8/24/01
More on the Battery Bracket and Brake Lines

François welded the top battery bracket this week, but still needs to tack on the guide tubes on each side, but the bottom bracket was completely done.

I needed to wire brush off all the welding slag and ready it for paint.

Here’s the detail of the rear post. It is welded in an upright position.

The other side has a rod with a loop in it. It allows the rod to lay flat so the battery can be removed when the wing nuts are loosened.

I cut out a piece of aluminum to drop into the bottom of the bracket, and painted everything black. I used Eastwood’s special “Battery Tray Paint” that is supposed to be resistant to battery acid. It’s basically a high solids content paint, and dried into a nice semi-gloss black. The bevel headed screws were backed by fender washers, and kept in place with lock washers. I sealed the holes up with some silicone sealant to keep water out. This area bolts to the top of the passenger side foot box, so if it’s not weather tight, water, battery acid, and engine smells can work its way into the passenger compartment. Sealing these holes up are the small details that will help keep the inside of the car smelling like Connolly Leather, as opposed to oil, and gasoline!

François came over today to inspect my work in preparation for the engine installation. We wanted to make sure we finish everything in the engine compartment because it would be more difficult once the engine is in place. Here, he spotted one problem. The brake fluid reservoir has its line running to the master cylinder, but the bend in the line needs to be moved. The red circle in the center of the picture is an access hole to the interior of the car where the steering column comes through. Since it isn’t installed, I forgot to make clearance for it when I bent the brake line! François’ eagle eye caught this problem before it would be more difficult to correct once the engine is in the way.

With this problem solved, I began tightening all the brake lines in the engine compartment.

I pulled out every flare nut wrench I owned, and began tightening. This set might look like overkill for such a  simple job, but remember, Ferraris use both metric an english size flare nuts. Making sure the right sized wrench fits exactly to the nut insures that I won’t round off any nuts. Screwing this up at this point would not be good! Believe it or not, I used every wrench in this picture except for three!

I must sound like a broken record (you know in the old days when those vinyl things used to skip, and repeat the same thing over and over?), but next week THE ENGINE GOES IN!!!! I’ve reserved a hoist, and am keeping my fingers crossed! Logistically, many things have to fall into place, but mainly, François has to be free next Friday! I’ll need to move my engine from his shop to mine, along with his truck jack to get my car down from those extra high jack stands. I don’t know how I’m going to concentrate at work this week knowing about the Big Day!

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