As we’ve been traveling through the Canadian Rockies on Route 1, the Trans Canada Highway, Route 93 and other roads,  another group in Pre-War cars has been mixing it up with our group of sports cars. To see a 1911 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost “floating” along at 70 MPH is a sight to behold because it looks so effortless and elegant with the huge wheels and locomotive styling. This group is staying at the Banff Springs Hotel as we are so I am passing cards out to see if I can work on any of these icons. Sure, it would be great to see more of the inner workings on a Silver Cloud or on this Peugeot but  I’m more interested in getting some tips!

Peugeot Pre-War

Silver Ghost, Wrath, Cloud?

Hemmings Sports and Exotic Magazine did an amazing article on a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTE belonging to our customer in New York.  The owner had a spectacular Alfa Romeo 1900 for a number of years and decided it was time to sell. He did an incredible “feature” of the Alfa to sell it on ebay which had video links on youtube showing how the car performed on the road. The Alfa sold very well and guy now has a pocket full of cash to get what he really wanted, a Ferrari GTE.

He bought this car and had it shipped it to us where we picked it apart and did some major repairs to bring it up to a standard that it can be driven and enjoyed. We repaired or rebuilt every mechanical component on the car except for the rear axle so true to form, after 1000 miles, the ring and pinion started to growl.

At this time, the rear axle is overhauled and we have driven the car about 20 miles after performing a check over on the work we did last year. We have a few things to address so the car can  be driven regularly for the summer of 2011.

As you can see from a previous post, we changed the rear axle ratio from 7-32 to an 8-34 which I recommend for an early Ferrari 250!

Here is the link to the Hemmings article. Pics and words by David Traver Adolphus.

http://www.hemmings.com/hsx/stories/2011/04/01/hmn_feature1.html

Things are coming along nicely on the 1950 Ferrari 166 Touring Berlinetta, here you can see the dashboard lining up nicely with the upper door panels and the windshield glass fitted with new mahogany tack strips installed. All around the body openings are hand whittled wooden strips to jamb the glass into place while providing an area to tack the headliner and upholstery. Hidden under the painted aluminum trim on the top of the door is a tack strip to which the leather door panel upholstery is attached . Near the rear vent windows, the tack strips secure the headliner on the top half and the rear package shelf leather to the bottom half. Unfortunately these tack strips are in channels around the glass openings which means they are sitting in pools of water every time the car is washed or driven in the rain so all of the strips were rotten to dust.

Six tack strips secure the front windshield, two on top, two on the bottom and two on the sides. These dog bone strips were in decent shape because they are located on the sides and didn’t spend much time bathing/rotting in water but since they are so thin, the tacks securing the headliner caused them to splinter and blow apart. They are totally different pieces left to right and had to be hand shaped for 6 hours to make fit correctly. This is a lesson in how not to build a car!! They don’t make them like they used to… thank god!

Mahogany Tack strip

Lining up Dash Ferrari

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this spectacular Barred Owl about 80 feet from the shop office. Time for me to get a good camera, I love my Canon waterproof, shock proof kids camera but if I had a nice lens on a SLR, these would be amazing photos.

VT Owl RPM

Good on plow

Maybe this is the reason Lampredi design features are not used in current engines such as Honda or Mercedes Benz and the reason Ferrari had the most success with the Colombo designed engines. The V-12 Lampredi engine has cylinders that thread up into the cylinder head instead of pressed into the block, but the camshaft and valve actuation are similar to the Colombo designs.

The block of this 4 cylinder Lampredi engine is actually the head, a huge casting with enormous cylinders that thread into it like the V-12′s. The valve actuation is a different style with a huge aluminum followers and a roller of the same size as the V-12 engines. There are huge and very strong “hairpin” style valve springs and enormous coil springs to keep the aluminum followers from floating.

Ferrari 750

Cam Follower Ferrari 4 cylinder

Roller followers Needle Bearing

Ferrari Camshaft wear repair

Due to lack of Ferrari Factory  testing in the mid 50′s, they didn’t observe that this is just too much spring pressure for the roller follower to handle so after less than 2000 miles something gives up, be it the roller follower or the camshaft… and in these photos you can see what happens. The tiny needle bearings come apart and scatter in the engine and the cam is torn up. Maybe the load is too much for the roller follower and it blows apart or the camshaft gets worn and hammers the roller follower until it deteriorates?

Bruder and Buddy L

Here is the difference in toy construction from the 1960′s to current, both beautiful Mack Dump trucks but total different styles. I bought the classic steel Buddy L toy on ebay a few years ago for an embarrassing amount of money, chalk it up to my ego outrunning myself as I bid against some unknown person. It is a nice example with a gas charged cylinder that raises the dump body with authority.

The plastic truck was a Christmas gift to my son and made by Bruder in Germany. These toys are spectacular and lots of fun to play with since everything works and moves just like the real thing. Needless to say, Roman loves both of them. I happen to like the heft of the older toy and the hollow noise it makes as we play in the sand pile.

Bruder makes an amazing array of toys with incredible detail while still being tough, but I don’t think these toys will ever outlast the Buddy L especially if Roman has his way with it. Based on what the Bruder toy costs, I would like to make simple and rugged pressed steel toys that could possibly sell for a similar amount of money, is this possible? It would look so cool to make it a very simple and elegant model of a truck, not a specific brand truck but just an art deco style of  truck.

Ferrari water pipes

Here is a fixture we made to duplicate the often rusty steel water pipes on Ferrari 250 engines. I make them from Stainless Steel so they should last for much longer than the originals.  I have a drawer full of the parts needed to make these such as the 2 ear flanges and the temp sensor ports as well as pre-bent tubing.

Ferrari 250 GT coolant tubing

275 GTB’s look so great with the 15″ Borrani 4010 and 4011 wheels, the factory should have fitted all of the cars with these instead of the little 14″ wheels. While the rear fender vents are interesting, they look great when they resemble the vents behind the front wheels, more square and in keeping with the 250 GTO. We have learned lots about this car recently and enjoy having it around the shop.

GTB/4 Ferrari 275

rear vents Ferrari GT

A friend of mine has a mounted swordfish that he caught in Florida that looked terrible because the paint job that replicates the skin is lifeless. The fish that Homer is making are amazing because even over a 2 dimensional panel, the colors look deep and alive as well as reflective as though you are seeing them underwater.

Here are some more photos of his fascinating work

Painted Fish on Aluminum

More painted fish