All the sheet metal is painted and the chassis is nearly finished. We are going to start to throw some big pieces at this 1951 Ford 8N pretty soon and I’ll keep you posted on the progress. The gray painted sheet metal parts look a hell of a lot better than they did from new but at least it will hold up for years without burning off in the sun.

It makes me think that building up a simple tractor like this is the opposite of building a house. With a house you start with the big, dramatic task of framing and finish off with the small details like base boards and electrical outlet covers. With a tractor, you start with small bearings and gears and build it up and out into larger and larger components and finish with the big Dumbo Ear fenders and art deco hood and elegant grille.

8N Ford Tractor

Restored Ford 8N on wheels

Ford 8n Gray Hood

When we recently inherited the Maserati Ghibli Project, I was amazed at how nearly every component was banged up, broken, rusted or just plain old trashed. Have a look a the front suspension components in these photos, how does this sort of thing happen!

Maserati Ghibli Front suspension

Maserati Ghibli Front suspension Arm

Among all the chaos, I observed a detail that no one has seen, not even Maserati Guru’s that was stuck to the gas tank. I measured out the size of the logo and the font and emailed the image to my friend Justin who runs a very creative graphics shop called JD Designs. He cleaned up the image, fine tuned the colors and made these perfect cast vinyl decals so we can fully detail this car and send stickers to other Ghibli owners. Justin has worked with us in the past to make the graphics for the 212 gauges and some of our advertising material and is a pleasure to work with

Since the original sticker was a little torn up, I wanted to make sure the words and spelling were correct so I visited my good friend Google who located SMA in Parma Italy. Since they still exist and are at the same location I was able to confirm these details to make an accurate reproduction.  I hope they don’t sue me for re-producing their image even though they seem to have changed their look over the years. Fabbrica is Italian for Fabricate or “Makers” and Serbatoi is translated to “Tanks”.

Original SMA Sticker

Reproduction SMA Sticker

The GTC project is getting some attention after sitting idle for a few weeks. The car is very solid but suffers from the same problem as all Ferraris which is water getting trapped between layers of unprotected steel and corroding it away. The GTC has a very elegant circular vent in the “C” pillar to let air pressure out of the cabin when the doors are closed and when the vent system is used. Since this vent is an open hole into the interior, a little catch tray with a drain pipe is attached to the inside of the pillar so water doesn’t ruin the headliner and flood into the interior. A hose that can be seen under the car allows this tray to drain onto the ground but over time it plugs with debris and the water builds up and leaks inside the rear fender arch making the car disappear into a cloud of brown dust.

Understanding that this car is 45 years old, the bodywork is in amazing condition but you can see the concentrated rust damage connection to the leaking “drip tray”. The front of the rocker panels is rotten away which makes sense because of all the water spray getting inside while driving in the rain. Pininfarina did a great job sealing these car up when new and we will follow their technique so when we’re done, we’ll use the same super thick and rugged seam sealer (that smells like Star Wars Action Figures) allowing the car to last another 50 years when we finish with it.

Remaking fender arches Ferrari GTC

Morgan S.S.

We re-painted this 1964 Morgan a few years ago and our upholstery guy just installed a new top. Some other things are being addressed such as a new leather wrapping on the steering wheel and some other upholstery details. Casey installed a gas tank with  very advanced mechanism for a Morgan, a fuel level sending unit and gauge.

Ready to be blasted

These parts are going to be sandblasted and re-finish in the Dove Gray paint used on Ford 8N tractors. Some of the later machines had a more “tan” or “buttery” gray paint when the earlier machines used a cooler shade of gray. We are currently working on the exact shade of red for the undercarriage which should be a little more tomato orange than blood red.

About 5 years ago I took a photo of this car after it showed up unexpectedly from Louisiana. Out of sight, out of mind the adage goes, we put it on the back corner of one of the buildings and after asking the owner what he wants to do with this XKE, he informed me that he wants to sell it. Does anyone out there want this thing or is Gullwing Motorcars going to pick it up! Later this week I’ll get it up on the lift and check out the car but I think its solid and complete except for the soft top frame. Even though the owner had the brake system gone through awhile ago, there isn’t a firm pedal and the clutch doesn’t work but I pulled it around the shop in gear and the engine turns and we should be able to do a accurate compression test.

Once was ivory, now is red, a solid XKE

Series II 4.2 liter Jaguar E-Type engine

A very good customer showed up last fall with one of my favorite cars, an early Porsche 911 Coupe. While the car did run and propel itself down the road, it needed lots of mechanical attention to remedy oil leaks, weak compression on a few cylinders and a huge list of other things. We decided that in order to enjoy the car in the future, we needed to go through the engine, transmission, brakes, clutch and other less dramatic things such as the heat and vent controls and … windshield wiper blades!

Here is a video of the engine running on the test stand to check for leaks and the adjustment of the ignition system and carburetors. This engine has German made Solex/Zenith carburetors, an Italian produced Magnetti Marelli distributor in combination with a French S.E.V Marchal Alternator.

Early Porsche 911 Engine Test After Overhaul

Our customer wanted us to re-paint this 330 GTC because the paint was faded and cracking but the car appeared to be very straight and showed no signs of rust or accident damage. As we exposed the bare steel under layers of blue and red paint we found some minor accident damage at the left front headlight that was expertly fixed years ago. The other damage was from the infamous “rust worm” slithering about the rocker panels and rear wheel arches. There wasn’t any bubbling in the paint because someone (expertly) applied stainless steel tape over some perforations in the bodywork which did a great job sealing water from behind and lift the finish.

I cut away the rocker panels and cut the inner structure from behind the rear fender arches so I can properly fix and seal the panels so they’ll last at least another 45 years. Water can get into the rocker panel area but there are many areas for it to leak out but there were these big sand bricks trapped inside which allowed the water to linger in there for a long time which caused the most damage. As bad as it looks, there won’t be any major re-construction other than a few new inner sill struts and new rocker panels.

Refinishing a Ferrari 330 GTC

Rocker panel Ferrari

My plan was to remove the engine and perform a “major service” on the ’79 Ferrari 308 GT/4 but after a leak down test revealed that a few cylinders were weak, I decided to break it down. The combustion chamber leak was from a few valves that weren’t closing so I knew it needed a full valve job. When removing the main bearing caps to inspect the bearings, we found evidence of an improper line hone or some major grit which scratched the journal. It’s irritating because main and rod bearings are super expensive and I was hoping that we could just re-coat them for a fraction of the cost. The machine shop will check the cylinders and hopefully we wont need new pistons!

Nate inspected the transmission and found that 3 of the 5 synchros are worn to the limit so we need to spend another $2000 on the transmission! Yuck, why do I think I can purchase and make money on re-selling these cars?

Engine Ferrari 3.0

308 GT/4 crankshaft

KONI gas charged self leveling shocks were installed in later production 4 seat Ferrari’s starting out at the 365 GT 2+2 up to the 400′s. Later 400′s and 412′s had hydraulic controlled self leveling shocks that adjusted by a little valve attached to the rear sway bar. KONI doesn’t make any parts to overhaul these self leveling shocks and rumor is that don’t even admit to having made them! We convert the rear shocks to adjustable ride height coil over units which takes away all the mystery because rebuild parts are available for these generic series 82 KONI’s.

365 GTC/4 KONI Shocks

Self Leveling rear shocks gas charged