This car looks too cool in this flat black primer to hide from view. We sprayed an epoxy primer to protect the car as we begin to trial fit every little piece of trim. This car is built as though it was a piece of furniture using trim caps and decorative pieces to cover all of the ugly details.

There are chrome end caps for the interior door top strips, trims around the door catches and small mouldings around all of the glass. We had to re-make these mouldings because they were full of cracks because they are a brittle alloy. We made the new moulding from a much softer aluminum alloy so we can bend them into place so everything fits nicer.

Ferrari 166 berlinetta touring

Ferrari Berlinetta

Eben likes to make his life more difficult by making sculptures in his spare time. When he is not hammering on a car body he is making a Rhinocerous sculpture or something like this copper sheet metal horse head.

Full sized horse sculpture

Here is a photo of the back room in the main shop. It looks like the front hood on the Dino is resting on the side of the 512BB.

Photos of Ferraris 512BB, Monza, Vignale

This is a photo of the fuel injection circuit board for a 1989 Lamborghini Countach that has had some creative repairs done to it. This soldered on yellow is not necessarily a bad repair considering that you cannot buy these printed circuit boards anymore but it only got one of the two fuel pumps to work. This board has the circuits to control the fuel pumps and lambda control and the decel controls. Most of these functions use just signal voltage and minimal amperage but the fuel pump relays put over 10 amps per pump through this under-built board! All it took was 9000 miles to deteriorate this thing.

The owner of this car was all worried that something major was wrong but it is only this part so we are going to send it off to a specialist to have a new board made. Since the pump was not working someone messed with the idle speed and mixture to compensate for running on half of the engine. With the car running we addressed a number of other issues typically associated with a car with only 9000 miles like a leaking radiator, bad A/C clutch bearing and blown out intake hoses.

lamborghini parts

Ferrari Testarossa Dashboards are made up of fiberglass, leather and some sort of clear hollow plastic stuff. I dread the day that these cars need full restorations as Ferraris of the 60’s do.

The instrument cluster “pod” on this car was warped and crooked from the sun making the fiberglass pliable and allow the shrinking leather to pull it into a bowl shape. I had to cut out and replace a big piece of material in the middle and reinforce the edge with a piece of aluminum. The aluminum had to make up a dropped angle to line up with the rest of the dash and I did not know how to make this strong enough with fiberglass.

The leather color was that early 80’s “chocolate” brown, kind of nice color and we found a leather swatch that matched the color perfectly.

We finished that blue 1963 Porsche 356 awhile ago and I thought I would finally post the photos. At first the color looked to “carnival ride” but with the car finished and all of the bright work on, the color is perfect for a 356. We are so happy with how this car came out and the customers are too.

Dash trim Ferrari 250

Ferrari Pininfarina parts

A very nice 1962 Ferrari 250 Pininfarina Cabriolet came in for some minor detailing recently and for some reason it was missing the aluminum defrost vent trim. This piece goes at the leading edge of the dash and up against the windshield and is painted body color.

I could not find one for a PF cab so I bought a used one from a Ferrari 250 GTE. It is a similar part and the overall curvature is the same and the openings are the same. The aluminum extrusion that this is made from seems like a door threshold or a window part for your home.

The differences are that the GTE trim is 2 pieces and has different ends. We had to re-make the ends, weld it into a single piece and make the little bumps for the screws to go in that attach it to the car. We made little blocks and welded them to the trim and added a flare to the end to shape and fit as original.

Next step was to paint it the same color as the body of the car and glue on a edge binding vinyl material to finish it up. Lots of work to make a car complete and correct.

Restored Ferrari steering wheel

Ferrari Steering wheel restoration

This steering wheel rim looked terrible, it was all pitted and past owners had attempted to polish it but this made it look muddy and ugly. Unfortunately, when it was polished the delicate detailing know as Geouche or engraving was destroyed.

My guess as to why this aluminum rim was so flaky and deteriorated was because someone tried to use an acid cleaner to brighten up the rim. This cleaner was soaked into the wood allowing the acid to really attack the aluminum. Many aluminum polishes are very harsh and the freshly polished metal needs to be sealed up with wax in so it does not oxidize rapidly.

Though the wood was not perfect we wanted to preserve this well crafted 50 year old material. We cut a new rim with a local water-jet CNC operation and put the wood from the old rim to the new rim. We sent the parts off to a specialist who knew the ins and outs of final finish and had the correct wooden dowels and rivets to make the wheel look spectacular. I will get a photo of the finished wheel soon.

With all of the incredible capacity of CNC machining, there is no one who is reproducing the engraving on thee wheels. I am shocked that with all of the high end restoration shops out there that there is nothing out there. Trust me, I have called everyone. There is a shop in Italy who sells the reproduction 250 style wheel on ebay. These wheels have nice engraving but it is a little more coarse and deep than what I have seen on the originals.

Maybe some day I will figure out how to do this detailing because it is used on a number of other trim parts from radio surrounds for 275 GTS to the ash trays used on nearly all of the road going Ferraris.

Porsche 914/6 engine repair

We were asked to perform a hydraulic chain tensioner conversion on a Porsche 914 so with the twist of a few wrenches, the engine and trans were out. This mechanical work was straightforward but like everything else on old cars, there is always something.

The large dry sump oil hoses had aluminum ends that split upon re-assembly. Rex at Performance Porsche in CA could not get these hoses but he was nice enough to connect us with a man who makes them with steel ends for 914s.

Even though we replaced all of the shifter bushings with the best stuff, getting the car to go from 1st to second without hitting reverse was a struggle. Just getting it to shift into all 5 gears was difficult but with a day of driving and adjustment, I finally got it.

The engine ran poorly but after changing the air correctors and main jets the car behaved as though it was a Boxster S!

After driving it some miles to make sure it was running rich enough, I sped up and watched as the windshield surround trim launched off the car. It was not installed correctly and the urethane sealer was not installed either so air got under the trim and it took off. To make matters worse, when the trim came off, it took a large chunk of paint with it! Ahhh, does it ever end!!!

The small bumpers on the front of a Lusso are pure decoration, no real function. The Lusso that came in was missing these so we located one and have to make the match. Here are some photos of the fabrication process.