The white cadmium plating came back from my plater this week so I started to sort through the parts.

I assembled the brake caliper frames and attached all the various clips, bolts, and nuts. The finish seems a little bright, but I know from experience that as the cadmium plating ages, it gets duller and looks less shiny. I used to use another plater that came back a little duller, but the cadmium plate was thin and didn’t last very long. These pieces will age very well, and not corrode in the process.

I picked up the black oxide plating too, so all the various plated pieces could go together.

I painted the steering shaft for the SI 330, but needed to clean up the u-joint assembly before I could put it back in the car. It had years of dirt and grease caked on, so I had to disassemble the pieces, clean them, and reassemble. Having gone this far, I took the needle bearings out, cleaned them too and repacked with fresh grease.

There are small cork gaskets that keep the grease inside the u-joints, and one of them crumbled apart with age, so I made a new one with cork gasket material we keep at the shop.

I carefully washed the needle bearings, making sure not to lose any.

Using a t-pin and some grease, I reinserted the bearings in place, and packed the joint with more grease. This joint should be good for another 20-30 years!

The clutch and pressure plate assembly arrived in the mail, so I when ahead and installed it on the SII 330. Instead of a clutch alignment tool, Francois has an actual transmission input shaft to use for installing the clutch. It doesn’t get more accurate than that when lining up the clutch!

I got to work removing the transaxle on the Daytona that came into the shop last week. The sychronizers are worn on the transmission, so it was time for a gear box rebuild. It would have been easier to pull just the gearbox, but I’ll explain later why the torque tube came out too.

Before any rebuilding was done, a good washing was needed.

The torque tubes on these cars have splined ends on both end of the shafts inside. These are attached at both ends with female couplers tightened with bolts. Access to the nuts and bolts are through access holes like the one pictured, but the coupler on the transmission side of this torque tube was not lined up correctly, so I couldn’t loosen the clamp. Care has to be taken during the assembly process to make sure there is good access so the next mechanic can take things apart with ease. I got the short end of the stick with this one! The only solution was to pull the torque tube out along with the transmission and make sure I put it back together with consideration for the next guy!

Draining the gear oil revealed a lot of metal in the oil. Hopefully it was just synchronizer material!

The gearbox was disassembled enough for Francois to take over from here. I will be looking over his shoulder during this rebuild, but I’m leaving the master to his work!

I tried to get as much work done this week so I could head down to Maryland to co-host our annual car show at Radcliffe Motorcars. See you there!

May 2, 2015

The Radcliffe/Tomyang.net Car Show is this week!

I’m very excited to do this again, and look forward to see old and new friends at this annual event. Richard Garre and I have hosted this car show to celebrate all types of machinery, focusing on Italian Cars. There’s parking for about 100 cars and we will always try to accommodate late comers, but if you want a guaranteed  spot call Richard to preregister!

Radcliffe Motorcars

12340 Owings Mills Boulevard
Reisterstown, Maryland 21136
Phone: 410-517-1681

See you there!

 Monterey Car Shows

I’m all registered and ready to attend Concorso on Saturday 15th of August and the  FCA event on Monday August 17th. Please contact Concorso, or the FCA to register for their respective events.

We’re planning a tailgate party after the show at Concorso to avoid the traffic leaving the show. There’s nothing worse that sitting in bumper to bumper traffic watching the car overheat trying to leave Concorso at the end of the day, so since all the GTEs and 330 Americas will already be parked together, we can stay a little later and leave when the traffic dies down. As always, everyone is invited!

If you want more information, contact

David Wheeler: David@Ferrari250GTE.com

Tom Wilson: tom@ferrari250gte.com

Here’s a rough schedule of events:

Thursday August 13th, Tomyang.net Cocktail Party at Quail Lodge 6-9

Saturday August 15th, Concorso Italiano Gathering of the GTEs (and 330 Americas)

Monday August 17th, Ferrari Club National Show and Concours.