The new castings arrived and they look perfect. I wish we could get new parts like this for every component on Ferrari engines.

We also inquired about getting a new engine block for this project since the original may be compromised from all of the corrosion, but after hearing the price, I think we can fix the old block!

Water pump casting new and old

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

We typically have to clean up and weld castings to make them serviceable but these 250 water pump parts are too far gone. The material around the 6mm stud has deteriorated so it just fell out, and the pitting at the impeller surface negatively effects the flow of water through the engine. The bearing support plate is trash, it must weigh 40% less than it did when new.

With corrosion this bad on these castings, imagine what the inside of the engine block looks like! We are pulling the sleeves right now in order to inspect the block and possibly replace the sleeves if the wall thickness has been compromised by the rust.

I ordered some brand new castings to replace these and am anxious to see how they look and fit.

Casting aluminum

Corroded aluminum

Flat fin radiator

Here is a brand new correct type flat fin radiator core all assembled with tanks and side brackets for a Ferrari 250 GTE. These cores are so nice and we will cover the core in cardboard to prevent bending the delicate fins. This radiator has the bottom tank that was all hammered and beat up and corrected and documented in an earlier post.

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.

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