Ferrari Brass radiator tank

Ferrari radiators are a thing of beauty, huge thick flat-fin cores and beautiful pressed brass tanks. The lower tank typically gets hammered from lifting jacks, and curbs as well as tow truck hooks. This was a badly dented tank but not as bad as we have seen, after some controlled hammering, this tank looked perfect and is ready to solder onto the core.

GTC 330 Ferrari

After all kinds of recent work on this car, out customer wants to sell it in order to pursue some other business interests.  There may be some blog posts on the work we did which includes overhauling the engine, replacing the incorrect sized 205/70-VR14 Michelin XWX tires with the 205-VR14’s and replacing the windshield. This is a very nice car that feels super alive when driven fast.

Ferrari Red

A gorgeous Dark red that a prominent Ferrari Historian calls “mature”.

This is just out of the paint shop, no wet sanding or polishing on an overcast day. The camera is one of those heavy duty LUMIX point/shoots.  The car looks particularly amazing right now because it basically has 3 finishes, the glossy red, brushed aluminum and black Excelsior tires from Coker. It is beautiful!

After going through every last little part, we finished the Oliver 77 Diesel. This tractor was purchased new by the current owners father and when Henry passed away, we were asked to fully restore it. As we got to the end of this project it felt similar to completing a car restoration where every little screw, clip, fastener needed to be correct which means multiple runs to the hardware store, industrial catalogs and lathe!

Row Crop Diesel Oliver

Here is what amounts to about $5000 in labor, the front suspension on a Ferrari 250 completely overhauled and detailed.

New pins and bushings, proper finishes and hopefully it will look this good for more than a few years!

90,000 miles on a Ferrari

Cleaned up, overhauled and detailed

Here are photos of our jig to re-make a common sized water pipe on a Ferrari 250. We have been making flanges at the water jet shop and have a bunch of the large bell flanges that adapt the 1″ tubing to the larger thermostat housing.

This 304 stainless steel is great stuff, very workable, machinable, weldable.

To see the ones that came off the car click http://www.ferraricraft.com/2009/12/corroded-ferrari-water-pipes/

Fixture to reproduce water pipe

Reproduction water pipe in stainless steel

Early Ferrari cars used steel tubing for the cooling system which corrodes seriously over time. Since replacement parts have never been available, these pipes were often patched together, soldered up, welded, epoxied- whatever to make them hold water. Typical of the Italians, the pipes are beautiful with gentle bends and are very difficult to recreate but we have a system to make them out of stainless steel 304 series tubing. See http://www.ferraricraft.com/2009/12/reproducing-ferrari-water-pipes-in-stainless-steel/

Water Pipes for Ferrari engine

Water pipe elbow

Axle oil leaking

Here is a reason rear brakes don’t work so well on an early Ferrari. With the “2+2″ Ferraris generally the benchmark of deferred maintenance, I informed the new owner that we should look into these seals as suspect. Sure enough….. the seals we took out were cracked hard plastic, original 1962 material! Yeah!

Jaeger Oil Pressure

When I had to explain why we had so many filing cabinet drawers full of suppliers and subcontractors to our bookkeeper, I realized how much we rely on other shops to keep these cars on the road. We try so hard to maintain good relationships with these shops through many long and arduous projects and feel blessed that we have some of the best people in the business as our ally.

This 212 gauge project is an example of the different suppliers that we use for the smallest of projects.

When we got the car to our shop we were missing the fuel pressure gauge but had the oil pressure, oil temperature and water temperature gauges. The fuel pressure should have the 1/4 pivot just like this oil pressure gauge and say BENZINA instead of OLIO and use different numbers for the lower pressure of the fuel system. We have to create an entire new gauge, new case, jewell, bezel, movement, needle, and the hardest part, the face.

To date I have bought a movement from an aircraft company, got fittings from a Ferrari Supplier, used a specialty shop to make hand ground beveled glass and used David to water jet cut a bunch of 60mm aluminum .030 discs. I sent the discs to get anodized, then to a laser engraver to have the script and graduation marks done. Another shop made the delicate thread on four bezels and make one complete case. I will then send all of the gauges to my friends who restore gauges to make sure everything is calibrated after I send them the correctly plated capillary tube!