Kerry's 250 GT Pininfarina Coupe Restoration (1643GT)
One of the parts that I'm missing is the belly pan. It's not unusual to be missing on an older Ferrari as they are just in the way of the mechanic and prone to be damaged when off of the car.
Finding one used is quite difficult, so I'm planning on making one.
The difficulty isn't high as most of it is a flat sheet of aluminum. However, getting the right shape is.
As you can see, unless one has an original to make a template from, eye-balling it probably won't work. This picture is courtesy of Michael Sheehan who had 1769 PF Cabriolet for sale a while ago.
Then I got a bunch of PF coupe paperwork that had some engineering drawings in it. They was drawn in the mid-80s by William Lester who owned 1927 PF coupe.
However, the belly pan drawing was originally 11x17", but only the left half got copied.
But by using the known dimensions and the picture, I've come up with a pretty good idea of what the whole thing should look like.
One can see the rear scoop in the lower part of the picture, but I'm not sure of the exact size nor how far down it should stick. When I was confirming the dimensions on my PF coupe, it was clear that the rear corners would hit on some of the chassis stiffening. I've drawn the corners cut off at a 45° angle, but maybe they should be shaped with a quarter circle cut like the front corners are.
I hope to see a real belly pan in the next few weeks and be able to answer these questions.
I just got back from visiting the belly pan on 1747GT, a series II PF coupe owned by Ed Long. A week ago, Parker Hall mentioned that he had some of Lester's drawings. He found the full sized drawing with the missing half and a couple of others related to the belly pan and sent them to me. A couple of assumptions I had made from the picture were wrong. The rear 'scoop' was actually a hole that is covered with a bolt on plate. That provides access to the handbrake adjustment without having to take off the belly pan.
I was able to verify the measurements on Ed's belly pan and take some pictures of various details. In addition I removed the handbrake access panel to verify how it bolts on. As I suspected, one bolt goes into the handbrake fitting while the other two have captured nuts on the top side of the belly pan. Here is the revised drawing.
Now I need to see if there is enough interest to make a run of these belly pans or just make one for my car by hand. I also took a lot of pictures of the engine bay. Since there isn't a exploded view parts manual for these cars, figuring out how mine goes together will be make easier with pictures like this one.
However, I don't think the valve in the upper left is OEM.
Since then, a couple of things have happened.
It turns out that Parker Hall has a set of Lester's drawings, so I got one with both sides copied.
Then Tom Shaughnessy came through with an original belly pan for me. Tom promised this to me a couple of years ago, but first he had to retrieve it from Arizona. Then he was coming up to Oregon early this summer where we could meet, but that fell through. Since he was bringing a trailer to the Monterey shows with a chassis (0202A), a working (until they ran out of gas) Lampredi engine on a stand and lots of other stuff, I asked him to bring the belly pan along. I had made arrangements with someone from Seattle who was trailering a Delahaye down for the Pebble Beach Concours to bring the belly pan back to Seattle. I ran out to The Quail and picked it up after first stopping by Home Depot for a tarp and tape to wrap it in as it had to go in my rental car and Tom said it was quite dirty. Being 2' x 6.5', it doesn't fit in the trunk, but the back seats folded letting it fit in.
Little did I know that the Delahaye didn't get finished, so the ride home wasn't there. I found that out Saturday morning. In thinking of someone else who would be returning a car to Seattle, I thought of Jon Shirley. I sent off an email as a long shot since I wasn't really expecting him to read it with everything else going on. However he did and we made arrangements for me to drop it off at the track on Sunday after the Concours.
I had talked to Jon early at Pebble Beach about my belly pan. Once he found out that it wasn't very thick (<1"), he said that it could go in the show trailer that was at Pebble Beach. That saved me a trip out to Laguna Seca and back. Plus it was an excellent reason to go over to Jon's warehouse to get another look at his fabulous collection when I picked it up.