Over the last few months, I have been around a number of Porsche 912′s. Anyone who frequents this website knows that I really like early Porsche 911′s so it seems natural that I’d like 912′s but to be honest, I’ve only worked on a few of them but really don’t remember much about them.

This winter, a local man needed his 912 appraised to help settle his fathers estate. His father bought the car new and kept it in impeccable condition. It wasn’t restored, had a weak re-paint in the original color but everything else was tidy, solid and the car was complete with the books and tools and tons of records. Driving the car was a delight, it doesn’t sound like a racing car the way a 911 does but 4 cylinder 912 feels as fast as the 6 cylinder engine of the same year.

1969 Porsche 912 in original color, one family ownership history

Original interior for 1969 Porsche 912

In February I visited a friend who just got another dark red, one owner 912 in his shop that he offered to sell me. He needed a month to clean the car, polish the paint and make sure it ran like new, then he would let me have first chance to buy the car. He sent me photos of the car after the clean up and I had to have the car and immediately sent him a check for his asking price. A few days later a very good customer of mine called and I told him about this 1968 912 and he held his hand high in the air for the car. It turns out that he bought the last “one owner” 911 that I had in 2011, the car I affectionately called ‘ol silver, a ’72 911 T Coupe.

Now Michael has two of my favorite “901″ cars, both of them under fastidious care from new and the tradition continues

'68 912 Porsche

In the shop, next to 911 and Ghibli

Engine in the '68 912, original and immaculate

A few weeks ago I saw a beautiful 1976 Triumph TR-6 on ebay. I bid on the car but the next morning realized that I wasn’t the high bidder, I was off by $750. Fortunately, the seller, Branden in Seattle, called me the next to day to offer me the car because the high bidder needed a loan to buy the car and wanted the title sent before paying for the car! I pulled a muscle in my arm as I raised it so high for the car. Branded asked me if I was looking for other cars and I sent him my “must have” list. Within a few days he sent me photos of this 1968 912 in its original color, Polo Red. This car looked outstanding in the photos because it has a gorgeous interior without holes cut in the door panels for speakers and a perfect dash pad. The front pan, floors and longitudinal sections are absolutely straight and perfect, the bottom of the doors are perfect and other than the thousands of stone pecks on the front hood and old paint, the car is damn near perfect.

The car arrived on May 6th and I was absolutely blown away with the car and equally impressed with the care of ownership since 1968. There is a 3 ring binder in the car with EVERY reciept from new! Every part purchased, every oil change and service job! It has had a few owners but they all continued the tradition of maintaining the car and keeping record of every detail. What is it with these 912′s?

Polo Red 1968 Porsche 912

Original interior for the 1968 Porsche 912

912 Porsche records for maintenance

1985 Ferrari 308 GTSi QV

308 GTSi Quattrovalvole LR

GTSi QV interior from the Top

For the ultimate Ferrari 308 enthusiast, I have located and purchased this spectacular 1985 Ferrari 308 GTSiQV with only 5600 miles for re-sale. It is totally complete with hand books, tools, jack roll, trouble light and often missing boot for the removable top. It even has the original Goodyear NC/T Tires!  This car is truly amazing and needs nothing to be shown or driven, except maybe tires that aren’t 25 years old!

So often we try to repair old parts to maintain originality or because new stuff isn’t available and if I tallied up the hours spent patching the often rusted and mangled brake fluid reservoirs for Ferrari 250′s I’d get really depressed. I found a few of these New Old Stock reservoirs with the correct caps and quickly bought them all! Since I have a few more than I need, I’ll sell a few.

Ferrari 250 Brake Fluid Bottle

GTE/Lusso/SWB/PF brake fluid bottle

Projects at the shop 2013

We have been pleasantly busy lately, our shop is well staffed by some of the greatest mechanics I could imagine, Nate, Casey and Rolf are hard working, reliable, super skilled, plus they won’t accept doing a job unless they can do it absolutely correctly. I’ve given myself permission to throw them under the bus when a customer asks me to do a “quick fix”  like an “in chassis” valve job on a Ferrari V-12 or fix only the rear brakes on a car without going through the whole system. I tell the customer, “If I asked my guys to do the job to any standard below their own, they will make me do it!

These are old cars that have so many design flaws from new and added to that list, they are 50-60 years old (or more) plus there is no telling what has been done to the car before we worked on it. A very good customer brought in a spectacular Ferrari 250 with a fresh engine overhaul and very well sorted chassis. There was a significant oil leak coming from the number 7 exhaust port and we found that the guide was rattling and loose in the head. The owner asked if we could fix the problem without removing the engine to which my reply was, “If I asked my guys to do this job without removing the engine and inspecting everything, they’ll make me do it.

Anyhow, we found all kinds of other problems in the engine like a loose oil pump pick up tube, the weak/cruddy roller followers with bushings,  the timing chest bearings were the cheap type that were falling apart and the head gaskets were leaking! Knowing that Nate was on the project, I was confident that our customer would be happy with a solid, reliable engine that wasn’t leaking all over the floor! I could write dozens of stories like this but my point is that I really appreciate the work these guys do and feel so confident that the job is being done correctly.

As much as it irritates the guys at the shop, we don’t throw anything away so you can imagine the boxes and boxes of “trash” that we have in the attic! Years ago we parted out an Alfa Romeo 1900 and I saved this blown out Carello Tail Light Control Relay Box. Its totally broken, missing the flasher part, the points are broken on the switches and the aluminum cover is gone but the brown plastic base is in decent condition. There was a big chunk broken out of it  but the overall shape was good and the numbers were all crisp and clear.

Re-producing a Carello Tail Light Control Box

Fast forward 15 years, we need to finish the restoration on the 1950 Ferrari 166 Berlinetta which requires this part to make the brake lights and turn signals work properly. I can’t find anyone with these parts so I am making one. With some polyester body filler (Bondo), I filled in the imperfections on the original part and made a “negative” to fit inside the hollow portion. Then I poured silicone mold making stuff around the part to pick up the numbers and details. Next, I poured in the brown-tinted liquid plastic that hardened to become the base of the relay box.

Replica Tail Light Control Box Carello

Making the aluminum cover was a pain in the neck because it has to be perfect with no file or sanding marks to look like it came out of a factory press machine. I sent some photos of the original part to the engraver who replicated the script perfectly.

Aluminum Relay Box Cover Carello

Instead of using the electro-magnetic relays, I’m using a solid state controller hidden inside the box so that everything looks totally original from the outside while being a little less problematic on the inside.

Its crazy that such a beautiful decorative part is designed to be smashed with a hammer! These center lock wheel nuts aka, “Knock Offs” are in terrible condition and required lots of work before re-chrome plating. The ears were crushed and rounded and the center cap with the DINO script had lots of dents from miss-directed hammer strikes.

Restoring a Dino 206 Knock Offs

Dino 206 Knock Off Center Caps

I welded the ends of the ears and shaped them with a file to make make them crisp and worked out the dents in the center cap with a nylon hammer. After soldering the center caps back in place, I put them on the lathe to clean up the last details and sent them off to the specialists.

First they went to the engraver to scan the “smontare” “DINO” and pointed arrow artwork. Next the parts went to the chrome shop to be acid dipped to remove the remaining chrome then coated in nickel and a thick layer of copper that is easy to sand and file to remove any imperfections. Once Mickey is happy with the parts, he’ll hit them again in copper, file and sand them to perfection and send them back to the engraver to have the script put back into the center caps.

The engraver then sends them back to Mickey who will put a nickel coating on the part followed by the final step, that bright coating of chrome to make them  look like Jewelry.

Ferrari 206/246 Knock Off Nuts Restored

Ferrari Air Conditioning

Awhile back I published a post on reproducing the often broken or missing vents and knobs for the Ferrari 330 and 365′s that showed the  prototype to review before the final production. The final order of vents have arrived in a box and I challenged myself to make the delicate and finely detailed knobs that go in the middle of them.

Late production 330 GT 2+2′s had optional Air Conditioning with 3 louvered vents in the middle of the dash with little thimble sized knobs that you twist to both direct the air flow and operate the fan speed and temperature of the A/C system. The middle vent had a blank knob and the outer vents said “aria” I II III (for the three speed fan motor) and the other outer vent had a knob that had the script “freddo” that controls the temperature of the air outlet. I found some very good original knobs and cleaned them up, chipped the white paint out of the script and sanded the delicate fluted lines on them to make a good mold. Then I made tooling to make consistent parts time after time to fit the “D” shaped switch shafts. The results are amazing, I am so impressed at how great everything came out.

I didn’t make the louvered vents, these parts were extremely complicated because the outer cylinder of the vent is on a different angle than the louvered slats, how do you make a mold that not only pulls apart straight but allows the louvers to be on a 45 degree angle! Since I paid the big bucks, I own the multiple piece mold and may tell you the secret someday.

The only part I have not made are the chrome trim rings that go on the outer edge of the vent. Later this month the tooling will be finished up to stamp them out of brass and have them chrome plated to match the rest of these lovely little parts.

In this photo you can see the simple little tool to make the fluted knobs. I can only make one at a time but the same tool makes the “Aria”, the “Freddo” and the blank knob. Since I am using the slow cure plastic, I can only make two knobs per day but will experiment with faster cure resins to churn them out a little more rapidly. (if anyone actually orders them)

330 or 365 Air Conditioning vents

Ferrari Dino 206GT

Since I haven’t posted anything in awhile I thought it would a good re-entry to post a few photos of the 206 Dino that Roman and I delivered just before Christmas. The car has made a nice progression from when we first got it, wheels re-painted, bumpers repaired and chrome plated, all suspension corners were taken apart and rebuilt. This is one of the best Ferrari’s I have ever driven.

What makes antifreeze go from alkaline to acidic? Does combustion gas leak from the head gasket and contaminate it or is it the heating and cooling process? Regardless, we have had two corrosion situations from acidic coolant recently, a pair of 330 cylinder heads and the core plugs in a 365 GTB/4 Daytona. To be fair, the core plugs are very soft alloy in comparison to the engine block so they are kind of sacrificial, unfortunately they are difficult to change. These plugs were so delicate that just by scraping the crusty coolant off to find the source of the leak, the screwdriver poked right through them like they were made from waxed paper.

Ferrari 365 Daytona Engine repair

Ferrari 365 Core Plugs

The 330 heads are a combination of a bad casting and corrosive coolant. I saw a youtube video showing the process of building a modern Ferrari 612 engine where an MRI test was used to determine the thickness and integrity of a cylinder head casting. They didn’t have this technology in 1966 and this is the evidence of it! The deep pores in the exhaust port aren’t from corrosive coolant, it’s from a horrible casting. The pitted areas around the water passages are due to corrosive coolant rotting the material away.

Head Gasket leaking on Ferrari 330

Welding holes in Ferrari 330 V-12

Like a dentist, I drilled and scraped the corrosive material out so I could weld the holes that were leaking coolant into the exhaust and intake ports. I don’t often remove valve seats and realize what a difficult job it is but I found a great way to get them out easily. I take a valve with the same size stem as the original (8mm for Ferrari) but has a slightly smaller head. I weld the head to the seat and drive the valve and seat out with a hammer from the back side!

Repairing 330 GTC Heads

Anyhow, after welding, grinding, pressure testing a number times, I finally have the heads sealed up and looking great. After grinding and cutting the core plugs out of the Daytona block, we installed the new ones and sent the car home.

Overhauled Jaguar XKE Engine

Its been years since we have overhauled a Jaguar engine and are pleasantly surprised at how many high quality parts are available for reasonable prices with instant availability. We have been struggling to get parts for Ferrari engines over the years, each piston set has to be custom made which takes 10 weeks, hardware isn’t available, what a pain to keep the motivation. The only thing that takes time on the Jaguar engine is scheduling time with a machine shop to hone the block, perform a valve job, and grind the crankshaft.

The shop that sold us the parts had Mahle Pistons sitting on the shelf and kits to replace all of the hardware, core plugs, sealing washers, lock tabs and timing chain guides and sprockets. We were all blown away at how little clearance needed for these Mahle pistons to fit into the block, only .02″!

Of course there is the labor at our shop, first removing the engine and breaking it down which makes a huge mess, then cleaning all of the parts in our awesome new hot water dunk tank. With Ferrari engines, we have to drill out (destroy) the crankshaft plugs in order to clean the passages but on the Jag, the plugs are re-usable. Plus the passages are huge and easy to clean, have a look at all the metallic sludge built up in there. We also removed the engine block core plugs and got the huge amount of rusty crud out of there.

The engine is almost finished now, probably by the end of next week it will be finished up and ready to test run. I’m excited to hear it run again.

Crankshaft full of Sludge

XKE 4.2 Engine block