Bumpers II, and More.



7/13/02
Bumpers II, and More


Last week, I stopped by one of my favorite places in NYC, Canal Street. Besides a short walk to some real Chinese food, they have some stores that can really help in a restoration of an old Ferrari. One of these stores is “Canal Rubber.” I went down there to poke around in their inventory for some ideas for my bumper bushings, and here’s what I came up with: rubber stoppers! These had just the right thickness, diameter, and resiliency for the rear bumpers. Even though they have a slight taper to them, they’ll be pretty well hidden, that no one but you and I will ever know! Maybe I can buy some more for about a buck a piece, drill holes in them, and sell them as a Ferrari part for $10 bucks a piece! (Just kidding. I’m a big advocate for finding cheap Ferrari parts!)


Here’s how it looks mounted in place. How’s that for Yankee Ingenuity?


I found a set of rubber bumperettes kicking around in my trunk, so I went ahead and installed them. The rear bumper is now ready for the road!


The front bumper didn’t need as thick of a rubber bushing, so I found this nice piece of rubber rod that was about 1-1/2 inch thick, so I bought a one foot length for about $5 bucks. I cut the rod down to the thickness I needed and it worked out great. Now the front bumper is ready for the road!


I ordered a nice plate holder for my trunk lid from Partsource. I looked all over the Internet for a good plate holder, but all of them used the four mounting holes that you can see on the license plate. Partsource’s plate holder is much neater with a chrome frame that holds the plate without using the large ugly bolt holes in the actual plate. This plate holder has four studs on the corner of the frame that secures the frame and the plate to the car.


Here’s the plate mounted in place.


The next order of business is to get some seats in my car for her first road test! François got out a set of seats he had in storage. They came from a parted out 330 GT 2+2 so they should serve perfectly for my car. The leather is in surprisingly good shape. They hardly look used, and I’m sure with some cleaning and conditioning, they’ll serve me fine while my seats are getting new upholstery. These seats did not have the seat tracks, however, so next week, I’ll have to stop by the upholsterers again for the ones on my original seats.

The list of things are getting shorter for my first road test. I still need to mount the seats, mount the mirrors, and wire in the horn button on the steering wheel. François still needs to get the windshield in place, and I’ll need to get the hood out of storage and fit it to the car. Can all this be done in one more day of work so I can drive the car next week? We’ll see….We’ll see!
 

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