The low mileage myth: Opening the gearbox for inspection

It seems as though many Ferrari owners and buyers believe the myth of low mileage as the sole factor of judgement with their cars. You often hear of people touting an odometer reading of a few hundred or thousand miles in a car that is 30 or 40 years old without knowing that mileage is essential to maintaining the mechanical parts of these machines.

Almost 10 years ago we bought a Ferrari 308 (Dino's younger brother in an older post) that the previous owner had bought 3 years earlier with 10K miles on the odometer. He naively thought that with such low mileage he was buying a near new car he proceeded to spend some $36K in service during his tenure. This was all documented in a large pile of receipts that we received when purchasing the car with 18K miles. Still low by any metric but the last 8K had been driven recently and in almost a decade of ownership the car has cost us little more than an annual oil change in service.

The low mileage myth was further proven with the dis-assembly of 01464's gearbox. Getting help from our experienced friend Jamie, we set about stripping the unit for inspection. Again recent mileage prior to purchase (coupled to the fact that the joker who built the engine never touched it) paid dividends as the condition of the internals were outstanding. The bearings looked as though they had been installed yesterday and there was no visible wear on any of the gears. The only thing to address were lightly worn synchronizer rings that will be replaced as a matter of course. Jamie had recently worked on a 'garage queen' low mileage Dino that required all new bearings as they were rusted and pitted due to lack of use.

The moral of the story is to ignore the odometer and judge both the condition of a car and how recently it has been used prior to purchase. These are much better indicators that the numbers on an easy to disconnect instrument.

Red ,Orange, & Chrome: The taillight restoration

The taillights on the Dino looked good but something looked off when they were illuminated. It was quickly discovered that the inner lens reflectors had their chrome flaked off causing an un-even light dispersion. Using a heat gun we split the reflector from the lens and then proceeded to blast the reflectors clean and then have them re-chromed. Once done they were bonded back to the original lenses. For good effect the lenses were then water sanded with 3000 grit sandpaper and soapy water topped off with compound polishing to their original freshly molded luster.

Dino Hell: The fiberglass panel restoration

If ever there was a hell in the world of Dino restoration it comes in the fiberglass panels that make up much of the inner structure of the car. In order to do a proper and comprehensive restoration, it is not enough to strip the car down to the bare shell, the fiberglass panels that act as the structure for the floor, firewall, front bulkhead, inner wheel arches and front and rear trunks need to be removed. This gains access to all of the frame tubes to assess their condition and subsequent restoration. These panels are held in with a combination of glue and hundreds of pop rivets which need to be drilled out one by one.

Once out the panels reveal 40 years of dirt, oil, undercoating, and paint that needs to be stripped off so that you can start fresh. Media blasting does not work well on these soft surfaces so the only approach is to use more of our trusty Goudey's paint stripper, scrapers, brushes and just plain hard graft. It is awful work that is messy and not in the least bit self-improving.

Now that the panels are clean any damage or rot needs to be repaired with fiberglass cloth and resin taking supreme care to match the strand orientation on the original layup. This way you can be assured of seamless joins when the parts are installed and painted. In addition, the panels are littered with threaded steel plates that are riveted in. Over the years these plates have had their holes stripped many times over so all new plates were fabricated and installed. We can now be sure that all the threads are perfect and new.

With the job now done we can take solace in the fact that had we given this work to someone else the labor bill would have easily paid for a new compact car. This makes us feel good until we remember that once installed all of this fiberglass is all but invisible. Lunacy knows no bounds.

Into the heads and the horrors continue

It has been a while since our last update. Time has been spent sourcing obscure parts and examining the internals of the engine. Just when we thought that the faults of the previous re-build were found we delved into the heads where there was a whole new batch of surprises. Most notable were the water jacket plugs where it was discovered that SAE steel plugs were used in lieu of the metric aluminum ones that should have been in there. Furthermore the 'FRESH' valve job had lash specs all over the place resulting in inconsistent wear patterns. Like all things before it, everything is being taken apart and being made perfect.

Modernizing the Dinoplex Ignition with help from a German friend

In life we all need some help from time to time. While we are pretty good at cleaning and painting parts one place we are totally useless is when it comes to electricity. Ohms, resistance, and impedance are all foreign terms for us and the only thing we know is that on an Italian car any electrical problem can be traced to a bad ground.

Luckily our fellow Dino friend Adrian from Germany held our hand through the process of updating the original Dinoplex ignition to modern Bosch internals. This is a much more reliable setup and, because it is totally hidden inside the original ignition case, it is impossible to know that the work has been done.

More information on this procedure can be found at: www.dinoplex.org and there are many more detailed photos at the following thread: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=276251&highlight=dinoplex

Thank you Adrian for your help and we are looking forward to seeing and hearing the ignition perform when we first fire up the engine.

Now for some before and after photos: