2/27/12
Sending the GTS out, 330 Tear down

The 275GTS restoration is moving along nicely, and she’s just about ready to be moved to “The Panel Shop” for bodywork. The front left fender needs some damage repaired, and both outer rockers needs rust repair. The shop will also massage the body to get all the body gaps perfect and take out all the little dings and dents that show up on a car over the years. I can’t wait to see what this car looks like with all the paint removed.

Every time I thought the car was ready to head to the body shop, I would find something else I needed to remove. This time it was the fresh air hose sleeves mounted in the foot wells. I blasted, primed, painted, and bagged these items to reinstall when the car comes back after paint.

The fuse panel will also have to rebuilt and replaced. Unfortunately, it has suffered some water damage and the particle board backing is warped and faded. Since this panel is not covered by a fuse box cover like some other Ferraris, these issues will be on prominent display in a nicely restored engine compartment. Our only choice is to carefully mark all the wiring, pull every wire, and replace the board with an exact replacement. Joy.

We went ahead with stripping down the 330 engine that was dropped off at the shop a week ago. Even though we’re backed up with a couple engine jobs right now, we decided to get a jump on some of the machine work by disassembling the block and sending the major components to our machine shop. Never wanting to rush another shop, I always feel the earlier you get them the parts to work on, the more time they have to do the job right.

One piston put up a good fight coming out of the engine block. It had seized in its bore and would not allow the crank to be turned to get the other pistons out easily, but with penetrating oil, some careful force, and the right swear words, the piston came out.

Soon we had a tray of greasy, dirty parts for the parts washer.

With the engine removed, we could forensically inspect the condition of the engine. Little bits of white metal were embedded in all the bearings and a strange wear mark was found down the center of the rod bearings.

The large mark of copper color shows the rod was not perfectly square to the crank journal and had worn through the white metal down to the copper alloy, but the line down the middle of the rod was puzzling me until Francois pointed out it was in line with the rod’s oil hole. Contaminants were in the oil and allowed to circulate long enough to cause excessive wear down the middle of the rod bearing.

We found several places where pieces of metal could have been picked up and dropped into the oil, and one source was a disintegrating thrust bearing. On closer inspection, there were missing pieces of the white metal that probably got into the oil and acted like a grinding compound on the bearings. Once we get everything cleaned up, the parts will make a trip to our machine shop for closer inspection and assessment for what parts will be needed.

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, and now it’s how I make a living, so if you’d like to do something together, let me know. It all begins with an e-mail!

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