I don’t think there was ever a car headed to a car show that didn’t have some kind of last minute issue that needed attention. Some “11th hour” repairs are worse than others, and the GTC we were sending to Concorso was certainly not immune.

We discovered the mechanical fuel pump was not working, and we felt it was better not to rely solely on the electric pump to feed fuel to the carburetors. Although this car is a low mileage unrestored car, there were definitely signs someone had rebuilt the fuel pump in the past. The first sign was the incorrect plating on the screws on the top cover plate.

As we disassembled the fuel pump, we found replacement check valves installed that weren’t working at all. Several years ago, a rebuild kit was available with replacement check valves that simply didn’t work. We used to buy the rebuild kit for the seals, but threw out the new check valves to reuse the old ones that worked better than the replacements! Today, there is a rebuild kit with the proper check valves and seals that seem to work much better.

After reassembling the pump, we bench tested the pump, and it worked fine. The only thing I noticed was there wasn’t much of a mark on the lever that engaged the push rod on the engine side.

Ferraris have a Bakelite spacer between the mechanical fuel pump and the engine that can be adjusted to match the actuation of the fuel pump. This low mileage car had its original spacer with its original thickness. After carefully measuring the travel of the push rod, I planed down the spacer to match. After a couple of tries, we had a working fuel pump again!

Francois did some final carburetor adjustments, and increased the idle jets one size up. Like all carburetor cars, the fuel available today is different than what these cars were originally designed to run with, so adjustments have to be made to help keep these cars running the way they were intended!

I made the deadline for the truck headed to California. I packed the trunk with a couple of chairs, some cleaning supplies, and a few tools. I’ll meet the truck in Monterey for Concorso Italiano on August 20th. Look for me sitting next to this Ferrari 330GTC and stop by to say hello!

Monterey 2016!

It’s getting close to Monterey! I will be having my Annual Cocktail Party at the back of Quail Lodge on Thursday August 18th 5:30 pm- 8pm. It’s a great chance to meet up with tomyang.netters and make plans for the rest of the week.

I’ll be at Concorso this year showing an gold 330GTC in preservation class, so if you miss me at my party, please stop by and say hi at Concorso. I’ll be in town for about 5 days, so if you want to meet up, email me and we’ll try to connect. See you all there!