3/18/14
GTE 2709 Frame Repair, and Hood Scoop

I’ve been sorting a couple of things on a GTE I mentioned several weeks ago. The new owner may not jump into a restoration just yet on this car, but we found the fog lights and a set of original bumpers to make the car more complete.

Even though we’re not restoring this car, I wanted to fix a rusty frame section on this car. Ferrari frames are pretty stout, but every once in a while a car will have a problem. The floor section in this area was replaced, and I suspect the old floors where they were attached to this section of frame may have been the cause of the rust. The rust on this section of frame was from the outside in because after cutting out the rustted section the inside of the oval tube frame looked pretty smooth. Any signs of corrosion was on the outside of the tube.  The classic fiberglass sandwich Pininfarina used to insulate their floor pans absorbed moisture, rusted through, and continued onto the frame section. The only shame is when a previous body guy replaced the floor section, they should have taken the opportunity to fix the frame. Now I had to cut the new floor pan out to get better access to the frame for welding!

Luckily, Francois has original Ferrari frame tubes in the original profiles and thicknesses to make this repair much easier. After making a cardboard template larger than the rusty area, I cut what I needed and welded the repair in place.

After some grinding and sanding, the frame section was repaired and undercoated.

The cut sections of floor pan were bent back in place and welded back together. I didn’t spend a lot of time making everything perfect because the replacement floors were not done exactly like the original, and should probably be done correctly at some later date when the car gets restored. For now, however, the floors are solid, watertight, and functional.

A neat feature  on this car was the hood scoop. There has been a lot of discussion among GTE owners if hood scoops were originally made by the Pininfarina factory when these cars were new, and I wanted to show some of the details on this hood to prove or disprove their originality.

The hood pad stays run longitudinally along the length of the hood on either side of the hood scoop. The profile of the aluminum pieces look similar to the ones found on normal GTEs, only they’re longer to run the length of the hood. The Phillips head screws look to be the correct oval head type found on original cars. The diamond quilt stitching is the same size as the one on my car that has an original hood pad, and the material looks the same.

Here’s a picture of the underside of the hood scoop and its hardware.

The hood spear is deleted, and the hood scoop has a thin chrome trim around the opening.

Save the Date! The 7th Annual Radcliffe/Tomyang.net Spring Car Show Saturday May 3rd 2014 celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Introduction of the 330GT!
Spectators are free, but Registration of show cars are limited for a small fee. Details can be found on the Radcliffe Website.
You can also Richard Garre at:
Radcliffe Motorcars
12340 Owings Mills Boulevard
Reisterstown, Maryland 21136
Phone: 410-517-1681

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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