The Little Details

My car is a driver, not a Concours car. So I've never worried too much about exactly what finish should be on this or that part. However, as I'm getting ready to have a bunch of stuff plated for the PF coupe, I decided to get some done on the 330 also.

Since I am not too familiar with the various finishes, I went back to pictures in magazine articles published when the cars were new. One would presume that these pictures would have been taken before anybody had fiddled with the car too much.

Be sure and click on the pictures to see a high resolution view for more details.

To start, from Autocar, dated June 26, 1964.

The main thing I noticed was that the hood prop rod is light colored, probably cad plated. The air cleaner plate is positioned the same way too. It is also interesting that this is a pretty early 4HL car, but Ferrari had already performed the recall on the carbs and changed the air cleaner.

From Autosport, August, 1964, a rare early picture of a right hand drive car:

Just a couple of items, you can see the black oxide finish on the accelerator shaft and connecting rods and the supports are wrinkle painted. The washer bag is hanging from hooks on the firewall and the air cleaner plate is positioned to the front of the engine. The photographers always seem to take pictures from the driver's side, so ones of a RHD car give a different perspective.

Autovisie a Dutch magazine dated February 5, 1965 has a couple of interesting pictures.

In particular, the car has the black line steering wheel. You can see that the hinges are painted body color and the trunk latch catch looks light in color.

Modern Motors dated August 1965 had a nice view of the trunk and toolkit.

You can see the paint sticker mounted on the trunk lid, along with the strut and trunk catch being light in color.

Moteurs, a French magazine dated March/April of 1964 shows some details not in other pictures.

The hood latch is black. The washer bag is hung on hooks on the firewall. The hood prop is light colored. In the trunk, you can see the paint sticker along with the strut and catch being light colored. There is also a good view of a Euro rear license plate holder. You can even see the plastic edging used to protect the paint. But evidently one of the air cleaners knurled nuts has already been lost and replace with a triangular wing nut from a 250 GTE. Now, both in this and the next trunk picture, it looks like the trunk hinge is painted car color for the portion bolted to the car while the other portion is black to match the trunk. I've never seen hinges painted this way, but it makes sense.

From Motor Revue, a German magazine dated summer of 1964:

Notice that washer bag is hanging from a bracket mounted to the brake boosters. One can see that the hood latch and the safety latch catch are black. The trunk picture shows light color for the trunk strut, latch mechanism and latch hook.

From Sport Auto, a French magazine dated February 1964, another good picture showing the black hood latch mechanism and safety latch catch, plus the washer bag on the firewall.

Sporting Motorist, a UK magazine dated April 1964 shows a Baroclem battery along with the windshield bag mounted on the firewall.

Now for a two headlight car; Sports Car Graphic did a road test published in January 1967.

Among other things I noticed in these pictures are:

The trunk strut, and both parts of the latch mechanism are not painted, but light color, presumably cad plated.
The hinges look to be body color.
The clip to hold the spare tire cover is black.
Good view of an original rear USA license plate frame.
There's a good view of the console without a radio. It just had the large crossed flags centered on the vertical panel.
The aluminum block holding the brake booster and brake fluid bottles is light color, probably natural finish or possibly silver painted like Ferrari did on the block, etc.
The band around brake fluid bottles is light color, probably cad plated.
The Ferrari script on the cam cover is in wrinkle paint.
The flat area on the cam cover where the firing order plate is mounted is not wrinkle painted, so the '209' stamp is bare aluminum.
There is an unusual metal tube with hoses that looks to be a blow-by breather assembly.
The windshield washer bag is hanging between the battery and fuse box cover.
The hood safety strap has a rubber covering.
The air cleaner plate is at the front and the writing is positioned as reading from the rear.
The hood safety latch catch mounted on the firewall is black.

This picture is from the 330 GTC owner's manual:

You can see:

The reservoir band is definitely cadmium plated.
The hood safety latch catch is black.
The aluminum mounting plate is either natural or silver painted.
The bolts holding everything together are black oxide.
The brake booster is painted semi-gloss black.
The bolt holding the ring on the brake booster is cadmium plated.
The vacuum hose has a copiglia clamp on it. The 330 GT parts book shows a Cheney clamp, so evidently Ferrari changed that between the models.

So when it's all said and done, what is wrong with this picture?

The air cleaner cover is mounted in the wrong direction, the plate is mounted backwards and there are wing nuts rather than the knurled nuts to hold it on. The Ferrari script on the valve cover is not wrinkle painted, the brake fluid bottles' band is black and the hood prop is black. Of course, none of these items affect drivability, but one wonders what other details aren't being taken care of?

BTW, I've recapped this research in a 330 GT Registry webpage.

One thing I noticed on my car was that several of the trunk and hood items were held on with metric Allen head screws. I had never paid much attention to this and as these are body parts, the PF body parts manual doesn't shed any light on the subject. In the end, I asked a couple of fellow 330 GT owners what was on their car and found out that they all had regular hex head bolts. So I got the necessary bolts and a black oxide kit to blacken them. As I was changing them out, I realized that I also needed to have black oxide lock and regular washers. I ended up doing three more batches before I got everything done. For the hood and trunk hinges, I changed a single bolt at a time to not disturb the alignment.

I sent out the horn compressor and brake reservoir brackets, hood prop, hood latch, hood safety latch, trunk slide strut, trunk lock mechanism and trunk lock bar to be cadmium plated. When these come back, I'll be able to put everything back together. In the mean time, I have a couple of dowels to hold up the hood and trunk as needed.

I picked up the plating order yesterday. Here are the pieces off the 330.

Here's a couple of pictures of everything installed.

The only problem is that the new stuff makes everything else look worse. Such as the area around the brake fluid reservoirs is in sad need of attention.

I had also sent out several pieces of the toolkit, including the ratchet, sockets and grease gun parts.