Drive time on a (partly) sunny day

With my power drain problem solved and the car back together, it was finally time to drive! I put the interior back together and hopefully I don't need to take it apart again for a while. I have a Viper 211HV keyless entry system on order, but I can install it from the fuse panel access. My ignition-off power usage is just above 19mA and even with the addition of the keyless entry, I should still be well below my target of less then 50mA.

We've had some nice weather lately (better than the heat wave in the rest of the country) and this time TK went with me to E@RTC. Attendance was a little low when we got there, but the parking lots filled in as the morning went on. My buddy SL showed up as well. He's on the hunt for a 360 Modena so he's been out to quite a few of these gatherings to check out the cars.



As I looked around the lot, I saw something I'd never seen before. Not one, but two Lamborghini LM002 off road vehicles. Lambo made these between 1986 and 1993. Originally developed to try and sell to the military, the LM002 had the same V-12 as the Lamborghini Countach. Neither TK or SL knew what I was talking about when I said I wanted to go check out the Lamborghinis in the corner. SL saw them but thought they were Hummers. I'd heard of and seen photos of the LM002 before, but had never seen one in person. Not that I'd ever own one or even want one, but it's still a pretty cool vehicle.



One thing that does need attention is I think I need to fiddle with my carburetors again. The mixture seems really rich so I think I'll lean out the idle a little to see how it goes. Later, that is, when I feel like struggling with removing the air cleaner.

It's been 2 years!

2 years ago today, my childhood dream of owning a Ferrari 308 came true. Ok, maybe my dream was not to have a 308 come home with me on the back of a wrecker, but hey, you take what you can get.



I would have taken the car out for an anniversary drive, but alas, the interior is still partially disassembled. My new Spal (made it Italy) power door lock kit arrived and I was able to get it installed this weekend. I've tested it and it works, so now I just need a little more time to put the door panels back on. The rest of the work I can do from the fuse panel access door in front of the passenger's seat. I was hoping to use my old keyless entry system, but I don't think it will work.

The lock/unlock feature of the keyless system works like this -- When the receiver gets an unlock signal from the transmitter fob, it sends a negative pulse down one of the wires. This wire is attached to the power door lock module on the unlock side. When the door lock receives the pulse, the lock actuators fire in the unlock direction. Locking sends a negative pulse down another wire which basically makes the actuators go the other way. I've probed the wires on the keyless module, and it looks like the wires have a resting 12V, with a negative pulse. I talked to a tech at Spal and their power door lock system is expecting a resting zero V with a negative pulse. Good thing I checked and asked the question. I probably would have fried my new door lock module. Bad thing is now I need to wait some more to get a new keyless entry system.

Meanwhile back inside the doors

While waiting for my new keyless entry and power lock kit, I decided to do some adjustment in the doors. Thanks to the relays, the power windows work great, but the windows needed to be adjusted. I didn't spend a lot of time on the upper and lower window stops the first time I was in the doors and now was a good time to get it right.



First off was replacing the lower stops. The factory stop was a rubber bumper on the bottom. Both sides were completely shot which allowed the window to crash down on the inner door frame -- not good. I found some rubber door stops at Home Depot and they work great. I also adjusted the upper stop too so no more needing to be super careful in raising and lowering the windows.

Found my power drain

After lots of head scratching and poking and prodding, I think I finally figured out the source of my electrical drain. The problem ended up being the "black box" shown below. This device is a timer is it controls a little fan in the engine compartment. It's supposed to work like this -- when the engine is shut off, this timer kicks on the fan which draws gas fumes from the air cleaner into the charcoal canister. Basically, it's part of the emissions control system. Well, all this stuff was removed from my car long ago. I have no fan or canister -- only the timer relay. When I disconnected it, my electrical draw dropped by over 100mA. Since it's not controlling anything anymore, it's safe to just leave it unplugged.



For those of you needing to find an electrical drain, the process goes like this. First, you need a digital multimeter capable of measuring current. Disconnect the negative side of the battery and use the leads of the meter to connect the negative cable to the battery. Set the meter to measure current and you should see your precious electronics flowing from the battery and disappearing in the ether. Then, go the fusebox and start pulling fuses. Hopefully, one of the fuses you pull will result in a drop on the meter. That(those) fused circuit(s) is(are) the source of the drain. Hopefully you have a readable wiring diagram and can track down the problem. For us 308 owners, Paul Bennett at http://www.ferrariwiring.com/ has GREAT color diagrams. I highly recommend them. Best part is they're extremely affordable.



At the end of the day, here is where I'm at -- about 17.5mA. 16mA is the analog clock and 1.5mA is the memory on the stereo. I also had about 10mA on my keyless entry system, but it basically died so I'm replacing it. Hopefully the new one will have a low current draw. If it's under 8mA I will be close to my 25mA target.



To get to to wiring, I ended up removing a lot of the dash. In fact, the entire dash (again). This meant the steering wheel, hub, switch stalk and instrument cluster. Before reassembly, I did one quick thing to the cluster which was to jumper the instrument light rheostat. This is an old-school dimmer for the gauge lights. I doesn't work well and bypassing it is an easy way to increase the brightness of the lights.

I didn't put everything back together yet. A new keyless entry system is on the way so the door panels are still off. As soon as it arrives, I can put the car back together and drive!

Help, my electrons are leaking out

Up until this week, we've had quite a run of good weather. I've had the 308 out a few times in the last month and it's been a blast. A couple weeks ago, it was Ferrari day at E@RTC. This was a big event, especially since it was at the RTC center court. The weather was beautiful and we had a tremendous turnout. I heard there were 70 Ferraris there, including an Enzo, a 599 GTO and a 250 GTO racer.



I went to start the car last week and the battery was dead -- again. The battery is less than 2 years old and this was not the first time it's been dead after sitting. I finally pulled it out and had Napa run a load test on it. Prognosis? Deader than a doornail and in need of a replacement. Fortunately, it was still under warranty and it cost me about $20 for a new battery.



When I got home, I decided to run a few tests before hooking everything back up. I hooked up my multimeter inline on the negative terminal of the battery and pulled out all the fuses in the fusepanels. Sure enough, there was a 140ma drain in the system when it should have been near zero. Even with all the fuses hooked up, the only things drawing power with the ignition off should be the clock and the stereo memory. It should be 10-15ma at most. The combination of a dying alternator and a parasitic electrical drain was enough to kill the battery. Since I'm working on sorting out electrical stuff, now's a good time to figure out why my keyless entry stopped working as well. However, before I could do more tests, my multimeter died(!). I guess I'll have to wait to do more troubleshooting.

Two Ferrari packed weekends in a row

I've been a blogging slacker lately. Lots to report so here's another mega post. Two weekends ago, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. As usual, I dropped by E@RTC on Saturday morning. Because the weather was so nice, there was a huge turnout -- something like 135 cars.



Here's something that I found interesting. I mean, everything that shows up to E@RTC is interesting, but this one caught my eye. I'm not really into trikes, but this one was a bit of a machining masterpiece.



It seemed like almost every part of the frame was custom built. It's as if the entire drivetrain was machined out of a single block of aluminum. I wasn't able to track down the owner to verify any of this so I can make assumptions about different parts of the bike. You can't really see all the details, but from what I can see, there were things like internal front brake, hidden accelerator, clutch and brake controls. I think that the rod on the side with the aluminum hand grenade on top was the gear shifter and the lever on the grenade was the clutch. Too bad it left before I could talk to the owner as I had lots of questions.



On Sunday, I left the house early to go with some guys on a drive up to Washington Pass. The winding road is normally under many feet of snow during the winter and it usually opens early summer. We all took advantage of the great weather and made the blast to the pass. I was in the 308 and joined by a Testarossa, a BMW M5, a BMW 135i and a Mustang. Here we are stopped for a bio-break. Check out the Nash Metropolitan for sale in the background.



At the turn-around point at the top of the pass, there was still plenty of snow. The DOT had graciously plowed a tunnel through the parking area so we could get turned around. As you can see, the snow was deep enough to hide an Italian sports car.



This was also my first attempt at in-car video. I borrowed one of those Contour HD cams and mounted it to my side window. The video didn't turn out very well, but I did get this one interesting shot of the wide rear end of the Testarossa as we squeezed through some tight spots at the turn-around area.

This was a fun trip and my first "spirited drive" so far in the 308. 274 miles total with less than stellar gas mileage. Since I'm typically not a fast driver, let's just say I was pushing the edge of my comfort zone. Those "suggested" speed limit signs at the curves are just suggestions, right?

Right. Onward to today.



The forecast this morning was a little dicey. There were a few dark clouds in the sky and there was a chance of showers. I think this kept a lot of people away from E@RTC. Still, there were a lot of cool cars there, including an Enzo. We're seeing a quite a large group now of Cobra replicas. Surprisingly, there was only ONE Lambo there. Strange.



My buddy SL decided to come up today and check out the cars. After the event, we were going to get on a ferry and check out a Ferrari 360. As we left, a crowd had gathered around the Enzo to listen to it start. As luck would have it, it was headed in the same direction as we were and it ended up right behind SL. I could see it in my rearview as we went around corners. It was really cool watching that Enzo as it lazily floated on the pavement. At a light, I was able to grab this quick photo. What an amazing car.

Back to my house, we both piled into his car and drove off to catch a ferry. SL's been toying with the idea of getting a Ferrari 360 Modena. There was one on the peninsula so we decided to go check it out. It was at a dealership and the price was recently reduced. It was worth checking out as we both wanted to know why it was on the low end of the 360 price range.



At the end of the day, SL decided to pass on this one. 32K miles, undocumented service history and a few unknowns about different areas on the car.

Now THAT is an expensive service!

As I was looking through my photos from yesterday, I came across something that was pretty funny. There were a couple of Maseratis at E@RTC. One of them was a Maserati Coupé and I noticed the owner had some papers on the windshield. I had a closer look and it appeared to be a service receipt. I don't know if it was a joke, but here's what was on it:

A. CUSTOMER STATES THE CAR BEGAN TO IDLE ROUGH AFTER WASHING IT; WAS RUNNING FINE ON A 300 MILE DRIVE TO CENTRAL OREGON, BUT THEN ENGINE LIGHT DISPLAYED AND THE CAR LOST POWER.
B. TOW IN

Subtotal: $8,630.62

Ummm...Ok. Yet another reason to not own a Maserati!

Car, cars and planes

What a great day. E@RTC was on this week, even though there was a chance of rain this morning. Throwing caution to the wind, I left the 308's targa top down as I left the house this morning. A few raindrops fell on my windshield on the way, but the sun was shining as I arrived.



Sure, there was the usual crowd, but apparently, today was Mini day. Let me tell you, there were A LOT of Minis. Mostly BMW Minis, but there were a few old ones too. I have mixed emotions about the new Minis. I mean, they're pretty cool but it seems like everyone has one. I think I like the old ones better, but that's me -- I'm old skool that way.



As I was looking at this green one with white stripes, the owner asked me if I wanted to have a seat. Sure! I'd never been in an old Mini before and I must say it was pretty cool. For such a small car, it's actually pretty roomy inside. I'm not that tall, but there was plenty of headroom. I haven't really looked but the owner told me that a decent old Mini is about $10-15K. Hmmm...Mini...

As I was walking around, someone mentioned another event at the Museum of Flight. Apparently, a high school student was doing a class project on airplane and automotive design. As part of his project, he had organized a car show and was still recruiting cars for display. I talked to the student's Mom and Dad and they were really excited about the event. What the heck, right? I had boring house and yard chores to do, but driving and showing off my car in the sunshine was more exciting.



Supposedly, there was to be a bunch of Teslas and even a Spyker. Sadly, many of the cars the student had lined up did not show. Still, there was a pretty good turnout and many of the E@RTC regulars were there. It's funny, the cars were lined up in a parking lot next to a live runway. Even though there were some amazing cars there, people would literally run to the fence when planes came and went. I got to see a Boeing 787 take off, which was cool. Surprisingly, the 787 is very quiet at takeoff.



Ok, how cool is this? No, I'm not talking about the hippopotamic land mass blocking my car. I'm talking about the Grumman F8F Bearcat buzzing the airfield. It taxied down the runway and took off while we were there, and it proceeded to make several low altitude passes. I was able to get this shot off on his final pass. Maybe I'll try and PChop this unwanted guest out of the frame.

As I said above -- what a great day. Sunny during the day when it matters. Of course, it started raining about an hour after I got home. Five hours later, it's still raining.

Thinking a lot about valves lately

A few days ago on F-chat, I was reading about the woes of a fellow 308 owner. Seems he just got his car out of the paint shop and was driving it around happily. All of a sudden, he heard a crunching noise coming the engine bay and the car stopped. After having it towed to a shop, he found out some really bad news. The engine dropped a valve and the engine was trashed.

In the early 2 valve 308s, Ferrari used sodium filled exhaust valves. The thinking here was that a sodium filled valve stem provides better cooling than a solid valve stem. On the exhaust side, this supposedly helped in drawing heat away from the valve head. Unfortunately, this also meant having a weaker valve. The stem had to be hollow so it could be filled with sodium and the valve head was welded onto the stem. Many people consider these valves to be time bombs -- the valve head could separate from the stem at any point and destroy the engine.

A lot of 308s have had head work done by now and had these time bomb valves replaced with solid stainless steel valves. What about my car? Since I don't know the service history, I have no idea if the valves have been replaced or not. I can tell that the clutch has been replaced before, but I can't tell if the heads have ever been off. I do have the contact information for the guy who has worked on this car in the past. When I get a chance, I'll call him to see if he remembers my car. Hopefully, I can get confirmation on whether my valves have been replaced or not. In the meantime, I don't know how much I should sweat the fact that my engine could destroy itself at any point.

Shocking -- two sunny Saturdays in a row

We've had lots of spotty weather lately and today happens to be another sunny day. This marks two Saturdays in a row that I've been out to E@RTC. Last Saturday, TK and I met SL for breakfast then headed over to see the cars. There's always a good crowd at the beginning of the season and I think 150 cars showed up last week. TK and I had other errands to run so we were not in the 308, nor could we stay long. It was SL's first E@RTC and it was cool for him to see all these cars in one place.

Yesterday I headed down by myself in the 308 under some sketchy looking clouds. We had a pretty good turnout, although the Italian showing was a little light. I parked next to an '85 308 QV that I'd been next to before. As I was wandering around, I looked back and saw a Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder parked next to me. I rushed back to check it out.



As I was walking around admiring the car, something struck me as odd. I took a closer look at the rear emblem. A quick chat with the owner confirmed that this was not a real 250 GT Spyder but a replica! I'm typically not find of replicas, but this one was very, very well done. He calls it a "Forrari" because it has a Ford 351 Windsor powerplant. One of the reasons the car looks so authentic is that it was made using the same molds as the Ferris Bueller car from the movie.



I usually spend most of my time wandering around looking at cars, but I spend most of the time there standing next to my car chatting with people. My neighbor HM came down in his Ferrari 400i convertible (one of 2 made by the factory) and I barely saw the Enzo come and go. When I went to leave, I was in line between a Red Lamborghini Countach and a Grigio Ferrari 458. The Countach was just puttering along but when we pulled onto the highway, the 458 blasted by me in the left lane. The noise! Oh my goodness, the noise! The 458 (and all the modern Ferraris) have this amazing F1 scream at high RPM. My car certainly does not sound like that.

When I got home, I continued my task of cleaning out my shop. I still have lots of random parts from old car projects -- most of which should just be thrown away. Looking at the pile of junk, I decided to finally try my hand at making some yart. Yart? What's that? It's basically yard art made of old bits of junk assembled to be something cool. I found some old broken yard tools and car parts and a few hours later...



Not bad for a first attempt. Truth be told, I borrowed this particular idea from a weekend trip that TK and I were on a few weeks ago. We came across a store with one of these on the lawn. Mine is not exactly the same, but there are similarities. It now sits at the end of our driveway next to a signpost and planter to greet our guests.

I drove in the rain and my car did not melt

Yes, I did it. I took the 308 out in the rain. Today was the annual NW Region Ferrari Club of America annual meeting. Last year, it was in town and this year it's in Portland -- some 200 miles away. I've been watching the weather forecast all week and it was looking grim. Today was forecast to be 80% showers all day long. I decided to not be such a rain wimp. After all, it's not like a single drive in the rain is going to destroy the car, right? What's the good of having this car if I can't drive it?

It wasn't raining when I left the house and I didn't have to turn on my wipers until about 75 miles away from home. For the next 125 miles, the weather alternated from sunny and dry to torrential downpour. Fortunately, it was mostly dry when I got to Portland. Maybe since I was moving when it was raining, the water didn't have much of a chance to collect in the crevices in the car.

This year's meeting was held at Ron Tonkin's Ferrari dealership. As I pulled up, I could see a large bank of open garage doors with two rows of cars inside. These were cars for sale and there was lots of cool stuff. How about a new 2011 458 Italia? Only $255,000! There was also a bunch of stuff I'd never seen before. In the corner was an F50 and in the showroom was a 599 GTO and an Enzo! Holy smokes! The 599 was brand new and the sticker price was $442,000! I thought I was going to pass out! Not too surprisingly, the Enzo didn't have the price posted. If you have to ask, it's too much, right?

After some club business, we had a quick lunch. Then we were off to see Ron Tonkin's private car collection. As I walked through a door in a non-descript building, I nearly passed out again. In one corner, was not one but three 512 Berlinetta Boxers. As I was drooling over them, I turn my head and was bowled over again. In the corner was a 288 GTO. Next to it was an F40, an F50 then another Enzo (aka the F60). Wow! I still can't believe it. Seeing and touching two Enzos in one day, as well as seeing in person my favorite Ferrari of all time -- the 288 GTO. There was lots of other cool cars there, but I kept drifting back to the Ferrari corner. I just can't get enough of these cars.

On the way home, I met up with TK. She and a friend had hauled their horses to a facility to ride and take lessons. As luck would have it, the place was on my way home so I stopped by to have lunch with them.



Overall, today was great. I logged my longest drive so far at 412 miles. I even averaged 16.5 mpg! Not bad for this car. The car ran great and there were no problems at all.

What happens in Vegas...

So I find myself in Vegas for a few days this week for a user conference. It's a quick trip -- only two days. While down here, I realize that there's a Ferrari dealership half a block from my hotel. It's in the Wynn hotel, but here's the kicker -- it costs $10 to go in and have a look around! What? If I want to see some cool expensive cars, I need go no further than E@RTC on a Saturday morning. The dealership had a few F430s, Californias and a 599. Cool, but nothing I hadn't seen before. I stopped by anyhow, since there is a Ferrari Store there (no cost admission). It's the first Ferrari Store in North America and I'd never been to one before so I wanted to go. I ended up buying some outrageously overpriced items with the prancing horse logo and posing for a photo next to a Ferrari F1 engine on display. Overall, the store was ok. It seemed pretty sparse compared to any other store. Still, where else can you get a Ferrari racing suit and driving shoes for your child?

The uber-rare Saratoga top

Back in the 80's, I remember hearing about a company called Saratoga that made plexiglass targa tops for cars with a factory solid targa top like the Porsche 914 and the Ferrari 308. The Saratoga company went out of business many years ago and their tops are extremely hard to find. Mention one of these tops to people in the 308 GTS community and everyone starts salivating. Having one go one sale is like the shark tank at feeding time. One of these uber-rare tops popped up on eBay last week and just closed on Sunday. The result? 35 bids and a selling price of $2,635.00! Wow! Sure, it'd be cool to have one, but $2600? I bought a BMW E30 325is for half that! What an odd comparative...car...Saratoga top...car...Saratoga top...

Ferrari Fitness Plan

After a lot of rainy weekends, we finally had a dry one and on the first day of Spring to boot! Saturday was beautiful and sunny, but I had other things to do that day. Sunday was a bit cooler and cloudy, but I had a chance to take a few hours and pilot the 308 through cow country. The sun was out and it was mostly warm when I left so I took the targa top off. Even though I had the heater on, it was a bit chilly on the drive out. By the time I stopped to turn around, I decided to put the top back on because the sun was obscured by clouds. Still, it was a wonderful drive and I had a great time.

When I got home, I noticed something strange climbing out of the car. My legs were sore. It was like I just did a bunch of leg presses at the gym. The early 308s had a heavy clutch pedal. REALLY heavy. Heavy to the point where driving our manual transmission 3/4 ton Dodge Ram feels like a cakewalk. Somewhere around 1980, Ferrari switched to a different clutch actuation mechanism that supposedly lightened up the pedal effort quite a bit. There was even a Ferrari service bulletin (SB21-2) printed 03/19/1981 that outlined the change and included a parts list and diagrams to retrofit the new system to the older cars. Unfortunately, my car was never retrofitted. Apparently, the parts are available but cost about $1000. For that money, I think I'll just keep my heavy clutch pedal and continue to get a lower body workout every time I drive.

Cleaning out the shop

I made a decision this past weekend. I needed to clean out my shop and make more space. Not just clean up and organize, but do some serious purging to get more space. After many years and several homes, I decided to give up on my old Volkswagen Rabbit Pickup project. Now that I own the car that I've wanted almost my entire life, there was basically no chance that I'd actually finish the VW. While I would have loved to get that thing back on the road, it was time for it to go.

Taking up half my shop was the Rabbit shell and about a dozen boxes of parts. I first considered trying to sell the entire project as a whole, but it didn't seem like anyone was interested. I ended up listing the rolling shell on Craigslist as free. It's sort of like when you hold a garage sale -- either you're in "just get rid of stuff mode" or "try to make some money" mode. I started off trying to get money, but realized that space is more important to me than the few measly dollars I could get. In less than 24 hours after posting, I reclaimed half the floor space in my shop. That feels good. I still need to spend more time going through all my parts and get rid of them as well. Purging is good!

Earplugs needed for Dyno Day

Yep, still raining here. Last weekend, our local FCA chapter hosted a dyno day. Even though it was raining, a lot of high HP cars came out. There was a Lamborghini 670 LP-4 SuperVeloce, Ferrari F430 Scuderia (2 of them), Alfa 8C Competizione, Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, and Corvette and even a Bentley Turbo Arnage. High HP of the day went to the Lambo at 546. Mind you, this is four wheel drive at the wheels. The Scuds came out at about 460HP and the Corvette got about the same number. My car, on the other hand, probably puts out about 150HP at the wheels right now (maybe even less). New, the carb'd US spec '78 308 reportedly puts out 225BHP, which is about 187 wheel HP. While it would mildly amusing to have my car dyno'd, it would mainly be sad and embarrassing. Kind of gives me an idea of the a**-whooping I'd get if I tried to race any modern F-car.

This was my first time seeing a dyno run in person and it was pretty interesting. The tech had the drivers start slowly and work their way up the gears to 4th. Once in 4th, the tech started the sampling and the driver floored it. The power measurement was done from idle to redline in 4th. I'm not exactly sure why 4th vs. any other gear but perhaps this gives the most accurate reading. Each car repeated the 4th gear run a few times, then did a final run all through the gears starting from 1st. It was really cool to see each car flat out from 1st banging through all the gears. Oh and did I mention that it was LOUD? Here's a compilation video of most of the cars tested:

Compilation video

See, it really did start at a young age

A while ago, when I was going through some old boxes, I found some stuff from my youth. This is a 1:24 scale model of the Ferrari 308 GTS that I made when I was probably 14 or so. It was a kit made by Revell, and as I recall was marketed as the "Magnum PI Ferrari 308 GTS." I wish that I still had some of my old posters, especially the one that was 8' long and covered the entire width of my room. I was crazy about the 308 back then and it's still a little strange to me now that I actually own one.



This model is pretty detailed. Now that I know a lot about the 308, it's fun to pick out all the details as well as point out the inaccuracies. First of all, this model is a Euro model, whereas they used a US spec car in the show. You can tell it's a Euro mainly because of the small bumpers. However, this car also has a dry-sump oiling system (there is a dry-sump tank under the bonnet) and a single rear tailpipe, which identifies it as an early Euro dry-sump GTB car. Also, the Euro cars had a slightly different layout of the bonnet louvers. So, it has all the Euro dry-sump details, but with a GTS top and marketed as the Magnum PI car!

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!