November 2018

Butch's engine builder went to work on the engine immediately.  I got several emails concerning the work that I had already done, which they took apart as I knew that they would.  In particular, they didn't like my ring gaps, being tighter than they liked.  I usually go with the minimum gap, knowing that the gaps will expand as the rings and bore wear.  Also, I had put the crank thrust washers in backwards.  I remember trying to figure out which way they went, and obviously got it wrong.

Then the rod bolts showed some wear.  The choice was to buy new repro rod bolts (about $2300) or completely new rods (w/bolts) for $4200.  The new rods are lighter and extremely well balanced, so I went that route.

At some point in a prior life, a main cap had broken.  The engine came with a bulky replacement, but I was able to get the original cap welded.  The mechanic was worried about how this was done and if the block had been line bored.  I assured him that everything was good and go ahead and use the repaired cap.

They chased all of the stud holes to remove debris and scale.  Cleaned and painted the block.  Pressure tested the block which held pressure for several hours.

Matched the new rods with pistons and adjusted piston weights as necessary.

   

Cleaned, re-assembled oil pump and installed it.

They worked on the water pump to convert it to a modern ceramic seal rather than the carbon seal that Ferrari used originally.

This engine had been modified to have two oil drain lines from the back of each block down into the sump.  One of the lines was missing and the other bent.  Since these were not original, I told them to plug the holes in the heads and weld up the sump to go back to original.  Evidently, oil does build up and if the engine has original worn valve guides that had no seals, the rear cylinders would burn lots of oil.  Now that there are new guides with seals and valves, there should be no problem.

In the engine compartment, they removed all of the steering, wiring, brake lines, wiper, etc.

The wheels were removed in preparation to having them rebuilt.  Four had been rebuilt, but the center hub was poorly chromed, so they will need to be redone.  The spare needed a total rebuilt.  Then Darren compared the wheel's RW number to the build sheet and found that they weren't the correct wheels.  PF coupe's usually came with 5.5"x400mm wheels (RW 3598) but some were fitted with 5.5"x16" (RW 3526) wheels.  The 400mm were slightly small in diameter at 15.75".  The car had the 400mm wheels, but the build sheet called for the 16" ones.  I talked to Tom Shaughnessy to see if he had any 16" wheels available, but he didn't.  However, he had sold a set to another Ferrari owner who actually needed the 400mm ones.  So after he shows his car at Cavallino in January, Tom will facilitate a trade and we both end up with the right wheels.  This probably won't cost me much more as I was going to rebuild all of mine and his are recently rebuilt.  His car has new tires and I would have replaced mine, although they are new, they are 25+ years old and are probably rock hard.  At $3K/wheel for new, Tom just saved me a bunch of money and his customer will be happier.  For the continuing story on the wheels, click here.

They pulled off the front suspension to have everything magnafluxed for cracks and also to have the correct plating done on the various pieces.

   

Removed the fuel tank, rear suspension and differential at the rear of the car.

   

On the body, they started stripping the paint and found lots of bondo underneath.  I knew that it was fairly thick in a couple of areas where some garage rash had cracked it.  But evidently, it's pretty thick everywhere.  These cars can be rust buckets, so it will be interesting to see how much metal work will be required to keep the bondo to a minimum.

I decided that the wood veneer on the dash was going to be removed and the dash going back to the original metal painted dash.  So they removed all of that.  There will probably be some body work needed on the dash to have it look good with the body color paint

   

Their upholstery guy was going to have some time to possibly work on the seats.  So I had to pick my interior color.  I went with the original Beige VM 846.  Here is a piece from the original leather compared to current samples.  The source materials for the interior will come from Henk at HVL in the Netherlands.

The headliner and leatherette trim seem to have three different colors.  That is not surprising as the car has a sunroof.  Neither Ferrari nor Pininfarina had records that the sunroof was original.  I told them to source that material using the color on the leatherette on the fiberglass trim panels by the headliner as that would not have been replaced assuming that the sunroof was added as a later time.  I know that if it was added, it was early as the original drain hoses have a Torino label on them.  The left picture is the remnants of the headliner, center is one of the fiberglass panels and the right the covering under the sliding part of the sunroof.  I also told them to ask Henk what the proper material is for the headliner vs. trim.

       

So a lot of work got done in the first month.  Enough that the November bill was just about what I paid for the new Honda CR-V that I just bought.