Now where did I put those keys?

Where else would I put the keys to my Ferrari 308? Why, on my Ferrari 308 key holder of course! There's an interesting story to this key holder. An FChatter was looking for a Ferrari key holder a while back. He couldn't find one, so he made do with some other key holder. In the meanwhile, his wife contacted a guy who made these things and convinced him to make a "Magnum P.I." key holder. Now the 308 holder is part of his inventory, all thanks to this FChatter's wife. It's been available since last year, but somehow I never got around to ordering one until now.



My first impression was holy smokes, this thing is huge! It's much larger than other key holders we have and bigger than I expected. The guy who makes and sells them is jd-knight on eBay. They come up for sale every now and again. A perfect gift for any 308 enthusiast!

The old "wet paper to remove the pilot bearing" trick

Back in March of 2010 (2 years ago!) when I replaced my clutch, I had a tough time removing the pilot bearing. I tried the grease trick, but all it did was make a big mess. I ended up using a puller to get the bearing out. I had hear after the fact that a pilot bearing can be removed using a punch and some wet paper. Well, I finally had the chance to try it out. I'm getting ready to put the SBC back in my GMC pickup and I needed to replace the pilot bushing before putting the new clutch on.



First, I shredded some newspaper and soaked it in warm water. I stuffed some in the pilot hole and used a piece of rebar (which was about the right size) as a punch. I alternated between hammering on the rebar and pushing more paper into the hole. Amazingly, it was working! I could feel the bushing get pushed out of the crankshaft hole. After what seemed like a lot of paper, the bushing fell out. Wow! I'd seen this done in a Youtube video, but now I'm a true believer.

On to more electrical stuff

Ok, on to some other small things I've been meaning to do. In the 308 dash panel, there are warning lights at each corner. These lights are in black plastic holders that are held on by plastic tabs. Over time, the plastic tabs get weak and can't hold the lights in the dash panel. All four of my lights were like this. I wrapped electrical tape around them, but it didn't really work that well. I found out that fellow F-chatter "sigmacars" owns a plastic molding company in Canada and he is reproducing these. They are exact duplicates of the original and they are cheap. So cheap that I bought a bunch of them in case I broke a few.



Installation is a breeze. Pull the old light holder out, pop out the colored lens and put the lens in the new holder. Reinstall the light holder and voila! Warning lights that actually stay in the dash!



Now that the weather is getting better and I'll be driving more, I decided I should finally install my keyless entry so I have a way to lock and unlock the car. As you'll recall, my original system flaked out and I bought a new Spal door lock kit and Viper keyless entry system. I installed the door locks a few months ago, but I didn't have a chance to put the keyless in yet. As it turns out, the Viper was a dud. The system is supposed to produce a negative pulse along one of two wires to trigger the power locks to lock/unlock. I bench tested the system and got no negative pulse. After futzing with it for a while, I tossed it aside and went back to my original Commando keyless entry system. It actually works fine with the Spal power door locks. Hurrah, now I can lock and unlock the car without using the key. Yes, the key does work, but not very well and I only want to use it as a backup in case the keyless fails.



After hooking everything up, I checked my current drain again. With the ignition off, my sources of drain are the clock, the stereo memory, power door locks and keyless entry. These add up to 28.6mA . It's a little more than my target of 25mA, but I guess I'll have to live with it.

Come on Sun, I know you're out there!

After being rained out for 6 consecutive weekends, we finally had our season opener of E@RTC two weeks ago. It was still overcast and darned cold in the morning but when the sun came out, it was glorious. What a turnout too! At one point, the organizers counted 180 cars, the most for a season opener. They reconfigured the parking as well so most of the cars are closer to the shopping area. I think they figure that people will show up early to see the cars, then stay to shop before leaving. Seems like a win-win for the gather and the shopping center.



There was a strong showing of 308s -- 4 total and a 328. Not in this photo was a late-comer '77 US model. I spent a lot of time talking to the owner as I had never seen a '77. It was a GTB which made it even cooler. I really like digging into the little details that change throughout the years and I learned a lot about the '77s.



I spent so much time hanging out on the Ferrari section and didn't get much of a chance to see the other cars. However, I did get to see 2 things many car guys have NEVER seen. How about a bright yellow Vector M12? Only 18 ever made (and one of them was recently destroyed in a fire).



Not impressed? How about a McLaren MP4-12C? That's some 627hp V12 goodness right there.



At the event, my buddy SM was getting a group together to go for a little drive. I had other things to do around the farm, but darn it, I needed to drive! GM, the owner of the Giallo Fly (that's yellow to normal folk) 308 decided to come along as well.



Turns out that this was a Ford Mustang crowd. We had 7 Mustangs of all years, 1 Chrysler 300, 2 308s and a Maserati. It was wonderful spending the rest of the day driving around in the North Cascades.

Last Saturday was rained out, but this weekend is looking ok. More sun! Less rain!