11/23/08
GTE Fresh Air Vent

Taking look under 3553, I noticed the front splash shields were missing. The large air hose was simply attached to one of the inner struts. I ordered new hose that is correct for this car, and looked in my parts stash at home.

Years ago, I found a pair of splash shields in  a pile of parts from the Jerry Curtis collection of parts. Jerry’s family was selling all the parts he collected and I picked up these shields just in case I needed them.

I’m sure somewhere under all the asphalt undercoating, there is a PF number stamped on these shields so I could find out which car these shields came from, but right now it was more important to mount these correctly to 3553. The original mounting holes did not line up, so I had to locate new holes.

The mounting points on 3553 were all sheared off, so the first task was to drill out all the broken screws, and tap new threads. I knew it wasn’t going to be so easy!

Once I got the new holes located and drilled, I filled in the old ones with some epoxy. The next step was to clean the surface enough for fresh coat of undercoating. These panels are made of aluminum, so there’s no reason to strip them to bare metal for corrosion protection. I did have to scrape the old rubber seal on the edges and mask them for the undercoating.

As I blew off the accumulated dust off these shields a whiff of Cardamom brought a smile to my face. Jerry Curtis used to run a powdered spice shop in Newtown, Connecticut, next door to his Ferrari shop. His spice business supported his passion for old Ferraris and anything that stayed at his shop for any length of time was permeated with the smell of the spices, cardamom being the strongest. Unfortunately, Jerry passed away several years ago from a brain tumor, but whenever I pick up a part that once spent some time in Jerry’s shop, the smell brings be back. Jerry, you live on in the old Ferraris you touched, and the smell of spices!

Another small detail I had to attend to was to make a new fuel filler flap. What was left of the old one was still screwed to the bracket, but I cut a new rubber flap. The yellow stuff you see on the left side of the picture is adhesive that secured the wrong trunk gasket. Unfortunately the correct gasket will not cover where the old adhesive was applied, so I was left with the task of carefully removing all the old glue with adhesive remover.

Jumping around a little, I worked on installing the small grommets that are supposed to be insulate the spark plug wires in the spark plug tubes. Getting these on without ruining the grommet, scratching the wrinkle paint on the tube, or putting a tool through my hand was the trick. Luckily I did all 12 wires without incident. While I was working on the wires, I removed all the lettering printed on the spark plug wires with some acetone.

Just a reminder, I’m looking for a new Vintage Ferrari Project. If you have, or know of a restoration project, please let me know. It would be great to restore another car on this website! My E-mail.

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