10/29/14

The valve covers were taken off the PF Cab we have at the shop and man was there a lot of red RTV! On closer inspection, there were two gaskets glued together, which didn’t seem to help with the oil leaks.

We want to return this car back to original spec, and one thing that needed to be addressed was to change the spark plug wires back to the original 7mm diameter. Before I took the wires off, I needed to take notes on firing order and make sure it was wired up properly.

We received a new car to the shop this week, and it was this lovely 250GT Europa. It’s a late 50s Ferrari, with drum brakes, and gorgeous. Every time I walked past this car, I found another pleasing shape and curve I hadn’t seen before.

This car was restored by a big name shop in California, before it was purchased by the new owner, and the work is all very nice.

Unfortunately, there was a problem with the starter, so I had to remove the right side exhaust to gain access to the starter. The early 250s have a one piece 6-1 header that does not come out without first removing the exhaust. Luckily because this car was freshly restored, all the fasteners were easy to unbolt, but there were still a lot of parts to move to get to the starter!

With the starter on the bench, we confirmed there was a dead spot that was causing the dead motor. Once the starter parked on this position, it was not going to kick over at all.

Normally, we would send this starter out to our rebuilder, but there was evidence all the parts internally were freshly rebuilt. The only problem was a very dirty commutator. This section is where the brushes contact the windings to make the motor work, and with such a dirty contact point, we could see why things weren’t working. We cleaned this section to a bright shine, reassembled the starter motor, and we were back in business. Reversing all the steps to get the starter out, we soon had this Europa starting on her own again!