Waiting for a nice day

The 308 is back on four wheels. Below is a good shot from the wheelwell opening where you can barely see the front of the alternator. After the alternator, I needed to hook up the coolant line again and refill the cooling system. While the sounds like a pretty simple task, it's actually a bit involved. Because the 308 radiator is in the front and the engine in the back, there is a lot of plumbing. When I filled the system before, I used over 5 gallons of coolant. I only partially drained the system but it still took almost three gallons. Also, because there is so much plumbing, all the air needs to be bled. There is a bleed screw in the thermostat housing and one at the radiator. Both of these need to be opened to make sure all the air is out. It generally takes a few bleed cycles to get all the air out so I'll need to check for air the next few times I run the engine.



The other thing I wanted to work on was the antenna. This car originally had a semi-automatic antenna. This was operated by a separate three-position switch on the console. Not all power antennas are the same. An automatic antenna has two wires. One requires a constant 12 volts and the other is the control; when the control wire gets power, the antenna goes up. When power is switched off, the antenna goes down. A semi-automatic antenna also has two wires, but each wire controls direction. When one wire is powered and the other grounded, the antenna goes up. When the wire is grounded and the other powered, the antenna goes down. The original switch reversed the polarity to make the antenna go up and down. Somewhere in the past, both the original antenna and the original switch were swapped out. However, it was never hooked up correctly and the antenna didn't work.



Apparently, semi-automatic antennas are really hard to find these days. Because of the somewhat complex wiring, nearly everyone uses fully automatic antennas. I bought a pair on eBay a while back, but I found out today that they're trashed and unusable. The original antenna switch is also impossible to find so I decided to just make do with what I've got. I opened up the console to get to the back of the replacement switch. Modifying the wiring ended up being pretty simple. I just split the power lead to feed the antenna as well as the switch. Now the antenna goes up and down so I'll actually get some radio reception.

It's been raining cats and dogs so I'm still grounded for now. I hope it stops soon!

Alternator's back

I got my alternator back, just in time for the rain. A local shop replaced the bearings, brushes and regulator and checked the windings. Supposedly, it tests out ok so I should be good to go. However, even if I get the car back together, the weather forecast is for rain all weekend so I won't be doing any driving this weekend. Bummer.

Alternator being rebuilt

I found a local place last week that rebuild alternators and starters. It's a one-man show and the shop was absolutely chock full of starters and alternators. Even the floor was covered with them. He put mine on the test machine and while output seemed OK, I figured it prudent to get it completely rebuilt anyway. Since access is such a PITA, there's no way I'm putting a possibly flaky alternator back in. The guy told me my alternator had been rebuilt in the past, probably by a now-defunct local company called Start-Mart. They were notorious for only replacing the bare minimum of parts, then repainting the entire unit so it "looked new." My entire alternator had been painted silver and even though it's a Bosch, the voltage regulator was some cheapy replacement. I feel confident it's in good hands and I'm looking forward to getting up and running again.

Hurrah, alternator is out!

After consulting with the experts on F-chat, I found a way to solve my problem. The alternator is actually mounted on a bracket that is bolted to the engine block and is held on with two nuts. I was able to get a stubby wrench in there, but I wasn't able to get enough leverage to get the nuts loose. My inner McGuyver kicked in and I rigged up an old auto-body slide hammer to bump the wrench and loosen the nut.



With the alternator free, I needed to disconnect the wiring. Fortunately, the wires are just long enough to turn the alternator around to get to the back. I removed a heat shield, disconnected the wires and wiggled the alternator out. Now to find a local shop to rebuild this thing!

The Italians are laughing at me now

I had said before that the 308 clutch was the easiest to replace of all the cars I've worked on. Well, the 308 also makes up for that ease by having EVERYTHING ELSE impossibly difficult.

Take the alternator, for instance. My charge warning light was coming on and I figured I should probably get my alternator looked at before it completely crapped out and left me stranded somewhere. I've been dreading getting back down to the alternator. The last time I only had to loosen the belt to get to the timing belts. This time, I would have to completely remove it. I put the car on jackstands again and pulled off the right rear wheel and wheelwell liner. Deep down in the bowels, nestled next to the fuel tank was my nemesis. The darned alternator.



Working on this car is like the "knee bone's connected to the leg bone" song. To get access to the alternator, the aluminum coolant pipe needs to be partially disconnected and swung out of the way. Well, in order to do that, the coolant has to be partially drained through a petcock in the rear cylinder bank. After that, the pipe needed to be unhooked from the thermostat housing. And where is that, do you ask? Why, it's under the air cleaner snorkel! Which means loosening up the engine cover to get to the air cleaner, then removing the carb trumpets, then...then...then...urgh!

Finally, after draining over a gallon of coolant and making a ruddy mess, I get to the point of loosening the alternator mounting bolts. I thought I was so smart last time in reversing the top mounting bolt so I could get to it easier the next time. Well, all the bolts loosened easily. I started to drive the lower pivot bolt through when...it would move no more. Huh? I stuck my hand back there to see what was going on and I could not believe it. It seems that the dipstick tube is keeping the bolt from sliding all the way out of the alternator mounting hole. What the heck?



That's when I called it a night. I can just see it now -- two old Italians hanging out in a cafe in Italy. "Hey, Giuseppe what fun we had putting those Ferrari engines together! Just wait til some stupid American tries to work on it! Hah!"

My car is trying to tell me something again

The weather has been nice again so I've been taking advantage where possible. I drove the 308 to work one day last week and again yesterday. On the freeway on the way home, the alternator warning light came on at about 3500rpm. I increased the revs but the light stayed on. Hmmm...not good. After a few minutes of changing engine speed, the light went off. Then it flicker on a little, then eventually turned off for good and it didn't come on again the rest of the way home.

Now I'm trying to figure out what to do. I suspect that the alternator is on it's last legs, but I don't know that for sure. The battery is less than a year old so I don't think that's the problem. Since the alternator is a PITA to get to, I don't really want to pull it to get tested. If I pull it, it'll be to replace it with a new one. Now comes the research to figure out what alternator will work. The "proper" one from a Ferrari parts place is almost $500!

A new place to go on a Saturday morning?

I found out last night that Griot's Garage has started hosting a "caffine and gasoline" event on the first Saturday of each month. It's a bit of a drive for me, but I figured I'd try a new venue other than RTC.



The difference between this event and E@RTC is that there was a much more diverse crowd at Griot's. In addition to the handful of Ferraris and Porsches, there were Corvettes, a few hopped up Audis and a 280Z that was so clean, you could eat off the engine. I got there later in the morning and I think a lot of people had already left.



I've visited Griot's new facility before and one of the really cool things is to see what cars Richard Griot has on display. The man owns LOTS of really cool cars and his newest toy is this 1966 Ford GT40. They fired this thing up and the sound was absolutely amazing. Have a listen here.