3/12/09
7919: Pistons, Timing Chest, and Oil Pan

I started my day by installing the pistons on 7919’s engine block. François showed me the small nuances in assembling a Ferrari engine, and some of the techniques requiring his showing me by “feel.” On some of the things I struggled to get right, François assured me that after rebuilding a couple hundred engines like he did, I would get it down!

With all the pistons installed, torqued down and re-checked, I moved onto the timing chest. Various seals, gaskets, and accessories needed to be mounted in sequence so everything could be installed correctly. A new water pump seal was installed at this point, along with the timing chain. Although the cam sprockets were not attached to the cams yet, they needed to be placed in the timing chest to hold the chain in place.

We flipped the engine over and installed a new rubber hose on the oil pump, and mounted it to the main bearing caps. I rechecked my torque specs on the bottom end before mounting the upper oil pan.

Now is a good time to discuss the engine stand. François’ engine stand is an original Ferrari Factory unit, and was designed to hold all the early four mount engines. With the help of others on this website, I put together a guide to building an engine stand and it can be found here: Building a Ferrari Engine Stand, but I wanted to emphasize how important the balance of the engine is when mounted to a stand. If you’re going to build one yourself, try to get the engine to sit in the stand as close to how it’s pictured above, or else it won’t be balanced and you’re going to struggle when turning the engine over. While I was installing the pistons on this engine, I flipped the engine on every piston install, so making sure there is a good balance of the block makes life a lot easier.

MARK THE DATE: Saturday, May 2nd 2009
The Tomyang.net/ Radcliffe Motorcars Spring Event
12340 Owings Mills Boulevard
Reisterstown, Maryland 21136
Read about last year’s event.
Information on this year’s event.

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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