Here are a few new youtube clips of testing a freshly overhauled GTE engine. I have some detailing to finish but overall the thing runs so well and doesn’t leak a drop (except for a water hose plug)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9DevKQTyfk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh0TaXiRN1o

Car Show Classics also put together this engine bay porn from Mille Miglia. It’s a lot of detail.

Car Show Classic did a piece with Marcel Massini on the 212 at Mille Miglia. This is a great description of the history of the car from the master himself.

See http://carshowclassic.com/car-models/classic-car/146 for more.

It can be so demoralizing to work on old cars, even worse working on Ferraris! After overhauling the engine on the blue 330 2+2 and addressing a bunch of other issues, we drove the car and experienced a major vibration that is present under high speed. Whether the car is coasting in neutral or in gear, anytime you go above 50 mph the feeling is there. We suspected that the original Ferrari driveshaft with the rubber flex joint was the problem even though everything looked good so I sent it to be balanced and checked for run-out. The vibration was still there so I checked the transmission and rear axle flanges for run-out, both of which were perfect so after experiencing problems with numerous Ferrari driveshafts, I opted to make adapters to convert the shaft to a Spicer-Hardy U-Joint style. Nate installed the new shaft and guess what, still a vibration (although much less). Could it be a bent pinion shaft or bent main shaft in the transmission?

I assembled a Ferrari 250 engine and got to the cam timing today only to realize that the valve height was not set correctly, so all apart again!

A car deal blew up in my face as well, only because of a minor miss-communication no less.. I could really have used that deal to keep my quota up to maintain my dealer license. It is so hard to broker car deals and so rewarding to sell something that either we own or have at the shop. When the car is gone, there is so little control.

What else…. We have a low mileage 512BBI all apart for a major service which is becoming a major engine bay clean up, not such a big deal but how does a legitimate low miles car look so ratty? It won’t take much, a little paint here and there will tidy up things immensely.

Here is a photo of the BBI engine out and apart to replace the lower timing belt drive pulleys as well as a major service which includes valve lash and new cam belts.

Oh yeah, the brake shoes that we sent to be re-lined for the Monza are way to thick and the newly re-sleeved drums don’t fit over them! Ahhh!

BBI belt service

Here are some photos of the 212 Fontana Carretto Siciliano! We did some sorting and tuning after the 2010 Mille Miglia and the car is delicious. It is probably the most fun I have ever had driving a car be it on the public roads or race track. The car is so balanced and dialed in, brakes are great and it has incredible power.

Nose shape

Delicate

Interior deluxe

We overhauled this 1958 Ferrari 250 engine 12 years ago and it has run a bunch of tours with Rich and Jean Taylor at Vintage Rallies as well as the Ferrari Challenge Rally a few years ago. When we overhauled the engine we converted it to coil valve springs from the hair pin style – making a strong engine even stronger. It must have higher lift cams and a bump in compression because it made some killer power on the dyno years ago. I promise to put it on the chassis dynomometer when we fix it.

What failed is what typically fails on 308’s and Berlinetta Boxers – the small caged ball bearings in the timing chest. The inner generator drive bearing came undone, and the cage got into the main bearing scouring the cap and the bearing. We are having the journal built up to standard and are going to check the line bore to make sure the cap is still square to the crank pins.

While the block is set up on the line hone machine, the rear cap will be cut to accept a 100mm oil seal. Normally these engines rely on the “slinger” arrangement. With the rest of the engine in such good condition, we will clean and inspect everything but probably not have to replace too many expensive parts such pistons or perform a valve job.

Bearing failure

Damaged main bearing

Bearings messed up

I have seen this style final drive differential on later Ferraris like Lusso’s but didn’t realize that early cars like the 212 had this odd arrangement. Instead of spider gears and side gears, the car has these “chicklet” metal tabs that are forced between the axle drive hub and the outer case of the differential carrier. The inside “hub” has a different number of relief cuts in comparison to the outside case of the carrier so there is always pressure to make the car go forward while acting as a limited slip mechanism. You will have to study the photos carefully, we didn’t take great pictures of it all together so let your imagination do the work to understand the process

Ferrari attempt differential

Ferrari 212 differential

A few new videos snuck into the shop this week from Pebble Beach.

Concours d’Elegance from AutoWeek on Vimeo.

Pebble Beach Concept Cars from AutoWeek on Vimeo.