Fuel and oil pressure

Here are the two pressure gauges, the one I created, the BENZINA, and the one we based it on, the OLIO pressure. I used a thick acrylic urethane paint with lots of catalyst to make the needles white. It was done in the original fashion with a heavy build up of paint that I “floated” on the part.

The gauges are almost finished, I started on restoring these late last summer (ah, how time flies by) and as you may remember from a past entry, I had to make one complete gauge that was missing on the car. We had the oil and water temp gauges as well as the oil pressure gauge but old photos show that the car had a fuel pressure gauge so I had to create one from scratch. Since we had to make one, we had to re-make many parts of the other gauges so they all match which meant fabricating new beveled-edge jewels, bezels and faces.

The original faces were 60mm aluminum discs with an acid etch screen for the font. I used a different process of clear anodize the disc and laser engraving the font into the aluminum which gave an identical contrast to the originals. Using the oil pressure face as a template, a graphic artist created the art work to make the “benzina” and instead of 0-10 Kg/Cm2 we used a 1/10th scale of 0-.1 scale. He had to create the artwork on all of the gauges since the fonts are so unique and the laser engraver wanted Adobe Illustrator file instead of a jpg file.

The bezels were scratched and ugly we we had to make new ones, not so easy since they have to thread onto the case using a super fine 1.0 thread pitch, a 65 mm by 1.0 thread!

The Benzina pressure gauge uses a 1/4 scale movement and no one makes a low pressure mechanical movement so I had to adapt an electrical movement and install a special sending unit that could register the super low (5-10 PSI) scale.

A water jet shop cut out the delicate needles from brass sheet and I made a bunch of tiny spindles and pegs on our lathe to complete the package.

So many sub-contractors and suppliers to make a set of gauges work for this car, and I am so happy with the final product!

Fuel and oil pressure

Jaeger Oil Pressure

When I had to explain why we had so many filing cabinet drawers full of suppliers and subcontractors to our bookkeeper, I realized how much we rely on other shops to keep these cars on the road. We try so hard to maintain good relationships with these shops through many long and arduous projects and feel blessed that we have some of the best people in the business as our ally.

This 212 gauge project is an example of the different suppliers that we use for the smallest of projects.

When we got the car to our shop we were missing the fuel pressure gauge but had the oil pressure, oil temperature and water temperature gauges. The fuel pressure should have the 1/4 pivot just like this oil pressure gauge and say BENZINA instead of OLIO and use different numbers for the lower pressure of the fuel system. We have to create an entire new gauge, new case, jewell, bezel, movement, needle, and the hardest part, the face.

To date I have bought a movement from an aircraft company, got fittings from a Ferrari Supplier, used a specialty shop to make hand ground beveled glass and used David to water jet cut a bunch of 60mm aluminum .030 discs. I sent the discs to get anodized, then to a laser engraver to have the script and graduation marks done. Another shop made the delicate thread on four bezels and make one complete case. I will then send all of the gauges to my friends who restore gauges to make sure everything is calibrated after I send them the correctly plated capillary tube!

Restored Ferrari steering wheel

Ferrari Steering wheel restoration

This steering wheel rim looked terrible, it was all pitted and past owners had attempted to polish it but this made it look muddy and ugly. Unfortunately, when it was polished the delicate detailing know as Geouche or engraving was destroyed.

My guess as to why this aluminum rim was so flaky and deteriorated was because someone tried to use an acid cleaner to brighten up the rim. This cleaner was soaked into the wood allowing the acid to really attack the aluminum. Many aluminum polishes are very harsh and the freshly polished metal needs to be sealed up with wax in so it does not oxidize rapidly.

Though the wood was not perfect we wanted to preserve this well crafted 50 year old material. We cut a new rim with a local water-jet CNC operation and put the wood from the old rim to the new rim. We sent the parts off to a specialist who knew the ins and outs of final finish and had the correct wooden dowels and rivets to make the wheel look spectacular. I will get a photo of the finished wheel soon.

With all of the incredible capacity of CNC machining, there is no one who is reproducing the engraving on thee wheels. I am shocked that with all of the high end restoration shops out there that there is nothing out there. Trust me, I have called everyone. There is a shop in Italy who sells the reproduction 250 style wheel on ebay. These wheels have nice engraving but it is a little more coarse and deep than what I have seen on the originals.

Maybe some day I will figure out how to do this detailing because it is used on a number of other trim parts from radio surrounds for 275 GTS to the ash trays used on nearly all of the road going Ferraris.