I started removing all the pieces that would need white cadmium plating. You can see from the portions that were covered, the old plating can be seen under all the black paint. We call this restoration in a spray can where a previous shop restored the under side of the car by simply painting everything black to give everything a “fresh” look!

I bead blasted all the parts before sending the parts out for plating. The distributor bolts were from the reproduction distributor cap and were gold cad plated. They didn’t need to be bead blasted, and the gold cad plating will come off in the first acid wash in the plating process.

Since the steering shaft needed to be painted, I removed the steering shaft u-joint so I could take all the black paint. Normally, this u-joint along with some of the other components of the steering shaft is in natural steel, so I’ll service this u-joint and get it looking proper!

The shifter lever was a little worn and rusty. It’s common for this to get corroded like this as oils and sweat tends to wear away the chrome plating. Removing this lever is a little involved, but that is why this lever is commonly left alone and rusty looking.

Before I do anything with the shifter lever on a transaxle car like in this GTC, I go under the car and check to see if it has witness marks on the shift rod and transmission case.

Ferrari transaxles are designed to be kept in 2nd gear whenever the transmission is moved or serviced. It allows the shift selector to be trapped by the shift forks internally. If the transmission is left in neutral, this indexing could be lost and getting it back could require having to remove the transmission! With the shifter in 2nd gear, it’s always good to check the marks line up. Now I can go back up top and unbolt the shifter and know if I bolt everything back in 2nd gear, noting bad will happen!

Before even removing the shift lever, however, I found another issue. The reverse lockout mechanism wasn’t working. GTCs have a gated shifter with a dog-leg first gear with reverse up to the left. Not having a working reverse lock out can allow the driver to inadvertently shift into reverse. The tab that makes up part of the lockout mechanism was worn away, so now was the time to fix it.

I welded some more metal to the shifter plate to build up the material that was worn away and ground the excess to fit it to the car. The shifter plate will have to be rechromed to fix the discoloration from the welding, but this car is now safe from accidental shifts into reverse.

I got a Ferrari 330GTC into my shop the other day. The owner had entered this car into Cavallino twice and came home empty handed both times. Frustrated with the process of showing the car, fixing the issues, and losing again, he asked me to take a look at his car to see what we could do to make it into a Platinum level Ferrari. I reviewed this car in the video below.

Cavallino is one of the hardest Ferrari shows to place Platinum. It’s based on rules set forth by the IAC/PFA (International Advisory Council for the Preservation of Ferrari Automobiles) for Ferrari Club of America Judging, but at Cavallino, only a top prize of 97 points or better is awarded. There are no silver of gold awards as there is in FCA National events. With 3 points margin out of 100 points, to win or lose, you can imagine the challenge. I reviewed the score sheets on this car and spoke to the judges that scored this car to get an overall impression of what happened at past shows. From the owner’s perspective, he was given a score sheet from the first show that did not win, he corrected all the problems, brought the car back and achieved nearly the same losing score the second time! This can be very frustrating for an owner, and puts into question the consistency of the Judging. From the Judges perspective, there were so many things wrong with the car, they stopped tabulating the score once it got below 85 points! This misunderstanding happens all the time at Concours Judging. Judges often have 15-20 minutes to score a car with several cars in each class. They try their best to catch the egregious mistakes and discuss the small ones to make appropriate deductions. This score sheet mailed to the owner after the show may give you an idea what is wrong, but not everything that is wrong.

With 3 points to play with, and minimum deductions at 1/2 point, 6 incorrect things will put you out of Platinum contention! Within the first few minutes of seeing this car, I easily found 10 things wrong.

Judging is supposed to be objective, but I also feel a well represented car goes a long way to helping win awards. There were some color issues with the interior that I discussed with the owner in the video. It looked like it was mix match of the same color beige that didn’t seem cohesive to the beautiful exterior green color. The owner also wasn’t crazy about the beige interior, so we decided before the car came to me, we would do a color change with the interior. We picked a nice pumpkin color that I felt contrasted well with the green and made the car in my opinion stand out a little better. We also corrected the little details in the interior like the correct trim pieces and materials. I had a friend in South Florida do the work while I advised with the materials, and I think it looks great.

There are still little details inside the car that need to be addressed, but I will have them done by my local upholsterer. One of them is very subtle but obvious once you know what is correct. The rear view mirror on 330GTC comes out of the hole in the header trim above the windshield. It looks like this piece was replaced at one time but a sewn detail was omitted. (-1/2)

Here’s a picture of this stitch on an original GTC. The material is also stippled. Something like this could cost a 1/2 deduction of the judges catch it.

I started making a list of corrections for this car and here are some random details. A common omission are the grommets that insulate the spark plug wires exiting the spark plug tubes. The orange boots are acceptable, but technically the 1 ohm resistor plug ends are not because they were dealer installed for radio noise suppression. (-1/2)

I was able to install the grommets without replacing all the wires, but will also clean off the lettering before putting this back together. O-ring keepers were installed, so I didn’t have to add those.

Just this one picture can show a dozen potential deductions! Luckily, there are only three that I see that are wrong. The throttle rod and arms need to be cleaned of rust and finished in black oxide. The throttle rod ends to the carbs will need to be removed and cad plated and clips, black oxide. The M6 nuts on the bearing stands are correct, but could use some rust removal and fresh black oxide. I often see acorn nuts installed here which is incorrect. The bolts holding the distributor are supposed to be special tall bolts which I believe are correct on this car, but I need to check. The ignition wire keeper that bolts to the distributor is missing the grommet and will need to be replaced. (-1)

The hose clamp at the radiator cap is wrong, and the hose should be a ribbed rubber hose. (-1/2)

The hood opening has the wrong finishing trim. It’s supposed to be a thin plastic u-shaped trim with a square top. (-1/2)

The hood pad is wrong. It’s supposed to be a mylar type of material with a diamond quilting. (-1/2)

You can see just with my casual scoring, I’ve already exceeded 3 points, so I obviously have my work cut out for me. Can it be done? I think it can, and I’d like to try my best to win for the owner. I feel winning at a Concours should not be exclusive to fully restored cars, otherwise, what’s the incentive for all the other owners that want to show and win at a Concours? Let’s see how where this journey takes us!

It’s been a while since my last blog post. I’m fine, but just been very busy. As much time as I spend running my business fixing, restoring, and helping others with their Vintage Ferraris, I have to find time for my personal life and it’s a balance where something has to give, and the blog was this month’s sacrifice. I’ve been blogging for over 25 years and often look back to see the massive amount of content I’ve posted to this website. It’s a resource I that use myself to remind and refresh my memory on how I fixed things on certain cars I’ve worked on in the past. As I get older, I get even more forgetful, so it’s a resource that I value and I hope you do too! For this simple reason, I hope to continue posting, but sometimes there just isn’t enough time!

I’m sure some of you know, I’ve also started a YouTube Channel and have been posting content there regularly for the past few years. If I thought a blog post was hard, posting a fully shot, produced, directed, and edited video every week took even more time! I don’t mind because I feel the video medium describes what I do working on Vintage Ferraris is sometimes more descriptive than pictures and story that my blog has done for years. I also recognize the way people consume content on the internet has changed. Less and less people actively search out websites because of the distractions of social media. When Facebook, Instagram, and twitter, push content to your phone or computer, to read and watch, that leaves very little time for you to actively look for other content. I try to keep active on other platforms, but posting on other platforms takes time away from my other projects! Why do I do it? Community. As one generation of Vintage Ferrari ownership ages, a new generation of owners comes in, and if we can’t reach them, they may not know about this great community that exists that started from the owners of Vintage Ferraris when they were communicating with faxes and phone calls! I seemed to have bridged that gap when I first started blogging 25 years ago when I met the founders of the Vintage Ferrari Community. Of course when they started, their Ferraris weren’t considered “Vintage!” I’ll keep blogging, but I hope you look for me on other social media and YouTube to continue growing the Vintage Ferrari Community into the future!

Speaking of new owners welcomed into the fold of Vintage Ferrari ownership, I sent a car out from my shop to a new owner in Chicago. This dark blue 365GT 2+2 has belonged to a customer of mine for several years, and was recently sold to a new owner. I introduced buyer and seller, and an agreement was made.

I often become friends with my clients and make a connection with their cars, so selling a car is always a bittersweet transition. I will never know if I’ll see a car again as it heads onto a truck to its new owner, and I hope to stay in touch with the previous owner. The good news is the new owner called me shortly after receiving the car, ecstatic about the car and his new Vintage Ferrari ownership. If you see this dark blue 365GT 2+2 on the roads around Chicago, tell the new owner hello from me!

Work is on going at the shop with a assembly of little pieces for the 330GT 2+2 restoration. Restoring these little reflectors was more involved than their outward appearance. The plastic reflectors had to be carefully removed from their frames that were held in place with tabs bent over in the back. One of the studs had to repaired because it had broken off. Years of dirt and debris had to be cleaned, and the lenses polished before reassembly with a new backing gasket. It was a lot of work of a small pair of reflectors on the back of the car, but it all added up to the beauty of a restored Ferrari!

Another example of all the little pieces involved in a Vintage Ferrari restoration was the windshield squirters. Each squirter had four pieces not including thin gaskets that sealed the parts together. It’s freshly chromed pieces like these that will really make this car sparkle when it all comes together on the car!

I keep getting drips and drabs of the chrome plating parts back from my plater so I can install them on the 330GT. The extractor vent trim is looking very nice, but there are a bunch of parts that have to go together to install this part. The three painted panels had to be polished before assembly. Little rubber strips that fit between the parts had to be cut, and little screws and washers all have to be fitted for it to be installed. Access is tight and there are a lot of loose pieces ready to fall out before the tiny nuts are installed. I often wonder how inefficient this must have been when these were originally installed at the factory! With both hands juggling a dozen parts at the same time, I didn’t have another hand to take pictures, but you’ll have to imagine the struggle!

For the eagle eyed viewer, the vent hose behind the extractor vent in this picture is not concours correct. The correct hose is a cloth wrapped hose, but in some places in this car, I chose to use a more flexible hose where no judge will be able to see. It allowed the hose to bend easily and connect better to in the car. Wherever the hose can be seen, we used the correct hose. Let’s keep this secret among us!

The rear quarter window latches looked great, and I worked with my plater to confirm the orientation of the parts when everything was reassembled after plating. The true test would be to see if the latch latched!

I cut little rubber gaskets to insulate the anchor from the hole in the glass.

With all the parts installed, the latch latched! Eventually, the interior will get an upholstered panel, but the latch is installed!

The next little project was the door lights. The frames were replated, and new light fixture gaskets were ordered, so now I needed to prep the lenses and fixtures for installation.

Cleaning and polishing the lenses made a world of difference!

It was a pleasant surprise to have the reproduction gaskets fit so well!

I pulled the radiator out of the 365GTC/4 to remove the old condenser. I decided to replace the old condenser with a new one to have less chance of having debris or old R12 refrigerant and oil trapped in the system.

The new condenser was sized to fit where the old one lived, but I managed to get one a little larger. It also seemed to have finer tubes and more surface area than the old one.

Inside the car, I decided to keep the old evaporator but cleaned it out thoroughly with a flushing fluid. I installed all new lines and installed a new expansion valve as well. These were the only lines using the old flare fittings, with everything in the engine compartment upgraded to new 0-ring fittings.

In this picture, you can see the new compressor on the left with the new 134a fittings. On the right, is the radiator installed with the new condenser and new lines and fittings. At the bottom of the picture, you can just see the dryer and binary switch that is connected to the compressor clutch.

I connected the refrigerant lines to my gauges and vacuum pump to start evacuating the system. I kept the vacuum pump running for a few hours to evaporate any moisture, cleaning fluid, or old oil out of the system. I closed the system up, and left the system under vacuum overnight to confirm I didn’t have any loss of vacuum. In the morning, I was happy to see the system had not lost any vacuum, so I was ready to charge the system.

I slowly charged the system and added about 13 oz of fluid along with about 14 oz of PAG oil to the empty compressor. I managed to get the A/C temp down to about 42 degrees F, but the true test will be when I get the car out on the road on a warm day to see how she performs.

Some of you were asking for a parts list and here’s a rough list. It may not be complete, but it’s a starting point:

York Compressor with 6″ double groove clutch. RH Suction.

Roto Lock service valves for O-RIng fittings with charge ports

O-RIng Drier with brackets and port for Binary Switch (Please include Binary Switch)

7′ of -6 hose

4′ of -8 hose

9′ of reduced barrier -10 hose

Expansion valve

     Hose Ends

(1) -10 straight with flare fitting for Reduced barrier hose (Evap)

(1) -10 90 with O-Ring  (Compressor)

(2) straight -6 O-RIng

(2) 90 -6 O-RIng

(1) 90 -6 Flare 

(2) 90 -8 O-Ring

(1) Straight -8 O-Ring

The condenser was a High Performance Aluminum Condenser 13.5” (Height) 24” (Width) ordered from Classic Auto Air

You’ll have to decide if you want to use the regular barrier hose or the reduced barrier hose. The reduced barrier hoses are thinner, and are supposed to have the same performance as the thicker hose. The thinner hose made it easier to route the hose through the firewall on the C/4. You’ll also have to get a crimper to attach the new fittings. I recommend you get the handheld hydraulic crimper, but make sure it comes with the dies that can crimp the reduced barrier hoses if you choose to use the thinner hose.

Before putting the hood back on the C/4, I needed to address the head lights. They would occasionally go into a constant loop of flipping up and flipping down.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C7W0hgTsFgp/

I immediately when to check the switch of the steering column. Removing this knob requires care not to lose a small ball bearing inside that can be easily lost.

I quickly found out the switch was suffering from the classic problem of shrinking and cracking plastic. The arrow pointed to a crack that was forming, allowing the whole switch turn when the light switch was turned. I widened the crack with a file and secured the shrinking plastic collar with a thin piece of wire. The plan was to fix and strengthen the crack with a plastic repair kit.

Here’s the repair of the stalk with the wire embedded in the switch body, and the plastic repair holding it all together. If the rest of the stalks in the steering column were breaking, I would have sent the whole steering column out for repairs at ODD Parts, but this repair I did myself saved me the time to send the unit out to California and wait for it to return. Instead, I had it all back together by the afternoon!

After getting the carburetors sorted on the black 365GTC/4, I was asked to take a look at the air conditioning system. I had some good guidance from my friend Scott McClure on the the Dino A/C, but my next challenge was to see what hurtles I would have to overcome with a C/4!

My biggest concern was how difficult it would be to access the evaporator parts hidden behind the dash. As bad as this photo looks, I found I didn’t have to remove the whole center console to reach the fittings I would need to disconnect so new A/C hoses could be installed.

The A/C hoses ran through the firewall on this car, and were found under an insulating wrap. This particular system seemed to be in pretty good shape, and I decided to leave the evaporator in place and change out the rest of the system. It was a calculated risk, but I felt the main failure points of this system laid elsewhere. The plan was to remove the old hoses and expansion valve. Flush out the old evaporator with cleaning solvent, install new custom hoses with the proper flare fittings that would mate to the old evaporator fittings. Run new A/C barrier hose and install modern o-ring fittings on the other end of these new hoses to mate up with the new components I would install in the engine compartment.

The compressor in this car looked in good shape, but still had the old R-12 fittings. Replacing the compressor with an identical newer unit with more environmentally friendly coolant and modern fittings would help with repairs in the future, not top mention any A/C shop would be able to handle the modern compatible parts.

When I removed the old A/C compressor, I found my first problem that was not so obvious during my first inspection. The bearing in the A/C compressor clutch was seized, so it was forcing the compressor to be engaged all the time! Who knew how long this going on, but it was not good. Having the compressor engaged all the time meant refrigerant was always circulating through this system while the engine was running. Worse yet, if the system was empty, how much lubricating oil was in the system? These compressors rely on lubrication oil in the system to keep the compressor functioning. The safety switch is designed to disengage the clutch and stop the compressor from spinning when it’s low on refrigerant but with a seized bearing, this was not happening. Luckily, the old compressor was still working, but replacing this compressor was prudent.

The clutch coil was also showing some age as the resin that sealed the coil was cracking. I would imagine moisture would eventually find its way into the coil and cause issues. A new one was on its way to me.

With the new compressor in hand I started transferring the mounting studs from the old unit to the new one. Since the compressor is American made, the fittings were SAE, but the hardware that went on the Ferrari side were metric, so these custom studs had to be transferred.

A new York Style compressor arrived in the mail and Scott McClure who’s supplying me with the parts spec’ed it out with 134a fittings, but managed to make it still look like a R12 system by making dummy R12 caps!

The only way to get the compressor installed in the Dino is by removing the right side fuel tank, but once it’s out of the way, getting the new A/C lines and compressor mounted wasn’t too bad. Getting fuel tank back in is another story…

Scott also supplied a new evaporator, but I had to drill out the pop rivets to take the A/C plenum that housed the evaporator.

Since Scott had exact reproductions made of the Dino evaporator and condenser with modern o-ring seals instead of the original flare fittings, I decided to replace everything in this system. This would save me the step of flushing the old parts of the old R-12 refridgerant and oil to accept the new 134a refrigerant and PAG oil.

The new evaporator fit perfectly in the original housing.

I removed the radiator to separate the condenser and replace it as well.

With a low mileage car, the parts didn’t look too worn, but I wanted to make the A/C system work as best as it could with the new 134a refrigerant. If any of the hoses, fittings, or heat exchangers leaked, we would be wasting time chasing leaks.

The new condenser fit perfectly and lined up with everything like the original parts.

One request I’ve been getting lately is getting air conditioning working on a vintage Ferrari. When I was first getting into cars, any car collector car that came originally with air conditioning would eventually need service, but sometimes refilling the system with refrigerant wouldn’t last long. Eventually, refilling the system would not solve the problem (and we realized was bad for the environment!), so we gave up and drove our cars without air conditioning. Maybe the climate was cooler, maybe we were used to not having A/C, or maybe we’ve gotten used to our modern cars with reliable and efficient air conditioning, but today my clients demand a working A/C! I have always declined working on these systems because I didn’t have the necessary equipment or skills to work on them. I usually took the car to my local garage and had them work on them, but sometimes leaving a valuable six figure plus car at a shop for A/C work made me uncomfortable. I realized I needed to step up my skills and services.

Many times the Vintage Ferrari systems were American made systems from the era that were fitted to these cars. The technology was from the 60s and the components were the same age. Not only were these systems leaking from the old fittings, but probably leaking through the 50 year old hoses. I felt the only way to make a reliable system was to replace much of the old components with new parts, and change over to a modern refrigerant. R12 was banned from use in automobiles because of its environmental issues, but after 30 years, it seems to be making a comeback. 134a, which has its own issues, was its replacement, and most shops are capable of working with 134a and its fittings, so I’ve decided to work with a 134a system.

To guide me through this process on this Dino, I called Scott McClure, a Dino owner that has worked on his air conditioning system extensively, and had the tricks and knowledge to fix the system in the one I was working on. He had the evaporator for the Dino reproduced exactly and will supply one to me for this project.

The first step was to remove all the old refrigerant hoses running from the compressor to the front of the car. Even for a low mileage car, these hoses were still over 50 years old, so we will be replacing them with modern A/C barrier hoses that will do a better job at keeping the refrigerant contained. From my understanding, the 134a is a smaller molecule than the R12, so using modern hose designed for 134a will help. I am also going to upgrade the fittings to a modern o-ring seal from the old flare fittings on the original system. I don’t believe there is any solution to fixing an aging leaking flare fitting without simply cranking down on the fitting. The fitting will either seal or break, but the o-ring seal should be a better solution with o-ring replacements to repair a leaky fitting.

Replacing the hoses and fittings means replacing the other components of the system with the same fittings, which means the evaporator under the dash had to come out. Luckily, with the Dino, it was relatively accessible. We used to explain to certain owners who had a bad evaporator under their dash that when the A/C system was designed by Ferrari, they started with the evaporator and built the car around it! Luckily, this was not the case with the Dino, so getting the evaporator out was not too bad.

I managed to pull the evaporator out of its home for the last 50 years, and waited the new parts to arrive!

I installed the rear suspension and axle in the 330GT that I’m restoring. I had Francois set up the rear axle with new bearings so it was ready to put back in the car. Without the rear axle, it made this car very difficult to move around the shop. I resorted to putting it back on the chassis dolly so I could put other cars on the lift when this one was waiting for parts.

The rear springs on a Vintage Ferrari are a little tricky, and have to be pre-tensioned so the shackles will line up with the chassis mounts. This tension and orientation is held in place with limiting cables that have to be installed before releasing the tensioning bar I have installed here.

This orientation is crucial to get the proper ride height and movement of the rear suspension and I’ve seen these installed incorrectly by shops that are not familiar with this set up. Using this beefy bar to tension the rear spring has taken most of the fear out of this procedure, but it still took some prying and manhandling to get things to line up properly. I’m happy to report I have all my finders intact!

With the limiting cable installed and adjusted, I was able to remove the spring tension bar and install the lower locating arm for the suspension. I’ll cut the excess length of cable when I am certain everything is working properly and there is enough suspension travel when I put the car on the ground.

With the rear axle installed, I moved onto getting the hubs and rear brakes installed.

As usual, not all the parts I ordered were exactly what I needed. The flex hose that went from the rear chassis to the axle had the wrong end, but the correct threads for the junction block. The junction block sealed with a copper washer, while the new flex hose came with a double flare fitting. It was easier to trim the nose off this fitting on my lathe than to order another one and hope my supplier could find one.

I had a flight back to NY on Monday evening, so there was still time to stop by a couple more shops. My first stop was GTO Engineering on La Cienrga Blvd. in Los Angeles. Eric Sander is their lead tech and we probably talk on the phone at least every other week trading information on vendors, sharing techniques for fixing certain cars, or bitching about the stupidity involved with fixing broken Ferraris! GTO is always busy working on the hundreds of Ferraris in the LA area, so it was nice to stop by and say hi.

Even though it was a bit of a drive down from GTO to Oceanside to see Chris Dugan at Dugan Enterprises, I figured what else was I going to do waiting for my flight out on Monday?

Chris has grown quite a bit in the last several years restoring and painting Ferraris, Maseratis, and Lamborghinis. He was spread out over four industrial units employing 10 people to make this all happen.

I can’t imagine the scheduling, ordering, invoicing, and managing of all these cars and manpower.

Chris never seemed to be phased with all that was going on as he showed me shop space after shop space. Thanks for spending the time with me Chris, I know it’s got to crazy to keep all these plates spinning!