More parts

I think this is the last of it for now. Timing belts, tensioners, water pump gasket, o-rings, oil filter and spark plug wire boots...



There's probably some other things yet to get, but this should get me started.

Parts arriving daily

Hey it's like Christmas. My new fuel lines, coolant lines and new stainless steel hose clamps are here. The blue hoses are silicone coolant lines. These lines come from someplace in Europe and for some strange reason, and all the US distributors only carry them in blue! It was a 4-6 week wait for a "special order" in black. Oh well, I can live with blue I guess.



These other ones are the special fuel lines from Dave Helms at Scuderia Rampante in Colorado. Dave's done some crazy research on fuels and what they do to fuel lines. Basically, all the Ethanol in today's gas will eat through a rubber fuel line pretty quickly. Dave's had some large lines (for the tank crossover and the fuel filler) made with a Nomex/Arimid covering, silicone body and a liner designed for today and tomorrow's fuels. Hopefully, I won't need to replace these again anytime soon.



I ended up just buying an entire hose kit from Dave. It came with high quality SAE30R9 hose in the smaller diameters plus all the hose clamps. I also got a bunch of stainless steel clamps for the coolant lines.

Tank out

I got another 2+ gallon can and this time go to drain the tank the easier way. I removed the wheelwell liner from the driver's side of the car to access the fuel pump. I pulled the supply line from the tank (which is only about 3/8") and slowly drain the rest of the tank. Once empty, I remove the two metal straps holding the right fuel tank, disconnect all the connection hoses and wiggle out the tank.



With the tank out, there's all kinds of room to maneuver in there. I loosen the alternator, remove the belt and unbolt the A/C compressor. After sitting for almost 20 years, all the freon has leaked from the system so it's easier to just unhook the A/C lines. A few more bolts and I've got the cam covers off as well as the water pump. Now all I need are the timing belts and the tensioner bearings.

Tight, real tight

I start on the front end disassembly by draining some of the coolant. There is a petcock in the block hiding below the rear exhaust manifold. The reason for draining coolant is because I need to disconnect the coolant tube that's right in front of everything. After that, I turn to removing the accessory drive belt. This car has two belts -- one driving the A/C and the other driving the water pump and alternator. To start, the alternator belt needs to be removed. Ok, problem number one. How do I reach the alternator hold down bolt?



It may LOOK like there's a lot of room, but there's not. The passenger's side fuel tank is right next to the alternator. There's no way I can get my arm in there to loosen the mounting nut, which is facing toward the inside of the car. I guess the next step is to drain and remove the fuel tank. Not too big of a deal -- there's 20 year old gas in there and they need to be drained anyway.

The Ferrari 308 has two fuel tanks, one on each side of the car. There is a crossover pipe under the car that connects the two tanks. The total tank capacity I think is about 16 gallons, but I have no idea how much is in the tanks. I have about 5 gallons of holding capacity in plastic gas cans and I hope it's enough.

The crossover pipe has a large drain bolt at the lowest point. I decide (foolishly as I would later determine) to drain the tanks using this bolt. The drain hold is about 3/4" and fuel flows pretty quickly from a hole this size. In hindsight, it would have been much wiser to just pull a fuel hose at the fuel pump and drain it that way from the much smaller line. Anyhow, after spilling gas all over the place, I quickly fill all the cans and there's more fuel left in the car. Guess I'll go get another gas can to drain the rest.

Off the ground

At this point, I realize I need to raise the car onto jackstands. I need to access the front of the engine, which means removing the right rear wheel and wheelwell liner.



The inner wheelwell liner is made of fiberglass, and it's held in by a handful of bolts. After removing the bolts, it takes a bit of gymnastics to get the thing out of the wheelwell. After removal, the front of the engine is visible.



The silver pipe in front is a coolant line. Most cars have molded rubber lines in the entire cooling system. This car has a bunch of thin-wall aluminum piping that's connected by short pieces of rubber hose. In fact, the only molded hose is a 90 degree bend at the top of the radiator. From this angle, it doesn't look bad. Unbolt the A/C compressor, remove the accessory belts and the cam covers and the timing belts will be easy to reach.

Disassembly

With parts on the way, I'm starting to disassemble the components on the top and front of the engine. To get to all the coolant hoses, I need to remove the carburators. Well, I don't know that for sure, but it'll make things a lot easier. Here's a shot with two of the carbs removed. As you can see, there is quite a bit of corrosion around that upper coolant hose. What you can't see here is that there is another coolant hose, tucked away out of reach down below the visible hose.



I discovered that there's an order to removal (and assembly) of the carbs. In order to reach certain nuts, you need to have certain carbs out of the way. I took photos along the way so I know how they go back on.

After removing what I could on top, I turned my attention to the front of the engine. I will be replacing the timing belts as well, which means removing the engine belts and A/C compressor. While I'm at it, I'll remove the water pump and perhaps have it rebuilt. The water pumps are notorious for crapping out and they recommend a rebuild or replacement with each timing belt service. Why? Because you can't get to the pump without removing almost everything off the front of the engine anyway.

Parts on the way!

Ok, I've placed my first round of parts orders. Here's what I've got coming:

- Oil filter
- gaskets and o-rings (water pump, cam covers)
- silicone coolant hoses
- fuel hose kit
- stainless steel hose clamps

I also had to go buy some more tools. I needed a 36mm socket for the crankshaft bolt as well as a new breaker bar (broke the old one). At some point, I need to get some engine oil, coolant and spark plugs too.

Todo list #1

Well, it's both a todo list and a to-buy list. Here's what I figure I need to do in order to get the engine running.

1) Replace coolant hoses
2) Replace fuel hoses
3) Replace timing belts and tensioners
4) Get new battery
5) Change all fluids

Because the engine is in the back and the radiator is in the front, the cooling system in this car has many long runs. It's interesting because there is only one molded hose (a 90 degree elbow). The rest of the hose pieces are straight. This is because most of the pipes are bent aluminum tubes with short pieces of hose to connect them. This is good (sort of) because I don't need to go looking for all these special molded hoses. On the flip side, this is bad because there are no less than ten of these short pieces and of course they are in really difficult to reach places.

I've been reading a lot on fuel hoses. Obviously, I don't want to replace the hoses again anytime real soon so I want to use good quality hoses. There seems to be some debate on what is the best thing to use. Today's fuel contains Ethanol, and will destroy a garden-variety rubber fuel hose pretty quickly. This car has two fuel tanks and they are connected by an aluminum crossover pipe and short sections of fuel line. These sections take a punishment and you definitely don't want to have a blowout. After hearing good things, I turned to Dave Helms at Scuderia Rampante Ferrari in Boulder, CO. He's got a fuel line with a Nomex/Arimid covering, silicone body and a liner designed for today and tomorrow's fuels.

Care of the timing belts on these cars is absolutely critical. These are interference engines, which means that if a timing belt fails, the valves will have a close encounter with the pistons. The recommended replacement period is 3 years or 30,000 miles. Some people replace them every 15,000 miles. I figure it's cheap insurance. Spending $200 in parts is better than a $10,000 engine rebuild. This car's been in storage for almost 20 years so I am at least 17 years overdue for a belt change.

Supposedly, this car ran fine before it went into storage. I'm going to start with replacing just the hoses, fluids, battery and timing belts. After that, put it back together and try to start it. If it runs, great! If not, cry, then deal with it.

Finally, enough space to start working

When we brought home the 308, I didn't have space in my shop to work on it. One side was taken up my OTHER car project (an old VW) and my BMW R75/5 motorcycle was taking up most of the other side. In order to have enough space, I had to find a place to put the Beemer and the VW had to scoot over. Meanwhile, I had to give another car the boot out of the main garage for the 308. After a few weeks of work, I finally had enough space and TK and I pushed the 308 out of the main garage and into the shop.

Once the 308 was in the shop, I was able to finally get a good look at it. One of the first things I notice about this car is how working space is at a premium. I go to pull the air cleaner cover off to see the tops of the carbs. So far so good. I then go to pull the air filter off -- WTF?? There's not enough room between the engine hatch and the air cleaner base to get the filter out? I can't believe it, I need to pull the rear hatch off to replace the air filter?

This is a 2-person job so with TK's help, we undo the six mounting bolts which hold the hatch. The hatch itself is remarkably light -- the two of us are able to handle it pretty easily. It's now stashed on a side of the garage covered in blankets. Hopefully, it won't sit there for long and it can go back on the car really soon.

Ok! Room (again) to work! I remove the air cleaner base and can get a good look at the top of the engine. Aside from a lot of dust, it looks ok. There's some corrosion around the thermostat and water pump connections and the carbs have some streaks on the sides like something's leaked in the past.



Guess I'll start making my todo list now!

First, a bit of history

In 1978, 2 Saudi Arabian brothers bought this 308 GTS new at Grand Prix Motors in Seattle (now called Ferrari of Seattle). The brothers had it serviced it there for any years and starting in the mid-80's they started bringing it to a British-Italian auto shop on Capitol Hill.

Around 1990, they decided to paint the car and had the owner/operator of the auto shop take the car apart for painting. Supposedly, it was running and driving normally at that time. Another local guy painted the car and did an OK driver-level job. The shop owner started putting the car back together and it sort of dragged on. I'm sure the words, "take your time, I'm not in a big hurry" were said at some point. Meanwhile, the two owner/brothers had moved back to the Middle East to count their millions and were not exactly pushing to finish the car. At one point around 1994 or so, the shop owner contacted the owners and said, "hey you guys have a big bill here what are we going to do?" The brothers replied "Merry Christmas" and said to keep the car and wipe out the bill.


The car then went in covered, indoor storage in various places around Cap Hill for the next several years waiting to be worked on. It sat for many more years. Eventually, the car moved 5 years ago to Sun Valley, ID and he passed along his shop space to KR. KR knew about the 308 in storage and tried over the years to buy it. Eventually, in early 2009, he was successful and the car came into KR's care. Under years of dust, the car is surprisingly good condition. A few months go by and KR realizes he doesn't want to devote that much of his life to get this car back on the road.

In mid-2009, I posted a message on a Ferrari forum that I was looking for a 308. Ideally, I wanted one in running good shape. KR saw my post and even though I didn't say I was looking for a project, he figured he'd give it a shot. Honestly, I really didn't need ANOTHER project. However, this was too good to pass up.

The latest addition to our stables

One day after my birthday, TK and I go to visit KR at his shop on Cap Hill. We're going to look at a 1978 Ferrari 308 that's been sitting in storage since 1990-ish. He had already washed off years of dust from the exterior and it still looks pretty good. We struck a deal and the next thing we know, the 308 is being loaded onto a flatbed and I'm riding shotgun on the way home.

Here is where our story begins. Follow along on my journey to bring this car back to life.