having 3 months off. He has a few plates screwed in his leg now and is probably lucky to be alive.

NONE of those guys have any mechanical trade/experience behind them. I would have volunteered to help him with it if I knew he doing it that weekend.

PLEASE USE JACK STANDS FOLKS AND ENSURE THEY ARE SAFELY PLACED UNDER THE VEHICLE!

 

He was very very lucky. I had a friend in high school that was killed when the car fell off the jack and crushed his chest His father found him when his dad got home from work.

 

Good idea for cars w/ like 5" ground clearance. It's frustrating not being able to fit your head under your car to take a look at anything.