It's been a long cold winter so far

Is it just me, or does this seem to be the never-ending winter? By my count, we've only had one sunny dry weekend so far this year (last weekend) and unfortunately, I was busy with other things and could not get out to drive. I'd spend more time in the shop, but it's been so darned cold lately. My shop's not insulated so it gets absolutely frigid in there. I do have some space heaters, which takes the edge off though. I finally had a chance to clean up all the road grime from the New Year drive and I tended to the flaked off paint on the headlight louvers.



Some day, I'm going to take these things to a paint shop and just get them redone correctly. The louvers are aluminum and need special preparation to get good paint adhesion. I said someday, and that day has not come yet. Instead, I just did a quick and dirty partial respray. If you look closely, you can see what a bad job it was. However, from 10 feet away, it looks great.



So if the weather is too bad to drive and the shop is too cold to work in, what's a man to do? Buy parts, of course! Continuing my quest for an imitation tool kit, I scoured eBay until I found a set of wrenches in the correct sizes and for a price I was willing to pay. I found a set sold by the Tool Academy in the UK. They are Sealey brand, and the set of 8 double open ended spanners (wrenches to us Yanks) are 6-7, 8-9, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15, 16-17, 18-19, 20-22mm just like in the OEM tool kit. For the pouch, I was able to get an F-chatter to get me the OEM dimensions and I had a co-worker make me a new pouch out of black leather. My tool kit is coming along nicely. All I need now are the screwdrivers, pliers and a spark plug tool.



Another part of the OEM tool kit is the jack kit. This consists of a pouch, scissors jack, handle, and lug wrench. On the advise of another F-chatter, I picked up this lightweight aluminum jack and handle from a Porsche 944. I know, Porsche parts in a Ferrari! Criminal! But, I won't tell if you won't. There is one modification I need to make this jack functional though. I didn't realize at the time, but the Porsche jack doesn't have a flat contact surface. The top of the jack has a tapered oval that must lock in to a tapered hole under the car. I need to make some sort of adapter to make the jack top flat so it will work under the 308 since I don't have a Porsche hole.



Some other parts I got are some rubber trim bits for the targa hoop and for the rear quarter louvers, as well as these polyurethane A-arm bushings. The 32 year old OEM bushings under my car are trashed and these new bushings should tighten things back up. These bushings are from Energy Suspensions (part 13.3101G). The original bushings are cast in steel shells and the proper replacements need to be welded in. However, the 13.3101G is split and once the original is pressed out, can be installed without welding. When it warms up, I'll tackle this project.



Last weekend (while I was busy) was the start of the 2011 E@RTC season. I can't believe I missed it -- the weather was beautiful there was a large turnout. There was even an Enzo and a 599 GTO there! Not to be thwarted, I decided I was going today. The weather was still a little dicey with a chance of snow today. When I got up this morning, it was 20 degrees but my driveway was clear. I started up the car and when I was ready to back out, I noticed some snowflakes falling. Hmmm...the car was running, what to do? I wanted to at least let it get up to temperature before shutting it back down again so I decided to just go. It was barely snowing so how bad could it be?

It was a fun and mellow drive to RTC. The turnout was pretty low because of the weather. Still, I counted 5 Ferraris, 3 Lambos and a handful of Porsche, BMW and Maserati. Representing the American Muscle Car scene was a beat up yellow Chevy Nova, Here I am parked next to a matte black F430 Spyder. This car was not painted this way -- the matte black was actually a vinyl wrap and was done very well. Wrapping is really popular in the Nascar crowd and we're seeing it more and more for "normal" cars (if you can call the F430 a normal car). Parked next to him was the red 458 Italia I was drooling over last year. Later in the morning another 308 showed up and parked next to me.



Things broke up pretty quickly and everyone left. TK had told me earlier that it was snowing harder at our house so I was braced for slick roads on the way home. Thankfully, everything was clear except our sidestreet and driveway. I know what you're thinking, "you'll drive the 308 in the snow, but not the rain?"

Missing tools

One of the things that's always bugged me is that my car was missing the spare tire, owner's manual, tool roll and jack kit. I'm glad that the rest of the car was as complete as it was, but these are the little details that just make things complete. When I got my new wheels and tires, I was able to use one of the old ones as a spare so I'm good there. I'd like to find a set of original tools, but I've seen these things sell for as much as $1500--used! The pouch itself goes for $300! Yeow! The wrenches and screwdrivers that came in them are pretty cheesy and the original pouch was vinyl. Rather than break the bank to get a set of original tools, I figured I'd just make do with something that looks somewhat original.

The early 308 tool roll is supposed to contain a set of metric open end wrenches, a few screwdrivers, a spark plug wrench, a pair of pliers and something known as a "carb tool." I've done a lot of searching, but no one seems to know what this mysterious carb tool is. It's a small tool that can fit in the palm of your hand. It's shaped like a cross and it has hex ends on either end. There's been a lot of talk on F-chat about this tool but no one seems to know what it's used for. I brought up the subject again and finally we figured it out. It's an 8mm hex wrench for loosening the nuts that hold the carb air horns on. That's the only thing that makes sense since there are no other 8mm hex fasteners on the carbs. I looked at pictures of the original tool again and something dawned on me. I've seen a tool like that before. In fact, I OWN a tool like that. I ran out to the shop and started digging around in my old random bicycle stuff and there it was.



I've had this wrench for at least 25 years. It came with my first pair of clipless pedals. The wrench was used to tighten the cleat onto the bottoms of my shoes. I measured the hex and sure enough, it is 8mm. I opened the 308's bonnet, removed the air cleaner cover and voila! The wrench is a perfect fit. The shaft is even a small enough diameter to fit perfectly in the cutout at the top of the air horn.



Most people use either a deep socket (I do) or a nut driver to remove the air horns. I don't know that I'd ever use my new-found tool for this job, but it's certainly a good start to assembling my own nearly-original tool roll. A few months ago, a co-worker made me a tool pouch from black leather and it looks like the real deal. Now I need to find some wrenches and screwdrivers that are reasonable facsimiles. I'll probably end up buying an original spark plug tool though. That's a piece that's exactly the right size and length with a u-joint in just the right spot to reach down into the spark plug holes.

That's just the tool roll...then onto the jack kit, which is also missing...

New year's resolution to clean

A few days ago, a '78 308 GTS popped up on eBay. Starting bid was $30K with a buy it now price of $35K. The seller had a nice walk-through video showing how clean the car was. Of course, someone posted it on F-Chat and there was lots of discussion on the good and bad and pricing. Anyhow, I showed the video to TK and asked how my car compared. She said that it was no comparison. The eBay car was WAY better than mine and that the difference was "day and night." She even said that it was "embarrassing to be in a nice car that was filthy." What? Ok, I agree that the eBay car was very very clean. Up to this point, I've not done all that much for the looks of the car other than a session with the polisher and some spot cleaning here and there. There're a lot of places that need to be cleaned and freshened up with paint. Still, night and day?

Now that the car has been mostly sorted out, I'm going to spend time this year to really clean and detail. I do have some mechanical stuff to tend to (suspension bushings), but my resolution for 2011 will be to detail and to drive more. Of course driving more means more dirt, which will mean more cleaning. What a cycle!

And now for something completely different

In case you were wondering, YES I did end up going for a drive on New Year's Day. It was a short drive to meet some motorcycle buddies at a Bigbucks 10 miles from home. We talked about motorcycle trips for 2011 over a cup of overpriced and underflavored coffee. The weather has been about the same for the past few days. Clear, sunny and cold cold cold. I'm getting tired of looking at the compact snow and ice in my yard. It's supposed to rain before the week is out so hopefully, it'll wash all the ice away.

Ok, on to something different today. On my way home today, I thought about (of all things) Fair Scones. Huh? You know, those tasty jam filled baked goodies from the fair? I thought about the $10 box of Fair Scone mix I saw once at a store and figured there's got to be a recipe somewhere. When I got home, I consulted the Oracle (my Droid2) and sure enough, the recipe is a well-known secret. This recipe was printed back in a 1930's Fisher Cookbook and the folks at the fair pump about about 80,000 per day.

It's a pretty simple recipe:

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons shortening
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup raisins (if you are omitting the raisins, add another 2 Tablespoons of milk)

Check out this site for the complete text on putting it all together.



Not too bad for a first attempt. I even got the TK nod of approval!

Snow can't stop the last drive of the year

Earlier this week, we got hit with about 5 inches of snow. Much of it melted right away, but the temperature in the last few days has been pretty low so the snow has been hanging around the yard even though most of the roads are clear. Even though it was very cold, the skies were clear today and the sun was shining so TK and I decided to take one last drive of the year. As you can imagine, I was a little tentative as I pulled the 308 out of the garage onto the crunchy snow in our driveway.



Once we got out on to the main road, everything was fine. Some of the shaded side roads were still a little dicey as there were still clumps of compact snow and ice here and there. TK had to remind me to "cool my jets" along some of the shaded twisty roads. We ran a few errands, then headed East to Duvall for lunch.



On our way back, we stopped off at a friend's barn to catch part of her riding lesson. She made a comment about how they knew we were coming because they heard a rumble coming up the drive. Hmmm...maybe that Stebro exhaust is just a little too loud?



Happy new year!

Filters by Baldwin

Even if I can't drive, I can still get parts. I'm coming up on an oil change soon so I got a couple of oil filters and an air filter.



These filters are made by Baldwin (B253 oil and PA2094 air), which is a different brand than the UFI oil filter I am currently using. The 308 engine has the oil filter on top, which means that it uses a special filter design. Any filter used on this engine must have an internal stand pipe, which keeps oil from draining out of the filter when the engine isn't running. Most 308 folks use either UFI or Baldwin filters, even though Fram, Mobile and others make them. I have heard horror stories and seen pictures of Fram filters collapsing. Also, I heard that a number of UFI filters exploded after a design flaw many years back.

Baldwin has an interesting story. They've been around since 1936 and they mainly make filters for commercial applications so they're not really well known in the public automotive industry. Most people have never heard of them because you don't see their name on the filter shelf at your local auto parts store. Rumor has it that J.A. Baldwin and Enzo Ferrari were friends back in the old days. Baldwin owned a Ferrari (rumored 275GTB4 or a Daytona) which he kept at the plant. They continue to make great filters for many Ferrari models. The funny thing is that Baldwin filters are available at most truck stops, and even though most don't stock it, you can have them order up a Ferrari filter for you! I got mine from Associated Diesel and while I was ordering, I got a Baldwin T-shirt as well.

Counting down to 2011

It's been quiet in my hometown...not much going on on the car front. I think my chances of taking the 308 out again this year are almost nil. It's supposed to snow again later this week so the car will just have to wait some more.

TK and I had a pretty good holiday. We weren't hosting this year and as a result, we had to log quite a few miles to get to all the family functions. Christmas Eve was at my uncle's place this year. We had a gift exchange and look at this cool carbon fibre money clip I got!



Since hoodies seem to be all the rage, my mom decided to knit hoodies for all her "grand-dogs". My dog doesn't quite know what to do with hers.

The last drive of 2010?

It was supposed to rain all weekend, but somehow it managed to stay dry today and the sun even came out for a while. We had a windstorm earlier in the week and a tree came down in one of our front pastures. No damage, but I wanted to work on cleanup while it was dry and daylight. I worked on it for a few hours before giving up. It was far too nice a day to spend on yard chores. TK even sneaked out to ride her horse and I was feeling the need to exercise mine. There were a few hours of daylight left so I took the opportunity for a little drive. First stop was to get some peppermint extract and Hershey's Kisses from the grocery store (big Xmas cookie baking session). After getting the supplies, I took the long way home dropping down into the valley along some rural county roads. I could have stayed out a lot longer, but the sun was getting low in the sky and I needed to get back. The car ran great as usual and the drive definitely improved my mood.

Will I get another chance to drive before the end of the year?

NW Toy Run 2010

Finally, a nice sunny day when the roads are dry! Today was also the 7th annual NW Toy Run. It's a yearly event to raise money and collect toys for Toys for Tots. TK and I rounded up a bag of toys and drove down in the 308. There was a pretty good layer of frost on the ground this morning but the sun came out and it was a beautiful day.



The collection site was a local raceway, which has a big parking lot. Some people came in, dropped their toys and left while others parked and just hung out. We stayed for a few minutes and walked around the lot to see some of the other cars. Most of the people there were the "fast and furious" crowd with their outrageously lowered, stretched tires and obscene camber angles. I got a good laugh at a few of the cars. Still, it was a good event for a good cause. Over 1200 cars showed up and the event raised $3500 for Toys for Tots and collected a 27' trailer full of toys.

When we got back to the car, I noticed something strange about one of the headlight louvers. I had known that the paint on the aluminum louver was starting to flake off and apparently the drive down had caused a large section to take flight. What I saw was a big patch of bare aluminum on one of the slats.



When I got home, I realized a large section of paint from the other headlight louver also took flight. At least I have bare aluminum now on both sides to match! I knew I'd have to get these things repainted so I guess this is the time. I'll wait until it warms up a little in the Spring and repaint both louvers. On the later US cars, the louvers are anodized black and many early car louvers have been painted or power coated back. I think I'll stick with the original and paint it body-color rather than switching to black.

20% is still too risky for me

When it comes to the 308, I'm a weather weenie. I freely admit it. I haven't taken her out in the rain and I don't really intend to. Here's why:

1) In 1978, no one gave any thought to rust-proofing. Ferrari didn't start using rust-proofing until about 1985. A lot of the older cars like mine had a bare minimum of sprayed-on undercoating which didn't offer much protection.

2) When I put the rear quarter windows back in, I didn't seal them like I had planned. I have a tube of 3M window sealant, but it's sitting on a shelf. I know that I'll get a heck of a leak in the rain.

3) Rain make a car dirty. Yes, I know. It seems trivial but this is a big deal. As much as I'd love to have all the time in the world to clean my car, this is not the case.

4) Surprisingly, the car has very little rust and I'd like to keep it that way. Water has a way of working it's way down to the lowest crevices in doors and panels where cancel begins.



This is what the weekend forecast looks like. It looks an awful lot like last weekend's forecast and probably the next one too. Doesn't look like I'll get much driving done.

Interior switches all match now

I feel better now. I spent a little time in the shop this weekend installing that antenna switch so it would match the others. Good riddance to that stupid knob switch.

The original switches are held on by a lock ring. The lock ring is completely round and has two small notches in the face. I assume that there is a special tool somewhere that mates with this ring, but I certainly don't have it. I decided to make a tool out of some scrap aluminum so I could tighten the ring.



I used aluminum because it's easy to work with and it's soft enough to not harm the chrome plating on the ring. A bit of cutting and filing and it was ready to go. My homemade tool worked perfectly and I was able to get the new antenna switch installed.



While I was at it, I removed the lock rings from the other three switches so I could replace the aluminum plate underneath. Several months ago, I bought a used plate that still had the switch markings on them. The markings on my plate were gone and it was nice to put the new plate on. My antenna switch plate is blank and I'll be good to replace that one too someday.

Just look at that bank of switches. A row of matching, Mickey Mouse ear goodness!

Finally, a chance to hit the road

We've had a break in the weather and I took the opportunity to drive the 308 in to work today. I actually took a short drive last night to bring the fluids up to temperature and bleed the cooling system. Generally after the system is opened, you need to spend some time bleeding all the air out. When I got back last night, I opened the radiator bleed screw and got a little air out. Checking the coolant expansion tank this morning, the coolant level looked good and the temperature was good at 190 degrees F. When I get home tonight, I'll crack the bleed screw again to check for air. The engine seems to be running well and I'm enjoying driving every chance I get.



Sitting side by side with other cars, you can really tell just how small a 308 is.

Obsessing about a switch

Yes, I've been obsessing. I could care less about some things, but I'm absolutely crazy about others. One thing that I really like about the 308 interior is the old school toggle switches. These switches with the black plastic "Mickey Mouse" ear toggles are incredibly cool and it really bothers me that someone replaced the antenna switch with a stupid push-pull knob.



I've searched high and low for an original switch. I got a replacement from Superformance in the UK, but it wasn't right. Functionally, it was just like the original, but it didn't look right. I got another 3-position switch which was made by Lucas (same as the original) for a Triumph motorcycle, but it didn't look right either. Finally, I decided to live with a standard 2-position switch which was more readily available. I've given up on the originality of the 3-position antenna switch controlling a semi-automatic antenna and I'm going to use this 2-position switch controlling a full-automatic antenna. It may not be 100% correct, but it will look right on the console.

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.