4/16/11
2259: Degreasing, Cleaning, and Painting

We had a nice sunny day this week to roll the GTE outside to pressure wash the engine compartment. There was a lot of caked on grease and dirt that was easiest to blast off with some high pressure water.

As this car has turned her steering more in the last couple of weeks than in the last 40 years, the steering box seals are failing and oil is leaking everywhere. Most seals on this car are brittle from sitting so many years, so all of them will have to replaced.

After all the time last year working on my Brake Equalizer I know that I need to get cracking on the unit on this car. It has a different design as the ones found on Series II and newer GTEs, and other 250GT Ferraris, but was found on earlier cars. I’m hoping the seals on this unit is still good.

There are lots of sub assemblies that need addressing and rebuilding. I stripped and disassembled the mechanical fuel pump, and added the rebuild kit to the list of parts I’ll need order.

The intake manifolds were pretty crusty, so they were scraped and cleaned for painting.

We’re making good progress in readying parts for the engine rebuild. The brake calipers were cleaned and are ready to be shipped to Karp’s Brake service, and the engine parts were cleaned and painted.

The block is now stripped, and we’ll do some measuring to see what size pistons need to be ordered. The main caps were installed so we can check the block for main journal alignment.

I removed the front hubs to check the wheel bearings and repack them with fresh grease. We’re going to remove the front springs to check the condition of the suspension.

With the hubs removed, I got to work on removing the steering box. Francois has the perfect tool for this job, and makes removing the steering arm from steering shaft a snap.

With the steering box partially moved out from its mount, the tool is attached to the steering shaft and tightened until the steering arm is removed.

The steering box seems very tight considering its low mileage. The fact that it’s leaking oil means there was still oil inside when I took it out! The box still has its lead tag installed at the ZF Factory.

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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