Kerry's 330 GT Restoration
One of the things that happens when working on an older car, is the tendency to start a project and end up doing several others just because you can save some time since things are already apart.
Lowell Brown always talks about how long it took him to torque his heads. You have to remove the bolts for the distributors and loosen the nuts to remove the valve covers. So he decided to have Carlo check out his distributors. Then he wanted to wrinkle paint the valve and chain covers, so that meant stripping, glass beading, resealing the insides with Glyptal, etc. Might as well replace the spark plugs, extensions and wires at the same time too. Check the valve adjustments too. So the simple project stretched out into weeks.
The case in point was the replacement of the bad coil suffered on the way home from Monterey last summer. Replacement of the coil is easier if you have removed the distributor. Since the distributors have never been rebuilt, I took the opportunity to have them rebuilt at the same time.
Well, this project ballooned out of proportions too. I replaced the spark plug wires and extensions along with the distributor caps. The tapered wiring tubes had a chipped wrinkle finish, so I repainted them. Since I was glass beading, I also dug out the tubes for the PF coupe and did them at the same time. The return yellow fuel line to the tank has had a slight leak ever since I replaced it and it's in the way of removing the left distributor, so I removed and tightened it up. The A/C hoses were run directly beside the battery and were in the way of removing the right distributor, so I took them off. I finally got the right A/C hose stock and made up new ones long enough to be routed properly. The wrinkle finish on the valve covers feels fine, but it's a little dirty and blotchy. So if they don't clean up (now that everything is out of the way), I'll overspray them with a matte black. The air cleaner needed refinishing and I needed to rivet down the metal plaque on the top. I finally found the special cap nuts used on the intake manifolds that I bought three years ago from Tom Shaughnessy. I've had the air cleaner off twice since then but couldn't find nuts when I needed them. This time I did, so they got put on. The vacuum line to the brake booster wasn't tight at the manifold, so I put a Cheney clamp on it. The wrinkle paint I put on the header shields several years ago wasn't a very good job, so I redid those at the same time as the other items needing wrinkle paint. Since the heat shields are off, I replaced the starter motor heat shield with the one I made a while ago. I also sheared off a bolt holding one of the header heat shields on. I drilled it out and then broke off a screw extractor trying to remove the remains of the bolt. So I'll tackle that and see if I can finish that job. Since I had to take the grille out to change the A/C hoses, I replaced the too large auxiliary fan with a smaller one on the back and put the original fan back in. The air horn stopped working a while ago, so I took it apart and got it working. Since the coils were being replaced with used ones, I repainted them and the resistors. And on and on ...
Finally I got everything done and back together. In the middle of this whole project, we had committed to drive one of the Ferraris to a charity event. As the 330 was apart, we planned on driving the 308. About a week before, I was driving it and the water pump shaft sheared off. I first thought that the alternator belt had just come off so I told my wife that there would be no problem getting the 308 running for the event. Little did I know that the problem was much more severe. One of the factors in getting the 308 was to have a spare Ferrari and now both were down for repairs (and the PF coupe is a long ways from being put together). Luckily I was storing Lowell Brown's 330 GT while he snow birds in New Mexico for the winter, so we ended up having to drive his car. I guess that having two spare Ferraris isn't a bad idea.