4/10/11
2259: The Work Begins!

I’ve been so excited to get to work on the new GTE from Tacoma and I finally got her into the shop to begin her resurrection!

A piston was holed after some bad gas clogged up a carburetor  back in the late 60s, so the engine will have to be rebuilt. Carlo, the previous owner, already disassembled the engine over the course of the last 40 years, but never completed the engine rebuild. He and his shop reinstalled most of the major components for ease of shipping, but we’ll have to pull everything out, do a thorough inventory and assess what we’ll need to completely rebuild this engine.

Before anything could be done, however, we needed to get the gas tank out of the car. As we moved the car off the trailer, the nasty, sweet, stale smell of old gasoline wafted out of this car. Some of the it began leaking out of the open fuel lines, and was going to stink up the whole shop if we didn’t immediately do something about it. The whole process began by disconnecting the fuel filler.

The back of the car needs to be raised very high for the vertical tank to clear the bottom of the car. Luckily, only about a gallon of old fuel came out of the tank, but I quickly rushed outside with the tank to limit the stink!

I still have nightmares of removing the tank out of my 330 America over 11 years ago, and every time I remove another one, I prepare for another hard time. I’m either getting better at this procedure or I’ve been very lucky, but we had 2259’s the tank out in a couple of hours!

Every part of this car has some great original details. The original Abarth exhaust is still on this car along with the original exhaust clamps. I liked the way these were clamped opposite to each other, and I think I’m going to do the same thing on future cars using original clamps!

Under the dash showed me more details on how the carpets were sewn. These pictures might not mean much to others, but show a wealth of details to GTE owners and other Vintage Ferraris from the same era. The items of note are the radiator blind knob, the way the binding of the carpet is sewn for the cable, and the matching fresh air vent. The round thing on the top center of the picture on the underside of the dash was some kind of after market anti theft device.

The Nardi Steering wheel looks to have it’s original finish, and even this had a detail I was interested in seeing. I’ve always wondered how the varnish was masked near the spokes. This shot showed the varnish went higher than many wheels are masked when they are refinished.

Another detail I wanted to document is how the shift boot is detailed. There’s a stitch around the top of the boot, but it reveals at least 2 inches of the top of the shift lever. The top of the boot also looks skived thin so the folded over leather had a sharp edge.

In the engine compartment, I was happy to see the clamps I’ve been using for the heater hose on other cars.

Reminder: If you have a Ferrari related project, car, or idea you’d like to explore, I’d love to talk to you. I can also help if you’re thinking of buying or selling. This website represents what I love to do, share, and how I make a living, so if you’d like to do something together, let me know. It all begins with an e-mail!

Save the Date! Fourth Annual Radcliffe/Tomyang.net Spring Car Show on Saturday May 7th 2011. Richard Garre and I are looking forward to planning this show and more details will follow here and the Radcliffe Motorcar Company Website, but if you want to mark you calendar, the date to remember is May 7th, 2011!

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