Highs in the mid-70s!

Today was forecast to be a nice day and indeed it was. I decided last night that I was going to head down to E@RTC in the morning. There won't be very many warm dry weekends left this year and I definitely wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. Before I left the house, I took a little time to clean some of the dust off the paint, clean the wheels and dress the tires.



As expected, there was the throng of Lambos and the other regulars, but it seems like something out of the ordinary always shows up. I parked next to a Giallo Fly '78 308 GTS and behind me were four Tesla Roadsters. I had never actually seen a Tesla in person so I talked to one of the owners for quite a bit. I learned lots of new things about how the Tesla works. It'd be really cool to own one, but the price would need to come down dramatically before I could possibly afford one.



Next up was a Harley Davidson motorcycle with a dual front tire conversion. A local guy is developing this as a retrofit kit for all modern Harleys. The unique thing about this setup vs. other 3 wheeled bikes is that the bike can still lean into turns like a normal motorcycle. Hopefully, he can get the funding he needs to get the product from prototype to market. Check it out at his website. He's got some cool videos of the mechanism in action.



Also something else I'd never seen before in person was an Ariel Atom. It's hard to describe what this thing is. You could call it a go-cart on steroids. It's basically a tube chassis with a big engine. The owner was talking to some onlookers when he started digging around on the floorboards. He pulled out a strip of rubber that had been flung into the cockpit. Apparently this is something that happens quite often with an Atom. During hard cornering, rubber is scrubbed off the tires and since the Atom is completely open, some of this rubber winds up with the driver. Also, there's no windshield so you need to wear a helmet with a faceshield. Crazy stuff.



On my way home, I had to make a stop to get some new lighting fixtures for the house. A Home Depot run in the 308? Why not?

Fakes and the real thing

When I was 308 shopping, I had multiple RSS feeds set up in my reader and I looked at a LOT of ads. Even though I now own a 308, I still have these feeds going and still look at ads to see what the market is like. In short, the market sucks (for a seller) and it's definitely a buyer's market. Every now and again, I see an ad for fake 308s -- the most famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) is the Pontiac Mera.

Based on the Pontiac Fiero, the Mera rebody was actually a dealer option in 1987. I remember seeing pictures of these back in the day and thinking that maybe this was the only way I could get something close to a real 308.



Have a close look at the picture above. Can you tell which one is the fake? From the back at this angle, it's actually pretty tough to tell the difference. It's obvious from the front and sides but from the back, these cars would fool a lot of people. The real 308 is on the right and the Mera is on the left.

The kicker is that 308 prices are so ridiculously low now that it makes no sense to have a fake. I'm shocked at the lengths some Mera owners go to to make their darned Fiero look like a Ferrari. Have a look at this joker. How much did he spend on that fake Ferrari interior?

Here comes the rain again

Well, it's that time of year again. The brief clear days of summer are becoming few and far between and drive time has been severely limited. It's been either raining or threatening rain so now I'm planning my winter projects. I should have the time to put on the rest of the parts that are stacking up. I need to fix my parking brake handle, do some work on the rear brake calipers and I still need to find the source of that annoying rattle in the back. If I can afford it, I may even try to attack the 2nd gear syncro. I found a used transaxle locally that's supposedly in good shape. The price is reasonable for a used 308 tranny so I may go that route. Strange that a "reasonable price" for a used transaxle will get you a used Honda Civic.

The infamous 308 Trouble Light

Years ago, I bought battery charger for my motorcycle battery called the Xtreme Battery Doc. I've found that in addition to keeping my moto battery topped off, it does a good job on the 308 battery. The problem is that getting to the battery to hook up to the battery leads was a pain (open bonnet, remove spare, remove batt cover) so I wanted to install a "normal" cigarette lighter socket. There is a cigarette lighter socket in the 308 console, but it's not the "normal" lighter socket you see today. Rather, it has a small hole where you put the cigarette and I think you pull the black plastic outside ring to heat it up. Honestly, I have no idea how this thing is supposed to work because I've never tried it.



I kind of like the look of the console lighter, so I decided to leave that one alone and try to replace the trouble light socket with a normal socket. On all 308s, there is a 12v socket under the dash to the left of the steering wheel. As part of the 308 tool kit (which I am missing), there is a small 12v trouble light that plugs into this socket. I don't know anyone who has actually used their light or the socket. Having a light has become more of a concours bragging rights thing, as in, "I have the original tool kit roll complete with carb tool, spare bulb holder and trouble light." I've seen pictures of the light, but never one in person. Anyhow, I was willing to sacrifice the trouble light socket for a place to plug in my battery charger.

I went to Napa and bought one of those generic sockets and proceeded to unscrew the underdash piece holding the clock, oil temp gauge and trouble light socket ('78 GTS, before they relocated the gauges to the console). When I set out all the pieces on the workbench, I noticed something interesting.



The battery charger came with three different attachments -- alligator clips, ring connectors and a cigarette lighter plug. I never noticed before but the cig plug had a plastic piece snapped on the business end. When I removed this piece, the plug end was exactly the right size and shape to fit perfectly into the trouble light socket!





You can see that it's a perfect fit -- even down to the ridge on the center shaft to lock into the socket. I put everything back together and sure enough, it works as I would expect. The socket is not keyed so I can just plug in the charger at any point to maintain the battery. Best part is I didn't have to make any modifications at all.

I tried searching online, but it doesn't look like this charger is made anymore. What I'm really interested to know is, what kind of plug is this that fits into the 308 trouble light socket?

The joys of an old car

Yesterday, I had my first opportunity to drive the 308 to work. I'm constantly reminded that this is indeed a 32 year old car and often times acts like it. On the drive in, we had the targa top on because it was a little cold. The top has an annoying squeak at the front seal, but luckily the exhaust and road noise at highway speed masks it. Unfortunately, the exhaust and road noise also masks the new stereo I just put in. Part of the problem is that my radio reception sucks so the stations fade in and out. Why? Because my power antenna doesn't go up of course!

After work, I go to unlock the car with my keyless entry remote. I open the passenger door to unlatch the top, then close the door. I walk around to the other side and the driver's door won't open. What? I try the remote to lock and unlock, but it doesn't work. I notice that the driver's lock button has popped up, but not all the way. The passenger's side is now locked and I can't get in to the car! Fine, I try the key but it doesn't work either. I can get the lock to go up and down with the key, but it won't completely unlock. Luckily, I'm at work so I go into our shop and find some wire. I'm able to fish a loop through the driver's side to lift the lock button about 1/16" and pop! The door opens.

Did I mention the loose heat shield on the exhaust which causes an intermittent annoying rattle? How about the annoying (new) squeak when I turn the steering wheel?

So many parts, so little time

I seem to have a small pile growing of parts that need to go on the car. At some point, I'll have the time to actually install them.

I said a while back that I didn't need a stereo in the 308. After a few long drives, I've changed my mind. The car certainly doesn't need some crazy in car entertainment system, but it does need at least a basic stereo. I decided on a simple Alpine deck and a pair of Kenwood speakers for the doors. It won't win any audiophile awards, but will give me something else to listen to on longer trips.



Somewhere along the way in the car's past, someone must have been too vigorous in cleaning the interior. There is an aluminum plate under the console toggle switches with words describing what each switch does. On my plate, the words had gotten completely rubbed off. Verell makes a repro set that are "unscratchable," but they were a little more money than I wanted to spend. I eventually found a used plate on eBay and managed to get it pretty cheaply.



The seat belts on the car are pretty beat. The belts themselves are kind of fuzzy (and probably unsafe) and the spools don't retract very well. The same belts were used on (of all things) a Delorean and still available new from DMC. The units are made by a company called Klippan Safety Products. Here's where I splurged a little and I bought both the left and right sides. They aren't cheap, but are an exact match for OEM that came with the car.



Now that I had a replacement targa cover, the only remaining piece of vinyl I needed was the boot cover. There's a guy selling replacements who advertises in Hemming's Motor News as well as someone who sells them on eBay. The one on eBay was a little cheaper, but also seemed a little cheesy so I decided to get the cover from the Hemming's guy. The cover is well made and it will make the under-hood area look really good.



Lastly, I was able to score another set of carburetor rebuild kits from a guy selling on eBay. I know that at some point, I'll probably need to open the carbs again so it never hurts to have some spare gaskets. The seller had these left over from a 308 he owned and he was purging. He threw in a set of new spark plugs (which I'll probably never use) and a handful of valve cover acorn nuts (which I may use). Such a deal!

Hey Magnum!

Well, it had to happen at some point. After a little over a year of 308 ownership, I got my first Magnum PI comment tonight. TK had to work late and I needed to pick her up from the bus stop. Since the 308 is now a "grab and go" car, I decided to do just that and took a little drive. As I was waiting in the parking lot of a seedy little "beer and cigarettes" corner store, a guy got off a bus and yelled, "hey, Magnum PI!" while pointing at me. I smiled and waved as he walked by. Good to know, I guess, that the 308 is still a recognizable car!

Note: parts that fall off this car were hand crafted by Italian artisans

We're having another unusual heat wave and I was able to get the 308 out this weekend. TK had to work and it driving her to work was a good way to get a drive in. I also had to run down to my folks' place and it turned out to be a 100+ mile day. The car ran well with no signs of the ignition trouble I had before. I've got my new CV on the back so I was able to ditch the front plate. The front end looks so much cleaner without that plate.



On my way home, I heard a small flapping noise behind my left ear. It gradually got louder and was a little disturbing. I looked back and found out what it was. One of the trim clips holding the B-pillar interior trim piece had broken. The piece was dangling from a single clip. Worse, the vinyl had pulled away and was flapping in the wind. I had to quickly find a place to pull off the freeway to grab this piece before it took flight.



Luckly, I didn't lose the piece. Had I not pulled over, I would have the trim piece. As it was, the vinyl was barely hanging on so I just pulled everything off and put it somewhere safe. Next stop -- an appointment with some contact cement!

That sir, is the Ultimate

We had something special at E@RTC this week. An SCC Ultimate Aero was going to be there -- the very car that in 2007 set the record for the world's fastest production car. At 256.18 mph, the UA beat the previous record set by the Bugatti Veyron. Not to be outdone, Bugatti released a Super Sport version of the Veyron to take back the title earlier this year.



SSC is based out of Richland, Washington and the record speed run was done on a stretch of highway in Eastern Washington. Bugatti, on the other hand, did their run at the plush, controlled environment of the VW Proving Grounds. There's more info on SSC at their website.



The forecast for this morning was pretty sketchy. There was a 40% chance of rain, but the event was still on. There was an event down in Monterey and a number of people at E@RTC (including the SSC UA) were going to be loaded onto a car carrier. Since it wasn't raining in the morning, I decided to take the 308. It ran great, although I had to put the top up due to a light rain on the way home. While I was there, I realized that I still had my old plates on. Somehow, I completely forgot to put my new CV plate on. I'll have to get that done before I drive next.

If last week was Ferrari day, today seemed like it was Lamborghini day. There were a fair number of Porshe and Ferrari, but more Lambos than I would have expected to see.

When big is too big and small is too small

Earlier in the week I had ordered a set of 0.57 size idle jets for my Weber 40 DCNF carbs. The original 0.55 jets made the mixture too lean and the 0.60 jets seemed a little too rich. Pierce Manifolds, the place I normally get Weber parts from, didn't list an intermediate size, but Vee Dub Parts in California did. The 0.57 jets should be just right so I figured I'd try them out.



Once you look at all three jet sizes side by size, you can tell the difference. It's not a huge difference, but noticeable. It's amazing how such a small size change can make a difference. Just like the door panel removal, I'm getting pretty good at getting to the carbs and changing the jets and I was able to do it in about an hour. I didn't have a chance to drive it, but it seemed to idle and rev a lot better. With the 0.57 jets, the idle mixture screws are out about 4 turns, which most carb car owners report as being about the "right" position.

After the carbs, I moved on to the front of the car. Under the front bonnet, there are supposed to be two pieces of foam to seal the top of the radiator and the spare tire well to the underside of the bonnet. This directs the airflow through the radiator rather than around it. This apparently greatly affects the coolant temperature. My foam was missing and I had been looking to replace it for a while. Rutlands has a set for $60, but I did not want to spend that much for 2 pieces of foam. Instead, I found a place that sold Armaflex, which is a foam sheet used in HVAC applications. The best part is I got a big sheet for half the cost of the "official" replacement foam.



Another thing missing on my car was the targa top cover. When the top is not in use, it fits in the space behind the seats. A vinyl cover holds to top and keeps it from shifting around. A fellow F-chatter had one made locally for his car, and he offered to have another one made for me. It looks and fits great and cost much less than from other sources.



I haven't had a chance to mount them yet, but I got my new license plates this week. It's been a year and my tabs were about to expire so I decided to get a set of "Collector Vehicle" plates. These plates are available for vehicles over 25 years old that aren't regularly driven. The best parts are that I'll never have to renew my tabs again because these plates never expire, and I can get rid of my front plate because the CV plate is only for the rear.

One year

Today was a relatively quiet day on the homestead. There was no sound of Italian aluminum rumbling. Still, today was an important one of note as it was exactly one year ago today that the 308 came to our home. Here's to many more years of happy driving!

Quick Saturday morning outing

I wanted to take a few hours this morning to head down to the E@RTC gathering. It's something that happens every Saturday morning (weather permitting of course) and I'd been meaning to check it out for a while. It was Ferrari Day and there were LOTS of Ferraris. In fact, lots of many kinds of cool cars. Most of your more popular exotics where there -- Lambo, Porsche, Lotus (only one). There were also a few Acura NSXs, some BMWs and even a few muscle cars. By far, the best showing was Ferrari and probably the most Scuderias that I've ever seen in the same place.



Everyone really came though to see the new Ferrari 458 Italia. It was rumored that one would be showing up, along with a new Ferrari California. I had seen a Cali up close, but I had never seen a 458 before. It was AWESOME. I daresay it's the best looking modern Ferrari. When it showed up, everyone swarmed around it to get a closer look. Now only if I had an extra $350K laying around...



I was parked next to a beautiful Argento 512TR and had a great conversation about the 512TR and the Testarossa. I had no idea that the 512TR, which is the Testarossa's sucessor, is almost a completely different car. To the untrained eye, the Testarossa and 512TR look identical, but there are some pretty major differences. You learn something new every day!

Here's a shot of me as I was getting ready to leave. The event started at about 8am or so and the crowd started to thin out at around 10am. I had other commitments so I needed to get going. Fortunately for me, the 308 started right up and I was able to leave the parking lot without any embarrassing noises.

It's always something, isn't it?

Tonight when I got home from work, I wanted to spend some time in the shop. I wanted to richen up the idle mixture just a little more, as well as install some foam insulation under the front hood to improve the airflow around the radiator. I go out to the shop, reach down for the driver's side door handle and...snap! The handle flops around like a fish out of water. What now? Don't even ask me how it happened, but the cable connecting the door handle to the lock mechanism broke. I didn't really intend on removing the door panel again, but there I was -- removing the door panel again. Luckily, I'm an old pro by now and replacing the cable only killed about an hour or so.

I moved on to the carbs and opened up the mixture screws about half a turn each. It does seem to run a little better now, but there's still a hesitation. However, I think I can live with it. It was about 9:30 and dark when I got done, and I wasn't able to get to the foam. TK and I needed some food so we hopped in and went down to a great little restaurant 3 miles down the road.



It really feels like I have a "jump in and go" car now. In fact, tomorrow morning I'm going to jump in and go to a local regular car event. They call it E@RTC and it's basically a place where people bring their cool exotic cars on a Saturday morning. I've known about it for a while, but never had the chance to make it. Tomorrow's E@RTC is Ferrari day, so how can I miss that?

On the road again -- for real this time

Yes, for the first time in what seems like an eternity, I drove the 308 again. TK had someplace to be tonight and before she left, she helped me put the engine cover back on. I did one final check around the car, started it up and backed out of the garage. First stop -- gas station. The last time I drove the car was on Mother's day and because of the misfire, I was anxious to get it home in spite of the nearly empty tanks. After that, a short 5 mile cruise around the neighborhood. I took it pretty easy (like I usually do) and stayed around the speed limit. At one point, I got a little scare when out of nowhere a cop showed up with his lights and siren on. Couldn't be me, as I wasn't speeding. Luckily, he was in a hurry to catch some bad guys and he blew right past me.

The car's running ok. I think it's running a little lean now as there is a noticeable hesitation around 2500 rpm. Maybe I'll switch back to the 0.60 idle jets. I think they even have sizes in between 0.55 and 0.60 so maybe I'll try one of those. The CV boot is tight and there is no more grease being thrown around. We're in for a bit of a dry spell so maybe I'll get some driving time in!

Lean, mean, fightin' machine

In between chores tonight, I had about an hour or so in the shop. I took the opportunity to mess with the carbs a little.

Last year (has it been that long?) when I first started the engine, I was getting lots of popping and spitting back out the carbs at and just off idle. I had heard that this is usually indicative of a lean air/fuel mixture, so I decided to try swapping out my 0.55 idle jets to 0.60 size. This seemed to fix the problem, but I always thought it ran a little too rich, even with the mixture screws turned in pretty far. The exhaust smelled really rich at idle, and although I didn't keep track, it seemed my mileage was really bad.

Since I still had the engine cover off, it was the perfect time to make some changes. I decided to drop back down from the 0.60 jets to the 0.55 jets. Now that I'm much more familiar with 308 engine tuning, perhaps I can use the 55s and still get rid of the carbs spitting. Burning less fuel and getting better mileage won't hurt either.

Once the air cleaner housing is removed, it's really easy to change out the jets on the Weber DCNF. The idle jets are on each side and the main jets are in the center. It took me all of 15 minutes to swap out the jets. I started the engine, turned out the mixture screws a little to compensate for the smaller jets and balanced the carbs again. The result is not bad -- I let the engine get up to temperature and there is almost no popping or spitting. The next free moment I get, I'll put the engine cover back on and go for a little drive to test out the new jetting. Also, since I replaced the XR-700 ignition units, hopefully my misfire issue has been resolved.

Back on the road...soon...

The paint on my new bracket for the XR-700s finally dried completely and I was able to finish mounting the units. I liked it better when you couldn't see them, but it makes them easier to access...just in case.



I had a bit of a scare when I hooked them up, turned the key and...no start. What? All I did was swap out the XR-700s and check the static timing. What did I screw up now? I went through and checked the basics. All the wire connections were tight. I had a good ground. The strangest thing was that I was getting spark out of the coil, but not at the plugs. Huh? I didn't mess with the wires or the distributors, other than to remove the rear one to verify nothing was broken. I made one final pass and then I saw what happened. Remember that this V8 is like two 4 cylinder engines. Each bank has it's own distributor, coil and ignition trigger. In the spaghetti of wires, I managed to cross connect the XR-700s to the coils. So, the front bank distributor was triggering spark on the rear bank and the rear distributor triggered the front bank. Duh! Once the switched the wires, the engine fired right up.

On to the CV joints. What a messy job! I went through almost an entire roll of paper towels to clean off all the old grease. Each joint is held on the shaft by an external snap ring. Once removed, the joint comes off the spined shaft pretty easily.



Each joint has the outer cage, inner cage, inner hub and six ball bearings. It's a bit of a puzzle to get it disassembled. However, complete disassembly is the only way to get all the old grease out. Once everything is apart, it's an easy but messy job. In addition to all the paper towels, I went through about 5 pairs of gloves on the two CV joints.



After cleaning and reassembly, I repacked both joints with grease. I bought a CV boot kit from Dennis McCann at allferrariparts.com . The kit came with four CV boots, grease and clamps. My old boots were intact, but really dirty and nasty so it was easiest to just replace them.



Other than the mess, I'd have to say CV joint service is one of the easier tasks on this car. Installation was as simple as removal. I cleaned up and reused all the nuts and bolts as they were in good shape. Everything was torqued and I dropped the car back down on the ground. Before putting the engine cover back on, I think I want to tinker with the carbs a little more. Months ago, I switched to larger idle jets because the engine seemed to be running rich. Now I'm thinking it's a little too rich and I'd like to lean it out just a little to see what happens.

Well that wasn't so bad!

I was feeling a little down about the thought of pulling the half shaft to replace the CV boot. After reading a few posts on F-Chat, I decided to go back out there and give it a go. Would you believe it's actually pretty easy? I spent less time removing the half-shaft than making that silly bracket earlier.

The CV joints are bolted to the flange using allen-head bolts and locking nuts. At first, I was trying to figure out how to get a wrench in there to hold the nut while turning the bolt and keep everything from turning. I did remove a panel under the car so that I could see better. Turns out that the flange actually holds the nut and keeps it from turning. All I needed to do for the inner joint was use a really long extension and a breaker bar. To keep the axle from turning, I stuck a screwdriver in the brake rotor to jam it against the brake caliper. Voila! Six bolts undone without a lot of drama!





The outer joint was easier to access, but it was a bit tricky to sneak a ratchet handle past the suspension arm. After figuring out the position, these bolts were also easy to remove.



Having the half-shaft on the bench, I can see why it was leaking grease. The boot was intact, but the inner clamp was not tight enough to make a good seal. Now comes the messy task of cleaning up this thing, packing it with new grease and installing new boots.

New bracket

One of the reasons I needed to raise the car is because I needed to replace the Allison XR700 ignition modules. I suspect one of them is causing my intermittent loss of the 1-4 bank. They're reasonably cheap so I'll replace them both. The units themselves were tucked in the driver's side wheelwell, behind the inner wheelwell liner. Since I was replacing them, it was a good time to relocate them to someplace easier to access. A few months ago at a car show, I saw a carb'd 308 that also had XR700s. They were on a bracket just forward of the ignition coils. Brilliant! This seems like a great place so I'll do the same thing.



I started with the cardboard template, then made the final one from some angle iron. As soon as the paint is dry, I'll put the ignition system back together.

Another thing I wanted to get a closer look at was the passenger's side inner CV boot. I realized a while back that the boot is leaking and throwing grease all over the place, including the hot exhaust.



You can see it's definitely leaking. I don't think the boot itself is torn. It looks like the clamped end has slipped and grease is slipping past the end. It's a real mess down there. Removing the CV joint is going to be a PITA too. I can barely see it, much less reach it.

Yikes!

Wow, has it really been over a month since my last post? Well, I'm happy to report that I've finally carved out some time to work on the car tomorrow! No, the bedroom project isn't done yet, but it's getting close. After some paint and trim work, we'll be ready to move our bedroom furniture back in. Good thing too -- I'm getting tired of sleeping in the other room.

We're having our once-a-year heat wave here and it's been in the low 90s for the past two days. I came home today and decided to prep the car to be worked on. The engine cover is already off, but I wanted to raise the car on jackstands as well. In the hot shop, I was able to get it off the ground, but that was about it. I was sweating bullets and had to seek refuge in the cool(er) house. Tomorrow, I'm going to pull the distributors off and replace the old Allison XR700 ignition modules and optical pickups with new ones. It's supposed to be hot this weekend as well, but I'll get an early start to beat the heat.

Changing hats

I've had to swap my mechanic hat for my contractor hat lately. Last Fall, I started tearing apart our bedroom to do some drywall work. When the 308 came along, TK graciously let the bedroom project slide while I worked on the car. That was over 6 months ago and we're both tired of looking at the construction zone. Work on this is going pretty quickly so I should be able to put my mechanic hat on again soon.