Old Sheet metal Ferrari

Grille Ferrari Classic

This is the body that was on the Ferrari 212 that we located in a barn 5 years ago. Eben is in the building next door getting this body built up so we can paint it as a static display. Most of the aluminum is foil thin and work hardened but the objective is to save as much of the original material as possible and Eben has been successful in doing this.

Can you believe how much labor went into building this dash? I would guess that the bulk of the piece was hammered out to fit a profile but the stepped bores for the gauges were made from a two piece press die, simply and amazing number of hours to fabricate this piece.

This piece had so many layers of primer, filler and paint that it has taken about 8 hours to strip it down to bare aluminum and will take another 20 hours to re-finish it in the dark blue color that it was originally. There are more man hours in this dash than goes into assembling a new Pontiac!

166 Touring dash panel

Touring berlinetta

We are really cracking away at the restoration of the 1950 Ferrari 166 Berlinetta and at this point, I am fitting and re-fitting and adjusting and fitting again all of the parts to this car. Nothing worked or fit very well from new as you may have seen from an earlier post on welding up brass trim caps and since then I have learned that the window regulators would bind up because they were miss-aligned and the side glass fit terribly but with tons of time and effort, everything is working and looking great.

These are the door handles that I have sent off to be chrome plated. Notice the detail in the “scrapings” and in the “sunburst” at the release button? When you depress this button the handle pops out allowing you to pull the handle which releases the door catch followed by pulling open the door.

This detail will be eliminated in the re-chrome plating process but with modern technology, we can recreate the detail easily right down to the minor imperfections.

Touring Door handles

Brass is a pain in the neck to weld, it doesn’t give you any clues as to its melting point like other metals. Steel gets shiny and looks like flowing liquid while aluminum gets super shiny and puffs up slightly which tells you when you can add the filler rod.

Brass just gets dark so you have to poke the area with the filler rod and hope it sticks even though it often just spatters and makes a mess. Unlike aluminum or steel, it is easy to build up brass on an edge of sheet metal like I am doing in these photos. What I found is that you have to keep the material extra clean with a stainless steel brush and glass bead blasting it when the piece gets black and nasty.

These photos are of little trim pieces on a Ferrari 166 Touring bodied Berlinetta that I am restoring. These pieces didn’t fit well from new,  I think my 6 year old daughter could have made them fit better. I have spent lots time welding on new material and filing it down to fit around the trim and re-locate the holes so the screws actually thread into something.

The reason Touring used brass is because it takes chrome nicely without any extra material like nickel or copper and is relatively easy to shape.

Brass Heli-arc

Tungston Inert Gas Brass

Brass trim welded and fitting

We rarely have to repair rear axles and usually just clean and inspect the bearings and install new oil seals. Be it a Jaguar, Chevrolet or Alfa Romeo, it is rare that we see a ring and pinion that is damaged or bearings that are worn out. I hate to disturb the factory relationship between the ring and pinion gears so if the bearings check out ok, I keep the thing together.

Additionally, most car companies have figured out how to make the final drive robust and problem free because they are aware of the forces involved with the ring and pinion bevel gears – except for Ferrari. They used a deep groove ball bearing and sliding inner race roller bearing that cannot handle the axial loads on the pinion shaft. Other companies used tapered roller bearings that can handle a tremendous amount of this fore-and-aft thrust while spinning with ease but the Ferrari style comes apart and destroys the gears.

My solution is to replace the sliding inner race roller bearing and the deep groove ball bearing with a pair of tapered roller bearings. This photo is a 250 GT Lusso center section with the “chicklet” style limited slip differential. On some axles I’ve install tapered roller bearings to support the differential but on the later axles there isn’t much room to install this type of bearing and I have found the original ball bearing set up to be adequate. I have done this conversion to many cars that have gone many thousands of miles with no issues.

Final drive Ferrari

GT Ferrari 250 Axle Center section

Ferrari 330

The power of the internet and the reason I do these blog posts became apparent on this particular project.

Similar to almost all of the other Ferrari shops in the country, we were having a hard time getting the head gaskets to seal on the V-12 engines. The gaskets that come in the gasket kits are ELRING brand that are very fancy looking and fit nicely but are too hard and do not compress and seal like they should. I am sure they work well on a BMW with a cast iron block and head bolts that torque to probably 100 lb/ft, but on a Ferrari engine you only go to 65 lb/ft and are working with a very flexible cast aluminum block.

The leaks we had experienced was not water getting into the combustion chamber but it allowed water to leak between the block and head and often times leaked water into the oil. Considering that replacing the head gaskets on one of these engines is a $4-5000 job, we had to come up with a solution which we now have.

2 years ago a man called me to talk about head gasket leaks on his 330, I explained that we had the same problems and that he should get the car to me to be repaired. The car was tied up at another shop and I didn’t hear from him again. Fast forward to February 2010, the mystery man rings me again and asks me to help him sell the car! He told me that the shop fixed the leaking gaskets again and the car is sorted and ready to go.

I had 3-4 immediate buyers for the car but upon close inspection I found that the gaskets were still leaking! We could have been the shop to repair the gsakets, get them right, and get on with it, but it turned out fine when I sold the car to a local man who asked that we overhaul the engine and set things right.

The car was described as having an overhauled engine and in need of nothing, but we found that wasn’t the case. With the wrist pin bushings wiped out, the pistons worn and overall sloppiness in workmanship from the multiple attempts at remedying the head gasket leaks, we were disappointed in the prior repair, but will set things straight. These photos show the water mixed with oil inside the cam covers.

330 head gasket leak V-12 Ferrari

V-12 Ferrari head gasket and overhaul

Bill took a few pictures from around the shop today that show both the range and the beauty of some of the cars that we are working on. Sometimes I fear that there is too much “range” and not enough beauty! Bill takes outstanding photos that look super pro. Have I written a post on Bill yet? Bill, can you write a post on yourself, introduce yourself?

Upstairs: the Osca, Whitehead Special, and a silver Ferrari

Downstairs: The rare green 330 GTC and a deep inventory of stored classics, projects, and restorations.

Ferrari 750 Monza at Restoration and Performance Motorcars in Vermont

We have made jigs for re-producing the often rusted and leaking water pipes for Ferrari 250′s. These are not  perfect reproductions but now that we have the tooling we can easily make an exact copy if anyone is interested. We are using Stainless Steel so they won’t rust away like the originals.

Ferrari tubing

250 water pipe

These are 80mm Carello Tail lights, where can I get the identical ones but 100mm in diameter? These were on a Vignale Ferrari 225 Berlinetta at Cavallino and I need the 100mm ones for the 166 Berlinetta that we are restoring.

Tail light

Here are some more images of sheet metal work to get the 1950 Ferrari 166 Touring Coupe closer to finished. So much of the aluminum is work hardened and cannot be repaired, so it has to be replaced.