We often pick on people who say “all you gotta do is”, because there’s no such thing as “all you gotta do is”…. Anyone who says “all you gotta do is” either has never done it before or is trying to beat you up on an estimate. AKA, a looser

Most of the cars we work on have brand new brake components available to purchase which allow us to slam ‘em in and ship it. Unfortunately, we have to rebuild brake components on Ferrari’s which really sucks.  All you gotta do is…  Ugh. A guy sent me a totally blown out Master cylinder for a 330 GTC, rusted and stuck, terrible, horrible, so I sent steel fittings off to be cadmium plated, sent the cylinder to have a new sleeve installed in the bore, ordered an overhaul kit and when everything returned, I put it all back together. After assembling it the I noticed that the pistons were sticking in the cylinder so I took it all apart and the wrenches scratched the fresh plating and watched as the brake fluid stripped the black paint. I honed the bore and got the pistons to move freely, assembled it again and set it up to be tested on my high tech device that you can observe in the photo below. Now I am finding that the sleeve wasn’t drilled correctly and fluid couldn’t  into the forward chamber (that goes to the rear brakes) so I had to start all over again, scratching, chipping. Now, the cylinder is all back together and working perfectly after 7 hours of labor! “All you gotta do is”! Did I mention that the rebuild kit didn’t come with the correct first seal, there was a 30mm seal included when I needed a 25mm seal so after buying 3 kits, I resorted to making my own seal.

Ferrari GTC Brake Master Cylinder

If you get a chance, have a look at our ebay listings one of which is this spectacular 330 GT 2+2.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Ferrari-1966-Ferrari-330-GT-2-2-/320786529089?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item4ab05dfb41

We just sold a very tidy Tool briefcase for a 365 series Ferrari and have a guy ready to purchase a steel roof rack for a Porsche 911 (and other German cars like VW’s). This is a super nice piece with an original equipment manufacturers sticker on it!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Ski-Roof-Rack-Porsche-VW-and-other-models-Early-70s-stainless-/320789565039?hash=item4ab08c4e6f&item=320789565039&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_100&vxp=mtr

In the next few days I’m gonna get some other cars up there so I will let you know what I am posting and will see if Gene can start an ebay store to start selling the stuff we have been accumulating around her.

Ferrari Ebay 330 V-12

Here are some photos of V-12 Ferrari engines for Dominick.

330 engine with cylinder heads

250 GT "outside" plug engine

Underside of 330 engine

Inside plug 250

We just finished another 330 engine, 330 cubic centimeters per cylinder multiplied by 12 cylinders equals 4000 C.C.’s or 4.0 liters. Actually, Nate did most of the work and this one runs so well without the requisite head gasket leaks!!

Here is a YouTube clip of it running:

Crank in 330

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

A California man is the proud new owner of the 330 GTC that was in a post a month ago, http://www.ferraricraft.com/2009/12/a-nice-photo-of-a-330-gtc-that-we-have-for-sale/ and now it is time for me to market another dark blue GTC. Similar to the last car we sold, this one had lots of cosmetic work done by another shop and when we acquired it, nearly every mechanical component needed attention!

There was a large oil leak at the engine when we first got the car, here is what we found jammed between the timing chest and the head! Once we removed the heads, we noticed bad bearing wear, terrible sand cast “el-cheapo” pistons and a plugged up cooling system. Needless to say, now the engine is completely overhauled and after a few years and 2-3000 miles, it is sorted and runs beautifully.

Here is another post I did on the transmission to this car. http://www.ferraricraft.com/2007/08/ferrari-330-gtc-transmission/

With a new radiator core, all new A/C components, axle boots, tires, clutch hydraulic components, this is an outstanding car!

Dark Blue GTC

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.

We took the Ferrari 330 GTS out to make sure it was ready to deliver and made a little video while we drove. The engine sounds great, so turn it up – of course there is some additional noise because the of the GTS soft top. Comment to let us know if you want to see more videos like this on FerrariCraft.