THE VINTAGE FERRARI SPECIALIST

Dino Coolant Lines

March 16, 2024


I’ve been methodically servicing this low mileage Dino I have at the shop. It’s in great mechanical shape because of the low mileage, but there are still some parts on this car that are over 50 years old that need replacing.

One of these things was the rubber hoses that make up the cooling system. Although some of the hoses may have been changed through the years, I could see some original hoses still on the car, including these long rubber hoses that run along the length of the car from the engine to the radiators in the front. They looked good, but I could see some corrosion on the connections to the steel pipes so it was time to replace them and inspect the plumbing. HD HEATER HOSE NAPA Part #: NBH H134 Qty: 16

The messiest thing about this job was all the coolant from the system. Since these pipes were the lowest point, the final bit of coolant had to come out of these connections. I have found the best way for me was to pry open a space for the coolant to escape and leave the the car overnight to drain into a container large enough to catch all the coolant.

Some of the coolant connections showed signs of having never been disconnected from when this car was new!

With the coolant drained now was the time to address the control cables and heater valves for correct operation. I found a couple cables seized or broken in their sheathing along with a heater valve that was sticking from disuse.

I replaced almost all the internal control cables with new ones but left the original sheathing. Connecting the end in the front of the car was the easy part, but sticking my head under the dash to connect the other end to the slider levers in the dash was a whole other struggle!

Amelia Island 2024

March 10, 2024


I drove my Porsche 911 down to Amelia Island again this year. I book this trip every year not knowing what is in store for me, and some years I find myself showing a car for a client, and some years, it’s almost like a vacation. Either way, whether it’s work or play, I still manage to have a fun time. A group of us rent a house on the beach so it’s probably the most comfortable and convenient event I do on my calendar!

I arrived on Wednesday before the show weekend and try to attend all the previews from the auction houses on the island. This year, one auction house is missing from the line up as RM/Sothebys moved their auction Miami. Bonhams, Gooding, and Broad Arrow are the three competing for bidders so I still had a lot of ground to cover. All through the weeks leading up to the auctions, I get calls about my opinion about a particular car coming up for auction, and this was my chance to see and touch particular cars of interest for my clients.

Seeing cars in person also lets me gauge how good these cars actually are. Catalog pictures are supposed to make these cars look their best, often cropping out the bad issues, or omitting the blemishes and warts. Being at the preview in person also gives me a chance to see certain cars coming up for auction that I’ve known for years. An example is this GTE that was at the Gooding sale. I’ve corresponded with the long time owner of this car for many years, and although I don’t know if the family was auctioning this car, it was bittersweet see this car in person knowing it was moving onto a new owner!

This 330GT 2+2 looked very nice, and I heard sold for very strong money and may have set the high water mark for a restored 330GT 2+2. I’ve seen other cars sell for similar prices, and having inspected the car felt the bidder got carried away at the auction and overpaid, but this was was not the case. Even though I did not drive this car, I felt the details were largely correct and restoring a car at this level would have cost more than the winning bid. Being there in person allowed me to really get a feel for the Ferrari market and what is being bought, and for what reasons.

On the other end of the spectrum was this 250PF Cab restoration project. The purchase price did not include the cost of restoration, so the bidder had to be careful. We in the business have a rough idea what it would cost to restore this car, but there are always overages. The winning bid had to make sense to the buyer and not turn into a money pit. I believe the winning bid for this car was market correct. Maybe we’ll see this car in a couple years from now returned to her former glory!

Attending these premiere cars show attracts the who’s who in the car world, and I’m lucky to have friends that recognize them and introduce them to me. Bruce Canepa (pictured right) has a well known restoration shop in CA that is currently building hot rod Porsche 959s. I’ve had a couple cars in my shop that were restored by his company, but it was nice to meet the person behind the name.

Friday of the Amelia Island weekend started with Werks Reunion, a big Porsche show. There was a lot of interesting Porsches around, but I liked this outlaw 356.

The only problem was it was raining, and the carburetors didn’t have rain covers!

From the Porsche show, I headed over to Fernandina Beach to attend the Classic Motorsports magazine car show along with the Concours d’lemons on the same show field.

Here’s Alan Galbraith, the head Lemon preparing for the awards ceremony. He’s to blame for all the tongue in cheek Lemons slogans that makes a Concours d’Lemons so much fun!

Saturday was a Cars and Coffee event that attracted a ton of cars and spectators on the lawn next to the Ritz Carlton. There was great variety and something for everyone.

Intermixed among the crowds of cars and people were things like this nice four cam 275GTB.

Heavily modified cars like this Lancia with a turbo AND a supercharger!

Across the street was the Radwood show, celebrating the cars of the 80s and 90s. Extra points to the participants that came dressed in period clothing. Did we really dress like that back then?

There were plenty of joke cars, but mixed in were jems like this really clean VW pickup truck. If there were one car I would take home from this weekend, it would have been this. Forget about the Ferraris!

I was invited to attend another party being held at the Fernandina Beach airport called The Hanger Party. My friend Anzir and his son drove their Ferrari F40 from Orlando to attend. I helped find this car a couple years ago for them, and they’ve been driving the snot out of this car!

In a dumb current movement to celebrate low or no mileage super cars, I find Anzir and his son the heros in owning a supercar. All of these owners sitting at boardroom tables sharing photos of their cars that they never drive will never compare to the memories this kid is going to have about doing a road trip in an F40 popping flames on interstate 4 with his Dad!

This was the car that we reupholstered the seats and made a custom cushion in matching material so the kids could ride in the F40 and see out the front windshield.

I was surprised when two young girls ran up to the F40 and were so excited to see one in person at the Hanger Party. We couldn’t let that enthusiasm pass without offering them to sit in the car. Anzir was more than happy to share his car with whomever wanted a closer look. I would definitely say these pics were all over their Instagram!

They weren’t the only ones hamming it up for the camera. My friend Dane had the perfect look to tailgate in the back of the Rolls Royce Cullinan, their luxury SUV made for the polo fields and equestrian centers. I felt if I asked about the towing capacity of this Rolls Royce, the answer be “adequate.”

Back at the beach house every evening we usually had a big meal at the dinner with cars being the dominant topic. The history, experience, and enthusiasm for the automobile is pretty impressive at this table, so you can imagine the conversation!

Speaking of a long history around cars, Roger Morrison is member of this group that stays at the house, but this year he left a little early to attend the RM/Sotheby’s event Moda Miami further south in Florida. Rob Myer, the RM of RM/Sotheby’s took his auction to Miami after a falling out with the Hagerty organization that purchased the Amelia Island Event a few years ago. Hagerty was building their own brand of show, along with an auction house called Broad Arrow, so there was no room for RM. Mr. Myer created a new show on the same weekend in Miami to compete. Many of us in Collector Car world, were torn which event to attend. The Miami event sounded like a nice event, but we had a pretty good thing going on in Amelia Island. Roger decided to try both by leaving a day early. I’m sure we’ll get full report!

When the gates opened to allow the hoi polloi in, we only had about an hour to look at the cars before the rain started.

I managed to see an old friend that was featured on this website when I first found this car for the curent owner 16 years ago! She’s looking better than me and David after another 16 years of aging!

The rain finally let up towards the afternoon of the show, but one benefit was showing off this wonderful purple color that was part of the original color pallet from Ferrari!

Dino Oil Pan

March 9, 2024


I was having a conversation with a fellow Ferrari Mechanic, Eric Sanders, who works for GTO in Los Angeles. We were talking about Dinos and how I noticed some funny oil pressure readings when I was a only a quart low on oil as I was filling up the sump after an oil change. I was surprised how simply being a quart low caused the oil pump to pull up some air in the oil pan, and Eric said it was a good idea to drop the bottom of the oil pan to make sure the sump pick up and baffles were not interfering with the oil flow. In Eric’s experience, he’s seen oil pick ups on DInos and 308s bent out of position, and baffle doors stuck shut.

Always taking Eric’s sage advice, I dropped the oil pan to take a look and was happy I listened. Despite the low mileage (perhpas due to the low mileage) I found a lot of sludge at the bottom of the oil pan. This sludge was left behind even after recent oil changes, and because of the design of the baffling of the oil pan, it was trapped inside the oil pan. I found one sticking trap door, and the oil pickup slightly bent out of position. I don’t know if it made a lot of difference to the was the oil was sucked up by the pickup, but every little bit helped. It’s also good to know to make sure the oil levels on the Dino are spot on, to avoid cavitation.

After a trip to the parts washer, I removed all the old sludge out of the oil pan and reinstalled the pan with a new gasket.

A Whole Bunch of Little Projects



On top of the big projects, I have a bunch of little projects to push ahead to complete cars that are at my shop. The aqua colored GTE still offers me challenges trying to source missing parts, and the work has been to complete the brake system. After finding an elusive banjo bolt for the brake booster, I turned my attention to the master cylinder. New ones are available, but they’re not exactly “plug and play!” The inlet and outlet fittings have different thread pitches than the original one on the car, so I had to transfer the old fittings onto the new master cylinder.

Keeping the original fittings was important so the brake light switch was fit all the lines that were already plumbed.

The Blue Scuro 330GT continues to make good progress, but there are always little pieces that need preparation for installation. The steering wheel parts needed to be cleaned up and polished, but putting these back on the car will be a big milestone!

Other steering column parts included the ignition lock. A fresh coat of primer and paint will have it ready to put back in the car.

I have a 330GTC that needed to have the hood pad installed so off came the hood, and a new correct shiny silver hood pad was installed, along with the polished pad stays mounted to the underside of the hood.

Ferrari 365GTC/4 Exhaust and Motor Mounts

February 24, 2024


It was time to address the exhaust on the 365GTC/4 I have at the shop. The center mufflers on this car were pretty rotted out and were probably filling the passenger compartment with fumes and CO.

The mufflers were rotting from the inside out due to moisture from the exhaust collecting inside the cans and slowly rusting the mild steel mufflers. Most of the steel was paper thin, so it was time for new mufflers.

I threw all the exhaust bolts and brass nuts into my vibratory tumbler to clean them up. I’m not making a show car, but it will make assembly of the exhaust system much easier with clean hardware.

As I was disconnecting the exhaust, I looked up at the headers and found the rubber motor mounts were pretty dry rotted and collapsed.

The left one was no better, so now was the time to try and get these out and replaced. I’ve gotten this type of motor mount out of other Vintage Ferraris, but have not done it on a C/4. The usually just enough clearance to jack the engine up to remove the motor mount bolted to the engine taking the bracket and the rubber insulator. With the assembly out of the car, you can unscrew the large insulator, but there is usually not enough room to clear the studs with the bracket attached to the engine.

Unfortunately, with the C/4, the engine would not move high enough to clear mount studs so I had to remove the exhaust headers. In order to access the nuts holding the headers in place, I had to remove the air cleaner assembly. In order to remove the air cleaner assembly, I had to remove all the velocity stacks to release the air box. You can see how the C/4 always offers this cascading issue of access to the engine based on the carburetor set up!

I lucked out when I found I could access the header bolts without removing the carburetors after the air filter assembly as removed. This saved a lot of time and disassembly that often comes with a C/4!

I managed to remove the rear exhaust header and loosening the front set of headers enough for the engine to move up a fraction of an inch more so I could get the motor mount out.

As much of a pain in the butt this was to get this stinking motor mount out, it was a much needed job. These mounts sit right below the exhaust headers and are exposed to a lot heat. Even with a heat shield installed, these mounts won’t last forever.

My parts supplier first sent me the wrong motor mount so after a delay of several days, I finally got the correct motor mount. Of course the new one was a little thicker than the collapsed motor mount I removed, so I had to get creative to get the new one back in place. After jacking the engine as high as I could in the car, I took a ratchet strap and pulled the mount down into place to line up the bolts on the side of the block and the chassis. It wasn’t easy, but I got them both back into place!

My exhaust vendor is going to custom fabricate a new center section to replace the rotted mufflers for this car, but he’s been back logged with work for over two months. He was about to begin work on the system, and I sent him pictures of the one I removed with measurements of where the hanger straps are located.

He has a USA version of the muffler I need that he uses as a template to fabricate a new one, but his straps are 1/2 different than the location of the one I just took off. This half inch may not seem like a lot, but this exhaust is hung on the car with large rubber o-rings that don’t stretch much.

There are three sets of straps welded to the muffler, and all the ones on this car lined up perfectly with the corresponding hooks on the car.

The second strap my exhaust guy has was 3/4-1 inch off, so I decided to have him tack weld the straps according to my measurements and once I have the muffler fitted to the car, I’ll permanently weld them in place. He usually tack welds the flanges in place so I can get the connections perfect, so I guess we’ll have a little more welding to do with these straps.

Dino Belts

February 19, 2024


Replacing the A/C belts on this Dino reminded me why I usually specialize on a particular model and age of Ferrari. My cut off is the early 70s and Dinos are at the edge of my range because their design start to show why I don’t prefer to work on later cars. Access to some of the components can be tight and a pain in the butt.

Ferraris used two belts on the air conditioning compressor, and mounted the compressor facing the engine tucked in a notch cut out in the passenger side fuel tank. I took this picture when I removed the two A/C belts to remind me the sequence I needed to follow to get the two belts back on the car, because if one is completely installed, the second one will not go on unless it’s partially installed. Even following this technique, the belts have to be “walked” onto the pulleys by turning the engine by hand because even with the tension adjustment at full slack, the belts won’t simply slip on.

Don’t worry, I cleaned up the rust on the lower pulley!

I’d say it was definitely time for new belts!

Original Dino Details

February 17, 2024


The front suspension rebuild was moving along nicely on this 17K original mile Dino.

As I worked on this car, I loved discovering the little details that have been preserved through the years. The rear splash shields from the rear wheel wells still showed the original grease pencil markings of the Scaglietti build number.

Pininfarina and Scaglietti used this build number to keep track of all the parts used to assemble these cars. These were often (not always) sequential to the build order but were not matched to a particular Serial Number. Since these cars were hand fitted, sometimes a splash shield had to be filed down to fit a wheel opening or a door panel had to be cut down to fit a door that was a different size. This number helped factory workers keep the hand fitted parts with the same car. These numbers are very helpful in confirming body panels and parts fitted to the car are the same as when it left the factory. This matching it not precise, and I have found many discrepancies with internal assembly numbers, but generally, they help confirm an original car.

There are a couple inspection covers under this Dino that may look pretty rusty, but look like they have never been removed from the car. I started to remove them but found the original slotted screws seized in place. Any more force and I knew they were going to strip, or shear, so I left them alone for now. I cleaned off the surface rust and painted the panel for now.

The underside of this car may look bad to the untrained eye, but I see a lot of low mileage originality. The semi-gloss paint applied to the large sheet of fiberglass forming the flat floor of this car shows only one layer of paint with the raw fiberglass showing through.

I finished installing the suspension and rebuilt steering rack, and scheduled an appointment for an alignment.

330 Locks and Chrome



I met with my plater to look over some parts that he’s in the process of chrome plating. I’ve been working with him for over a decade, and he’s become pretty familiar with the details of Ferrari parts, but there are always new issues to look at. Once the original chrome and nickle layers are stripped, he needs to surface finish each part and polish the parts before reapplying the plating. Sometimes he has to confirm which surfaces are seen to save time buffing and polishing a side that will never be seen.

The door handles were made out of a pot metal, but he adds a layer of copper before surface finishing. You can see there are still some imperfections on the edge of the handle receiver that needs just a little more work before this part moves on to polishing and plating.

I took the finished trunk lock back to my shop to install on the car. Speaking of pieces of chrome that are not seen, the only part that is seen is the ring around the push button lock for the trunk. The rest of the lock body is plated but is just the rough casting.

I made sure, however, the locating tabs were nice and sharp so they would index correctly with the trunk surface.

The trunk skin on this car was replaced, but luckily, the under structure revealed the original placement of the notch.

I carefully filed out the notches so the trunk lock would fit perfectly back in the hole!

Seeing the progress on the chrome plating, I needed to get to work cleaning out some of the fixtures that the chrome pieces will mount to and one of them was this license plate light fixture. A quick trip to the media blast cabinet, and there piece were cleaned and ready for service.

I’ll have to find a replacement lens, however, as one of them was cracked. I have a good one to copy if I find reproductions are not available.

Dino Rack and Pinion

February 10, 2024


With the suspension coming apart, it was time to take care of the steering on this car as well. With such low mileage, the tie rod ends were showing no play at all and could have probably been reused, but one of the rubber boots was torn and finding new boots was more challenging than simply replacing the whole tie rod end. It seemed more practical to replace these now, with everything else so an alignment would be done once and not again for a very long time.

I was surprised with only 17K miles on the odometer that the steering rack was showing wear, but I guess it’s a design flaw that wears a bushing inside the steering rack. When I disassembled the rack, I found the bushing completely gone, so a new piece was pressed into place and bored and honed so the shaft would move freely and yet show no play. I would imagine this replacement is an upgrade to what was originally inside.

There were some light marks on the rack from the missing bushing, but it was only superficial and polished out.

The rack itself was in perfect condition, so I was able to put everything back together and put this unit back into service. I had a couple of options repairing the steering, and one of them was to completely replace the rack with a new unit. The price was a little cheaper than the labor for me to disassemble the original rack and rebuild it, but the replacement would have not looked exactly like the original unit. I know it’s a component that can’t easily be seen, but it was nice to save the original unit and not throw it in the trash. I’ve been more conscious of our disposable society, and ease of ordering parts rather than fixing what’s broken. The replacement rack and pinion might have been cheaper, but at what cost? I think about the box, the fuel, the delivery guy, and the trash, all involved to save me the work of replacing a small plastic bushing. I know I’m in the wrong industry to try and save our planet, but I don’t have to subscribe to some of the things that seem wasteful!

Another example of saving shipping were these rubber insulators for the steering rack mounts. They looked like they were made out of natural rubber, and often deteriorated pretty quickly.

I keep some flat rubber sheets that I used to cut out gaskets instead of ordering new ones. I just needed new shaft gaiters and everything was ready to go back into the car!

Ferrari 330 Brakes and Engine Progress

February 8, 2024


I needed to address the brake master cylinder and how I was going to rebuild it. After pulling it apart, I found the internals to be in decent shape. The bore of the master cylinder showed some pitting, so I sent it out for sleeving. This master cylinder had a step bore with one measuring 7/8 of an inch and the rear measuring 1 inch. The. one inch bore looked good, so I had the brake sleeving shop sleeve the 7/8 inch bore with a stainless sleeve.

I carefully lined up the internal pistons and springs so they wouldn’t go out of order. obviously, any mix up of the parts would affect the way the brake system worked, so keeping everything in the correct order is paramount! When the seals and rebuilt M/C arrive, I’ll put the unit back together.

I stopped by the machine shop to check on the progress of the 330 engine and the machining.

The cranks and rods are coming along.

Here’s the video of my visit.