Engine buttoned up

Cam timing is set and engine is buttoned up

Prepping the headers

 One thing I definitely wanted done was to ceramic coat the headers. Originally, the headers were insulated with asbestos and wrapped with a thin aluminum shell. Mine were in rough shape and I wanted the insulation removed. His is another source of debate -- some people say that the bare headers will get too hot without the insulation while others say it's just fine as long as they're ceramic coated. I guess well find out how it goes.

The "sampling tubes" were also removed and plugged.

Distributor work

 My car was running Crane XR700 electronic ignition with pickups in each distributor. I decided to go with the Pertronix 9MR-183 kit to move the trigger to a single distributor. That makes setting the timing easier and I don't need to rely on both distributors advancing at exactly the same rate. 

The mechanical advance mechanism was seized -- the original grease had turned into a hard waxy substance. Both distributors needed to be disassembed, cleaned, lubed and reassembled.

New lines from front to back

 Another thing I wanted done was replacing the long heater hoses and AC lines that run the length of the car along the door sills. This was something I didn't do in 2009 and it needed to be done. My AC did not work and this was a good opportunity to just replace the lines and do a full R134a conversion. Not that it gets that hot around here but it will be really cool (no pun intended) to have air conditioning.

Water pump evaluation

When I had the water pump off in 2009, I debated whether to get it rebuilt, "just in case." I ended up not doing it at the time and David did not think it needed to be rebuilt now. It's a later model large bearing pump and appears to be in good shape. He'll replace the outer seal and call it a day.

Rear A-arm bushings

The lower outer mounting bolts of he rear A-arms were seized and needed to be cut off. Look at how trashed the original bushing is. The bolt is supposed to be centered in this hole!

Damaged rear suspension A-arm

Earlier David had to source a new rear swaybar link because the original was trashed. Turns out whatever took out the link also bent the swaybar mount on the lower A-arm. Rather than to take the chance with trying to fix this, we decided it was better to find a good used one.

Cam pulleys

 I had never been a big fan of the plastic cam pulleys on the early 308s. These have been known to come apart and having a cam pulley disintegrate will lead to a really bad day. Dinoparts makes these really nice adjustable aluminum pulleys. Not only are they amazing to look at, they are far superior to the OEM plastic ones and make timing the cams much easier.

 

Oh oh, scope screep...

 I was planning on getting a set of QA-1 coil overs and new springs at some point. In order to use the QA-1 on a 308,  they need a set of Verell's "paperweights" and shock adapter bushings. Verell is in MA, just a hop, skip and a jump from Ferrari Service of Bedford. Although I wasn't planning on spending the money to do this right now, it did make sense to do this all at once along with the other suspension work.

Heads installed

 Heads are installed. It's definitely looking like a whole engine again!

Rear suspension work

 In 2015, I replaced the worn out rubber A-arm bushings with polyurethane. The fronts are easy bit the rears are a little more complicated. I had talked to David about these bushings and since the car was already in pieces, I decided to have him do the work.

 

 

I had already replaced the bushings in the front swaybar links, and the rears needed to be replaced too. One of the links was trashed and it needed to be replaced.

Transaxle reassembly

 Some photos of the transaxle reassembly

Short block assembled

Pistons are all in and ready for head installation. These spacers are used to hold the cylinder liners in place as the crankshaft is rotated.