Working brake lights!

The easiest way to get my brake lights working again would have been to buy the OEM brake light switch. However, the plastic of the original one seemed pretty cheesy and I wanted one that wouldn't melt quite as easily. I don't know if it's any better, but I found one made by Painless Performance. These guys make wiring harnesses and components for mostly old American muscle cars, but it seemed like this switch would work. It's rated 20 amp and besides, I really like the name of their company. As if wiring is painless...



Anyhow, you can see the new switch is quite a bit shorter than the original. Also, the threads on the body are not the same so I had to make a few modifications. First, I used a 12mm x 1.75 die to cut new threads so it matched the original. No big deal because it's plastic and the die cut pretty easily. The second is I needed to extend the plunger so the length is correct. Strangely, the white plastic of the old switch is the same as white plastic plunger in the new switch. I simply drilled a hole in the new plunger tip, and stuck the old plunger in it. A little heat from my micro-torch to fuse the plastic together and voila! The new switch is now a perfect replacement for the old one.



With a little more contorting to get back under the dash and some adjustment of the switch position, I now have working brake lights!

New fuel pump and now I know why my lights are flaky

Every now and again, my fuel pump would make a horrible screeching sound. It was intermittent, and would only last a few seconds. I decided that before I drive this car, I should replace the pump before it dies completely. The original one is NLA and a number of people on F-Chat said a Pierburg pump was a good replacement. It's actually listed as a replacement for a carb'd Porsche 911.



It is quite a bit different than the OEM one. The fuel flow is from one end to the other whereas the original was in and out the side at the bottom. Good thing I had some extra fuel line for the new configuration. Installation was pretty straightforward. There is no longer a screeching noise from the back and the new pump is about as loud as the old one.



On to the next thing. I figured out why my brake lights didn't work. After contorting myself to get under the dash, I removed the brake switch from the pedal. The thing is plastic with a crimped metal band to hold the pieces together. After pulling it apart, I could see that the plastic had melted around the contacts and the switch plunger had basically fused itself to the switch body. It's not fixable so I'll have to source a replacement. Hopefully, I can find one that's not plastic.



I took a closer look at my headlight switch too. The headlights went up and down as they should, but the low beams didn't always work and now I know why. The headlight stalk is cracked at the base, right near the pivot point. These are NLA as well, although Verell at the Unobtainium Supply Company will cast a new one. The repair will be stronger than the original one. I need to pull the steering wheel hub off, which of course takes a special tool.



It doesn't seem like it, but the todo list is slowly getting shorter. Done today:

- Put driver's door lock mechanism and door latch back together
- Put hood back on
- Replaced remaining relays
- Replaced fuel pump
- Cleaned and lubricated driver's window mechanism

I didn't get any pictures, but I removed and disassembled the power window assembly per Birdman's instructions. The window is a little faster, but not much. Next will be to install some relays in the wiring which will reduce the voltage drop to the motor.

Chasing down those electrical gremlins!

I got another step further in chasing down my electrical problems. The first thing I did was to install my Birdman Fuse Blocks. As I mentioned in a previous post, the OEM fuse blocks are a weak point on these cars. Birdman has replacements that are reported to fix a lot of things. In addition to the fuse blocks, I also replaced about half the relays (the other half are in transit). While I was messing around down there, I found and removed an old Blaupunkt 120 watt stero amplifier. Who knows if it still works, but I have no interest anyway in much of a stereo system for this car. The sweet music from the engine will be enough.



After I did this, the fuel pump started working again, as if by magic. However, not so magical, is that an intermittent high pitched squealing sound is coming from the pump. The sound seems to only be there right when I turn the key. After a few seconds, the returns to a normal pump sound. I'll probably replace it anyway, just in case.

Another thing I worked on was reassembling the left headlight. A while back, I noticed that the left ventilation fan (which is strangly located under the headlight) was not attached to anything. I pulled out the headlight assembly to remove the blower fan. The mounting tabs for the fan were broken, and it looks like not the first time.



The original plastic mounting tabs had broken off, and someone in the past riveted some sheet metal ears over the broken tabs. The sheet metal ears then broke off. I made some beefier ears from 16 gauge sheet metal and riveted them on. Hopefully, this fix will last longer than the last one. I put the headlight back on and they too work. Before, the headlight motors worked sporadically. Now both lights go up and down as they should. The remaining problem with the headlights is that the low beam only works when I jiggle the light switch. I'll need to have a closer look at the switch the next chance I get.

The last thing I worked on was the power windows. I found two window switches in the box-o-parts (the car needs three) and I hooked two of them up on the driver's side. I had heard that the power windows on these cars were slow and boy were they right. I mean, the windows are not only slow -- they are RIDICULOUSLY slow. Apparently, one of the main problems is in the lengthy ground path for the motors. There is a company that makes window accelerators for this car and I'll probably get one of those as well.

Brake bleeding the easy way and a mystery

I just finished with the fastest brake bleeding session I've ever had. Years ago, I went in with my cousin on the purchase of a pressurized brake bleeder made by Motive Products. This thing makes single-man brake bleeding a breeze. You attach the hose to the brake fluid reservior, fill the jar with clean fluid and pressurize to 10psi. The you go around to each brake caliper, attach a short bleeder hose and open the bleeder screw. The pressurized container pushes fluid through the system -- no more pumping the pedal! I think the whole thing took 30 minutes, and that was twice around the car! The brake pedal now feels firm like it should.



Ok, that's the good part. Here's the mystery:

When I was running the car, I noticed that the brake lights were on. I figured that the brake light switch was on the master cylinder and the lack of fluid made the car think the brakes were on so the lights were on. Well, after the brakes were bled, I stepped on the pedal and the brake lights did not come on. Hmmm...strange. I then turned the key, expecting the fuel pump to come on. Hmmm...no fuel pump. What the heck? I know these cars have electrical gremlins but come one! Maybe it's just coincidence, but why would the fuel pump stop working after I fill the brake system? It's getting late so this little electrical puzzle will have to wait for another day.

It's alive!

After another busy weekend, I am happy to report that the engine does indeed run!

I got my radiator back from the shop on Thursday and finished hooking up the cooling system this morning. Good thing I picked up a lot of coolant because the system took about 5 gallons to fill. I was, however, disappointed that the radiator cap I got does not fit.





After filling and bleeding the cooling system, I changed the oil and installed the new filter. While I was under the car, I checked for coolant leaks and didn't find any. I added a few gallons of fuel and waited. Ok, no fuel leaks. I turned the key to get the fuel pump running. Ok, still no fuel leaks. Pump the gas pedal a few times, turn the key and...



Ok, so it didn't happen quite like that. The engine did start right away, but didn't run very well. It wouldn't stay running unless the choke was on and it would die right away if I touched the gas pedal at all. However, after it ran for a few minutes, I was able to turn off the choke and rev the engine. At one point when I was sitting in the driver's seat reving the engine, TK comes up and says, "do you have a fire extinquisher?" I say, "why yes, I do!" At that moment, she screams, "good cause you're gonna need it!" and a big white cloud rises from the engine bay. I immediately shut off the ignition and jump out of the car. Turns out it was nothing serious. Since I didn't have the correct coolant cap, I left the expansion tank open. As the engine warmed up, the coolant burped and came out the tank. Since the expansion tank is strategically located above the rear header, guess where the overflowing coolant went? Coolant + hot header = cloud of white smoke.

Anyhow, I've run the engine about a dozen times now. What a great sound! The (really bad) video does not do it justice. Also, excuse the poor quality and orientation of the video. TK was manning my phone and didn't realize it shot video in landscape.

Now that I know the engine runs, I'm going to focus on putting the rest of the car back together. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to bleed the brakes this week, then focus on reassembling the interior and chasing down electrical gremlins.

Brakes? We don't need no stinkin' brakes!

A few weeks back when we were moving the car into the shop, I pressed on the brake pedal hoping to stop the car. Well, the pedal went to the floor. Hmmm, guess I'll need to sort that out as well. I finally had a look at the master cylinder and the reservoir is bone dry. That explains a lot. I'm going to get a hold of my cousin's brake bleeder to get some fluid into the system. Hopefully the brake lines do not need to be replaced right away. I was planning on replacing them with stainless steel lines, but it'd be nice if I don't NEED to do it right away.

My kingdom for a radiator

The shop that's recoring my radiator is slow. It's been over 2 weeks and I still have no radiator. This is the main thing keeping me from attempting to start the car. My buddy SL came over and we were able to get quite a bit more assembly work done. The front of the engine is done and the other fuel tank is back in. The hoses have been replaced and I'm just waiting for that darned radiator.

On thing I did when I put the alternator belt back on was to make a modification to the mounting bolt. The original came in from the front of the engine and had the nut on the inside, which made it almost impossible to reach. I got a new bolt and ground down the head to lock into the adjustment bracket. Now the nut is on the front and I should be able to get to it now without having to drop the tank again.






Also, I did get a new battery. It's the first time the car has seen juice in 20 years! I did get a set of Birdman's updated fuse blocks, but it's already apparent that I need to do some more work to sort out the electrical system. Most things work like the wipers, blinkers and fans, but there's something strange with the headlight switch. The headlight nacelle comes up, but it doesn't always light.

Pictures

I got a comment that there are not a lot of pictures here of the car itself. Well, he's right. So, here are some photos of the car as it was in KR's shop, as well as when TK and I brought it home.

Enjoy

More on the cooling system

I just found some other photos I took related to the cooling system. The water pump on these cars is known to have a short life. It's recommended that when you do the timing belts, you rebuild or replace the water pump. I'm took a gamble and used my old water pump without any modification. It was surprising clean inside and out, which leads me to believe that it's not had a lot of miles on it. Also, it wasn't leaking, there are no signs that it was leaking and the bearings felt great. So, back on it went.



Also, I had to make a couple of gaskets for the coolant manifold that connects to the water pump to the heads. I search high and low for these gaskets. The original part number has been superseded by another number, but I couldn't find anyone who had it in stock. Fine. They're small simple gaskets so I just cut my own from a roll of gasket material.

New alternator belt is here

My new alternator belt arrived today. I'm starting to get used to chasing down and waiting for parts. On a "normal" car, when you need a new belt you go down to Napa and get a new belt. Not so for this car. The alternator belt is a special size and a suitable replacement is a Gates 7M975 (7mm wide, 975mm long) and I ordered it from an industrial belt supplier. Actually, I got 4 of them just in case. You can see the brilliant packing and package handling by UPS. Great job guys!

Engine almost buttoned up

I was able to get the cam covers back on, as well as the water pump and the carbs. Most of the fuel and coolant lines have been replaced at this point, but I just found out the fuel line kit I bought is missing a large section. I need to contact Dave and see about getting the last piece.





Since I had the cooling system drained, I replaced the thermostat. An OEM F-car thermostat is like $75 and I heard that a suitable replacement is one from an MkIII Golf. The dimensions are almost exactly the same. I had to drill an internal bleed hole like the OEM one. Strangely, there is a stamped dimple on the VW thermostat where the hole should be.



One other thing I did was drill out the original bleed screw in the thermostat housing. There are two bleed screws in the cooling system -- one on the thermostat housing and one on the radiator. The screw on the radiator is a true bleed screw. It's drilled so you don't need to remove the screw completely to bleed air from the system. The thermostat housing screw is solid and requires complete removal to bleed. This modification turns this screw into a true bleeder so you don't need to remove it completely.



Getting closer now to try and start the engine. My list of todo/toget is:

- alternator belt (on order)
- final sections of fuel hose
- change engine oil
- get coolant (6 gallons!)
- get spark plugs

Am I missing something? I'm sure I am...

Wheels & tires in the future

I know it's a bit early to think about this, but at some point, I'll need to get new tires. Before this car was put into storage, it looks like the wheels were refinished and new tires put on. Of course, this was 20 years ago so now I've got a set of brand new 20 year old Pirelli P500 tires. They look great but are totally unsafe because of the age.



These are factory 14" alloy wheels and the stock tire size is 205-70/14. Not a lot of performance tire options in this size. One choice is the Sumitomo HTR 200 from tirerack.com. It's H rated (same as the P500) but I have no experience with this brand. Another option is to get new wheels in 16" where there are more tire choices. However, this is an expensive option. Replica 16" 308 wheels are $1200 for a set from the UK. Discount Tire has a Voxx wheel which is similar in style to the OEM wheels and are only $109 each.



Decisions, decisions...I'm pretty sure the almighty dollar is going to be the main factor here.

Replacement fuseblocks

As seasoned 308 owners know, one of the weakest part of these cars is the electrical system -- specifically the fuseblocks. The factory ones will fail at some point in the car's life. The originals are riveted together and over time will loosen and corrode, increasing the resistance then overhead and melt. These replacements came from Birdman and are reportedly a tremendous upgrade from OEM. As Birdman says, "There are only two kinds of Ferrari OEM 308 fuseboxes: those that have left you stranded and those that will." His replacements are well made, labeled left and right and come with new mounting screws and tandem terminal clips where needed. All I need to do is find the correctly sized glass fuses.



My current fuseblocks look ok from the front and I don't know if there is truly a problem with them or not. I need to get a new battery at some point when I'm ready to check out the electricals. I figure it's better to replace the fuseblocks, which are known to be problematic, and go from there.

Timing belts - done!

I was able to get the other timing belt installed. At first I though it'd be a hard since it's on the front cylinder bank, but it was just as easy as the rear. Same procedure -- lock the cams, mark the belt, remove the old tensioner bearing, clean everything, transfer the marks to the new belt, install belt and tensioner then tension belt and torque the bearing.



The old tensioner bearing was, however, more stuck than the first one. It took me probably 30 minutes to pull the thing off and of course, it destroyed itself on the way out and ball bearings were all over the floor. The inner race and bearing cage remained on the tensioner. After unbolting the tensioner, I had to heat the race with a torch to get it off. The tensioner mechanism was also seized and had to be pried apart. After lots of cleaning lubrication, the tensioner moved freely and everything bolted up fine. One step closer to starting the engine!

Timing belts (the easy one first)

After replacing the fuel lines on the left side of the car, I can now focus on the right side of the car. This means, replacing the timing belts. There are some great resources online and I followed the great how-to by Birdman on timing belt replacement. I started with the rear timing belt, since that's the easy one. First, I had to make myself a device to lock the camshafts. I made this with two piece of oak and four bolts.



The purpose of this device is to lock the camshafts to prevent them from turning. During the timing belt replacement, the camshafts and crankshaft must not move. Here's a shot of it in action. You can see that all it does is clamp around the cams so they can't move. You can also see the marks I made on the old belt. I transferred these marks to the new belt so it goes back on in exactly the same place as the old.



With the cams locked and belt marked, I remove the belt tensioner bearing nut and try to pull the bearing off. Hmmm...no dice. The bearing is stuck. Since I'm replacing it, I don't care if I need to destroy it to get it off. After some persuasion of the hammer kind, the bearing comes off (and apart).



Good thing I didn't wait to replace the belts and tensioners. All the grease in the bearing was basically gone. What was left was dry and crumbly. The belts didn't look so hot either. The new belt is soft and flexible. The old belt is hard dry and cracked.



Well, only got one replaced tonight. I'll save the other one for another day.

Sad news for the radiator

I found a shop in West Seattle that does radiator repair. The guy said there was probably a leak at the top seam where the core is soldered to the top tank. However, there was a more serious matter. There is a fair bit of corrosion inside the radiator. I had two choices -- he could either pull the tanks and rod out the core, or just do a re-core. Either way would cost about the same amount. I'm going the re-core route and it should be ready in about 2 weeks.

Look, a surprise in the doors!

One of the things that needs to be re-assembled is the interior. It looks like the inside was reworked at the same time it was being repainted. The seats and dash are in, but most of the trim and door panels are out. When I was looking at the guts of the door, I noticed something that looked out of place. There was clear plastic sheeting, duct tape and zip ties that did not belong. Inside each door, there was something odd suspended in the space next to the window. Turns out that it's someone's 80's hack for the speakers.



This is what appears to be a speaker crossover from a home speaker. A crossover is an electronic device that takes a single speaker output and splits the signal for separate woofer, mid and tweeter speakers. I suspect that someone gutted a home speaker, pulled out the crossover panel, wired it to component speakers in the car, put the entire crossover in a plastic bag, then hung it inside the door. Crazy!

Finally, some assembly

I'm finally getting around to replacing some of those pesky old fuel lines. Good thing too -- almost every one of them was old and cracked. Here is the big hose that connects the fuel filler and the gas tank. Imagine trying to fill your tank through that! Half the gas you pump would end up on the ground at the station!





I also replaced the smaller lines going to the fuel filter and pump, as well as all the other lines coming from the left fuel tank. I should also mention that I ended up pulling the left fuel tank as well because I could not get the fuel filler hose on with the tank in place.



This last shot is from under the car. It shows the lower crossover line running between the tanks.

More attention to the cooling system

Since I now have replacement coolant lines, I figure I should finish draining the cooling system. The car is completely off the ground so it's a good opportunity. With buckets in hand, I crawl under the front of the car to remove a section of coolant line near the radiator. While I'm at it, I'm going to remove the radiator to have it checked out. Of course, this means removing the front hood (or bonnet to the Brits). Fortunately, it's made of aluminum so it's light and easy to manage single handedly.
I pull the radiator and inspect it. Right in the middle at the top tank, there is a spot of corrosion. Hmmm...probably a leak. I'll have to find a radiator shop that does repairs to get this fixed.

Engine turns, no binding

The one thing I assume is that the engine is fine internally. Up until now, I haven't done anything to check that assumption. Now that I finally have a 36mm socket, I can turn the engine by hand to make sure it turns freely. For some strange reason, I could not find the correct deep socket to remove the spark plugs. Since this car is missing the factory tool kit (and the factory spark plug wrench), I ended up buying a spark plug socket set from Schucks. The set included six sockets, and the last one I tried ended up being the right size. I pulled out all the plugs and apart from a little surface rust on the outside, they look ok.



With the plugs out, I poured a little motor oil down each hole to add a little lubrication to the cylinders. Then I put the wrench on the crankshaft and slowly turned the engine over. The engine turned smoothly with no binding or noise. Good -- one less thing to worry about.