Puttering Around
I have a box of 330 GT parts to be installed. When I get a replacement part that is either the correct one or better than what is on the car, I put the part in this box. Then, when I feel like working on the car or need to do something in the same area, I always have a job available.
I had a piece of Gates red-striped heater hose for the oil breather hose that I had installed when I rebuilt the engine back in 1983.
Recently, I won an eBay auction for an original oil breather hose. I didn't know until the end of the auction that the seller was Jim Riff, author of a couple of books and several articles on Ferrari maintenance. As you can see, the hose is clear (though stained with years of oil blow-by) and ridged length-wise.
The hose was hard as a rock, but judicious use of a heat gun softened it enough to fit the end onto the breather assembly and snake down to the clamp at the bottom.
Of course, the top needs a Cheney clamp while the bottom just fits through a aluminum band. Since this was an original, the proper 45° cut had already been made for the bottom end.
Another part that I got recently was the correct windshield washers. The ones on the car were period, but weren't correct plus being scarred up from being removed and re-installed several times. The the correct one is on the left and the old one is on the right.
These aren't the easiest part to replace. You have to remove the cowl vent cover. Then each washer is at each side just within finger reach. I found that if I put the hose on the washer, threaded it down the hole and then used the hose to slide the nut up, it was pretty easy to get the nut started. The new washer came with a rubber spacer, so the nut doesn't need to be really tight. In fact, you don't want it tight as you need to rotate the assembly to align the spray in the right place.
The other thing I noticed was that the hose was the original Cavis. A little lacquer thinner and some scraping removed all of the red and silver overspray from the various repainting times.
