6/14/07
Sport Auto 365 GT 2+2

I worked my first day at Sport Auto in Gaylordsville, Connecticut. It’s a shop I’ve written about before on this website, but it’s owned and operated by Bill Pollard who has been in the business of repairing Ferraris for almost 20 years. I hope to split my time between François’ and Pollard’s shop for now. It’s a great way to learn the different techniques and similar procedures that these old Ferraris require from two different shops. I may also be exposed to some of the V-8 Ferraris that I know almost nothing about. I’m looking forward to helping out, and learning.

A new car to Pollard’s shop is this 365GT 2+2. The car is in very presentable shape, but has a few issues that need addressing. One problem is the trunk gasket is failing, and is allowing exhaust gases to enter the rear of the car and into the passenger compartment. One of my jobs was to remove and scrape all the residue from the gasket surfaces. We’re trying to find the correct trunk gaskets, and it looks like Re-Originals does not have the right stuff. If anyone knows a good source, e-mail me!

The other problem that needed fixing was the the dreaded turn signal stalks. These weak plastic parts always break at the base, and repairing them requires first disassembling the steering column. We weren’t sure if we would have to snake the wiring up through the column to get the switches out, but I made drawings and took pictures of the wiring in case we would have to take things apart. Never assume the wires are color coded correctly, especially on a Ferrari. A blue wire on one side of a plug will often turn into another color on the the other side of the plug, so a lot of care must me taken when taking the wiring apart on these cars.

Getting the steering wheel off was our next challenge, and it wasn’t coming out without a fight. I left Bill to wrestle with it as I headed home. I’m sure he’ll have the wheel off by the time I get back next week!

On a side note, I got my Ferrari fixed! After discovering the grounding fault on my coil wire,  I decided to see if my Marelli Coil was still working. Since I only drove the car for about 20 minutes the morning of the problem, that may not have been long enough to fry the coil. As I wired everything back together, I crossed my fingers and pressed in the the ignition switch. She fired right up, and was firing from both coils! I decided to go for broke, and reinstalled the Mustang coil and fired her up as well. Both horses were firing all 20 cylinders in my garage and life was good!

Luckily, each time the coil wire would ground out on the fuel hose, I would end up stopping the car, so each coil did not get a chance to heat up too much. With everything back to normal, I might even have time to think about working on my Sunbeam now!

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